Posted by Johnnymac 9:32 PM
First, an explanation. I know I don't post much here any more on poker topics, and that is mainly because I came to the conclusion about 6 months ago that the fantasy football analogy really is true: nobody gives a damn about anyone else's big winning hands or big losing hands. Sometimes a hand can be used to illustrate a particular observation or mathematical truism, but very few people can do that particularly well and I am not one of them. I have also found that writing about particular hands, especially if they are not internet hands, requires quite a bit of reconstructive memory or note taking and I have found that either my hand reconstructions never work out quite right or my playing suffers when I try and take notes and thus I've just quit trying to reconstruct hands at all.

Fuck it. I pay the bills here so I'll just blog in whatever style I please, eh?

Anyway.

I do, however, have an opinion on the impending "internet poker law" and I've been meaning to post it here. I ended up writing a long treatise at 2+2 a couple of minutes ago and instead of recreating that, I am just going to cut and paste. My comment was actually in response to a particularly clueless question about the legislative process, and even thought I didn't intend to write a long response that's what I ended up doing. Enjoy.

Well, here's the deal. Online gambling and poker is already illegal, according to just about any judge, prosecutor, or lawyer you ask. The new bill just clarifies some of the terminology since the internet wasn't around back in the days of Al Capone or whenever the first law was passed and it also adds certain banking prohibitions as well (much like what the New York AG already did a couple of years ago), since credit cards weren't around back then, either.

I've been playing online for a couple of years now, but it wasn't because I was under any foolish misconception that it was legal, only that with so many people doing it for much higher stakes than me (literally, my favorite game is 1c/2c Omaha on P-Stars) it is unlikely that I would ever get in any kind of trouble for it. And I think that probably applies to most people these days - unless you are gambling thousands of dollars a month online, the government probably isn't going to come after you because there simply aren't enough resources to enforce the law. Most likely, if the government ever did decide to start enforcing these laws, there would be a general "amnesty" announced and then the sites would start being monitored and only the people who kept playing after the "we're really serious now" announcement would likely ever get a letter in the mail or a visit from a federal agent. I think that the new law, in making the definitions more precise and taking away some of the more common defenses (rationalizations, really) that people use, is the beginning of that "we're really serious" process. Once this new law passes (and don't kid yourself, eventually, someday, maybe not this year, but eventually, it will) they are probably going to begin holding ISP's responsible for aiding and abetting a felony by not blocking the sites and then even if you wanted to break the law and play online it will be much harder to play.

I know I'm kind of long-winded here, but the short answer is that yes, internet poker is already considered to be illegeal by a vast majority of the legal community, the laws just haven't been enforced yet to a great degree. This new bill doesn't change anything with regards to the legality, it just clarifies things and will make it easier to enforce the law once the feds finally do decide to start prosecuting online poker players.

Feel free to disagree or tell me I am full of sh*t, but the facts are the facts: it's an election year, the b&m casinos are lobbying their butts off because they have a massive interest in squashing the competition (if they can't get a piece of the pie themselves), and this country has always had quite a puritan streak when it comes to gambling. I personally don't think internet poker should be illegal - like recreational drug use, it could be regulated and become a major source of tax revenue - but that doesn't change the fact that within the next 2-3 you will be risking arrest if you logon to PS or PP or Bodog or whatever. It's gonna happen and there is no amount of lobbying or protesting or holding your breath that is going to stop it.

A lot of people had very principled arguments in favor of free music downloads, too, and never believed that people might be held legally liable for using Napster, either, and we all know how that turned out. It happened then and it's eventually going to happen to online poker.

With regards to the original question about the legislative process, for chrissakes go back to 8th grade civics class. In its most simplified form:

1.) House (or Senate) gets an idea and passes a bill
2.) The other house passes its own version of the bill
3.) A committee of members from both houses gets together and drafts a combined version of the bill
4.) Each house votes on the new bill (or proposes changes but the rules vary and are complicated)
5.) If both houses pass the final combined version, then the bill is sent to the president for his signature
6.) If he signs it, then it's a law. If he doesn't then it's not a law (yet)

We're only at step #1, so no, the new bill is nowhere near becoming a law.

3 Comment(s):

Posted by  Anonymous, at 5:58 PM, July 14, 2006  

JM, I'm wondering how the WTO ruling fits in here? I thought that the WTO had ruled in Antigua's favour and more or less said that Internet gambling sites were fine and US could not block them, shut them down or in any way restrict access. Also, IRS doesn't consider poker illegal. There is nothing directly relevant here to contradict what you are saying just that there are some pretty compelling players here (WTO etc.) who keep telling the US to grow up and the US refuses to listen. I still find it hard to conceive that this will in fact go through, but much to my detriment I constantly underestimate the stupidity of politicians. Thanks for your insight. Cheers.

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Posted by  Dr Fro, at 8:48 PM, July 14, 2006  

The reason that prohibition was repealed but that pot is still illegal is extremely simple:

Drinking is a mainstream hobby and pot smoking is still an activity engaged by either the very young or adults on the far fringe of society.

The legal process is inherently political. Alcohol does more damage to society than pot. Yet it is legal solely because it is more popular.

Poker is unbelievably popular. And the prediction that its popularity would wane is starting to look like it will never come to fruition.

As long as poker is popular, there will be massive opposition to these laws.

Personally, I strongly disagree with JMG. The puritan streak to which you refer is one constant in American politics, no doubt. The only greater constant is that politicians don't support bills that their constituents oppose.

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Posted by  Johnnymac, at 5:18 PM, July 15, 2006  

Response is in a separate post to the blog.

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