Update Friday, September 29th

[metsandfinsfan]

So who is voting first tonight? The house

[MannyIsGod]

Well, here's to hoping my predection about the resilency of Neteller being true.

[BenKT68]

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Would the lunatic fringe stop saying crap like "banning online poker". That's not what's going on here, and even if it's as bad as we expect, the world doesn't end tonight. Still likely months before anything actually goes into action.

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From what I understand, its very possible that the language that's actually in this bill has many less teeth than the original that passed the House in June. Let's withhold judgement until we actually see the new law.

This could actually be a good thing in the long run, if the language is tame, as it will eliminate any real chance of passing the "end of the world" version for a while.


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Eternal optimists! I like it.

(My view: gg)

btw, is this on cspan right now?

[Autocratic]

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Would the lunatic fringe stop saying crap like "banning online poker". That's not what's going on here, and even if it's as bad as we expect, the world doesn't end tonight. Still likely months before anything actually goes into action.

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Which brings us to my next point - we all need to move up while we still can.

[Leader]

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Would the lunatic fringe stop saying crap like "banning online poker". That's not what's going on here, and even if it's as bad as we expect, the world doesn't end tonight. Still likely months before anything actually goes into action.

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This is an important point. Panic could possibly do far more damage to online poker then the law could.

[Jack Bando]

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From what I understand, its very possible that the language that's actually in this bill has many less teeth than the original that passed the House in June. Let's withhold judgement until we actually see the new law.

This could actually be a good thing in the long run, if the language is tame, as it will eliminate any real chance of passing the "end of the world" version for a while.

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This is a good point.

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And IIRC, Italy reversed their ban on online poker recently, so even if it is strong, we can try to make a comeback. Let's hope that this doesn't come to that though.

[palmdrive]

As previous posters have said it will all depend on how aggressive the bill is. Given the speed and thoughtlessness with which the bill seems to have been attached, and given that its reason for attachment is to allow Frist a trophy to show the Christian right, one could speculate that little attention was paid to ensuring that the bill is airtight.

The critical thing IMO will be whether the bill goes so far as to update the Wire Act and whether its language is explicit about criminalizing the individual act of gambling online. Because if it doesn't (or even if it does) there will be plenty of gambling sites and financial intermediaries with way too much at stake to roll over and die.

A disheartening day to be sure, esp after the good news on the DoD bills, but also not the end of the world...and likely not the end of online poker.

Just my 2 cents.

[Python49]

Just cashed out large portions of my roll, thanks for the heads up all.

[whitepotatoe]

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And IIRC, Italy reversed their ban on online poker recently, so even if it is strong, we can try to make a comeback. Let's hope that this doesn't come to that though.

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I am not putting any hope into a policy reversal. My only hope now is that it's only for credit cards.

[Hock_]

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And IIRC, Italy reversed their ban on online poker recently, so even if it is strong, we can try to make a comeback. Let's hope that this doesn't come to that though.


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Since the measures Congress has been considering cannot possibly be effective at doing anything other than providing an issue for Republicans to tout during the election, and since regulation and taxation is so clearly the only rational, sensible approach to the issue, I tend to think that EVENTUALLY everything will be fine. I just don't want to have to go back to lawyering at a big law firm until that happens. Fingers crossed.