Good News for Online Poker

Usually I like to write about whatever topic I've come up with for my entry and then tell you about my recent results. Today I'm going to lead with results. I finally had a reasonable winning day and picked up a little over $600 over the course of 2,500 hands. Normally this would be nothing more than a par for the course win, but since I've really had my ass handed to me over the past few weeks, it felt a little sweeter.

Now on to the good news for online poker. I'd read here and there recently that there were a few bills in the house having to do with online poker. More specifically, having to do with licensing and regulating online poker so it would be legal to own and operate a poker site based in the U.S. I didn't know too much about them, other than the fact that the first was introduced in April and that no matter what they said they were a potential massive blessing for all of Huffland.

Today I got an e-mail from 2004 World Champion Greg Raymer (actually it was from Pokerstars, but it had his name on it) which said the following:

I am writing to you on behalf of the Poker Players Alliance (PPA) because we need your help. Congress is currently considering a bill which would clarify the legality of online poker in the United States by creating a regulatory and licensing framework. Please join me in supporting the "Internet Gambling Regulation and Enforcement Act".

The early support of many Congressional Representatives is crucial to the success of this bill. Please call your Representative Fortney Stark today in his Washington, D.C office 202-225-5065. Ask him to cosponsor H.R. 2046 before the August Congressional recess.

Your support is vital. Please take a moment and call today. If you wish to read more about this bill, or to get more information about the Poker Players Alliance, please visit www.pokerplayersalliance.org Thank you for your time, and your support of poker in the United States.

Sincerely,

Greg Raymer PPA Board of Directors WSOP 2004 World Champion and Member of Team PokerStars

I also got a similar e-mail from someone at full tilt and I wouldn't be surprised if I get a few more from other websites. The best news is that there's a chance that the bill could be making it's way through congress before the August recess!!! I thought it would be closer to a year before anything at all would happen so this is great news.

More good news is that the Poker Players Alliance is gaining strength everyday. About a year ago there were fewer than 100,000 members and currently there are over 615,000. I'm hoping that this group (of which I am a member) is going to become a significant lobbying force (former senator Al D'Amato is the chairman).

If you're interested in doing me a favor you can go to the PPA website and right in the middle they have a button you can click on to write your congressperson. If you click on it you'll find three links: one for each of two house resolutions and one where you can thank your congressperson for protecting your rights. Click on one or both of the links regarding the HR's and it will prompt you to enter your zip code so they can have the letter sent to your specific congressperson. Once you enter your zip code you can read over the letter that will be sent in your name, enter your address and e-mail and through the magic of the internet this message will zip off to a congressperson who represents you! For those of you without scruples (Cough, Brain Ridgeway, Cough) you might want to see about sending a pie or some other kind of bribe to add a little weight to your message.

I'm not sure what impact this might have, but it couldn't hurt and if you're anything but a total dunce (Cough, Ridgeway, Cough) it should take you about 3 minutes. I've heard in the past that for every letter that Time magazine gets they assume that 10,000 people have the same thoughts as the letter writer. Of course an electronically generated form letter is going to have about 1% of the impact of a snail mail letter, but I figured I'd ask for your help anyway.

Why would it be such a big deal for there to be fully licensed, legal and regulated poker in the US, you ask? Well let me tell you. First and foremost it would pump literally BILLIONS of dollars into play. The vast majority of people aren't willing to trust a company based in some country they've barely heard of with their money. They think (correctly) that if they website wanted to screw them over and take their money they'd have no recourse. If all of a sudden the MGM corporation opens a poker site they know that their money is safe.

Maybe more importantly the websites could advertise and tell people how awesome it is to be able to play poker in their own home for any amount of money from pennies to hundreds of thousands of dollars 24 hours a day 7 days a week 365 days a year.

The number of new players will skyrocket. People love to gamble, they love to compete and they love to think that they are better than other people at something that matters. Online poker gives people the chance to do all of those things. Of course all of these new players, no matter how smart or how good they think they are, will have 7 years less experience than I do. It will be like a bunch of dudes with swords charging at me when I'm holding one of those machine guns with the six spinning barrels that former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura used in Predator and current California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger used in Terminator 2.

Another benefit will be increased competition between the poker sites. Right now there are only a few big websites and while they have some level of competition it's not anything close to what we'd see if the American floodgates opened. Dozens of websites would offer crazy promotions as they clawed for market share and I would take advantage of all of them.

At a minimum it would be worth an extra $5,000 a month to me for these bills to go through congress. I'm drooling just thinking about it.