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#083 – Adventures in the Law Part IA – Mr. D’Amato Goes to Washington
This is the first part of an unscheduled, irregular multi-part series about the legal status of online poker. [Because “Mr. D’Amato Goes to Washington” is over 4,000 words, I have broken up Part I into four parts, all of which are being posted the evening of March 8.] The goal is NOT to tell you that the people who oppose the activity we enjoy so much are idiots and assholes. I’ll give you credit for already knowing that.
Obviously, you know I am not an independent journalist. I play online poker. I am friends with many people connected with Full Tilt Poker. I have a book coming out with “Full Tilt Poker” in the title. And, of course, Full Tilt is hiring me to write this blog.
At the same time, I believe I retain some credibility. You might think otherwise but I’d give up this job if Full Tilt had anything other than modest input over what I write. As it is, the literary agent I’m considering for my next book – almost certainly NOT about poker – believes that I am hurting my marketability as an author of narrative non-fiction by identifying myself as “a poker guy.” I’m here because I like it here. I can’t say I’ve been fired from better jobs than this, but I’ve been fired from a lot of jobs. I’d be more comfortable getting fired than writing crap.
Here are my goals:
(1) Help you understand the law, which includes prior and proposed state and federal laws, the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (“UIGEA”), court cases (past, ongoing, and potential future cases, both civil and criminal), proposed and actual regulations, and the developing international law related to online poker;
(2) Keep you abreast of developments and, more important, explain the meaning and impact of those developments;
and, because we are gamblers,
(3) Handicap the outcome of the legislative and legal obstacles to the smooth functioning of online poker. (A/k/a predicting the future)
Along the way, I will also share my anecdotes and opinions about the people involved.
I want to write today about former Senator Alfonse D’Amato taking the position as Chairman of the Board of the Poker Players Alliance (“PPA”), the grassroots lobbying organization developed to represent the otherwise unorganized mass of millions of poker players – 30-80 million in the U.S., 23 million online, and 160,000 (and growing) paid members of the PPA.
I say, it’s about time (if it’s not too late).
I believe the battle over the legality of online poker will probably be fought in the courts, not the legislative chambers. And we’ll win, though there is some chance it’ll be a pyrrhic victory as people have to go to jail and sites have to get shutdown for the showdown to occur.
But it’s not my purpose today to explain the courtroom-Armageddon scenario; you’ll get to hear that from me plenty in future installments. Besides, there’s a good chance that’s NOT how it will play out. I’ve gotten some very non-specific information from a number of sources that there is a lot of legislation that may be proposed in the near future that will clarify online poker’s legal status, or at least affect the current situation, which consists of a threatening-looking piece of legislation that no one really is sure about, and a 46 year-old law that probably doesn’t apply to online poker, but who knows because there was no such thing as online poker 46 years ago.
Today, I want to talk about how a former U.S. Senator got involved on our side and what impact that might have.
I. A Piece of Shit, with a Hair in It
Last April, I learned from Chris Ferguson that he and Howard Lederer, along with Greg Raymer, were going to Washington, D.C. to work with lobbyists and meet with some members of Congress and their staffs to plead poker’s case. I was thrilled to hear the news, and schemed to stowaway on the trip.
Chris Ferguson said I could come along. An attorney who worked with Full Tilt said it would be fine. Howard Lederer didn’t seem to object. But I couldn’t arrange a writing assignment in connection with the trip and I ended up staying home (or, more accurately, in Las Vegas where I was working on the Full Tilt book, which was then already over deadline).
As I understood it, they were appearing as representatives of the PPA. Obviously, their roles as spokespeople for Full Tilt (Ferguson, Lederer) and Pokerstars (Raymer) were known and they were espousing a position that was consistent with the operations of those sites. But they were trying to provide information about poker, which had only the newly-formed PPA to represent it. Apart from letting Congress know the number of people who played poker, they provided information about how the online sites worked, ways to work WITH the sites to accomplish goals like keeping out minors or collecting tax revenues or ensuring honest games or policing compulsive gamblers.
I think these guys impressed the hell out of whoever they met. Raymer was an accomplished patent attorney. Ferguson has a Ph.D. in computer science. And Lederer, had he not run away from home as a teenager to play games of skill for money on the streets of New York, could have easily equaled either of them in academic or professional accomplishments.
They got together with a bunch of congressmen and staffers from Texas, good ol’ boys, and played a little hold ‘em late one night. One old pol talked about his adventures with Amarillo Slim, and he even talked like Slim, talking about nights when the bad beats just won’t stop. “It’s like you gotta eat a piece of shit, and there’s a hair in it.”
They met staffers from the legislators who actually proposed the bills, Our Real Enemies, and constructively discussed other solutions – carving out poker as a game of skill, regulations (and studies of regulations) related to revenue collection, honesty of the games, minors, and compulsive gamblers.
They talked with some legislators who were on the fence or simply didn’t understand the issues, and impressed some pretty impressive minds.
Chris nabbed an invitation to the White House Correspondence Dinner, where a man in a kilt tried to recruit him to become a spy. Ferguson was seated next to Jeff “Skunk” Baxter, a guitar legend who was a founding member of Steely Dan as well as a member of the Doobie Brothers. Baxter, a self-taught tech geek, has become highly prized as a government consultant on missile defense and counterterrorism, chairing the Congressional Advisory Board on Missile Defense and consulting for companies like Northrop Grumman.
Lederer, Raymer, and Ferguson did a lot of good work and represented poker remarkably well.
