Reid Expected to Push Federal Online Poker Legislation
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is the one expected to push federal online poker legislation this 2012. The aim is to pass the legislation in the United States but Reid, the key politician spearheading this hasn’t said much about the topic while Congressmen Joe Barton and Barney Frank, both ambassadors of the cause gave countless interviews, openly campaigning for support.
However, it doesn’t mean that Reid isn’t doing this job. It is said that he’s doing his campaigning in private. To back this up, he gave a rare public comment to the website Gambling Compliance when asked about the recent opinion of DOJ on the Wire Act.
This is what he told Gambling Compliance: “It’ll give us an incentive to get something done, we cannot have a series of laws around the country related to [Internet] gaming. I know a lot about gaming. I’m a former chairman of the Nevada [Gaming] Commission, and I think it’s very important that we have a national law.”
Reid’s comments indicate that the lawmakers know that this year should be the time to finally move on and create a federal poker bill. That, or leave it stale, and states can go about their work without a decent and concrete federal framework.
John Pappas, executive director of the Poker Players Alliance (PPA) told Poker News, “It’s very positive that someone like Reid is openly talking about the need to get this done this year. We’re hoping we can transfer words into law. It’s preferable for the players, for the business side of things, to have some clear and consistent standards across 50 states instead of a patchwork of state laws and activities that would be legal in one place but illegal somewhere else.”
Gambling Compliance said Reid also publicly confirmed for the first time that he is negotiating with Senator Jon Kyl (R-Ariz) regarding a federal bill, but Reid refused to give any details on the said negotiation.
“We’re at the table already, we’ve met with their staff. We’ve provided input throughout the process,” Pappas said even though Reid hasn’t introduced a bill yet. Reid and Kyl, the top Democrat and No. 2 Republican in the Senate, are still negotiating but that doesn’t mean that it won’t happen. The poker community hopes that Reid will try to attach poker legislation to the payroll tax bill next month and even though it may seem like it’s only optimism, Pappas said that the PPA is making certain the player whims would not go unheard during the formulation of the legislation.
Assuming that Reid had done a lot of work behind the scenes, he could quickly move a bill anytime. According to sources, it wouldn’t be surprising if all of a sudden a non-existent bill becomes attached to a larger legislation without the public knowledge. Pappas said the PPA is hoping to see some movement in the next few months or else it would be difficult by the end of the year due to election preparations.
[Source: Poker News]
