[coachkf]

"The time to oppose this bill was before it passed. It is going to be much, much more difficult to do anything about it now that it has passed."

What exactly were they supposed to do before the bill was passed? From what I understand, offline companies can't hire lobbying groups or donate to politicians.

That means the only thing they "could" have done was send out mass emails to members (some of them did). I suspect most did not want to scare their membership over something that almost everyone agreed had little or no chance to pass.

Now that an actual law has passed, they have something they can fight. Before, it was just a bill moving through the US congress, and they being companies based in another country had no legitimate way to weigh in, correct?

I'm not an expert on these things by any means, but I'm pretty sure that online poker sites were handicapped by the fact that they're not based in the USA and therefore can't take part in our mucked up lawmaking.

That being said, I'm thoroughly disgusted with poker industry leaders here in the USA like 2p2 who sat on their hands when they could have at least matched what several online poker sites did and email their members that there was a threat.