Poker Regulation Promoted in Congressional Magazine
BY: STEPHEN A. MURPHY | steve.murphy@cardplayer.com
PUBLISHED: Wednesday Feb 04, 2009 10:39 AM
Poker Players Alliance Chairman Alfonse D'Amato Authored the Article
With a new president and a new administration in the White House, the Poker Players Alliance has stepped up its efforts to enact legislation that would regulate online poker. Last week, PPA Chairman Alfonse D’Amato authored a piece entitled, “The New Deal: Regulate and Tax iPoker,” which was featured in Roll Call, the Capitol Hill magazine.
In the article, D’Amato — a former Republican Senator from New York — argues that with the country’s current downtrodden economic situation, legislators must be more inclined to give online poker a second look because of the revenue it could conceivably bring in.
“The online poker industry and the millions of Americans who play on the Internet have been crying out for regulation and taxation,” D’Amato wrote. “The absence of government regulation, and in fact the quixotic efforts to ban Internet poker, has left U.S. consumers vulnerable and left billions in potential tax revenue on the virtual poker table.”
D’Amato goes on to reference the public support for regulation, citing the fact that the regulation of online poker was consistently in the top 10 proposals for President Obama’s Citizen’s Briefing Book website and that it easily had the most user comments supporting the idea.
The article is both adamant in its commitment to regulation and its criticism of the government’s current lack of oversight, calling the United States “asleep at the wheel.”
The PPA is a non-profit membership organization dedicated to establishing “favorable laws that provide poker players with a secure, safe, and regulated place to play.”
The entire article can be read at Roll Call.