Poker battle heats up in Congress
The battle is heating up on Capital Hill:
The Pokers Players Alliance is pushing a bill sponsored by Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) that would legalize and regulate Internet gambling, overturning a ban that became law after former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) inserted it into port security legislation late last year.
For poker players, whose association membership exceeds 800,000, time is at a premium. They want lawmakers to reverse the ban before some of the Frist regulations go into effect next year.
They recruited former Sen. Alfonse D’Amato (R-N.Y.) to lead PPA, and they brought in professional players to make their case to members last week, including World Poker Series players Chris Moneymaker, Howard Lederer and Annie Duke. D’Amato’s message to his former colleagues is clear — online gambling could generate $3 billion in taxes a year if the federal government regulated the industry.
That could present a tempting new revenue source for cash-starved Democrats anxious to implement new programs. But the odds are still not in PPA’s favor.
It’s facing a predictable head-to-head fight with family and evangelical organizations that say gambling leads to tragic addiction and compromises the moral fabric of the family.
When are we going to stop letting these Bible-thumpers run our lives? Why do we have to have prohinition against gambling just because some people are too weak or irresponsible to control themselves?
It’s encouraging to see the groundswell of support for sensible legislation legalizing online gambling, particularly games of skill like poker.
Republicans should ask themselves if they can continue to support a party that prevents them for enjoying games like poker. What ever happened to libertarian Republicans? Hopefully they’ll all vote for Ron Paul!
Hmmm. Let’s think about this. On the right hand, Americans have a choice between Bible thumpers saying no to gambling, or on the left hand, another insidious type of control freak, such as so-called liberal do-gooders, aka government bureaucrats and social justice engineers, along with their built-in constituency of anyone who shoves their snouts in the public treasury. I say, why not just legalize gambling? Think of the boon it would be for our economy and for our burgeoning health care industry. With more of our working class and recent college grads unemployed than ever in recent memory and as a consequence, more people sitting on their arses playing the numbers or grinding out 60 hours of online poker a week, just imagine the spike in the number of new hemorrhoid cases and other attendant health related issues. Nothing to fear, though. I’m sure Michelle Obama will demand that warning labels be attached to everyone’s monitor, cautioning players that sitting too long on one’s arse could be hazardous to their health. Logically, the do-gooders such as Obama would then realize that sitting for long periods of time and playing games naturally leads to snacking on sodium and sugar saturated foods and drink, which would then necessitate further labeling of the foods with additional warnings that eating these in combination with long periods of online gaming may lead to obesity and subsequent cases of bleeding piles. Never fear, the gaming industry will inevitably pay for itself and help lead us out of the great recession by generating 300 billions dollars a year. Obama will then tax 200 billion of it and then dole it out in “free” healthcare.