Why did the major online poker networks do NOTHING?

[ChoicestHops]

Why would I log into Stars the past month and there would be no notification of this bill happening? Why didn't Stars have a pop-up every time a person logged into the client asking them to call their reps about the bill? Seriously, 2/3 of people that play poker online had no idea what was going on right now. The only people who know are the professionals, the 2+2ers, and the other people who take this game as a mode for profit. The majority of players logging on to the major sites are recrerational players who are not in the know.

I am not trying to harp on PokerStars, but why did Lee Jones disregard the comment that a player made on the final table at the WCOOP NL event that strassa won? A player at the table said something of the sorts: "Lee, remind everyone to call their senators tomorrow." Even on the radio broadcast, the guest announcer told Lee of this. Lee did not say a [censored] thing. WHY? Are you not worried that the majority of your market will be gone? Or do you already have plans to add us as a sunk cost and start marketing other countires to take the place of the United States?

I realize that the players that did not contact their reps are to hold for the recent action. But look at the WSOP for one. They could have had possibly 10,000+ next year. Guess what WSOP and affiliates? You will probably have a few hundred now. Why did you not say a damn thing during your boradcasts? You guys realize how valuable the online market is to getting people into the event, why not have a 30 second commercial telling the television viewers how important this bill will be to online poker?

As much as PartyGaming is worth they could have payed multi-millions in the pockets to sway some opinions. I am sorry if I am in the wrong here and Party and other major online players did actually spend some of their profits to do something.

In summary, I hold all major online poker websites in account for this action. You people have the voice, and more importantly, MILLIONS UPON MILLIONS of dollars to make a difference. And to my knowledge, you didn't do a damn thing.

[ChoicestHops]

Shameless bump to see if any discussion starts..

[mak15]

i was thinking the same thing. how much could it have possibly taken for party/stars/ub/etc... to stop this bill from happening?

[jmillerdls]

Well, I believe that they were measuring the chance that if nothing happened, and they told everyone, how many people might get scared and stop playing, against if something happened. Well, something happened, and I think they collectively screwed up huge.

[Nate tha\\\' Great]

I think we need a sticky on this topic.

1. There are limits on what anyone based offshore (e.g. PartyPoker, NETELLER) can do, both from a legal and practical perspective.

2. We don't know what degree of lobbying actually took place. The nature of lobbying is such that much needs to take place behind the scenes. It would be imprudent for the ABA to release a public statement saying "we'll cut off any funding for the Frist in '08 campaign if you keep pushing this bill, Mr. Majority Leader".

3. Several Senators had holds on the bill, something that could well have been the direct result of lobbying efforts. And even after Frist decided to play hardball, he had to shop around for several bills before he found one that would host his internet gambling legislation. This all moved very fast and at the end of the day, Frist's degree of determination was strong enough to overcome all but the strongest lobbying efforts.

4. The fact that the bill did NOT include langauge on the Wire Act shows a very deliberate attempt to compromise, which may well have been influenced by the lobbies. If the Wire Act langauge had been included too, then a lot of the workarounds that people are discussing would not be viable.

5. On the banking side, the lobbying efforts are in certain ways just beginning, as they can influence the way that the regulations are drawn up and enforced. There's plenty of wiggle room in the legislation to allow for "wink, wink, nudge, nudge" interpretations.

[AndyH69]

Nigel Payne, Chief Executive of SportingBet, the company that owns Paradise Poker, did some very effective campaigning.

He put forward an excellent argument for regulation during an episode of CBS's 60 Minutes programme when he appeared in a debate with Jon Kyl. It was first shown in November last year, and then repeated in the last few weeks. By all accounts, Nigel did a fantastic job, and won many people round to his way of thinking. See here for a summary of the CBS episode.

He has also done a lot of lobbying, and is apparently quite a familiar face around Capitol Holl. He would doubtless have done more had not the recent arrests of David Carruthers (from BetOnSports) and Peter Dicks (from Sportingbet) made travel to the US too risky. (The state of Louisiana currently has a warrant out for his arrest).

Though unable to travel to the US, he still maintained his high-profile campaigning, as this article in The Times (UK national paper) shows.

And he had even recently announced that he would step down from the Chief Executive role so that he could dedicate more time to lobbying for industry regulation in the US.

Now that's not what I call doing nothing!