7/10/2007 iMEGA Suit Against UIGEA Strongest Fight Against the US Bill

[Legislurker]

How? only a small sliver of the horse industry would maybe benefit. No breeders, trainers, or jockeys. They hate us as bad as FoF. Money to poker is money from them in their eyes.
And Mcconnell is the big Republican on the HIll for now, and Kyl's butt buddy to boot

[TheEngineer]

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How? only a small sliver of the horse industry would maybe benefit. No breeders, trainers, or jockeys. They hate us as bad as FoF. Money to poker is money from them in their eyes.
And Mcconnell is the big Republican on the HIll for now, and Kyl's butt buddy to boot

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First of all, I personally don't give a flying [censored] about horses. They're not as powerful as they think they are, honestly. I also don't mind pointing out the hypocrisy. In fact, I had fun writing to McConnell. I'm very familiar with McConnell. He won't vote with us, but it would be nice if he wouldn't screw us over so much.

You sound defeatist. I fully recognize this is an uphill struggle, but I don't see the need to give up just yet.

I'm going to do everything I can to fight this. I'd rather lose fighting than lose by giving up. After all, we've been at this full-speed since November, and it looked impossible at that time. Now it just looks hard.

[TheEngineer]

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I dont think its defeat we are headed for, but a long uphill fight if a state opt-out is included.

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So what's your point? You want us to all oppose IGREA? Then what? Sit back with Permafrost and hope for the best?

It seems some here take the text of the various legislation far too seriously. WE LOST HR 4411 BY 317-96!!! When someone loses that badly, they don't get to cherry pick legislation. The fact that we have any is a minor miracle. Rather, I think our goal for this year is to build support for our position while keeping worse bills from being introduced by Goodlatte or Kyl. We can worry about the strength of family farms somewhere way down the road....we're nowhere near that stage yet.

[JPT III]

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For one, it's strange that the TRO application is in the complaint. Is that a federal thing?!

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While not procedurally correct, I have seen this before. It's nothing more than attorneys who are either doing a belt and suspenders thing or who do not understand that a claim for a TRO or injunctive relief does not give rise to a cause of action separate and distinct from the substantive causes of action alleged in the complaint.

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Right. That's what I thought. So in other words, as I suspected, the attorneys fighting for our rights don't know their *sses from a whole in the ground. Great.

And it's not belt and suspenders. One cannot plead a claim for a TRO. Period. Any first year law student could tell us this. I hope iMEGA, whoever they are, didn't pay a whole lot to these attorneys.

[jlkrusty]

If you were a betting man (which we all are), what odds (especially from you lawyers) would you place on whether or not this TRO (or preliminary injunction) will be granted?

[JPFisher55]

50% but I am not a litigator and would state those odds for most cases. May not matter much since the regs for the UIGEA are not in sight and the DOJ has not really tried to enforce them UIGEA; even the Neteller case was based on the Wire Act.
The petition seeks a final injunction of enforcement against online gambling for both the UIGEA and the Wire Act. This is more important.

[Karak567]

50 %? seriously? that's pretty damn high i'd think

[TheEngineer]

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Pass it or not, if the states have any input, they will say no. Frank is being pushed by the banks, not poker players. Whatever gets the banks off the hook, he is gone from our camp. I dont think its defeat we are headed for, but a long uphill fight if a state opt-out is included. It IS a poison pill.

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Legislurker,

If you think about this, it's obvious that Congress won't pass a bill that won't be supported by any state (congressmen won't vote for something opposed by their own state....at least not a large majority of them). I do have data...within the past twelve months we lost a vote in the House 317-93. It's hard to imagine we'd get support in Congress to force states to accept gambling, especially as gaming has always been controlled at the state level.

However, it's also obvious that states would have already started licensing instate online gaming if they wanted it. None have. So, how do we succeed?

The problem now is that states are confined to acting within their own borders. That's why none offer poker cash games. However, given international access, many states (and tribes) will open up their access. We won't get every state, but we'll get some, so we'll have something to build on.

[Skallagrim]

I would wish otherwise, but I dont give this lawsuit more than 10-15% chance of success, and that only if the lawyers can get their argument across as least as good as MF did above. The biggest problem I see is that the suit is premature in many ways: the regs are not even out yet, and, as I have stated previously, the law itself is very uncertain, so even more uncertain is how the DOJ will interpret it. Courts are very reluctant to enjoin enforcement before they even know what that enforcement will be. The handfull of clear points, like the fact that certain gambling sites are committing a new felony when they accept US money from certain states, but not from others, may be enough to get somewhere, but not the over-arching claims made, since no one knows if the DOJ will really use this law to, for example, try and shut down places like 2+2 because you can link directly to a for-money site (an extreme example I know and one I realy doubt would ever come to pass - which is part of the same reason a court will likely not "enjoin" such enforcement).

As to the state issue, I fail to see the basis for the wide spread pessimism. Poker is already popular. The horse lobby may think that poker competes with them for money, but that is hogwash - and is only relevant in a small number of areas. The bigger issue is the skill issue - honestly IMHO. As more people see poker and poker tournaments as skill competitions, the fear is mostly lost. No one worries about entry fees for "Magic, the Gathering" tournaments do they? Nor Chess tournaments. Nor golf tournaments. Nor Bridge Clubs.

Once we are squarely seen as in the "skill" category, the forces that will try and stop us will be a clear minority with very little public support. Few politicians will see an anti-POKER platform as a vote getter, far less at least, than the typical anti-GAMBLING platform. The very same folks who give politicians their every last spare cent to stop a casino from coming here locally could not care less whether I play online poker or not, and wont join any such fight.

Of course, by the same token, it would be hard to get a pro-poker platform to carry much weight either, there's just not enough of us and the libertarians, and again most people just dont care. But thats the beauty of the Wexler "skill-games" bill: it takes poker and makes it legal almost everywhere and requires our opponents to do the hard work to get the new state laws needed to ban us.

Skallagrim

[permafrost]

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Pass it or not, if the states have any input, they will say no. Frank is being pushed by the banks, not poker players. Whatever gets the banks off the hook, he is gone from our camp. I dont think its defeat we are headed for, but a long uphill fight if a state opt-out is included. It IS a poison pill.

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Legislurker,

If you think about this, it's obvious that Congress won't pass a bill that won't be supported by any state (congressmen won't vote for something opposed by their own state....at least not a large majority of them). I do have data...within the past twelve months we lost a vote in the House 317-93. It's hard to imagine we'd get support in Congress to force states to accept gambling, especially as gaming has always been controlled at the state level.

However, it's also obvious that states would have already started licensing instate online gaming if they wanted it. None have. So, how do we succeed?

The problem now is that states are confined to acting within their own borders. That's why none offer poker cash games. However, given international access, many states (and tribes) will open up their access. We won't get every state, but we'll get some, so we'll have something to build on.

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Let me get out of my "sit back" mode for a minute and say excellent summary of where we stand, TheEnergizer!

I don't know how much the states currently depend on international access for internet betting on horses, and I suspect internet access is illegal for state lotteries. There was no international access when the states legalized those gambling businesses, and they did well, then grew.

A legal intrastate poker site would be fine with me if the alternative is nothing besides the local casino. Maybe the status quo will hold and we don't see it go to nothing. But if it does go...we need new state laws. Maybe it has to hit nothing before enough people make noise.

How to change states? No expert advice here however concentrate on legal poker, find friendly state legislators, write letters to the editor. Find out why Nevada has laws on the books and no businesses. Again, it has to be done sooner or later unless we hit a miracle river. The Fed level wouldn't be neglected since they are part of the problem; but the origin of the problem is state law. [/sit up mode]