Online Poker Bills Will Be Reintroduced to New CongressAll Proposed Legislation Expires with Old Congress |
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Soon, the 111th Congress will gather in Washington, D.C., to begin its work, and that means that all of the bills that were introduced to the 110th Congress will have to be reintroduced all over again.
Several bills that were introduced that, if passed, would have changed the landscape of Internet poker in the United States, also expire with the 110th Congress in a few weeks.
John Pappas, the executive director of the Poker Players Alliance, says that all of the proposed bills concerning poker and the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) that were introduced in 2007 and 2008 will be reintroduced when the next Congress convenes.
The PPA is working with the lawmakers who introduced the bills in the first place to tweak and change the bills so that they might find passage more easily. In fact, Pappas is meeting with lawmakers next week to talk about strategy.
Each of the 7,000-plus bills that were introduced during the 110th Congress but never saw a final roll call will have to be reintroduced. Lobbyists, like the PPA, from all corners of industry and interests are now working with politicians to rewrite the bills that fall into this category but may have a chance with the next Congress.
There are three bills that will be reintroduced that online poker players should be concerned about:
S. 3616 — The Internet Skill Game and Licensing Control Act
This act was introduced on Sept. 26 by Sen. Robert Menendez and had no real chance of making it past any committees this Congress, simply because how late in the year and session it was introduced.
Significantly, this is the first bill introduced by a senator, and, if passed by the111th Congress, it would “provide licensing of Internet skill game facilities,” poker being the main game. The text of the bill defines a skill-based game as one “that uses simulated cards, dice, or tiles in which success is predominantly determined by the skill of the players, including poker, bridge, and mahjong.”
H.R. 2610 — The Skill Game Protection Act
Introduced by Rep. Robert Wexler June 7, 2007, this bill would name poker as a skill game on a Federal level and therefore would both prevent it from being targeted by the anti-gambling UIGEA. If poker is a skill game, then it is not gambling, and therefore would be afforded the same protection as chess and even fantasy football.
This bill never made it out of any of the three committees it was referred to the first day it was introduced.
H.R. 6870 — Payments System Protection Act of 2008
Barney Frank, the powerful House member who chairs the House Financial Services Committee, is the daddy of this legislation. Since the UIGEA’s passage, Frank has been an outspoken critic of the law, and this is his second attempt at weakening the UIGEA by defining exactly what online gabling activities should be stopped.
Most recently, earlier this week, he called on the Bush administration to delay in finalizing the written regulations of the UIGEA, a call that fell of deaf ears since the regulations were finalized yesterday.
H.R. 6870 would benefit online poker players by basically taking online poker off of the list of what the government thinks are illegal online gambling activities. If this bill gets reintroduced and passed, that list would be awfully short. It would prevent the UIGEA from stopping anything except sports-betting transactions.
This act made it out of commitee swiftly, and it was ready for a House vote in September, but went no farther. There is no chance H.R. 6870 will be voted on by the 110th Congress.
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