Yesterday, Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA) announced that he will not seek re-election and will leave Congress at the end of his term in 2012. The poker community is losing a true friend in Congressman Frank. In 2007, one year after the passage of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA), Mr. Frank, then Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee led the charge to repeal the law and replace it with a licensed and regulated environment to play poker and other games on the Internet. Despite constant opposition, Barney Frank persisted and eventually passed his bill out of his committee with strong bi-partisan support. And his advocacy for our rights still continues. Just two weeks ago he spoke passionately before the House Energy and Commerce Committee about his legislation to give adults the freedom to gamble and play poker on the Internet.
Congressman Frank was admittedly not a poker player. But he valued the idea that adult Americans should be able to play poker over the Internet in their own home, over their own Internet connection with their own money. He was aghast that government was impeding on this freedom. Barney Frank is outspoken, incredibly smart and most definitely a controversial politician. However, you may feel about his overall policy beliefs there is no doubt that he has been poker player’s greatest champion in the Congress. And because of his leadership we now have dozens of Congressional champions from all sides of the political spectrum. We urge you to take a moment to thank Congressman Barney Frank for being an advocate for your rights. You can write him a message on
Facebook,
send an email, or simply call his office at (202) 225-5931 and express your thanks.
I received much feedback from the community regarding our two
excellent appearances on Capitol Hill earlier this month. Many see the tide continuing to turn in our favor. I see this as well and am gratified that the community has optimism. While this continues to be a tough fight, I am glad we are all taking a moment to savor our hard-won victories.
Let’s all continue to build on this momentum. I encourage everyone to take a few moments to do your part to let our elected representatives know where we stand. Many anti-gaming types claim the American people wish to ban poker and that ALL gaming legislation is driven solely by industry lobbyists.
Here’s a statement from the Congressional website of Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA), who testified against our right to play at the November 18th House subcommittee hearing, which illustrates this position perfectly:
“The political process also can be tainted. In state after state, the gambling industry bankrolls local politicians from both parties in hopes of advancing its interests, leaving opponents out-financed, out-gunned and out-manned. The fact that gambling has not spread further is a tribute to the tireless efforts of a few grassroots activists. These citizens advocacy efforts — often outspent by rates of 20 to 1 — have held the levy against even further encroachment by the gambling industry into every community in America.”
Grassroots poker advocacy efforts directly counter this incorrect mindset by demonstrating that there are
millions of real people behind the pro-poker effort. Our efforts also serve to provide objective evidence to lawmakers that there are not hordes of anti-gaming Americans waiting to pounce on anyone who supports the right to play poker. Lawmakers check their Twitter feeds, Facebook walls, and email inboxes and see not only a lot of pro-poker activity, but little to no anti-poker activity in response. In many cases, this runs directly contrary to the expectations of many elected representatives.
So, please be sure to sign YOUR NAME to this effort by telling your lawmakers to support your rights. Let’s ensure that they know this liberty is being sought by millions of Americans, including you!
Take Action
To ensure your elected representatives know you demand your rights, please bookmark the daily action plan and check it out every day. I update it every morning with new actions we can take to stand up for the game. These take just a couple of minutes to complete.
This week’s actions will focus on lawmaker outreach and education, so please be sure to join in and help poker capitalize on the two big Capitol Hill appearances:
Fight for Poker Rights Daily Action Plan on Two Plus Two Fight for Poker Rights Daily Action Plan on PocketFives Fight for Poker Rights Daily Action Plan on Deuces Cracked Fight for Poker Rights Daily Action Plan on The Donkey Farm Additionally, if you have not sent our fully editable prewritten letter to your elected representatives since roughly mid-October or so, simply click the button below (
or here). In less than thirty seconds, you can send this email directly to the email inboxes of all your elected federal representatives. If you have a little time to spare, please consider creating your own message and telling them all in your own words to support your poker freedom via legislation like HR 2366, the Online Poker Act. Please be sure to have your friends and family send emails as well. Thank you!
Interviews and Other Poker Media
PPA continues to come before poker media to take on the tough questions as often as possible. I hope you will find these interesting and informative.
Upcoming appearances:
Recent appearances:
Member Questions
I regularly communicate directly with players on several online forums under my online handle “TheEngineer” and via phone and
email. Since taking this role on June 1st, I have received almost five hundred emails and have responded to all of them. I received several phone calls and IMs as well. Here are a few responses that I thought would be of interest to the community:
Stop bragging about where you’re appearing and yadda yadda yadda….. get my money back from Full Tilt Poker!!!
My appearances on webcasts are not something about which I would ever brag. Even my wife says I am a better writer than a speaker
. I go on these shows, and now host a show of my own, solely because I believe it to be very important for PPA to have the best possible communication with the poker community. After all, we’re a “we”, not a “they”. This is our shared fight for our rights.
As for Full Tilt, I wish you the best in recovery. I have around five figures locked up myself. PPA is doing all it can on the FTP situation (and AP and UB as well). We have met with the Justice Department to
assert that the frozen funds belong to players. We are all hopeful that the DOJ permits the
proposed purchase by Groupe Bernard Tapie, of course, as that is likely our best chance at getting 100% reimbursement.
That being said, PPA is neither a regulatory body nor an enforcement agency. We are a player advocacy group, so our ability to force these sites to comply with our calls for action is limited. In fact, this is why PPA is pushing for legislation that gives us the rights we need as players. The PPA-supported legislation now in Congress focuses strongly on consumer protection. It mandates protected and segregated player accounts, a U.S. presence (to allow for law enforcement action if needed), and many other provisions that protect our rights as players.
I encourage everyone to do all we can to support this important legislation.
What gives Congress the authority to limit online poker?
The federal government derives its authority here via the Constitution. The right to regulate interstate and foreign commerce is an enumerated power of the Congress, per
Article I, Section 8, Clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution (“[The Congress shall have Power] To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes”).
I certainly agree that it is absurd for the federal government to tell us what we can do in our own homes on our own computers. We will keep telling Congress that we demand our liberties on this matter. Fortunately, we also have an important right under the Constitution – the right to petition the government for redress of grievances (part of the
First Amendment). I am glad that we are all doing just that. I thank you for standing strong with us in this fight!
I would like to donate to PPA. Can I transfer it directly from a poker site?
I thank everyone for their willingness to donate to help support the right. It is very important for everyone to have “skin in the game,” so to speak. Additionally, this is money that we really put to good use.
PPA cannot receive money directly from poker sites, so we have made donating easy. Please visit
go.theppa.org/ppa-donation to donate via credit card or Paypal. To upgrade to a premium membership or to extend your current membership, simply visit
www.theppa.org/join. Everyone can join or extend through the end of 2012 for only $15 – and get a nice cap or shirt. To donate via check, simply send it to:
Poker Players Alliance 1325 G Street NW
Suite 500
Washington, DC 20005
Thank you again for your continued support
The PPA wishes to keep active members like yourself updated on the latest poker advocacy news by periodically sending out select events and headlines. We hope you find it informative and thank you for your continuing support.
Last week, just before the Thanksgiving holiday, it was formally announced that the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction failed in its objective to deliver to Congress a comprehensive package to reduce our nation’s ballooning national debt. When the Committee was announced this summer, the PPA jumped on the opportunity to present Internet poker as a new revenue stream for the Committee to consider. Our team of lobbyists met with every member of the “super committee” to explain the sound public policy reasons for including a regulatory bill like H.R. 2366 in the final product. But more importantly, our membership was full throat in letting the Committee know that Internet poker should be part of the package. 
