Internet poker players are raising the stakes in Washington.

Threatened by a federal law that restricts online gambling, the Poker Players Alliance, a two-year-old lobbying group that says it represents 800,000 poker enthusiasts nationwide, plans on pressing Congress this week to consider several new bills that would exempt poker from the law or regulate the gaming industry.
    
It’s legal to play poker online, but the law made it illegal for U.S. banks and credit-card companies to process payments to online gambling businesses outside the United States. Supporters of the ban say Internet betting can be addictive and potentially drain people’s savings.

But John Pappas, the group’s executive director, said the law only forced several public British companies _ such as PartyGaming PLC and 888 Holdings PLC _ that had financial and age safeguards in place from the U.S. online poker market.

“The idea that we can kind of stop people from doing this seems a bit irrational,” said Pappas, who estimates there are between 15 million to 23 million U.S. Internet poker players.

The group is flying in 100 members, including several poker champions, such as Chris Moneymaker, to lobby lawmakers Tuesday and Wednesday to get poker exempted from the law, which already excludes online horse races and lotteries and fantasy sports.

The group also backs a bill to license and regulate Internet gaming, in general. A small tax on online poker operators could net the government at least a couple of billion dollars in revenue, Pappas said.

Chaired by former New York Sen. Alfonse D’Amato and now lobbyist, the group has also upped its lobbying ante, spending $640,000 in the first six months this year, compared with $540,000 in all of 2006.

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Poker players pining for a return of Internet gaming now have the law on their side. Harvard Law, that is.

A pair of top Harvard Law School professors have taken up an unlikely cause – the legalization of online poker.

Professor Charles Nesson has become an outspoken advocate on behalf of online poker, blasting last year’s crackdown, which banned online poker and other forms of Internet gaming in the United States.

Nesson has teamed up with some of his law students to form the Global Poker Strategic Thinking Society, which held a pair of inaugural sessions last week.

Meanwhile, Professor Alan Dershowitz is helping defend an online entrepreneur facing charges related to an offshore sports betting site with which he was involved.

Important legal principles are at stake, the two men say – though they both also admit to being avid poker fans. And they’re not alone in their interest. Harvard Law this year offered its first-ever course in gaming law.

“The idea of Internet freedom is a core notion of modern political freedom,” Nesson said.

Nesson first became interested in the game in 1981. On sabbatical, he was programming his new IBM computer, which came with a version of poker – five-card draw, jacks or better. As he tinkered with his computer, he got a close look at the bluffing algorithm and became entranced with the “elegance” of the game.

When online poker emerged years later, the Harvard professor became a fan of that too, enjoying both the challenge and the convenience. And he found himself “affronted” when poker and other forms of online gaming were banned last year in the United States after what he derides as a “midnight” vote in Congress.

Nesson contends that poker is a game of skill, not chance. Given that, poker tournaments, including online play, should be legalized, he said.

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In a case that illustrates the perils of online betting, a leading Internet poker site said Friday that a hacker exploited a security flaw to gain an insurmountable edge in high-stakes, no-limit Texas holdem tournaments — the ability to see his opponents’ hole cards.

The cheater, whose illegitimate winnings were estimated at between $400,000 and $700,000 by one victim, was an employee of AbsolutePoker.com who hacked the system to show that it could be done, said a spokesman for the company, who spoke with msnbc.com on condition of anonymity.

“This is literally a geek trying to prove to senior management that they were wrong and he took it too far,” he said.

The Costa Rica-based company, which is controlled by a parent company owned by members of the Kahnawake Mohawk tribe in Canada, issued a statement later in the day acknowledging the breach and promising to refund all money, including interest, to players who were victims of the scheme. It also promised a “comprehensive statement … providing more details of the findings” would be issued soon…

Site owned by Canadian Mohawks
Absolute Poker  states on its Web site that it is owned by Tokwiro Enterprises Enrg., located in Kahnawake Mohawk territory nine miles south of Montreal, Quebec. Tokwiro is described as a Mohawk owned and controlled sole proprietorship. The site also is licensed and ostensibly regulated by the tribe’s Kahnawake Gaming Commission, though it is not clear what level of scrutiny the commission applies to its licensees.

Many poker players interviewed for this article expressed concern that the incident would be another “black eye” for online poker, which has surged in popularity in recent years despite attempts by the U.S. government and many states to prevent Americans from playing over the Internet.  Most indicated they would prefer that the sites were licensed and regulated by the United States, but said they consider most of the leading offshore sites to be fair and secure.

“I think that the reasons this got handled the way that it has, with a happy ending, is because the overwhelming majority of people in the industry … want things to be run in a fair and honest way,” said Small of Pocketfives.com. “…  There is a perception that a lot of people in the industry are thieves, but that’s not the case for the most part. When something like this happens, the rest of the people, as soon as they catch wind of it band together and look for ways to pool information and bring people down who have done harm to them.”

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More support for Barney Franks’ attempt to regulate online gambling in the USA.
 
The
latest American politician to join the fight against the unpopular
Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act by signing on as a
co-sponsor for Congressman Barney Franks’ HR 2046 Internet Gambling
Regulation and Enforcement Act is Representative Steve Cohen.
 
Representative
Cohen hails from the Memphis – Shelby County in the state of Tennessee
and becomes the 39th sponsor of a move to license, regulate and tax
online gambling in the United States which has been slow to gather
momentum but continues to gather political support.
 
A
politician with a public service record that dates back to the
’seventies, Cohen is a lawyer by profession who currently serves on the
House Judiciary subcommittees for courts, the Internet and Intellectual
Property and the Constitution and Civil Rights. He is also a supporter
of the attempt to legalise poker as a skill game proposed by
Representative Robert Wexler.

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[Joe Saumarez-Smith is chief executive officer of Sports
Gaming, a U.K. management consulting firm to the gaming
industry. He also owns European online bingo companies and odds
comparison Web sites. The opinions expressed are his own.]

A year ago last Saturday, President George W. Bush signed the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act and online gambling was banned in the U.S.

At least, that was the intention. Twelve months later, there are just as many people gambling online, if not more. Many bettors don’t even know the law was changed, partly because it was tacked on as an amendment to a measure aimed at increasing port security.

The biggest difference now is that the companies offering online gambling are privately held and operate out of countries where it is impossible to know who controls them; if you had a huge win, then the risk of not being paid is probably much higher. The major public companies that used to offer online betting to Americans, such as PartyGaming Plc, 888 Holdings Plc and Sportingbet Plc, all quit the U.S. market last October at a cost of several billion dollars to their shareholders.

America’s banks and financial institutions were given 270 days from the passage of the law to block gambling transactions. The detailed rules on how to do this and how to spot a gambling transaction are still to be completed. As a result, online poker rooms, sports bookies and casinos are still able to get money from and send money to their customers, albeit not as easily as a year ago.

Meanwhile, Americans are free to place online bets on lotteries and horse racing as those forms of gambling were deemed legal. They can also visit any number of legal casinos, poker rooms, racetracks or Off Track Betting centers, and play state lotteries.

The situation is, in short, a mess.

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Recent Polls

10/21/07 RT Strategies National Omnibus Poll

Statistics about Poker in the U.S.
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Gamblers will soon be able to play round-the-clock poker at West Virginia’s two Northern Panhandle tracks.

Both Mountaineer Race Track & Gaming Resort and Wheeling Island Racetrack & Gaming Center will be allowed to start offering poker games to the public starting Friday, state Lottery Director John Musgrave announced Thursday.

The decision followed days of strenuous review and observation by Lottery regulators stationed at both tracks, he said.

Mountaineer President and Chief Executive Officer Ted Arneault says the Chester track will open its River Poker Room at Mountaineer at 4 p.m. Friday.

Wheeling Island’s poker room opening is set for 10 a.m. Friday.

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Amid the rising popularity of poker, the Oceanside City Council voted last night in support of more card-room tables in the city.

The council voted 4-1 to change the city’s gambling ordinance and to eventually increase the number of tables allowed in the city from 45 to 56. The ordinance would affect any card room in the city, but as of now it applies only to Ocean’s Eleven on Brooks Street just off Interstate 5 – Oceanside’s sole card room. It also is the only card room in North County not associated with a tribal casino.

More tables means more revenue for the city, which receives $2,000 per table annually plus 4 percent of the card room’s gross. Ocean’s Eleven brings in about $27 million a year, general manager Bob Moyer said before the council meeting. Four percent of that amount would mean more than $1 million in revenue to the city annually.

“Our business on Friday nights has exceeded the number of tables,” he said, because the popularity and television exposure of Texas Hold ‘Em tournaments have drawn new gamblers to the game.

Councilwoman Esther Sanchez cast the dissenting vote, saying she is unhappy with casino patrons parking on other businesses’ property.

Other council members said parking problems will be discussed when the city Planning Commission holds a public hearing on whether to give the casino a conditional-use permit for the extra tables.

The council emphasized that the tables cannot be put into play until the commission acts.

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Antigua and Barbuda will on Thursday outline its case before the World Trade Organisation (WTO) arbitrators in the ongoing Internet gaming dispute with the United States.

The government of Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer is seeking US$3.4 billion in trade sanctions against the United States after it banned cross-border Internet gambling.

On Thursday, a three-member panel of arbitrators will hear oral arguments in Geneva from both sides before making a ruling. Officials say a decision is expected on November 30.

Earlier this month, the Antigua government filed a motion with the WTO requesting the suspension of concessions and other obligations.

The 53 page document outlined the country’s rationale that in the absence of Washington agreeing to follow its original WTO commitments, lifting copyright law is the only way the country could be fairly compensated for losses.

Though the Spencer administration has signalled a willingness to negotiate an amicable settlement, Washington is yet to give any indication that it is prepared to come to the bargaining table.

“So far, we have been the only ones willing to negotiate, and it takes two to get a deal done. That is what we have always been wanting to happen. Hopefully, they will come around and see that it is the best and right thing to do,” Antigua’s lead attorney Mark Mendel said.

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Jason, Alabaster, AL