IMPORTANT! Please read and act quickly - Internet Gambling Prohibition Act

Poker bill nears a vote

Here is some info from the Poker Players Alliance.

www.pokerplayersalliance.org

In the coming days, the House Judiciary Committee will vote on H.R. 4777, Internet Gambling Prohibition Act, sponsored by Congressman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA). This legislation turns private companies into the government’s “morality police.”

It requires Internet service providers (ISPs) to remove gambling related hyperlinks and forces banks to monitor your purchases and transactions to ensure that you are not gambling online. The plan is an affront to civil liberties. If the committee passes the bill, your ability to enjoy poker online will be at serious risk.

Each member of the Poker Players Alliance has a critical voice in this debate. The members of the committee, listed below, need to know that Americans think this legislation is a bad idea.

For more information about H.R. 4777, go to the Poker Players Alliance Web site, www.pokerplayersalliance.org.


Please Call! Tell these Representatives to oppose the Goodlatte plan.

Spencer Bachus AL (202) 225-4921

Howard Berman CA (202) 225-4695

Rick Boucher VA (202) 225-3861

Chris Cannon UT (202) 225-7751

Steve Chabot OH (202) 225-2216

Howard Coble NC (202) 225-3065

John Conyers MI (202) 225-5126

Bill Delahunt MA (202) 225-3111

Tom Feeney FL (202) 225-2706

Jeff Flake AZ (202) 225-2635

Randy Forbes VA (202) 225-6365

Trent Franks AZ (202) 225-4576

Elton Gallegly CA (202) 225-5811

Louie Gohmert TX (202) 225-3035

Bob Goodlatte VA (202) 225-5431

Mark Green WI (202) 225-5665

John Hostettler IN (202) 225-4636

Henry Hyde IL (202) 225-4561

Bob Inglis SC (202) 225-6030

Darrell Issa CA (202) 225-3906

Sheila Jackson Lee TX (202) 225-3816

Bill Jenkins TN (202) 225-6356

Ric Keller FL (202) 225-2176

Steve King IA (202) 225-4426

Zoe Lofgren CA (202) 225-3072

Dan Lungren CA (202) 225-5716

Marty Meehan MA (202) 225-3411

Jerry Nadler NY (202) 225-5635

Mike Pence IN (202) 225-3021

Linda Sanchez CA (202) 225-6676

Adam Schiff CA (202) 225-4176

Bobby Scott VA (202) 225-8351

Jim Sensenbrenner WI (202) 225-5101

Lamar Smith TX (202) 225-4236

Chris Van Hollen MD (202) 225-5341

Debbie Wasserman Schultz FL (202) 225-7931

Maxine Waters CA (202) 225-2201

Anthony Weiner NY (202) 225-6616

Bob Wexler FL (202) 225-3001

This is huge. I would strongly urge all U.S. members to get on the horn ASAP!!! I will be putting a call in to Dan Lungren's office as soon as I log off. Very nice post, VG. Rep'd! ++

I don't see a possibility of this passing. There's numerous casinos in every state as it is...but give 'em a ring anyway!


oh...and if they televise this vote...c-pan will have its biggest ratings ever! lol

...I browsed the link in the first post and noticed they closed down the Hellmuth charity tournament. Can't wait to see him whine about that on espn later this year!

I've said it before and I'll say it again...

It's good to be Canadian

lol. sure .

what, drinkin real beer in an igloo doesn't interest you?

And the polar bears are friendly this time of year. Just watch out for flying hockey pucks!!!

i have a sudden craving for bacon and maple syrop mmmm

lol. Well, we can all thank the Canadians for making a giant silver ashtray as the prize for the best club in the league!

Go Sabres!

what percent of the sabres are canadian?
though i can't argue...leafs didn't fare too well this year...

Briere is Canadian. . . short but deadly! lol . . . I'm not sure about the rest of the team...

..and the best trophy in all of sports.

eh. I would agree. The only problem with that is the team doesn't get to keep it. . . but I guess that's what adds to the mystique.

i'm a current member of the poker players alliance..but what can i do?..is there some sort of petition or vote i can involve myself?

Call the Congressman/woman in your state and voice your opinion. Call every states rep. It won't hurt, and they wont know the difference! lol
You'll most definitely be talking to a voice mail system after 6pm est...I just checked. The numbers are listed above. They're 202 area codes because you'll be dialing into the district of columbia...Where the Congressmen/woman meet and will vote shortly. Cell phone 'em.

Confirmation
Your e-mail message was sent to: John Ensign (R-NV) Harry Reid (D-NV) James A. Gibbons (R-NV 2nd)


nevermind i followed the hyperlink to the website im allready a member of and direct e-mailed the senators<you can to just follow the link in the first post>

let's not forget folks, we live in america, and our elected officials are going to do whatever they please. I've said this before and i'll say it again, that's what our democracy has become. I still don't think anything will come of it, especially considering this is the only place i have ever heard of such things. I mean, what's next, are banks going to refuse to allow their customers to withdraw money because they're chronic gamblers or drug users? We supposedly live in a free society, and as cynical as i may be, i think we still do, and things like this are little more then fear mongering; certain politicians playing to their electorate, and it's just about getting votes and nothing else. And, unfortunatly, if this is real, and it is a legitiment threat to our passtime, then there's absolutly nothing we can do about it. bend over folks. this is America after all. Our elected officials don't care what we think. i know it sucks, but it's true

-n

The richer get richer and the poor stay poor...Corruption and greed...poker and sex...America's favorite past times.

The congressman/woman want to be re-elected eventually so they can make hundreds of thousands of $ while doing nothing. . . They might quite possibly listen to a large amount of people telling them what to do or they'll have to go back to chasing ambulances! It's why they're elected. . . so they can do what we tell em .


I'm not a history buff...so I wouldn't know. . . but I'm sure every country goes through a rough patch every couple hundred years...unless you're country's name is Switzerland!

Your e-mail message was sent to: Barbara Boxer (D-CA) Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) Dennis Cardoza (D-CA 18th)


Thanks for the heads up.........

Honestly even if this passes, I see it being kind of like how downloading music is illegal. Sure it's illegal, but it's pretty damn hard to get caught and that doesn't stop people from doing it anyway.

The law will make all credit card companies deny payments for gambling websites, but I think a lot of them already do. But how are they going to stop U.S. players from using FirePay, Neteller and other middleman sites?

My conclusion is that internet gambling prohibition = illegalized music downloading

It's not that it's hard to get caught. It's that no one wants to regulate both of them. We've got bigger problems such as border issues and drug trafficking and are in a deficit...(thank you bush).

This is a quick fix for the government and banks will abide by the law. Try and withdraw and you've wasted a lot of time and money. Banks can have their computers disallow any transactions between you and poker companies. It's as easy as that.

But unless I'm misunderstanding something, you don't have to make the transaction directly between your bank and the poker company. You use a middle man, make the transaction with your bank into that middle man account. Then use that money for poker. That way there's no direct interaction between the poker company and your bank.

Here's some more promising news:

http://www.pokernews.com/news/2006/5...e-congress.htm

Ignore the title and pay attention to the 4th paragraph. Basically, it would cost too much money to enforce a ban.

Banks would disallow transactions between the middle man...This would be easily solved IMO, if there was some sort of tax involved for each state/nation to make free money on...the article above shows how big a business gambling is already in the U.S. and shows why online poker/ and in casinos should be legalized... Stopping the Native American monopoly of nation wide casinos...

The whole reason this has come about is so the damn government can get there share. Since it is offshore, America can't tax you on it, so if they consider legallizing online gambling here in the states then they would get there cut, which is more than likely what they will do. It's only a matter of time before this country gets pissed off enough at the government. Keep raising and taxing gas, cigerette and alcohol prices and you will piss us off....eventually.

I don't see any of this going through. They will change legislation to where American owned companies can own and operate casinos and earn tax dollars for our nation before they ban online gaming in our country.

What scares me is that I don't think it's about money. It's about a conservative idea of morality (the school of "gambling is bad") and legislating values. These conservative southern lawmakers want to see a society in which each home is filled with a nuclear family of churchgoers, none of whom drink, curse, think impure thoughts... or God forbid, log on to Party Poker and play a few hands.

If it was all about money, pot would have been legalized long ago too.

There's already numerous casinos in almost every state in the U.S. because of the Native Americans. Gambling isn't the issue, because these casinos were built within the past 10 years and make tax dollars for local governments. It's a matter of people spending their money and giving their tax dollars to foreign nations, and the fact that there isn't a system currently in use to stop minors from playing.

Chuck T is right. Its Great to be Canadian. Beer stays cold at the igloo door

Pot shouldn't have been criminalised either, because it was long registered as an effective medicine from Victorian times and earlier. From what I've read its prohibition was a means of repression of certain 'undesirable' groups (particularly racial groups) in which social use was popular. That said, the effects of its prohibition are nothing compared to the creation of hugely rich and powerful criminal groups from the prohibition of Cocaine and Alcohol.
Prohibition of gambling wouldn't have the same effect as alcohol and cocaine prohibition, because the sites will remain available, but access to them will be restricted. The odd thing is that this approach is anti-protectionist - instead of protecting US businesses, it further reduces the opportunities for US businesses to compete in an established global marketplace.
When will the US (and the UK, which thankfully is just stopping companies offering incentives to gamble with them rather than banning online poker) recognise that prohibition is a blunt and flawed instrument, capable of great harm? Rather than offering counselling and education programs, the decision is made to criminalise and prosecute, putting more people in over-crowded prisons, reducing the workforce, reducing tax revenues, and giving more power to criminal (or in this case at least non-US and non-tax-paying) groups. Almost none of the sites will disappear if US players cannot play there since they have players worldwide, so blocking access to such sites would require a censorship effort on a scale of Chinas much-criticised efforts.

I'm sure all of the poster in CardsChat support groups trying to reduce the incidence of problem gambling and gambling addiction, so long as they take a measured 'harm reduction' approach, rather than an ignorant and short-sighted 'we can eliminate harm' stance. Part of the solution is perhaps to support those initiatives, in support of sites adopting standards of conduct to minimise problem gambling, and in assisting compulsive gamblers in getting help, so that alternatives to such crude and mis-guided efforts are highlighted.

For myself, I hope that similar legislation doesn't crop up in the UK, or that it doesn't get anywhere.

Oh, I also hope that one of the Maple Leaf brigade sends me an igloo of my own so I can keep my beer cold, but I don't hold out much hope on that score... they're too busy cramming for the team events so they can try to catch up... :P

Honestly, I don't know how you bringing up that pot should be legalized has anything to do with this except that you apparently love it. Pot is a gateway drug that can lead people to kill themselves.... No one cares that you like the Doobie Brothers... sorry. lol

Poker is Illegal in the U.S.. Because of the advent of the internet,there is a fine line between what some believe is illegal gambling. The new law would justify and cover the glitch in the current law which enables interstate or "internation" gambling. I wouldn't be surprised which way this vote goes...but I of course favor the gaming industry's persuasion and their billions of $.

Oh, BS. Have you ever tried it? I'm guessing not. I'm not a pot smoker but was in college, and I started getting straight A's *after* I started smoking pot. I never moved on to addictive or detrimental drugs.

You know what kills people? Alcohol. My brother drank himself to death about a month ago. Now tell me what drug is a killer -- not to mention legal.

Really? I guess you'd better let the casinos in Vegas know that, then, because they do a thriving business in it.

I don't smoke pot (or know how this got into a "pot should be legalized" debate), and never have, but I have many friends who do and I agree with roundcat. Alcohol is far worse, almost without a doubt destroys more lives.

Yes, for people with no self-control pot can potentially lead to more harmful drugs and eventual death. But for people with no self-control, chocolate can lead to obesity and eventual death. That doesn't mean chocolate should be illegal. There are always going to be people who take things too far, no matter what it is. Plain fact is, I don't see how one can argue that marijuana is any worse than alcohol, which, last I checked, is not illegal.

Anything can kill someone, it's the person who can't control themselves. I have been smoking cigerettes for 20 years and I know whats going to happen down the road, but thats my choice and don't need anybody telling me what I can and can't do in order for me to live longer. We all are going to die anyways, might as well enjoy the things that make you happy.

Anyways, the whole gambling thing comes down to money. No, the government can give two sh1ts if you lose your money, as long as they get a share of it. If you believe they are looking out for anybody's best interest then you are only fooling yourselves, they are looking for there best interest.