We are not going to tell you to get your hopes up because, as we all know by now, lawmakers have a knack for inflicting soul crushing blows upon the poker community, but it looks like there may be a glimmer of light on the online poker legalization front. A glimmer. Nobody overreact, please.
As you may already know,
United States Representative Joe Barton (R – Texas) announced at the
Poker Players Alliance (PPA) rally in Washington, D.C. last month that he has a bill in the works that would legalize and regulate online poker. Now, the
Las Vegas Sun reports, two of poker’s most fervent supporters in Congress,
Representative Barney Frank (D – Mass.) and
Representative John Campbell (R – Calif.), have come out in support of Barton’s bill. Said Campbell, “I’m co-sponsoring his (bill), I believe he’s going to co-sponsor mine. If his moves first, I’ll support him.”
Frank isn’t overly thrilled with a poker-only bill, but he’s willing to settle for the time being, saying, “I’ll go for the broadest bill possible. We have an extraordinary restriction on people’s freedom right now, so I would support the broadest bill possible … but I would take something over nothing.”
Added Campbell, “The resistance is still there, but I think there are some minds that are more open now than they were last year.”
The importance of Barton’s bill comes from who he is and what role he plays in Congress. As PPA executive director John Pappas put it in the
Sun article, “He’s respected, not only with the more socially conservative, but the more fiscally conservative caucus within the House, and brings a really credible voice to this issue … because he understands why regulation makes sense, not only from the perspective of a lawmaker, but also that of a poker player.”
Barton, unlike Frank and Campbell, does actually enjoy playing poker.
He is also the chairman emeritus of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and therefore plans to introduce the bill there. Similarly, Frank has used his former position as Chairman of the Financial Services Committee to introduce his online gambling bills, but now that Republican Spencer Bachus, one of the biggest opponents to the cause of poker players, is in control of that Committee, that is unlikely to happen again. Thus, Barton has the better shot to get something accomplished.
Interestingly, while Bachus never budged an inch with Frank’s proposals, twisting any statistic or study to try to illustrate that gambling was invented by the devil himself, he hasn’t preemptively shot down Barton’s bill. In fact, he may have even left the door open a crack, saying to the
Sun, “I’m not opposed…but if there’s gambling, it has to be regulated.”
Barton’s bill is not finished, so it is not ready to be introduced just yet, but the Congressman aims to do so this summer. One big hurdle that he still has to negotiate is how to deal with the April indictments of eleven individuals connected to
PokerStars, Absolute Poker, and
Full Tilt Poker. It might not come off very well to allow operators who have run afoul of the law to all of a sudden procure licenses to offer online gambling services to U.S. residents. At the same time, though, there are states who want the anticipated revenue from online gambling, so Barton will need to craft something that everyone can accept.
So while it’s not “pedal to the metal” time for the gambling bill, Barton said he at least as the “yellow light” from Republican leaders in the House of Representatives. “This is not a Republican leadership initiative, but they’re aware of it,” he told the
Las Vegas Sun. “It’s a sensitive issue, but an issue where there’s a majority consensus in the House and Senate to make this change.”
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Frank, Campbell Back Barton Bill
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