The Latest on the Internet Gaming Ban

It's amazing to me how my feelings about the significance of this bill passing have changed over a three day period. On Monday, it was like being hit on the head with an acorn. On Tuesday I was sure the sky was falling. And, by Thursday, it was like being hit on the head with an apple. The sources I've used to come up with this latest analysis are: An e-mail discussion group that I belong to who's main purpose in the past has been to analyze sports betting (this group is filled with smart guys who are in the know, including WSOP Media Director Nolan Dalla), an article in the San Francisco Chronicle, a 3 minute piece on CNN, and various online articles that have come my way.

First to clear up a few vague points that I made in my original post. The bill that contains the "Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006" is the "Safe Port Act of 2006" in case anyone wanted to look for more info on it. The person who is most directly responsible for this act is Republican senator Bill Frist. The Secretary and the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System have 270 days (after the bill is signed by the president) to come up with enforcement policies and procedures. Apparently there are 23 million online poker players in the US and in every place that I've heard about this bill I haven't heard one person interviewed or quoted as saying they were for this bill (with the exception of the people who wrote it). Furthermore according to Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg (D-NJ), no one on the Senate-House Conference Committee had even seen the final language of the bill before it passed.

So what's the latest news? Well it looks like the publicly traded websites (party, paradise and pacific which is also know as 888) will probably jump ship on the US market when Bush signs the bill. But Fulltilt, Bodog, and most importantly Pokerstars are all private companies and could very well continue normal operating procedures.

Apparently there are going to be plenty of challenges to this bill in the courts. I could see websites using the angle that they'll keep the status quo while there are active challenges to the bill in the court system. If this is the case I won't have anything to worry about because I'll be long dead by the time the case and all of the appeals get resolved.

I've read conflicting reports about this but Allyn Jaffrey Shulman says in an article published yesterday (you can read the whole article here) "Do not panic. First and foremost, this bill does not criminalize playing poker. In fact, the bill does not speak to the poker player at all." While I wasn't going to stop until people started getting arrested or the websites blocked me from playing, this can't be bad news if this is true.

Another interesting angle I've read is that as a way of pulling out of the US market the websites (even the publicly traded ones) will stop accepting "payments" from US players. While this might dry up the supply of weak players from the US, there are plenty of worldwide players who will be free to keep pumping their money into the system. What about me? I've made one "payment" and that was $500 in January of 2004. Since then it's been all withdrawals. Of course, the amount that I would think of as a safe bankroll would probably go up, but I'd be able to keep playing indefinitely.

There is some hope that poker will be saved while sports betting and other games may vanish because poker is a skill game. I've created another post discussing the merits of this angle.

I'm sure I'll have more to say about the online gaming ban in the coming days as more info comes my way.