5. Poker Players Alliance

The group that came together to help poker players fight the UIGEA, has made some huge strides in 2007. It has made trips to Washington, and according to some in the poker community, their work has been making some headway. The group is in constant need of our help, so be sure to check out www.theppa.org and lend a helping hand.

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The nation’s poker players are enlisting lawyers to keep them from running afoul of gambling laws.

A group called the Poker Players Alliance started operating a Litigation Support Network last week.

The alliance gives members free referrals to lawyers who can advise them on how to avoid overstepping legal limits while betting on their poker games.

“With the myriad local, state and federal laws impacting poker, the Litigation Support Network is an important service that our members can and should use,” said former New York Sen. Alfonse M. D’Amato, chairman of the Poker Players Alliance.

The nonprofit group claims to have nearly a million members nationwide.

Members play their games at private homes, taverns, charity events or over the Internet.

As long as they do not bet money, no state law allows for prosecution of poker players. Even if they gamble with only small amounts of money between friends in private games, there is almost no chance of prosecution.

But when the level of gambling could be considered a business, state and federal laws either require a license or forbid it outright.

That’s where the Litigation Support Network comes in. The Poker Players Alliance wants poker players to know when they step over the line to operating a business.

“The patchwork of state and local laws relating to poker is leaving [Poker Players Alliance] members confused about what is legal and what is illegal,” said Patrick Fleming, a lawyer who leads the Litigation Support Network.

The proliferation of online poker games and gambling has led to more police raids of suspected gamblers, according to the alliance.

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For Immediate Release

Washington, D.C. (March 11, 2008) – To further leverage its nationwide reach, the Poker Players Alliance (PPA), the leading poker grassroots advocacy group, today tapped 50 members to serve as PPA directors for their respective states.  The State Directors program is part of the organization’s comprehensive strategy to become a player in both national and state-level policy debates.
(more…)

The Poker Players Alliance (PPA), the leading poker grassroots advocacy group, today announced that Drew Lesofski has joined the organization as director of Grassroots and External Affairs. Lesofski is tasked with managing PPA’s growing grassroots operations.
  (more…)

Poker Players Alliance is proud to be a sponsor in Alaska Poker Association’s “Bad Beat on Cancer” Event on Feb.24th.

“We are excited about Phil and Rafe coming to Alaska. This will be the first time
any professional poker players have hosted any events here. We have invited the
Mayor and other officials to join us at a “celebrity” table. I believe that
events like this really help promote poker in a good way.”
(more…)

Join the PPA Litigation Support Network

If you are an attorney and interested in being included in the PPA Litigation Support Network. Please click the link below to submit your information.

PPA Litigation Support Network Application

What is the PPA Litigation Support Network?
The PPA maintains a list of local attorneys who have familiarity and experience with gaming laws. We provide this list to members in need of legal assistance.

Library:

Fantasy Sports: A Game Of Skill That Is Implicitly Legal Under State Law, And Now Explicitly Legal Under Federal Law (Jon Boswell, 1/29/08)

Poker Is Good For You (David Sklansky & Alan N. Schoonmaker, Ph.D., 09/07)

Harvard Ponders Just What It Takes To Excel at Poker: Prof. Nesson and Others Stress the Skill Involved; Why It’s a Legal Issue (Wall Street Journal, 05/03/07)

Poker vs. The Law: Should Internet Gambling Be Illegal? (William M. Grady, 2007)

Poker Superstars: Skill or Luck? (Peter Fishman and Devin G. Pope, 12/04/06)

Poker Flops under New York Law (Bennett M. Liebman, 11/1/06)

Poker: Public Policy, Law, Mathematics and The Future of an American Tradition (Anthony Cabot, Robert Hannum, 2006)

Reconsidering Regulation: A Historical View Of The Legality Of Internet Poker And Discussion Of The Internet Gambling Ban Of 2006 (Christopher Grohman, 2006)

Can playing poker be good for you? Poker as a transferable skill (Adrian Parke, Mark Griffiths, Jonathan Parke, 09/12/05)

Game Theory and Poker (Jason Swanson, 04/03/05)

Heads-Up Face-Off: On Style and Skill in the Game of Poker (Kevin Burns, 09/23/04)

Mark Twain on Science vs. Luck (George Epstein)

Poker IS Science; Algorithm is Proof (George Epstein)

The Poker Players Alliance, the grassroots lobbying organization that is the voice of poker players in Washington D.C., has become a significant force in the halls of political power in the nation’s capital and is only going to expand their presence in 2008, according to Executive Director John Pappas.

“2007 was certainly a huge year for us,” Pappas, who took over the day-to-day leadership of the organization in the latter part of 2007, said in a conversation with PokerListings.com. “Our membership ranks swelled to almost 800,000 and we were able to get a surprising level of support from members of the House of Representatives.”

Pappas indicated the Congressional support the organization received was significant.

“We’re not talking about freshman members of Congress here,” he said. “When you have such people as veteran House members Barney Frank and Robert Wexler garnering support for their bills, you know there is support for the poker community.”

Another important step for the cause was when former Senator Alfonse D’Amato agreed to become the Chairman of the Board of Directors.

“It was a huge coup for us, with his knowledge of the Congressional system and his love for the game of poker, and we couldn’t ask for a better person to represent our group,” Pappas said.

As the new year (and an election year) has begun, Pappas has a distinct idea as to how the PPA will enter into 2008.

“First off, we want to continue to add to our membership. We are near one million members now, and there doesn’t seem to be a plateau,” Pappas said. “If there are a million supporters for the game of poker, why not 1.5 million?”

The organization is also continuing its efforts to get State Directors for every state, according to Pappas.

“In January, we sent out an e-mail to see which members might be interested in working for the PPA’s efforts in each state,” he said. “We expected maybe three to four hundred responses and got over 1,000! These State Directors are going to be at the forefront of many of our efforts across the U. S., from recruitment to legislative efforts.”

Those efforts will also include focusing on the Congressional races taking place this year and trying to motivate the PPA’s membership to get involved in the elections, Pappas said.

“We also have aggressive plans for continuing our work on Capitol Hill,” he said. “We are working heavily on fine tuning Rep. Frank’s bill (which calls for an overturning of the UIGEA, signed into law in 2006, and regulation of the industry) and we have continued interest in Rep. Wexler’s efforts. We are also supporting Rep. Shelly Berkley’s continued drive for a study into the proper action of the United States regarding online gaming.”

When asked about the issues that face these different pieces of legislation, Pappas admitted that they have to earn support in the other branch of Congress.

“While we have excellent support in the House of Representatives, we need to earn some support from members of the Senate and find sponsors there to support the bills on the record,” he said.

When it comes to the World Series of Poker, Pappas envisions a very prominent role for the PPA’s efforts there come June.

“We want to have a booth presence there at the event, but we want to go a bit further than we have before,” Pappas said. “While we want to increase our membership, we also want to provide the ability for poker players to register to vote. We want to provide the poker community with the ability to contact their representatives through an electronic mail drive as well. We also have other ideas we’re working on, so stay tuned!”

One of the most important issue on Pappas’ and the PPA’s mind, though, is that the industry needs regulation rather than prohibition.

“Some of the events in the online world last year clearly demonstrated that a regulated industry is the best avenue,” Pappas said. “It’s not a question of if it will happen; it is only a question of when it will occur. It’s a political impossibility to ignore the realities, that we need a regulated industry to protect the players and the game itself.”

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