Poker Players Alliance, also known as PPA, has done a lot of good this past year to get the awareness out there about online gambling and player’s rights. The PPA has also written their half year report and said that the fight for poker has received a lot of support.
Alfonse D’Amato, who is the PPA Chairman, is the one that released the report that tells what they have accomplished this year. Also in the statement he talked about how PPA has gotten more involved in poker this year at the state level and the federal level. They have also gotten quite a bit of media coverage for the things that they have done.
Some of the really successful things that PPA did this year were the going to Washington D.C. to talk to congress and having a conference. There was quite a bit of media coverage on this, so they got a lot of attention on the issue.
D’Amato said, “In just two days of lobbying, the ‘fly-in’ participants met with nearly 50 members of the U.S. House and Senate. Several of our meetings resulted in commitments of support and co-sponsorship of H.R. 2046 and H.R. 2610.â€
The H.R. 2046 is the bill that was introduced by Barney Frank. It is also called Internet Gambling Regulation and Enforcement Act. If this gets passed then gambling will be legalized in the United States and it will set up a framework for regulating and licensing the gambling industry in the United States.
The H.R. 2610 is the bill that was introduced by Robert Wexler. This bill is wanting to make games of skill like poker an exception to the law that makes online gambling illegal.
Through all of the campaigning to congress they have gotten more co-sponsors for each bill. For the H.R. 2046 there are now 44 co-sponsors and for the H.R. 2610 there are now 20 co-sponsors.
After the Washington D.C. success, Rep. John Conyers, who is the House Judiciary Committee chairman, wanted a hearing on online gambling. This led to Annie Duke, who is a PPA representative and she is also a poker pro, coming to the hearing to testify for the players to help emphasis the importance of player’s rights. Other people who were heard at the hearing were Rep. Shelley Berkley and Joseph H.H. Weiler, who is a professor at New York University School of Law. There were also some people who testified against online gambling. They were Rep. Bob Goodlatte and Thomas E. McClusky, who is the Family Research Council vice president of government affairs.
Throughout the year the PPA has gotten a lot more support for online gambling. In the end that is the most important thing because maybe now player’s rights will be heard.