Fight for Online Poker!!

[TheEngineer]

Important action alert!!

The proposed UIGEA regulations have been released by the Department of the Treasury for public comment. This is our chance to affect the regs, as our comments. I ask everyone here who cares about Internet poker will submit comments in favor of freedom and liberty. Thanks!

The PPA has released a list of talking points for our comments. That way, we know our comments align with the best interests of poker. The article is at http://pokerplayersalliance.org/news...le.php?DID=293.

1. The proposed regulations should be modified to clarify that they don’t cover games predominantly determined by skill, such as poker, bridge, mahjong and backgammon. Section 5362(1)(a) of UIGEA defines a bet or wager as “the staking or risking by any person of something of value upon the outcome of a contest of others, a sporting event, or a game subject to chance,…” “Subject to chance” can be interpreted in a variety of ways, but in a gambling context it should reasonably be taken to mean games like roulette or slots where players bet against “the house” and success is determined by chance. Poker players compete, not against the house, but against each other, and the success of a player over any significant time interval is determined by that players’ skill.

2. The regulators must define what is and isn’t “unlawful Internet gambling.” The federal and state laws governing Internet gambling are very ambiguous -- nearly all of them were written before the advent of the Internet, and it is not clear how they apply to Internet gaming. In the proposed rule, the regulators emphasize that it is not their intention to clarify this question, because to do so would require them to examine the laws of every state with respect to every gaming modality. Yet that is exactly what they are requiring every bank and payment system to do individually.

3. The regulators should refrain from implementing the regulations until the U.S. resolves its international trade disputes. The World Trade Organization has found the U.S. to be out of compliance with its obligations under the General Agreement on Trade in Services because of its attempts at prohibiting Internet gambling. This is likely to cost the U.S. economy billions of dollars in lost market share and export opportunities. The U.S. government is in negotiations with its trading partners over this matter. Inasmuch as these regulations arguably make that situation worse, the regulators should hold off on finalizing the regulations until the U.S. can resolve its international trade obligations.

4. The proposed regulations should not infringe on personal privacy. UIGEA deputizes banks and payment systems and turns them into the Internet morality police. These regulations should not compel banks to scrutinize the private transactions of individual poker players and others. To do so is hostile to the personal and financial privacy of every American with a credit card or checking account.

5. The UIGEA and the enforcing regulations should not apply to Internet poker nationwide. Federal case law has consistently held that the Wire Act applies only to sports betting and very few states have any laws against Internet poker. These regulations should be clear to only block those transactions which are in fact against the law. Games of skill which are not outlawed under current federal law – such as poker, chess, bridge and majong -- should be exempt from the UIGEA and the regulations.



The Legislation Forum discussion thread is at http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showfl...=1#Post12525391.

[Todd Terry]

[ QUOTE ]

1. The proposed regulations should be modified to clarify that they don’t cover games predominantly determined by skill, such as poker, bridge, mahjong and backgammon. Section 5362(1)(a) of UIGEA defines a bet or wager as “the staking or risking by any person of something of value upon the outcome of a contest of others, a sporting event, or a game subject to chance,…” “Subject to chance” can be interpreted in a variety of ways, but in a gambling context it should reasonably be taken to mean games like roulette or slots where players bet against “the house” and success is determined by chance. Poker players compete, not against the house, but against each other, and the success of a player over any significant time interval is determined by that players’ skill.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is both wrong and irrelevant.

It is wrong because under no reasonable reading of the phrase "game subject to chance" could poker not qualify. It is a game. It is subject to chance. Regulations are promulgated by the executive branch to implement legislation passed by Congress. It would be improper for a regulation to take a position at odds with the clear language of a statute. If this silly argument advocating a bizarre reading of statutory language is to be made anywhere, it needs to be made to a court in a lawsuit challenging the UIGEA, not to a regulatory agency.

It is also completely irrelevant. The UIGEA applies to unlawful Internet gambling. If online poker is not unlawful, the UIGEA doesn't apply. If adopted, this argument regarding "game subject to chance" would only support an argument that the UIGEA doesn't apply to online poker even though it is unlawful, which is silly.

[ QUOTE ]
2. The regulators must define what is and isn’t “unlawful Internet gambling.” The federal and state laws governing Internet gambling are very ambiguous -- nearly all of them were written before the advent of the Internet, and it is not clear how they apply to Internet gaming. In the proposed rule, the regulators emphasize that it is not their intention to clarify this question, because to do so would require them to examine the laws of every state with respect to every gaming modality. Yet that is exactly what they are requiring every bank and payment system to do individually.

[/ QUOTE ]

The underlying legislation deliberately, explicitly took no position on defining unlawful Internet gambling. Therefore, regulations implementing that legislation cannot do so, period. In addition, it would be improper, and probably unconstitutional, for the federal government, let alone a federal regulatory agency, to take positions regarding the meaning of ambiguous state laws.

Not to mention, why are we asking the executive branch, which includes the DoJ who has taken the legally indefensible position that online poker violates the Wire Act, to define whether online poker is illegal? If they were to do so, which they won't for the reasons set forth above, we wouldn't like the answer.

[ QUOTE ]
3. The regulators should refrain from implementing the regulations until the U.S. resolves its international trade disputes. The World Trade Organization has found the U.S. to be out of compliance with its obligations under the General Agreement on Trade in Services because of its attempts at prohibiting Internet gambling. This is likely to cost the U.S. economy billions of dollars in lost market share and export opportunities. The U.S. government is in negotiations with its trading partners over this matter. Inasmuch as these regulations arguably make that situation worse, the regulators should hold off on finalizing the regulations until the U.S. can resolve its international trade obligations.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is a good point. It will probably fall on deaf ears, but it's worth saying.

[ QUOTE ]
4. The proposed regulations should not infringe on personal privacy. UIGEA deputizes banks and payment systems and turns them into the Internet morality police. These regulations should not compel banks to scrutinize the private transactions of individual poker players and others. To do so is hostile to the personal and financial privacy of every American with a credit card or checking account.

[/ QUOTE ]

Unfortunately, this battle was lost a long time ago. Banks already are de facto agents of federal law enforcement. If you don't want your privacy invaded, the only alternative is to keep $2.8 million dollars in cash in your home, like a former WSOP final tablist.

There was an amusing article a while back in the Economist regarding the Patriot Act reporting provisions for banks. The banks, rather than risk severe penalties, took an overly expansive view of what needed to be disclosed to the Feds and literally buried them in an avalanche of data that was so big as to be completely useless because they lacked the manpower and tools to be able to wade through it.

[ QUOTE ]
5. The UIGEA and the enforcing regulations should not apply to Internet poker nationwide. Federal case law has consistently held that the Wire Act applies only to sports betting and very few states have any laws against Internet poker. These regulations should be clear to only block those transactions which are in fact against the law. Games of skill which are not outlawed under current federal law – such as poker, chess, bridge and majong -- should be exempt from the UIGEA and the regulations.

[/ QUOTE ]

See point 2 above, this is essentially the same point as asking them to define "unlawful Internet gambling". While the sentence about federal case law is correct, it's been very few cases, and the legality of online poker has never been addressed directly by any court. I'd love to hear from either the PPA or the online poker industry why this has not been done via a declaratory judgment action. I'm pretty sure I know the answer.

[Greg (FossilMan)]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

1. The proposed regulations should be modified to clarify that they don’t cover games predominantly determined by skill, such as poker, bridge, mahjong and backgammon. Section 5362(1)(a) of UIGEA defines a bet or wager as “the staking or risking by any person of something of value upon the outcome of a contest of others, a sporting event, or a game subject to chance,…” “Subject to chance” can be interpreted in a variety of ways, but in a gambling context it should reasonably be taken to mean games like roulette or slots where players bet against “the house” and success is determined by chance. Poker players compete, not against the house, but against each other, and the success of a player over any significant time interval is determined by that players’ skill.

[/ QUOTE ]

It is wrong because under no reasonable reading of the phrase "game subject to chance" could poker not qualify. It is a game. It is subject to chance. Regulations are promulgated by the executive branch to implement legislation passed by Congress. It would be improper for a regulation to take a position at odds with the clear language of a statute. If this silly argument advocating a bizarre reading of statutory language is to be made anywhere, it needs to be made to a court in a lawsuit challenging the UIGEA, not to a regulatory agency.

[/ QUOTE ]

I respectfully disagree. Almost all games are subject to chance, at least to some degree. Tiger Woods and I might both hit our tee shot into the trees, and one of us might bounce into the middle of the fairway, and the other bounce out of bounds. Of course, in a non-handicapped match, Tiger will beat me every time over 18 holes. In fact, he'll beat me almost every time over just 1 hole. But since I'm skilled enough to make the occasional birdie, I will beat him on 1 hole, though not very often.

Similarly, if Tiger and I played poker against one another, he could beat me in the short run, but he would have no chance if the game were set to last long enough. Thus, the only way to differentiate the skill factor in golf vs. poker is to consider it over an amount of time. Once you play either game long enough, the more skilled player is guaranteed to win, it is simply that the amount of time necessary to insure this result is much longer for poker.

So, in my opinion, poker is NOT a "game subject to chance", because if you play long enough, the better player will always win, just like golf. However, if we start to talk about roulette, or slots, or the like, those are "games subject to chance", because no matter how long you play them, you cannot determine who is the more skilled player.

Later, Greg Raymer (FossilMan)

[Todd Terry]

Greg:

I've read dozens of books on golf and poker, and have only seen discussions of probability in the poker books. "Subject to" does not mean "exclusively or predominantly governed by", it's a pretty weak standard. And in poker, the short term, where luck undoubtedly has a tremendous role, can be very lucrative, as you know. You might want to check out the comments in the Poker Legislation forum, a lot of people are not too happy with many of the PPA proposals. Thanks for responding.

Todd

[Keyser.]

We all agree in theory with that, Greg, but it is pretty obvious "subject to chance" applies to poker more than other games/sports, and should therefore be language that should probably be avoided.

[TheEngineer]

Fight for Online Poker!! Week of 11/26 & 12/3

1. We have three more weeks to sumbit our comments on the proposed UIGEA regulations (Dec. 12th) so let's make a lot of comments between now and then. Please go to https://pokerplayersalliance.org/new...le.php?DID=293 for instructions on submitting your comments and for ideas on what to submit.

To comment:

Click here to comment at the FRB site
Click here to comment at the Treasury Dept site. Select "DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY*" at line 2 (the circled "2"), click submit, then click the comment icon to right of the UIGEA proposed rule.

To review sumbitted comments:

Clck here to view comments made to the Federal Reserve
Click here to read UIGEA regulations comments at the Treasury Dept site. Select "DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY*", click submit, then click the link to the far left of the UIGEA proposed rule ("TREAS-DO-2007-0015").

2. The House Judiciary Committee held a hearing on Internet gaming on Nov. 14th. Please write and call your congressman to remind them of our victory. The letter we all co-wrote with PPA is at http://capwiz.com/pokerplayersallian...46&type=co. Sending that takes less than one minute; adding info about the hearing takes only a few extra minutes. Regardless of when you last called, let's call this week. Phone numbers are at http://capwiz.com/pokerplayersalliance/dbq/officials. And, please contact the committee at http://judiciary.house.gov/contact.aspx to express your support for online poker. We won -- let's make sure we continue to be heard.

3. Write to your governor to tell him state laws should support your freedom to play. If you have ANY connection to MA, please contact Gov. Patrick and tell him you won't tolerate a ban on Internet poker. If you have ANY connection to KY, please contact governor-elect Steve Beshear and ask him to ensure that Internet poker is not excluded in his proposal to legalize casino gaming in the state.

4. Regularly write to newspapers and post to blogs. A few posts here and there can start to put us in the national zeitgeist.

Please see Fight for Online Poker!! Week of 11/26 & 12/3 for details and to post replies (let's keep all discussion on the parent thread in Legislation...thanks). Also, please remember to visit the Legislation forum on occasion to keep an eye on what's going on. Thanks! [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]