Home / Poker News July 2012 / Indian Tribes Looking to Push Their Own Federal Poker Bill?
Indian Tribes Looking to Push Their Own Federal Poker Bill?
Posted by: Randy Williams - Thu, 2012-07-26 04:21
These days, it seems like the issue of legalized and regulated
online poker is never off the table when it comes to politics and law. While the elections this year have pretty much sidelined the deal at least until November, it now looks like Senate leaders plan to get something going during the lame-duck session which spans the November to end of the year time-frame.
Not only that, but Indian tribes may be preparing to push their own version of a similar bill during the lame-duck session too. Representatives of the tribes are apparently set to discuss the issue in the Senate Committee of Indian Affairs. According to PPA executive director John Pappas, the move is certainly indicative of the fact that the tribes are indeed interested in drafting their own bill. This is how they feel they would have their interests best protected.
Most of the witnesses at the hearing will be from various tribes, with the exception of PPA lobbyist John Porter.
What exactly are the odds of a separate, tribes-sponsored bill passing though? According to experts, those odds are close to naught, but such a bill would in fact be useful in the sense that it would provide a picture of what the tribes would want to see included in the eventual regulations. The eventual bill would probably be one that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Minority Whip John Kyl are allegedly already working on. If true, the fact that Reid and Kyl are working on an online poker bill together would mean that legal online poker would finally get a real chance for the first time since the 2006 UIGEA was signed into law by President Bush. According to Pappas, the Reid-Kyl bill is likely to be pushed during the lame-duck session, so 2012 may yet turn out to be a great year for online poker in the US.
