Flipchipro over at Las Vegas and Poker just posted an interesting article about the legality of poker and what poker bloggers can do to help fight the good fight. It’s especially interesting considering Roy Cooke’s article in the most recent CardPlayer magazine, Government and Our Game — the Heat is On.
Both articles outline the dangers to online poker. While Flipchipro jumps right into what you can do Roy does an excellent job of outlining recent government actions to crack down on online gaming. They also both, rightly, point out that now is the opportune moment to attempt to create change. Poker is more popular than ever and many politicians would shy away from anti-poker legislation if faced with public pressure. Unfortunately, most of the public pressure has been coming from the conservative ranks who think gambling is a vice and would like to see all gambling (yes, even online poker) eliminated.
This struggle is almost comedic. While online gambling is illegal, here you have actor James Woods and WPT host Vince Van Patton hawking a site called Hollywood Poker. On one hand you have the DoJ sending letters to radio stations and websites telling them that accepting advertising from online casinos is aiding and abetting illegal gaming while ESPN, Fox, and Bravo broadcast tournaments in which a large percentage of the players have won their entry via online satellites and the commercial breaks usually feature PartyPoker or some other popular poker site.
I find myself somewhat torn between the two approaches that Roy and Flipchipro suggest. Roy figures this is an issue that the people with vested interests need to tackle. Site like PartyPoker need to step up to the plate and grease the wheels in Washington to pull the right people to their side. Flipchipro thinks the job belongs to poker bloggers in spreading the word.
Obviously, paying bribes lobbying fees has obvious effects and is a time-tested strategy yet as we recently saw with the Rathergate scandal, bloggers can and do influence the media from time to time and can help a story pick up some momentum. Unfortunately, I think we’re not just up against the prohibitionists who want to stamp out gambling but online poker also faces the challenge of the well-financed casino and gaming industry in the US who would really like to keep that monopoly they have going chugging along.
I’m not sure how all of this will play out but I am glad to see people are starting to think about this in strategic terms. I would like to see the online casinos form a lobbying group and start purchasing some clout in DC. I also think that while black, yellow, purple, green, etc. ribbons on bloggers websites will accomplish very little, we, as a group, can keep the issue on the front burner.