Fight for Online Gaming!! -- Weekly action thread

[TheEngineer]

As always, actions also at https://pokerplayersalliance.org/new...le.php?DID=234

[TheEngineer]

My submitted comment (x-posted from another thread):

Jennifer J. Johnson
Secretary, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
20th Street and Constitution Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20551

Dear Secretary Johnson,

Following careful review the proposed regulations (Docket No. R-1298) implementing the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 (UIGEA), I agree with the authors of the regulations - the regulations as proposed do have several weaknesses that are inherent to UIGEA itself. The primary risk is that of overblocking transactions to legal businesses.

I live in Kentucky. Internet horse race betting is legal here under the Interstate Horse Racing Act of 1978 (IHRA). Additionally, Internet poker is not illegal here under any state or federal law (federal case law has consistently held that the Wire Act applies only to sports betting). Despite the exclusion of the domestic horse racing industry operating under the auspices of the IHRA from the provisions of the Act, banks may choose to comply with these regulations by banning all Internet gambling transactions (as was noted in the proposed regulations themselves). I am concerned that these legal businesses will be unfairly affected by these regulations, affecting my ability to access and patronize these legal businesses.

An additional issue concerning overblocking is the risk of an illegal restraint of trade. As the United States recently lost its trade dispute (and its final appeal) with Antigua and Barbuda with regards to providing of cross-border betting services, additional restrictions via overblocking resulting from these regulations could result in either new or increased WTO penalties, especially as domestic financial transactions are largely excluded from these regulations.

I urge a revision to the proposed regulations to ensure a proactive bias towards processing of all financial transactions. To accomplish this, I propose revising the regulations to remove from the regulations all penalties for all but willful and egregious noncompliance. Also, I propose that the Monitoring section of the regulations be revised to require banks to process all lawful transactions.

The last thing our country needs is more impediments to lawful financial transactions.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

TheEngineer

[TheEngineer]

My letter to one of my senators (I sent a similar letter to my rep and other senator):


Senator Mitch McConnell
United States Senate
361-A Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510

Dear Senator McConnell:

The Department of the Treasury and the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System announced yesterday the release of a joint proposed rule to implement the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 (UIGEA). Following careful review the proposed regulations, I believe the regulations as proposed have several weaknesses that are inherent to UIGEA itself. The primary risk is that of overblocking transactions to legal businesses, particularly Internet horse racing.

As you know, interstate Internet horse race betting is legal here in the commonwealth under the Interstate Horse Racing Act of 1978 (IHRA). Additionally, Internet poker is not illegal under any Kentucky state law or any federal law (federal case law has consistently held that the Wire Act applies only to sports betting). However, despite your insertion of an exclusion for much of the domestic horse racing industry from the provisions of UIGEA, the vagueness of the regulations may compel banks to comply with these regulations by banning ALL Internet gambling transactions, regardless of legal status! This concern was even noted in the proposed regulations themselves (and was even given a name – “overblocking”). Kentuckians everywhere should be concerned that our equine industry will be unfairly affected by these regulations, as will our ability to access and patronize these legal businesses.

An additional risk to overblocking is the risk of an illegal restraint of trade. As the United States recently lost its trade dispute (and its final appeal) with Antigua and Barbuda with regards to providing of cross-border betting services, additional restrictions via overblocking resulting from these regulations could result in new and/or increased WTO penalties, especially as domestic financial transactions are largely excluded from these regulations.

I ask that you review these regulations and request that they be revised to remove all penalties for all but willful and egregious noncompliance. Also, I ask that you request that the Monitoring section of the regulations be revised to require banks to process all lawful transactions. If you are unable to get the regulations changed to meet the needs of the people of Kentucky, I ask that you move to deny funding for enforcement of the regulations (which would be a good idea – banks should not be in the business of enforcing laws anyway). I further ask that you help clarify this situation by sponsoring HR 2610, the Skill Game Protection Act, in the Senate. Poker and horse racing should not be part of this prohibition.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

TheEngineer

[TheEngineer]

PPA has posted some ideas for futher action as well: https://pokerplayersalliance.org/new...le.php?DID=178

[TheEngineer]

I'm going to put out the updated actions tomorrow. I imagine it will include sending our the PPA letter we jointly wrote, commenting on the regs, and participating in the virual fly-in. If you have other ideas, please post them here.

[TheEngineer]

Fight for Online Poker!! Weeks of 10/21 & 10/28

Based on our discussions, let’s do the following this week and next:

1. Regardless of when you last contacted Congress, in support of the PPA visit to Washington D.C, please write AND call Congress (your senators and your representative) on Monday, Oct. 21 or Tuesday, Oct. 22. The letter we all co-wrote with PPA is at http://capwiz.com/pokerplayersallian...46&type=co; sending that takes less than one minute. Phone numbers are at http://capwiz.com/pokerplayersalliance/dbq/officials.

2. Online public commenting for the proposed UIGEA regulations is now available. You have until Dec. 12 to comment, so please try to 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 comment.

3. Let’s write and otherwise lobby Congress and affected businesses (horse/dog tracks & associations, banks, Microsoft, movie studios, etc.) concerning the UIGEA regs, IGREA, the Wexler bill, and the WTO. This Congressional session is coming to an end next month, so it’s push time!

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


Thanks everyone! [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

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Contact Info:

Your senators: www.senate.gov
Your representative: www.house.gov

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV)
528 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
(202) 224-3542
http://reid.senate.gov/contact/email_form.cfm

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY)
United States Senate
361-A Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
(202) 224-2541
http://mcconnell.senate.gov/contact_form.cfm

Michael Duncan (from Kentucky)
Chairman, Republican National Committee
Republican National Committee
310 First Street, SE
Washington, D.C. 20003
email: Chairman@gop.com

Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)
Office of the Speaker
H-232, US Capitol
Washington, DC 20515
(202) 225-0100
http://speaker.house.gov/contact/
email: AmericanVoices@mail.house.gov

Rep. Steny Hoyer
House Majority Leader
H-107 Capitol Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
(202) 225-3130

Rep. John Boehner (R-OH)
Office of the Republican Leader
H-204 The Capitol
Washington, DC 20515
Phone: (202) 225-4000
Fax: (202) 225-5117

Pres. Bush: comments@whitehouse.gov

Horse tracks: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showfl...=0#Post12335695

Democratic National Committee: http://www.democrats.org/contact.html

Letters to the editor, Washington Post: letters@washpost.com
Letters to the editor, New York Times: letters@nytimes.com

[TheEngineer]

November 3, 2007

***** ********
Legislative Assistant
Office of the Honorable Geoff Davis
United States House of Representatives
1108 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515-1704

Dear *******:

Thank you for taking the time to meet with my fellow poker players and me on October 24 during the Poker Players Alliance Fly-In. I was impressed with your knowledge of this issue. It was certainly a pleasure meeting with you.

I do have a couple of observations for your consideration. Rep. Davis and you sent me a letter a few months ago in response to my concerns regarding the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA). In it, you stated that Internet gaming is not legal. However, federal case law has consistently held that the Wire Act applies only to sports betting (1). As for state law, Kentucky, like the majority of states, has no law prohibiting Internet poker. As a result, many offshore sites continue to legally offer Internet poker within the U.S. In fact, sites that left the U.S. market with the passage of UIGEA, most notably Doyle Brunson’s site, Doyle’s Room, are returning to the American market (2). Unfortunately, U.S.-based sites have been prohibited from opening under pressure from the Justice Department. This has resulted in the exact opposite of the ideal situation, from a U.S. perspective. Rather than U.S.-based sites, subject to U.S. laws and regulations, serving the world, offshore sites serve us.

My next observation concerns the recent Annenberg Internet gaming study. You commented that this study showed a decline in Internet poker play by those deemed by the study authors to be “college-age youths” (defined in the study as 18-22; please note that 100% of these “youths” are adults and 40% of them are 21 years of age or older). The study is actually quite fascinating. First of all, the pre-UIGEA percentage of college-age “youths” playing cards for money on the Internet at least weekly was only 5.8%. This is hardly an epidemic. More interesting was the pre-UIGEA rate of Internet gaming by minors – 0.0%! Seems the industry’s age controls are working. If Rep. Davis' concern is poker playing by young adults, this could clearly be remedied at the state level with appropriate legislation. Sites honor these limits already, as evidenced by the very study touted by Focus on the Family!

The Annenberg study also discusses problem gaming. Unfortunately, the study tended to bias the extent of the problem, in my opinion, by asking questions any winning poker player would answer affirmatively. For example, the question “(have you) often found yourself thinking about gambling” would get many affirmative responses from poker players with no compulsive behaviors. After all, poker is a game of skill. We do think about strategy and how to improve. People engaged in other hobbies and professions think about their activities as well. As an engineer, I often think of better ways to improve the ***** design (the **** for the **** program, which I thank Rep. Davis for supporting). Am I a “problem engineer”? If the issue at hand is problem gambling, let’s address this with industry funded treatment for compulsive behaviors and with self-exclusion lists. The industry has consistently offered this. This would be far more effective than federal prohibition, in my humble opinion.

You also mentioned terrorist financing. I do wonder how many liberties we’re expected to surrender in the name of fighting terrorism. It is especially troubling in this instance, as there has never been a documented case of terrorist financing via online poker. Sites already have controls in place to prevent use of sites for illegally moving money from one party to another, and these were proven to be effective at the June 8 House Financial Services Committee hearing on Internet gambling. The irony here is that explicit legalization would clearly improve the situation here…U.S.-based sites would follow U.S. law by definition, and offshore sites could be compelled to report transactions exceeding specific thresholds as a condition of licensing requirements. Again, we are clearly looking at the law of unintended consequences at work.

Finally, I wish to remind you that Gov. Fletcher will lose in a landslide on Tuesday. His demonization of gambling did absolutely nothing to improve his weak poll numbers. If Kentuckians are not opposed to physical casinos offering games of chance in the commonwealth, or to a gubernatorial candidate who supports them, do they care about adults playing poker on their own computers in their own homes? It does not appear that they do.

I do feel Focus on the Family is overplaying their hand on this issue. The people of Kentucky’s Fourth District are not anti-poker, nor do they want big government nanny-statish censorship of the Internet. I personally do not see anything conservative about big government prohibitions on Internet poker, nor do most of Rep. Davis’ fellow Republicans. I urge you to recommend that Rep. Davis support either HR 2046, the Internet Gambling Regulation and Enforcement Act of 2007 or HR 2610, the Skill Game Protection Act.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,


TheEngineer


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1. In re MasterCard Int’l, et al., 132 F. Supp. 2d 468, (E.D. La. 2001), upheld on appeal by the Fifth Circuit – 2002 C05 518 (USCA5, 2002)
2. www.doylesroom.com, statement on main page, effective October 19th, 2007
3. http://www.annenbergpublicpolicycent...t18version.pdf, October 18, 2007

[TheEngineer]

Fight for Online Poker!! Weeks of 11/5 & 11/12

Based on our discussions, let’s do the following this week and next:

1. We have one more month to get our UIGEA comments submitted. We have until Dec. 12th, so let's make a lot of comments between now and then. This hasn't shown up on the FoF action plan (released a couple of days ago), so we may have a head-start here. Please go to https://pokerplayersalliance.org/new...le.php?DID=293 for instructions on submitting your comments.

2. As a result of the Fly-In and our hard work this year, we have good mommentum now. If you haven't written to Congress in the past 30 days, please do so. The letter we all co-wrote with PPA is at http://capwiz.com/pokerplayersallian...46&type=co; sending that takes less than one minute. Regardless of when you last called, let's call this week and next. Phone numbers are at http://capwiz.com/pokerplayersalliance/dbq/officials.

3. If you have ANY connection to MA, please contact Gov. Patrick and tell him you won't tolerate a ban on Internet poker. Also, contact Barney Frank for help. He is powerful in the Mass. Democratic party.

4. If you have ANY connection to KY, please contact soon-to-be 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.

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


Thanks everyone! [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

--------------------------------------------------------

Contact Info:

Your senators: www.senate.gov
Your representative: www.house.gov

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV)
528 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
(202) 224-3542
http://reid.senate.gov/contact/email_form.cfm

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY)
United States Senate
361-A Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
(202) 224-2541
http://mcconnell.senate.gov/contact_form.cfm

Michael Duncan (from Kentucky)
Chairman, Republican National Committee
Republican National Committee
310 First Street, SE
Washington, D.C. 20003
email: Chairman@gop.com

Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)
Office of the Speaker
H-232, US Capitol
Washington, DC 20515
(202) 225-0100
http://speaker.house.gov/contact/
email: AmericanVoices@mail.house.gov

Rep. Steny Hoyer
House Majority Leader
H-107 Capitol Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
(202) 225-3130

Rep. John Boehner (R-OH)
Office of the Republican Leader
H-204 The Capitol
Washington, DC 20515
Phone: (202) 225-4000
Fax: (202) 225-5117

Pres. Bush: comments@whitehouse.gov

Horse tracks: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showfl...=0#Post12335695

Democratic National Committee: http://www.democrats.org/contact.html

Letters to the editor, Washington Post: letters@washpost.com
Letters to the editor, New York Times: letters@nytimes.com

[TheEngineer]

If you want to post what you really think about Dobson: http://www.townhall.com/news/politics-el...0a-dae4ccc2a9f1

[Uglyowl]

[ QUOTE ]
If you want to post what you really think about Dobson: http://www.townhall.com/news/politics-el...0a-dae4ccc2a9f1

[/ QUOTE ]

Done.."joro" I stayed away from the poker stance and just bashed Dobson. I think I have an uglyowl account I will chime in later.