November 14th: House Judiciary Committee Hearing Thread

[catlover]

TE and D$D, please find a way to stop fighting with each other. This does not help us at all.

[DeadMoneyDad]

[ QUOTE ]
The question is are the offshore online gambling sites illegal? Case law says yes for sports betting and no for other types, but that was before the WTO decision. Also, does this excise tax apply to offshore companies? No other nation taxes foreign online gambling sites not operating within it borders.
Moreover, would this remain the tax if online gambling was regulated and taxed? If so, then I agree that all the offshore online gambling sites would gladly pay it for legality.

[/ QUOTE ]

JP,

From meetings on the Hill, the hearings, and other discussions, I think the revenue issue is perhaps our best "angle" of attack. Too many personal freedom issues get bogged down for so many reasons, trying to argue my “freedom is more valuable than your claimed harm” for one.

You end up as we did in the hearing with Annie suggesting her anecdotal experience trumps the Foes of Funs' and should be the basis for future legislation. Any time we show a shining example as Chairman Conyers did with Shelly, you get patted on the head and buttered up an exceptional person but….

Then they trot out the grieving widowed spouse and the fresh scrubbed faces of the little children and the Pastor with the second story man bungling neighborhood thief son. You might win such a PR personal freedom issue political battle but why not "nip it in the bud" if you have the means?

However, building on the no harm to others freedom issue, revenue for the 2% to 6% of any given population given to abuse of anything even remotely pleasurable, firmly defeats their main premise IMO, as they offer no solution other than "no fun" for the 98% to 92% of the rest of the responsible adult population.

This is why I am very unhappy but resigned to some sort of deposit tax. The market has shown a willingness to pay it. Congress has already "passed" this “tax” already; they just did so in a manner that ensured it would be "collected" by others.

IMO even a system that allowed banks to collect ATM type fees with the rest of the 5% going to a new revenue stream for the Federal Government would really suck from a consumer point of view, it seems politically viable and demonstratively proven economically IMO.

When you possibly even add in the amount of uncollected taxes under the current tax code, our little game and issue could bring some number of Billions of new dollars ANNUALLY to the Federal Government. If Antigua is loosing $3.5 billion, net from a simple rake of just the games located there, imagine for a moment the 100's of Billions that must flow to generate that amount of net profit.

Beyond the gross rake to the operators that is removed from the overall cumulative US poker bankroll, poker overall is a zero sum game. Some win and most loose, I've seen estimates that per individual as high as 95% of all poker players are losers.

From a tax perspective poker is NOT a zero sum game. The vast majority of losses are not deductible, and even those are capped and at very devalued in total effect in the current tax code. The tax code ensures that something approaching 100% of all winnings are taxable.

Any legislation that misguidedly attempts to place any tax burden on the poker operators other than taxing their net profits will be totally misguided, as all of that will be passed on to "us".

I hate to have to pay at least 5% to deposit, and be hit again to electronically to withdraw to some degree. Simply requiring site operators to withhold or report existing taxes would automatically generate a new annual Multi-Billion dollar revenue stream for the Federal Gov't WITHOUT changing a single aspect of the on-line poker economy or tax code.

Placing the individuals reporting burden on the site operators is not harder than requiring a monthly, quarterly, or annual statement is a simple data dump to your on-line account history, almost free for the operators’ to program and keep up. What is the cost of mailing 1099's for banks and other intuitions.

Given the Patriot Act as well as other requirements of the banking system to "know their" customers, you remove additionally all the money laundering and terrorist funding fears advanced by our opponents and in the 1997 NGIS.

The banking industry has shown its muscle, let them go get a "safe harbor" for exposure to suits from wives and deadbeats for their collection problems, credit cards would be nice but no one should really be gambling on credit. If I could fund my poker account as easy as I can pay my utility bill I do not even need to maintain a large separate on-line offshore-unregulated poker account!

From some sort of move like this you make the US banks happy as a good portion of those lost trillions of dollars that moved off-shore are re-aquired in an instant, never to be lost again.

Also as the Aristotle rep explained and as shown by the proposed new UK study panel, requiring operators to "better know" their customers you even further cut into much of even the highest percentage of problem gamblers, and in effect from the gov't perspective poker self funds the treatment.

So baring the participation of US banking and all the built in safe guards that brings to the table, Congress is going 180 degrees away from a solution, as evidenced by the history of failure of the prohibition model advanced by the Foes of Fun types.

Just Imagine as Tuff has suggested, both publicly and privately, the draw for all the previous and new fish to the waters of a on-line poker world of easy deposit and withdraw let alone FDIC insured poker accounts!


D$D

[beanie]

[ QUOTE ]
Frank's bill, as I said, needs work before it gets a 100% support rating from me. But TE makes the excellent point (as usual) that supporting moving the Frank bill forward is momentum in the right direction and keeps our enemies on the defensive. There is nothing bad about supporting the Frank bill "in general" while saying that it still needs work on the finer points to become truly good legislation. I am sure the PPA will lobby for corrections to those finer points before it comes to a real vote. Also, Barney Frank was the first, and for a while the only, congressperson to stick up for our right to play as a matter of personal freedom. He deserves our support for that, if not our 100% agreement with his legislation.

Skallagrim

[/ QUOTE ]

I would take issue with this. The Frank Bill is bad for us if State's can easily opt out. Also some of our biggest supporters get screwed with the Frank Bill, at least that is the way it seems to me. Today everyone can play, to be legal a site like FTP will have to determine where and who a player is. Sites like FTP and Stars aren't guaranteed anything with the Frank bill and that is BS, they have been on the front line.

That doesn't mean I don't support Barney Frank but that bill will make things illegal in certain places and that is counterproductive to our agenda.

Please tell me why I am wrong on this, I just don't believe supporting what I believe to be a bad bill is good for everyone and it scares me that people on our side don't know what it will do. When Annie was asked she blanked. Surely I would think Howard and Chris and the boys know the direction they are steering this ship.

Remember, don't focus on the fact that what we have is awful because it isn't. Focus on the fact that this will define "legal" and will cause people to get arrested if we do it the wrong way.

I want to be wrong, so please tell me that I am.

[Skallagrim]

You are not wrong beanie, just placing the cart before the horse IMHO. Frank's bill hasnt even come up for a committee vote, when it does amendments can be offered. Amendments that address your very viable concerns about licensing and the other problem provisions. I am not gonna support this bill if the final version makes FTP illegal - and I dont think it will, some sites already ban players from certain states (a smart legal move IMHO), FTP could too, if it had to.

The state opt-out provision is there with an eye towards political necessity - but it will be the first to go, I believe, because it is the opposite of what the WTO requires (but the actual impact of the WTO is still a guess). Also, some states are "opting out" already: WA, LA and Illinois have specific laws making playing poker online illegal. MA has one being proposed. So the Frank bill is not gonna make poker illegal where it already isnt, or where the political will already exists to make it illegal.

When the PPA supports the Frank bill it supports the general idea of legal, regulated internet gambling. I support that idea too. I also support moving the Frank bill along with hearings and amendments that get the details right before urging my representative to vote for it. There is still a long way to go with that process.

Dont lose sight of the forest for the trees! But also dont lose sight of your very legitimate concerns about the Frank bill, just get in there and play: "its a good first step, lets rally folks around the central idea and then turn to getting the details right." If we lose in that process and the final bill is bad for us, we THEN remove our support for the bill, not before.

Again, though, none of this applies to the Wexler bill, and my reps already know I want them to support that as is.

Skallagrim

[JPFisher55]

D$D, I don't disagree with you in theory. However, a 5% tax on deposits would be way way too much. Under such a tax, no US based online gambling firms could compete with offshore firms.

I am not sure that any offshore firm has to pay such tax to the US. Mr. Kaplan's defense to the evasion of excise tax in his case is that BetOnSports was not subject to such a tax because it was offshore. A US court might disagree, but no foreign court will. It's a shame that the US judicial system is losing, or has lost, all respect in the industrialized world.

Of course, the mentioned .25% tax would be accepted by all parties. The 2% probably would not be accepted by foreign firms, but might permit US online gambling providers to compete with foreign ones.

Truth is that if US is going to collect revenue from Internet gambling, then it must legalize it, open it to foreign competition, not overly burden domestic providers with useless regulation, not overly tax domestic providers and expect very litte, if any, taxation from foreign firms. I doubt that Congress can accomplish these goals, they lack the smarts and are too smug. I have always stated that the greatest collection of stupidity in the world resides in Washington, D.C.

[beanie]

it seems the states rights provision is in there to make the bill more palatable. That is like giving the states a stick to whack us with similar to the way they treat cigarettes and alcohol. It is a version of "hate the sin but love the sinner"

In my view "hating the sin and taxing the hell out of the sinner for sinning" is a big no thank you.

Also, I believe it is 12 states that have a provision of some sort. That would be 25% of the people gone.

I can just see it coming down like this. In some deep dark room someone is going to say, "this is all we can get", if we take that it will make criminals out of a lot of us. We currently aren't criminals in the eyes of the DOJ. Defining that for them is not something I would like to do.

The PPA has to come out and say that they are not for any bill that makes poker players criminals. Boom, there is your talking point. Or even better, The PPA is not for any bill that takes away civil liberties from American citizens as it relates to poker.

We have momentum, let's use it and not just take what we can get.

[DeadMoneyDad]

[ QUOTE ]

TE and D$D, please find a way to stop fighting with each other. This does not help us at all.

[/ QUOTE ]

DONE!


D$D

[DeadMoneyDad]

[ QUOTE ]
D$D, I don't disagree with you in theory. However, a 5% tax on deposits would be way way too much. Under such a tax, no US based online gambling firms could compete with offshore firms.

[/ QUOTE ]

If you have not gleaned from my "history”, I have something of a Middle Eastern bazaar approach to negotiations. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

I am not married to 5% at all. I do not want anymore fees than I have to pay. I just want to keep the ball rolling. In the end the "big guys”, AGA and IGC, will have to fight the economic battle.

[ QUOTE ]
I doubt that Congress can accomplish these goals, they lack the smarts and are too smug. I have always stated that the greatest collection of stupidity in the world resides in Washington, D.C.

[/ QUOTE ]

That is why I have no trouble with a golden carrot on a stick we then use to beat them senseless with once we get them far enough down our path. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

Overall, strategy wise, the UIGEA is completely unworkable, the WTO moves the Senate, and Revenue moves the House, and a sensible regulatory mix with enforced software protection helps those in the middle, to mute Catherine Hanaway (DOJ) criminal concerns, and further makes Tom McClusky (Foes of Fun) look like more of a fool and tool than ever by offering the only partical method of addressing problem gamblers.


D$D

[rakewell]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Any proposal that invites federal licensing, taxation, and or regulation of online gambling would, in my view, be ultimately destructive.

[/ QUOTE ]

btw, do your homework, then post, or ask a question if you do not know, not make a factual statement. Try; I think, I believe, what about, how about ect.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm puzzled by this, OBG. When I have made factual assertions unqualified by indications that I'm expressing an opinion or that I'm unsure of what I'm saying, it is because I'm highly confident of the fact I'm putting forth. In every such case, I'm willing to either source it if asked, or retract it in the unlikely event that somebody can demonstrate that I'm wrong, or clarify that it is simply an unprovable opinion, if I haven't made the distinction clear.

Conversely, when I'm simply expressing a subjective opinion, I'm pretty good about including clear indicators that that's what I'm doing.

In the snippet you quote from me, I explicitly included the phrase "in my view." I would think that most readers would corretly interpret that as a signal that what is expressed in that sentence is an opinion or guess. In spite of that pretty clear flag, you chide me for *not* including such, and suggest instead that I employ phrases such as "I think, I believe, what about, how about ect."

Can you please explain how using "I think" in the sentence that you quoted from me would be any more clear, as a marker that an opinion (rather than a fact) is being expressed, than the "in my view" that I chose to use? They seem to me like they're awfully close in what they denote and connote.

Like I said, you've genuinely baffled me here.

[DeadMoneyDad]

[ QUOTE ]

Like I said, you've genuinely baffled me here.

[/ QUOTE ]

I guessing 2+2 terms you will have to just get over it!

Or not....


D$D

"Moving parts in rubbing contact require lubrication to avoid excessive wear. Honorifics and formal politeness provide lubrication where people rub together. Often the very young, the untraveled, the naive, the unsophisticated deplore these formalities as "empty," "meaningless," or "dishonest," and scorn to use them. No matter how "pure" their motives, they thereby throw sand into machinery that does not work too well at best." ---Lazarus Long (From "Time Enough For Love" by Robert A. Heinlein)