New Online Poker Legislation Introduced

The Poker Players Alliance sent out a press release recently about legislation introduced by Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) that would license and regulate online poker. While I'd prefer that online poker were not regualated, at least legalizing it and regulating it would be better than the current situation for Americans where are rights are being violated by the law passed a few years ago that effectively makes it illegal to play. So I hope this bill can get passed at some point -- after the new year perhaps?

HR 2046 and Poker

I heard recently that there was a new bill up in the House to try and save or protect online poker. So I went to the Poker Players Allliance website to get some info, and at this page they provide the following info about HR-2046 "The Internet Gambling Regulation and Enforcement Act of 2007":

HR 2046 protects poker players. Applicants for a gaming license would be required to provide comprehensive financial statements and corporate structure documents, and to agree to be subject to U.S. jurisdiction and all applicable laws related to Internet gambling. No license would be granted to any applicant convicted of a criminal violation of any law relating to gambling, money laundering, fraud or other financial laws.

HR 2046 protects consumers. The framework set forth in the bill would for the first time effectively regulate Internet gambling, thus making it possible to address underage and compulsive gambling, neither of which are prevented under prohibition regimes. Regulation combined with proven technology would establish a system of effective controls to block children and compulsive gamblers from gambling.

If HR 2046 becomes law, online poker will be safe, secure and regulated. The bill would create stringent licensing to ensure that poker operators are legitimate. HR 2046 protects poker players, and it protects consumers.

This might not be exactly what I'd like to see happen, and I'm against government regulating the economy and the actions of consenting adults. But passing this into law would be better than the current situation, because last year's legislation -- slipped into other legislation and passed under the cover darkness -- has made it far more difficult for Americans to play the great game of poker online. So given the choices of only regulation or prohibition, I'll of course go with regulation.

The PPA continues to provide great info on the issue of poker and the law, and I really wish them success in the fight with congress. Their homepage provides the following "Important Facts Congress Should Hear", with links to supporting info and argumentation:

• Poker is one of the great American pastimes. The game has been enjoyed by presidents, generals, Supreme Court Justices, Members of Congress and average Americans for more than 150 years.
• Poker is a game with a predominance of skill. Like chess, poker is a "thinking man's" game which relies on mathematics, psychology and money management.
• Poker is a source of charity. In 2006, millions of dollars were raised for local and national charities through poker tournaments. One event in D.C. featuring 15 Members of Congress raised more than $288,000 to fight cancer.
• Billions of tax revenue is being lost. According to an economic analysis, 3.3 billion in federal tax revenue and addition 1 billion in state tax revenue could be raised if the federal government were to regulate Internet poker.
• 75 percent of Americans oppose banning online poker. According to national polling, a vast majority of Americans oppose federal efforts to ban online poker.
• Supporting an online poker ban can cost you an election. Exit polling has shown and the national media has noted that a leading advocate to ban Internet poker in the 109th Congress was negatively impacted by his leadership on the issue.

Those are all fine points to make for the purposes of trying to win votes in Congress. Different legislators might be swayed by some or all of the above. I think the second point is particularly important, because it is relevant to the total hypocrisy in last year's legislation, and in the politician's attitudes towards gambling in general: they allow horse-racing and state-run lotteries, but not games like poker. And yet, the lottery is completely a game of chance, while poker is a game where skill plays a major role. So how is the lottery OK -- not just OK, but state-run! -- but poker is banned? That is just ridiculous, pure and simple.

But as valuable as the above bullet points might be to convincing this or that legislator, the real reason that online gambling -- indeed gambling as such -- should be legal is a matter of individual rights. It simply isn't the proper role of government to keep two or more free adult people from doing something that isn't violating the rights of anyone else. The arguments in favor of gambling prohibition have always been and will always be invalid. It is the role of government to protect people from mistakes they might voluntarily make. Nor is it acceptable for a particular morality to be imposed upon individuals by law -- and that quite clearly from the history of gambling prohibitions is a large part of the issue here: conservatives, particularly religious conservatives, imposing by force their view that gambling is somehow immoral.

We often talk about separation of church and state, because that is how it was worded in founding American documents. But what really matters, philosophically, is the underlying separation, the necessary separation between religion and law.

A NY Poker Warrior and a NY Gambling Hypocrite

Two bits of news caught my attention recently, both related to gambling, and both related to NY politicians. First, see this announcement from the Poker Players Alliance that former US Senator Alfonse D'Amato has joined the PPA as their new Chairman of the Board. He is described as "a passionate and skilled poker player who loves to win in both poker and politics." I can only hope that this increases the chances that the PPA can have positive influence in getting Poker recognized as a game of skill in the federal legislatures. While my first choice would be that it be simply made legal, I am willing to accept "taxed and regulated" as an alternative to the current direction of banning the game. The new law enacted in 2006 doesn't literally do that, but it makes it illegal to transfer money into gambling websites, thereby essentially making the game illegal for Americans to play online.

As I've said before, this sort of law is wrong for countless reasons. Most fundamentally it is a violation of individual rights since playing poker online is an act that does not violate others' rights, therefore no law should be enacted to prohibit. But even if you don't agree with this minimal-government philosophy, consider that the law is entirely hypocritical by allowing for horse-racing and state-run lotteries (which takes no skill at all!), and will be a complete failure in attempting to protect problem gamblers and children: online gambling will continue, but will be done deeper underground, supplied by less-reputable companies. Further, the billions of dollars in tax revenue that could be obtained from a "tax and regulate" approach is being lost, as is the good that money could be used for to help problem gamblers.

This is all quite obvious, and I can only hope that former Senator D'Amato can hasten the day when that law will be repealed, or at least when poker (and similar games) will be carved out of it with additional legislation that regulates and taxes them. But self-righteous social conservatives, often driven by irrational, mysticism-driven ethics, have once again imposed their views on all Americans, and in the process violated our individual rights (this happened countless times throughout our history -- just think of all the actions that violate no one's rights, but are nonetheless against the law, or were at various times in our history).

The other story was reported in various places, but I saw it as the third tidbit from the "Cross Country" section in the March 5 issue of US News and World Report, "Rolling the Dice on Indian Gambling". Here we learn that newly elected NY Governor Eliot Spitzer has endorsed the building of an Indian-run casino in the Catskill Mountains. It is predicted that it will generate $100 million in revenue for the state, obviously a big reason for the endorsement.

This is not particularly interesting news for me all on its own, until I learn that it will be run by the St. Regis Mohawk Mohawk tribe, and that its location will be 400 miles from the Mohawk reservations. This is dubbed an "off reservation" casino, something that Interior department opposes. It is unclear whether they will allow such things it seems.

At what point will this country wake up and ask the fundamental question: why can't American citizens, people like you and me, start our own casinos, hold poker matches (online or in-person), and so on? I'm not ignorant of the obvious facts here: it is illegal in most states, but is not illegal on Indian land since they are considered "sovereign states". For a governor to stretch this and endorse Indian people running a casino on non-Indian land... can't we see the obvious flaw in our laws?

Why is some gambling illegal, but not others? Again, this is a violation of our rights and always has been! Horse-racing is legal, slots are not. State-run lotteries -- which are entirely luck-based -- are legal, but poker -- a game of both luck and skill -- is not. The hypocrisy of this is mind-boggling!

I realize that the fight to legalize gambling is a massive uphill battle. Not only are social conservatives and religious fanatics against it, but presumably the Indian tribes would be as well. And some interests in Vegas and Atlantic City, at least at first, until they realized they might profit in the long run. But all of this is irrelevant to both the principle and the practicality of the matter at hand. The law against gambling in this country is a violation of our individual rights, and alway shas been. And like all laws against "crimes" that are in fact not rights-violations at all, the law against gambling is impractical and counterproductive: it forces gamblers further underground, creates a black-market, keeps those with problems (in this case problem gamblers) from seeking help, and fails to produce revenue through taxation that could be used to combat any negative externalities that are created. Again, ideally gambling would simply be legal for adults to partake in, but like cigarettes and alcohol, legalization through a "regulate and tax" scheme is preferable for everyone to the current scheme of prohibition and blatant hypocrisy.

Updated PPA Website

The Poker Players Alliance (PPA) website has been recently given a facelift... looks pretty good. I particularly like the nice and succinct "Important Facts Congress Should Hear" section in Yellow in the middle of the homepage. Here is a nice, very short intro item too. There is lots of good info on this site... so if you are interesting in protecting the great game of Poker, and online poker in particular, check it out and become a member!

Internet Tubes: Stewart on Stevens

This is a classic clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P83FGtPCuvc

John Stewart rips Senator Stevens knowledge of the Internet. Although the context for this was the recent congressional issues of Net Neutrality and Online Gambling, those issues don't really get discussed much in this clip. It is just funny, no matter what your views are on those issues. And scary, given the power that ignorant folks like Stevens have...

Government Texas Holdem to save Social Security?

There is a nice item from Radley Balko (Cato) today about the HR4777 bill regarding online gambling... check it out: "Anti-Gambling Crusade a Bad Bet".

The hypocrisy of government is amazing. Lotteries are OK... even though they are entirely games of chance. In fact, it is a stretch to refer to them as "games" at all -- they are just chance mechanisms, pure and simple. Poker on the other hand, like the widely-popular Texas Hold'em (a game I really enjoy), is a game of skill. This is not opinion, it is fact: if you learn the proper strategies, you will win in the long run (or at least break-even if you are playing equally skilled opponents). Go to a bookstore like B&N or Borders, see the huge section with shelves and shelves covering poker. Notice that there are no such books on strategies to win the lottery (no serious ones at least). Doesn't this say something?

I'd prefer to see online poker legal and as unregulated as possible. But regulation is preferred over criminalization. Regulate and tax it if you must. But heck, why doesn't the government start up its own online Texas Hold-em sites, and use the proceeds from the rakes to pay down the national debt? Or it could use the proceeds to help fund the Social Security scheme, or medicare, medicaid, and the hundreds of other government programs that our taxes and fees are used for.

For more on this issue, including additional reasons to be against the pending legislation, see the Poker Player's Alliance website. Join the fight to protect this wonderful and entertaining game of skill from conservatives in congress!

I'm sure I'll blog more on this topic in the future, so stay tuned!