Barton Urges Congress to Go “all In” on Online Poker Bill – Rep. Barton (11/18/2011)

Former FBI Director Calls for Federal Internet Poker Regulation – Gambling Compliance (09/16/2011)

Pros and joes join in Poker Players Alliance rally at state capital

OLYMPIA — Matthew Smith has been a poker player for 20 years, long before he moved to Ferndale last July, but like many other Washingtonians he finds himself unable to play a hand of poker online without fear of being charged with a class C felony.

On March 17, Smith was present in Olympia with members of the Poker Players Alliance (PPA) and several professional poker players to tell state legislators how he felt about the law prohibiting online gambling, which was passed in 2006.

According to a PPA press release, Washington is the only state that considers online gambling a class C felony, punishable by a $10,000 fine and/or up to five years in prison.

“People should have the freedom to gamble online in their homes, where they feel comfortable, but instead they face the same charges that sex offenders do in Washington,” Smith said. “I am glad to represent Ferndale in these matters of personal freedom.”

Smith met with Representatives Jason Overstreet and Vincent Buys, and Senator Doug Ericksen of the 42nd Legislative District to express his hopes that the ban would be overturned. He said that all three were in favor of repealing the law.

“For me, it is a question of fairness and appropriate regulation on the part of the state,” Ericksen said.

After meeting with representatives, a poker game was held at a nearby restaurant where Smith and other Washington PPA members played a hand with the likes of former Washington Senator Luke Esser. Ericksen made an appearance, but did not join in the poker game. PPA members also had the opportunity to meet professional poker players Andy Bloch, Linda Johnson and Jan Fisher, who were in Olympia to support PPA’s cause.

John Pappas, executive director of the PPA, said he personally spoke to Washington state legislators who admitted they did not know the severity of the law when they signed the bill.

“It happens often,” Pappas said. “A legislator signs a bill because they trust the person who wrote it, but don’t personally examine the information. Lawmakers didn’t know they were making felons out of poker players who want to gamble with a dollar or two online.”

Washington Senator Margarita Prentice was the driving force behind the internet gambling ban in Washington. She stood behind it firmly in 2006, and recently made public comments about online gamblers that offended not only the online poker community, but other members of the Senate.

Despite protests, the Washington Supreme Court upheld the law in 2010, and online poker sites such as Poker Stars and Full Tilt Poker pulled access from Washington to avoid the controversy. However, people are still finding ways to play, and according to PPA member Charla Newman, the PPA just wants to see players have a safe, regulated environment to gamble in.

“Most of our members are upstanding citizens who just want to gamble with a few bucks,” Newman said.

A pole taken by the PPA in 2010 revealed that 80 percent of Washington residents do not support the law banning online gambling. The alternative proposed by the PPA is that the state of Washington license, tax and regulate online gambling to generate state revenues. The number could be in the tens of millions per year, said Pappas

The PPA has vowed to become more of a presence in Washington until the law is repealed, and with more than 20,000 members in Washington alone, no one anticipates the issue will fall away.

Stephanie Plumb
Ferndale Record

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Some say legalization could bring revenue; tribes don’t want competition

The proponents of legalizing online poker are holding their cards close to their vests as they prepare to introduce a bill to the Legislature this winter.

Proponents are touting lawful California-based Internet poker available only to Californians as a balm for the state’s aching budget — and say the benefits include regulation, taxation and safety.

But the vast majority of 59 tribes that have the monopoly on gaming are opposed to the encroachment on their franchise.

The only other entities that can offer gambling in California are about 90 cardrooms as well as the California State Lottery, its affiliates and a handful of horse-racing tracks.

Online gambling is prohibited by federal law under the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006. The law allows for some exceptions, one of which is intrastate gambling, where the operator and all the players are in the same state.

That is what proponents want California to explore.

The effort to get someone to carry online poker legislation started in the summer, but proponents weren’t able to get an author to carry a bill by the end of the last session.

“We just ran out of time, and the legislators just had too much going on with the budget,” said Patrick Dorinson, spokesman for the Morongo Band of Mission Indians, which operates Morongo Casino Resort Spa, off Interstate 10 in the Southern California desert. Dorinson said proponents expect to have a legislator carrying a bill when the new legislative session starts in January.

Despite online gaming being illegal, it is still available. If an online gambler is willing to create an arm’s-length transaction, that gambler can find a way to play poker online.

“People are going online and playing poker right now. We should all be focusing on the idea that this is something whose time has come, and let’s ask the question: How do we get it right?” Dorinson said. “We want to protect California consumers that are playing right now.”

And by regulating Internet poker, the state potentially can take a cut of the action, he said.

“Let’s regulate it, and the state should get a cut of it. There is a lot of money sloshing around now and the state is not getting any of it.”

If online poker became legal in California, it could open the door to legal battles over the tribes’ exclusive deals to offer slot machines, lottery games outside of the state lottery and “percentage and banking” games such as blackjack.

Tribal operations do not have an exclusive deal to offer poker games, but there is the question of how tribes will react to what they consider a bad-faith move.

Native American tribes have the exclusive right to negotiate with the state for gaming compacts, and that issue is quite clear, said Doug Elmets, spokesman for the United Auburn Indian Community, which owns Thunder Valley Casino near Lincoln.

He called online poker “a misguided concept, and it is inconsistent with California law,” Elmets said. “There are clearly bitter feelings about this. All this effort did was wake a sleeping giant. The large casinos do not want this.”

Native American tribes have huge clout in the Legislature, where tribal lobbying and potential tribal campaign contributions have gone from nonexistent a decade ago to being major players today.

The state might find a potential revenue stream from online poker, but that windfall could come at the cost of the revenue the state gets from tribal gaming, said Howard Dickstein, a partner with Sacramento law firm Dickstein & Zerbi.

“It creates a serious issue depending on whether the Internet machines constitute a violation of tribal compacts, and the tribes stop paying in their hundreds of millions of dollars annually,” Dickstein said.

The state collects a piece of tribal gaming revenue through compacts with the tribes. California casinos had revenue of $7.4 billion in 2008, down from $7.8 billion the year earlier.

Sacramento Business Journal – by Mark Anderson Staff writer