Home / Poker News December 2010 / Looking back at 2010 – poker legalization efforts
Looking back at 2010 – poker legalization efforts
Posted by: Randy Williams - Fri, 2010-12-31 11:07
US-based poker players looking for legal protection while playing their favorite game online were treated to a genuine emotional rollercoaster in 2010. At the beginning of the year, things started off slowly, and often gave the impression that not much would even be attempted during the year in this respect. Slowly however, the anticipation was built up, only for hopes to be dashed in June. In July, more anticipation came, followed by the apparently inevitable disappointment in September. The end of the year stayed true to the general trend. Sen. Harry Reid’s
online poker initiative got people – including yours truly – all revved up several times, only to let them down again and again.
Here we stand at the end of the old year, virtually in the same place where we were at its beginning.
Lots of things can be said about 2010’s online poker legalization efforts, but the bottom line is: despite some minor and obscure progress, not much has been achieved.
The progress – if any- has been largely symbolic. Still, being eternal optimists, we need to boast with something and that’s about all we’ve got, so here goes:
2010 saw Capitol Hill deliver the first ever positive vote concerning the legal status of online poker when Barney Frank’s initiative to legalize and to regulate online poker was met with approval by the House Financial Services Committee back in July.
A hearing by the House Ways and Means Committee on internet gambling made it clear for the first time that Congress was indeed seriously considering the issue.
In hindsight, the November election was probably to blame for the fact that the cause of legal internet poker ran out of steam again. Reid’s December poker push was the first time since 2006 that many industry insiders actually believed legal poker was on the verge of becoming a reality.
Though symbolic and theoretic progress has been made, actual legalization will have to wait, and we may yet be saying the same thing a year from now.
