Two days prior to the expected release of sanctions that will be decided by an arbitration committee of the WTO regarding the claim of Antigua & Barbuda in the case of cross-border trade in services for recreational gambling against the U.S., Rep. Ellen O. Taucher [CA-10], signed on to Rep. Barney Frank’s IGREA (H.R.2046) to become the 45th representative to do so.

Congresswoman Taucher is currently serving her 6th term as a representative from California’s 10th district. She is the Chairman of the House New Democrat Coalition, the largest centrist caucus in the House of Representatives. This committee is charged with enacting policies that maintain U.S. competitiveness, meet the challenges of globalization, and strengthen national security.

Rep. Taucher is also a member of the Aviation sub-committee, the powerful Highways, Transit and Pipelines subcommittee, she is chairman of the Strategic Forces Subcommittee and is only the third woman to chair an Armed Services Subcommittee, and a member of the Water Resources and Environment subcommittee. Taucher also serves on the subcommittees of Air and Land Forces, and Oversight and Investigations.

“We commend Rep. Taucher for her leadership and insight on this critical issue,” said Gordon Price, CEO of Casinogamblingweb.com. “We urge Congresswoman Taucher to continue to lead this great country and encourage her to speak to other representatives in Congress regarding this important issue.”

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Dan Michalski likes nothing more than to sit at a table and play Texas hold ‘em.

But it’s been harder for the North Texas man to find a good game lately, because Dallas police keep raiding everything from VFW halls to underground poker games, ticketing players, arresting operators and confiscating everything from the chips to the tables.

Players fear that the crackdown on poker won’t stop at city borders, but spread throughout the state as long as Texas outlaws the games where the house gets a percentage of the pot.

“It’s a shame,” said Michalski, a poker blogger, player and editor of pokerati.com. “It’s not like the people running these rooms are getting rich. A lot of people in good rooms are just trying to provide a service. What’s wrong with them being able to pay the rent, buy food, with the money?

“This is frustrating, to say the least,” he said. “These laws themselves are questionable.”

Police say they are following the law, which says poker games in which the house gets a percentage of the pot, a rake, are illegal.

And police say they’re going to track them down and bust them.

In recent years, raids of organized poker games where the house gets a rake have picked up in Dallas, and now Tarrant County law enforcement is pledging to shut down illegal gambling.

“If we find it and it’s in our jurisdiction, then we’re going to work it,” said Mike Johnston, executive chief deputy of the Tarrant County Sheriff’s Department. “We haven’t run across an ongoing poker situation where the house gets a cut.

“But with all the World Series of Poker on TV, it’s naive to say it’s not going on,” he said. “If we find it, we’ll get warrants and shut them down.”

This in a state where former gubernatorial candidate Kinky Friedman once joked, “We invented Texas hold ‘em here, [but] we can’t even play it.”

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Happy Holidays to PPA Members!

The PPA wants to help you start fighting for poker in 2008 with your own free PPA Poker Table.

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Chip Reese, whose mix of intellect, poise and nerve propelled him to renowned eminence among the minuscule club of humans who convene to wager millions on poker games, died Tuesday at his home in Las Vegas. He was 56.

His friend Doyle Brunson, also a renowned poker player, said Reese, whose birth name was David, appeared to have died of a heart attack after learning he had pneumonia the same day.

At age 6, Reese was beating fifth-graders at card games. He so dominated poker play at his Dartmouth fraternity that it named the card room after him. He was admitted to Stanford Law School but gave up plans to go there after stopping in Las Vegas and turning $400 into $66,000. His placid sans-souci mien was a professional gambler’s dream.

“I can bet $100,000 and feel nothing,” he said in an interview with People magazine in 2003. “If you think about the money and what it means, you’re gone.”

Reese won three World Series of Poker events, the crown jewels of tournament poker, but his preference was for high-stakes private games with high rollers. Even as better-known poker players appeared under bright lights for television, he lurked off camera in games with considerably more remunerative potential.

“Many consider Chip the greatest cash player who ever lived,” said Jeffrey Pollack, commissioner of the World Series of Poker.

Brunson, who billed himself as Texas Dolly in winning 10 World Series events, added that Reese was “arguably the best poker player who ever lived.”

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After it was discovered that a recently submitted casino bill included the criminalization of online poker, Randy Castonguay helped organize a state-wide effort resulting in more than 1700 letters have been sent to State Reps, State Senators and the Governor in less than a week. Randy has also taken on the important role of interviewing with national press, raising awareness online, and organizing more support. Check out his short poker video clip.
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Dear Member,

As we near the end of 2007, the fight for poker gains
momentum.  Since our last newsletter, the
PPA has become more involved at the state level, received national media
coverage, and we have become an increasingly active and influential force in
Washington, D.C.
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Some politicians and Internet gambling opponents argue that the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) has reduced online gambling among college-aged youth, but others beg to differ.

During a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Internet gambling earlier this month, witnesses–committee members among them–referred to an Annenberg Public Policy Center study suggesting that the UIGEA has done what it has set out to do: Eliminate the bad element from U.S. shores and protect the youth of America from immoral and addictive behaviors.

Data from the study shows that weekly Internet gambling among college-age youth (18 to 22) declined from 5.8 percent in 2006 to 1.5 percent in 2007, but Keith Whyte, the executive director of the National Council on Problem Gambling said that while the numbers appear to coincide with the enactment of the UIGEA, the only definitive result the study showed was that the UIGEA affected the availability of such sites.

“It seems to me they saw a drop in self-reported poker players and they attribute it to the UIGEA, and it probably parallels the drop off in participation that people saw after the act went through,” Whyte said. “But I don’t know that it’s a permanent drop. I think it’s much more that it made it inconvenient. From what I hear from the industry levels are back up, if not exceeding what they were (before the UIGEA).”

Whyte added that problematic behavior probably hasn’t changed either.

“As we know, participation has now reached or exceeded pre-UIGEA levels, and it would be likely that it wasn’t necessarily a shift in students gambling preferences and risk for gambling problems; it was merely a dip in the availability,” he said. “I would suspect that if another survey was done in 2008, we’d see levels rise again.”

The study also quantified other types of gambling among the same age group, such as card playing. Data showed that other forms of gambling are not necessarily declining. “It’s not that kids have suddenly stopped gambling,” Whyte said. “What I suspect is that the law had a temporary effect on Internet use and/or Internet card playing, but that’s probably going to ramp back up.”

Sarah Beth Hensley, a student journalist at Ohio University, investigated Internet gambling on campus for an article. She reported on students who are profiting on playing poker online at sites such as Full Tilt and PokerStars without compromising their academic or social standings.

One student said he has made a profit of $10,000 since January of this year, while another has earned $12,000 in five years. Both said they have used their winnings to pay for tuition, textbooks, rent and loans. Neither said he has suffered in terms of grades or social relationships.

Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., is one lawmaker who does not agree with the assessment that the UIGEA has stopped college kids from gambling online.

As a witness in the Judiciary hearing, Berkley challenged the proclamation of Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas.

Quoting the study, Smith said the law has reduced gambling by young people.

But Berkley fired back, saying, “Mr. Smith, if you think for a minute that the kids on college campuses and the dormitories aren’t betting online you need to go visit some of them. They all are.”

Whyte questions whether studies such as the oft-quoted Annenberg study do anything to support the lawmakers’ claims.

“There are a number of reasons why it (the Annenberg study) doesn’t support that (the UIGEA),” Whyte said. “Legislation and enforcement certainly has an impact on gambling availability. It always has. Gambling has always been a regulated industry and it’s always waxed or waned dependent on what the law allows. There is no doubt the UIGEA had an impact, but whether that impact is sustained you cannot tell just from one year’s worth of data.”

Source: Interactive Gaming News

Congressmen from New Jersey, Washington, and Connecticut on Tuesday joined 41 other co-sponsors of the IGREA, the Bill designed to legalize and regulate Internet gambling, officially overturning the UIGEA, which is a Bill that unsuccessfully attempted to ban online gambling.

Rep. Robert E. Andrews [NJ-1], Rep. Adam Smith [WA-9}, and Rep. John B. Larson [CT-1], have agreed that this is an important law that will ensure certain freedoms of Americans and goes a long way to resolving WTO issues facing the United States.

Rep. Andrews, who hails from the 1st District in New Jersey, is a 10-term congressman and a leading voice on fiscal restraint, education, and national defense. He is the Chairman of the Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor and Pensions. He also serves on the House Armed Services committee, the House Budget Committee, and subcommittees on Oversight and Investigations and Terrorism and Unconventional Threats. He supports women’s rights, ending employment discrimination, civil rights, and many other issues involving freedoms and protections.

Rep. Adam Smith [WA-9], has been in Congress since 1996, is chairman of the Terrorism, Unconventional Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee and also serves on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Rep. John B. Larson [CT-1], is serving his fifth term in the House. the congressman is a member of the House Ways and Means Committee which has jurisdiction over the nations Tax Code, Trade Policy, Social Security and Medicare. He also serves on the Subcommittees on Trade, and Select Revenue Measures.

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