[JackCase]

[ QUOTE ]

So smart politicians aim for the center. They spend their time and money trying to appeal to the “undecided” voters. The party or candidate who wins their votes wins most elections. They are the people we hope to reach, and we would appreciate the help of anyone who is worried about poker’s future.

Regards,

Al

[/ QUOTE ]

The people in the center on this issue do not care enough about it to do anything. If they are currently vaguely against poker and logical arguments change their minds so that they are vaguely in favor of legalizing it, nothing has changed enough to make it happen. The center is still going to be ruled by inertia, and any action will be spurred by the extremes, where people do care enough one way or another to do something.

My own view is that online poker will be legalized in this country, and that the impetus will be economics. One option is that the Feds will see that prohibition is unenforceable and will opt to regulate and tax it. Another option is that some party of interest with sufficient resources will challenge the Feds in court and win.

A scenario for the second case would be a state legalizing online poker and offering to serve any US player. Any number of states would love to have some big internet poker sites as part of their tax base. Few states actually ban playing online, and most experts believe that the federal wire act does not apply to poker. But it will take a definitive court case to settle the issue.

None of the scenarios discussed above would be affected by changing anyone's mind with logical arguments about the non-economic benefits of poker. Frankly, I believe that even a disinterested reader with an open mind would dismiss this article as self-serving and as failing to address the core reason for playing poker: to try to win money. (That was my general impression of the article, and I am 100% behind the intent.)