Some interesting developments in the off-the-table workings of the online poker world. Millions of votes and billions of dollars at stake:
BARNEY FRANK\’s bill is picking up steam — with 44 cosponsors. Not sure of the party breakdown, but the willingness of others to sign on suggests undoing the UIGEA could be a good \”sensible government\” issue that, frankly, is easier to deal with than so many other pressing political concerns.
Meanwhile, the conservative anti-gambling forces are starting to organize their troops and take fighting against us a little more seriously. Poker enemy FOCUS ON THE FAMILY is calling gambling \”out of control\” (via Citizen magazine) — possibly because our political successes are a chance for them to raise funds regardless of the results.
They do, however, remind everybody that you have until DECEMBER 12 to let the feds know what you think about the online gambling issue. (Anyone got a link to a email-your-rep thingy?)
And here\’s an interesting article from a decidedly non-poker source about how the UIGEA has been responsible for getting rid of spam. While ZDNet\’s RYAN NARAINE guest-posting expert on INTERNET SECURITY makes some good points about how some semblance of internet regulation was able to put poker spammers temporarily? out of business, he carries on to show he doesn\’t really know what he\’s talking about:
[The UIGEA] effectively caused the death of numerous black hat SEO companies–comment spammers. Perhaps the UIGEA measure against processing of payments proved too difficult to overcome. Not being a lawyer I can’t say exactly how UIGEA caused this death. No matter, US online gambling operations were effectively destroyed.
Spam decreased. The underlying cause for that was that the clients weren’t there due to the inability to process payments because of the online Casinos law.
Not only black hat SEO companies suffered, many spam operations lost clients. There is nearly no more Casino spam in our mail inboxes. Isn’t that grand?
Um, yeah. Wanna make a wager about the casino spam? It just took a break … the pathetic side of the industry shifted around about, that\’s all. But by his grand logic, we could get rid of all spam by banning all sorts of stuff on the internet. This is semi-true, but would require the U.S. enforcing its laws beyond its borders … which is part of the problem we currently face.
Anyhow, his GADI EVRON\’s semi-informed ignorance is indicative of the types of landmines the poker politicos will have to avoid this year.