Home / Poker News December 2010 / Reid’s poker bill dead
Reid’s poker bill dead
Posted by: James Carter. - Thu, 2010-12-16 07:27
After all the hype and the elevated hopes surrounding Senate majority leader Harry Reid’s online poker initiative, according to ESPN, the said bill will not be attached to a vehicle law, nor will it pass in any other shape or form during the lame-duck session of Congress.
With that, the chances of
online poker becoming regulated in 2011 are pretty much dead and buried as well. Whose fault was it exactly that Reid failed to attach his bill to the President’s tax cut bill, which would’ve practically guaranteed its passing? Opposition came from the usual sources yet again. Sen. John Kyl and Rep. Spencer Bacchus have once again managed to laugh into the faces of millions of US-based online poker players and gamblers, confining them to another year or so of legal obscurity.
The same political actors who found little shame in attaching their 2006 UIGEA to a ports security bill which was a must pass and which had nothing to do with the legal status of online poker and gambling in the US, have spun around 180 degrees on the issue and now view such earmarking as immoral and counterproductive.
Reid has also been accused of going out of his way with the bill in an effort to appease his Nevada backers. It must be noted that Reid has never really made a secret of the fact that his push was indeed aimed at protecting the interests of his backers, while in the same time providing a legal framework for an activity that goes on regulated or not.
Needless to say, while parts of the
poker community were not exactly at peace with some of the provisions contained in Reid’s bill, the majority are now outraged over the rejection of another chance for their favorite activity to be included under the umbrella of the law.
