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....but there is still hope.

September 19, 2007

Jeff Haney explains how restrictions on Internet gambling have hurt typical poker players a lot more than the pros

Don't cry for the brand-name poker pros, or for the online hotshots who make a good part of their living hustling poker on the Internet.

They weren't hurt much when President Bush signed the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act last year.

They got off unscathed compared with thousands of "regular" poker enthusiasts in the U.S. who were essentially locked out of the poker scene when the law passed, according to Jay Lakin of Poker Source Online, one of the world's largest Internet poker affiliate sites.

The law did not make playing online poker illegal in the U.S. By restricting certain financial transactions, it just set up extra hoops for players to jump through before they could compete at the virtual tables.

For poker's big guns, there was nothing to those gymnastics. For others, the hoops might as well have been hogsheads of fire.

"There are people in wheelchairs, people who are shut-ins, people who don't live anywhere near a casino," said Lakin, vice president and co-founder of Poker Source Online. "Their enjoyment in life is sitting at a laptop, sitting at their computer and playing poker with other people from throughout the world.

"They don't have the resources to set up a foreign bank account or anything like that. The pros are still funding their accounts and taking money out. It's the guy in a wheelchair in South Dakota who's getting hurt."

Because of the nature of his business, which acts as an intermediary between online poker sites and poker players, Lakin is tracking - much more closely than most - the progress of fou r congressional bills and a legal challenge that could negate the gambling act, including:

A bill by Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., that would license and regulate online gambling companies.

A bill by Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Fla., that would exempt online games of skill such as poker and mah jongg from any restrictions.

A bill by Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., that proposes a one-year study of the Internet gambling industry by the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences.

A bill by Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., that would amend the Internal Revenue Code to accommodate licensed online gambling companies.

Lakin thinks McDermott's legislation will eventually be attached, or "piggybacked," to Frank's bill as it makes its way through Congress.

His best hope, though, comes from a lobbying group called the Interactive Media Entertainment & Gaming Association (iMEGA), which filed a lawsuit against the gambling act tentatively scheduled to be heard in U.S. District Court in New Jersey this month. The Justice Department is fighting for dismissal of the case.

"IMEGA's contention is that the (gambling act) is unconstitutional and should be dismissed," Lakin said. "If the ruling is in favor of iMEGA, the (gambling act) could go away instantly."

The stakes are high not only for the millions of online poker players, but also, if indirectly, for the booming land-based poker business.

Poker Source Online, founded in 2004 in Virginia and now based in Costa Rica, has about 115,000 registered members , including many from Las Vegas, Lakin said.

Avid online players populate major poker tournaments as well as everyday poker games in Las Vegas card rooms. Even after the passage of the gambling act , it's still common to hear table chatter around town about online "handles," or screen names, and tips related to the Internet poker trade.

"Casinos five to 10 years ago were all opposed to online poker," Lakin said. "They've seen the light. They see that it's online poker players who are filling their casino.

"The analogy I use is that when the VCR was introduced, Disney was adamant about lobbying to ban that machine from the U.S. Then their CEO, Michael Eisner, said , 'Let's go into the vault and rerelease our movies on video. ' That's what saved the company. The VCR saved Disney."

In Las Vegas, the introduction of elegant new poker rooms in recent years such as those at Wynn Las Vegas and Caesars Palace can be attributed, at least in part, to the online poker craze, Lakin said.

"Online poker players gravitate toward brick-and-mortar poker rooms," he said. "They start online and they get the bug.

"Look at the World Series of Poker. I'd bet 90 percent of those people play online. And they came to the World Series of Poker because of online poker."

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stori ... 34123.html

Glad to know somebody is working to get around that ridiculous law.

Anyways, it's not impossible to play poker online. It just takes a lot longer to get your winnings. I used to play on FRiday and Saturday, and I'd have my money in my checking account by Tuesday. Now it takes 4-5 weeks, so I no longer play.

And you don't need a foreign bank account to play.