Oh, Yeah... Online Poker

Was asked yesterday about what the election of Donald Trump as the next U.S. president might mean as far as online poker in the United States is concerned.

It’s a good question, although as I thought about it I quickly realized that if I were to make a list of issues to be concerned about regarding Trump’s taking over, there are probably 70 or 80 others I’d rank higher importance than online poker. Then again, it is an issue I am at least attentive to, given how much of my life is affected by the vagaries of poker’s place in the culture.

My first instinct was to say it probably didn’t matter much at all who won on Tuesday, as neither Trump nor Hillary Clinton were going to be huge proponents of any sort of federal regulation permitting online gambling and/or poker in the U.S.

I remember my shuttle ride from Atlantic City to the Philly airport last weekend. My loquacious driver was a Trump supporter, and even had a little Trump/Pence sign he held up and shook at me when making one of several points about the current state of his state and of the nation as a whole.

Thanks to the event from which he was driving me -- the inaugural PokerStars Festival New Jersey series -- we’d gotten onto the topic of online poker in the U.S. He was insistent Trump was the candidate to support for those wanting online poker up and running again. I expressed doubt, though, saying I wasn’t sure either candidate was going to be all that excited about such a cause.

I was thinking in part of the possibility of someone like Sheldon Adelson, the deep-pocketed Trump supporter and anti-online gambling lobbyist, perhaps influencing a Trump regime in a certain unpleasant direction. Then again, there’s New Jersey governor Chris Christie now standing by Trump’s side who signed NJ’s online gambling bill into law three years ago. Meanwhile VP Mike Pence has openly supported the Adelson-backed Restoration of America’s Wire Act (RAWA), if that might be said to tip the balance.

In any event, the Obama administration obviously has not viewed online gambling a cause to support, and if you think about certain measures like the surreptitious “Operation Choke Point” that targeted online gambling (in part), the evidence suggests an outward (if not so evident) antagonism toward it. I wouldn’t imagine a Clinton administration would have been so excited to adopt an alternate position than the current one allowing for the slow, slow trickle of state-by-state legislation with no federal push.

Like I say, it probably doesn’t matter much. The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act -- the 10-year anniversary of which just recently passed -- has effectively reduced online poker in the U.S. to the point of near-insignificance, at least on the federal level. That could change one day, but just as I felt a week ago, there’s no more reason to think that it will anytime soon.

Even so, there’s a whole lot else to worry about first.

Image: “poker-online-logo” (adapted), texasholdempoker. CC BY 2.0.

Ryan In, But Don’t Get Hoppe Up

There’s a new Speaker of the House, the 45-year-old Paul Ryan who was Mitt Romney’s vice-presidential candidate in 2012. He takes over for John Boehner who held the position for nearly five years before recently announcing his decision to step down.

Boehner made his announcement in late September, engendering a few weeks’ worth of speculation and a bit of jockeying among the Republicans over who would be the successor. For a few days in there young Jason Chaffetz of Utah was expressing his desire to be the new Speaker, but his mini-campaign didn’t gain a lot of momentum and eventually Ryan became the chosen one.

Those of us with an interest in online poker recognize Chaffetz as one of the members of Congress responsible for advancing that draconian bill misleadingly called the Restoration of America’s Wire Act (or RAWA). I say “misleadingly” because RAWA isn’t really “restoring” the 1961 federal law but rather rewriting it altogether, this time to prohibit nearly all forms of online gambling.

Chaffetz sponsored the current version of RAWA in the House (Lindsey Graham of SC sponsored it in the Senate). I’ve written about the bill some here, including after a hearing back in March where Chaffetz made an obnoxious (and brief) appearance in which he dismissed out of hand the idea that geolocation could enable a state to restrict those outside of its borders to gamble on an online site (i.e., technology that has already been shown to work reasonably well).

By sponsoring RAWA, both Graham and Chaffetz are working directly for Las Vegas Sands CEO Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire who has been campaigning against online gambling ever since his own attempts to get in the game for several years during the 2000s failed. Indeed, The Hill has said an Adelson lobbyist authored an early draft of RAWA.

But Chaffetz is out and Ryan is in. Still, that doesn’t necessarily mean good news for those who would oppose RAWA or anything else Adelson might get his big bucks behind.

That’s because earlier this week Ryan hired J. David Hoppe to be his chief of staff. In the past Hoppe has served as an adviser to various Republican congressmen while also working as a lobbyist in D.C. Also from Wisconsin, Hoppe has been friends with Ryan for more than two decades as he’s lobbied for a number of different conservative groups.

Among those Hoppe has been lobbying for lately is the Coalition to Stop Internet Gambling -- that’s right, the group launched by Adelson in early 2014. ThinkProgress reports that Hoppe has received $180,000 from the coaltion since July.

All of which is not to say RAWA necessarily has any greater chance of gaining momentum thanks to Ryan’s new position and his connection with Hoppe. But it seems safe to assume Ryan isn’t necessarily any better than Chaffetz would have been for those harboring hope for the online gambling cause, federally-speaking.

Will Someone Please Give Me Back My Freedom Not to Gamble!

Like some who read this blog, I dialed into that House hearing that took place during the late afternoon and early evening today, the one held by the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security and Investigations to discuss that proposed Restoration of America’s Wire Act.

The hearing had been scheduled earlier in the month then delayed. I wrote something here at the time about it, in particular regarding the rumored list of witnesses almost all of whom were virulently anti-gambling in pretty much all forms, with the online version considered especially grievous. (Also wrote about RAWA during last December’s lame duck session when its proponents were hoping it might sneak through.)

Had the sucker on while working in the kitchen preparing dinner, an Irish pot pie with lentils, carrots, and turnips that turned out nicely. Thankfully the hearing ended before we sat down to eat, as much of the testimony and answers from the witnesses was sadly stomach-turning.

The hearing -- like most on the Hill -- was obviously primarily a bit of theater that allowed most involved to pretend to engage in a “dialogue” about the idea represented by RAWA, namely, to prohibit all forms of online gambling in the United States. It’s a truly radical idea, the consequences of which would not be insignificant should the bill become law. And so John Kindt (a business prof. with a long history of raving testimony comparing gambling to drugs), Les Bernal (director of the Stop Predatory Gambling Foundation), and Michael Fagan (not the guy who broke into Buckingham Palace back in the 1980s, but an adjunct law prof. with experience prosecuting money-launderers and racketeers) were there voicing fairly radical views about the widespread harms of gambling and the need for government to protect us from ourselves.

The testimony of these three was often so out-to-lunch it was hard not to crack wise in response. Bernal in particular went on a rant about “government-sponsored internet gambling” (even pounding the desk and repeating phrases as he did) that seemed to want to suggest that by not prohibiting gambling, governments were somehow requiring people to gamble.

For example, Bernal characterizes those who argue in favor of “states rights” on the issue of online gambling as adopting a position that “state governments should be allowed to force casino gambling and lottery games into every bedroom, dorm room and smart phone in their communities, even though a strong majority of individuals in states don’t want it.” Such is part of his larger characterization of a “predatory” government looking for ways to exploit its citizens.

Of course, what Bernal is saying is patently absurd. States that have passed laws allowing their citizens to gamble online in a regulated environment (as in a licensed casino) are obviously not “forcing” these games into citizens’ lives.

At one point Bernal tossed out a statistic that 5% of the population has had their lives “turned upside down by gambling,” a stat gleaned, incidentally, from an NIH study speculating (without supporting data) that both “pathological and problem gambling may affect up to 5% of Americans” (italics added). But of course he turns the idea of prohibition upside down when he weirdly suggests that government should enact a law to take away a freedom in order to give citizens the freedom not to do something.

Kindt meanwhile maintained regulation to be simply an entirely impossible goal, utterly ignoring the evidence of states having successfully managed to do just that and instead citing sources dating back to the 1990s as support. Fagan likewise looked not at regulated online gambling but unregulated examples as providing evidence of online gambling having financed terrorism.

Not everyone testifying was as crazed-sounding or illogical as these three often were. Parry Aftab of Wired Safety was again a balanced witness who suggested regulation a much preferable alternative to prohibition, while the R Street Institute’s Andrew Moylan pointed out how federal bill like RAWA would wrongly usurp states’ rights.

Most distasteful was the bill’s sponsor, Jason Chaffetz (pictured above), appearing to ignore what everyone was saying while maintaining it to be a “fiction for anyone to believe” states can in fact keep citizens from gambling online on sites maintained outside the state’s borders. Chaffetz delivered that point hastily, then left the hearing before it was over. Didn’t see him drop a mic before leaving, although it felt like he should have.

I trust some members of the subcommittee did learn something yesterday, although like I say, the hearing itself often seemed more about deception than instruction. If you’re curious, check out others’ more detailed rundowns of the hearing, among them Matthew Kredell’s for PokerNews and Steve Ruddock’s for BLUFF. If you can stomach them, that is.

RAWA Hearing Nearing

This Restoration of America’s Wire Act (RAWA) has reared its head again, with the bill having been introduced here in the new Congress. I was just reading about the hearing for the House Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security, and Investigations to discuss it that had been scheduled for Thursday morning, although it appears that has now been postponed to a later date.

RAWA is the Sheldon Adelson-backed bill proposing to rewrite (not really “restore”) the Federal Wire Act of 1961 to prohibit most forms of online gambling. That would include current state-regulated online gambling (and poker) such as we have in Nevada, New Jersey, and Delaware, although horse racing and fantasy sports would be excepted.

The bill got some notice last December during the “lame duck” session with some thinking it could get added to the big omnibus spending bill passed then, but that didn’t happen. So RAWA got reintroduced this year in both the House and the Senate, and now it is sounding like it is getting more attention early on in the Congressional cycle this time around.

The fact that it’s the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security, and Investigations gives you an idea where the focus will be when it comes to this impending discussion of possibly prohibiting online gambling. The list of folks slated to appear as witnesses at the postponed hearing also suggests we should be ready for a mostly one-sided discussion of how some believe online gambling fits into one or more of those categories.

There’s John Kindt who teaches business at the University of Illinois and has been out there comparing online gambling to crack cocaine ever since the internet first became a thing. Les Bernal, the National Director of a group called Stop Predatory Gambling is another on the list. So is Michael K. Fagan, another whom I recall turned up once before as a “Law Enforcement and Anti-Terrorism Consultant” before to express reservations about one of Barney Frank’s online gambling bills in the past (back in 2010).

The only witness who won’t be opposed to regulating online gambling is Parry Aftab, a lawyer who is the Executive Director of WiredSafety.org, a group whose purpose is to increase safety online. She’s also been a witness at previous House hearings regarding such as one in which she spoke in favor of one of Frank’s bills (in 2009) and another where “internet gaming” was discussed (in 2011).

Folks have been opining lately about the prospects for RAWA, with Nolan Dalla not long ago giving 10 reasons why he thinks it could be passed and Steve Ruddock responding with 10 reasons why it hasn’t got a chance. Tend to lean toward the latter view, at least at present.

Am glad, actually, the hearing got postponed, as I’m going to be traveling and thus wouldn’t have been able to follow on Thursday. Still want to see it, even if it’s easy enough to guess how it will go. What happens thereafter with RAWA is less clear.

Railbirding RAWA

A few months after I started this blog -- more than eight-and-a-half years ago, if you can believe that -- the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 was passed into law. Suddenly I found myself writing about a host of other topics besides simply playing poker, among them legal matters affecting my ability to play the game online.

As we’ve been reminding each other over and over again since the UIGEA was passed -- kind of like repeatedly relieving a bad beat -- that bill was snuck onto another one in the dead of night just before that Congress adjourned for the final push of campaigning prior to the ’06 elections. Thus did it become law without going through what many would rate a legitimate process of thoughtful debate and decision-making -- that is to say, via a process other than one in which our elected representatives would appear unequivocally to be representing the wishes of those who voted them into office (not that such an ideal is so often realized).

From there followed several years of mixing in posts in which I’d write about various legal developments that followed the UIGEA, including the long, drawn-out process of the regulations getting finalized by late 2008, as well as the many rival federal bills introduced by Barney Frank and others hoping to legalize and regulate online gambling in the U.S.

Then came Black Friday, which I might call a game-changer but in truth more or less stopped the game altogether, at least for most online poker players in the U.S. Before then, though, I remember somewhere along the way finding an analogy between poker and legal machinations surrounding the online game, the parallel having to do with both involving a combination of luck and skill.

That’s a generalization, but the point was that when it came to legislation regarding online poker, the process was in some respects controlled by the “players” (i.e., legislators, judges, lobbying groups, plaintiffs and defendants and those representing them, and so on) and also -- seemingly -- by what often appeared “chance” elements insofar as the combination of individuals and circumstances would result in lots of unpredictable outcomes.

Some “players” in the legislative game -- like in poker -- have a lot more influence than others, with money often making the difference in both contexts. Such is what we’ve been seeing happening over the last couple of years with Sheldon Adelson’s ongoing efforts to curb online gambling of all kinds. The CEO of Las Vegas Sands (parent company of the Venetian Macao Limited) is purportedly the 10th richest person in the world (as of this past summer), thus it hasn’t been difficult at all for him to toss chips various legislators’ way in order to lean on them to play his way.

The most recent orbit of this game has involved Adelson backing this new Restoration of America’s Wire Act (RAWA) first introduced in both houses back in March of this year. This federal law would rewrite the Federal Wire Act of 1961 (which the DOJ opined in late 2011 only applied to sports betting) to prohibit most forms of online gambling in the U.S., including making current state-regulated online gambling (in Nevada, New Jersey, and Delaware) illegal. (Horse racing and fantasy sports would still get a pass.)

RAWA has gotten some co-sponsors but not huge traction this year, but during this “lame duck” session some surmised it could be tossed into this huge $1.1 trillion omnibus spending bill, with a lot of talk about how the Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (NV) was being goaded by Adelson (and his money) into sneaking it in there in UIGEA-like fashion. You’ll recall how during an earlier lame duck session (in 2010), Reid was introducing a federal bill to license and regulate online poker while curbing other forms of online gambling. Well, now he apparently is sitting behind someone else’s stack.

During the day yesterday I noticed Rich Muny, Vice President of Player Relations for the Poker Players Alliance, noting how on his most recent webcast a former member of the House, Jon Porter, said it was “50-50” the RAWA would get added to the spending bill. The bill finally dropped last night without RAWA, and as one commentator in a Two Plus Two thread about the situation noted, “we went from about a 50% chance of being safe, to about... 85%.”

Again, just following the story makes it hard not to think of poker analogies. In this latest hand, those not wanting to see a federal bill outlawing online gambling across the U.S. were all in preflop with Q-Q versus an opponent’s A-K-suited, and now have faded both the flop and turn to have a big edge with one card to come.

The problem with those analogies, though, is that most who oppose RAWA aren’t even sitting at the table, never mind making decisions about pushing their stack in behind a premium hand. They’re on the rail, watching others with big stacks keep buying back in and playing the game on their own.