This article states that the bill is scheduled for a vote next month??? I don't think this is correct. It has to get through all the committees with jurisdiction before it would be scheduled for a vote. Does anyone else have any info?
Online poker players face new Prohibition
- Justin Berton,
San Francisco Chronicle Staff Writer
Sunday, August 27, 2006
Inside the quiet San Francisco headquarters of the Poker Players Alliance, a political group that boasts 100,000 members, a laminated poster hangs above the desk of executive director Michael Bolcerek that reads, "The Threat is Real."
In this case, the immediate threat to Bolcerek and his poker-playing army is the growing anti-gambling forces that argue the game is bad for American family values and want to remove it from the Internet. Despite online poker's rabid popularity -- the game now draws an estimated 23 million Americans to their keyboards every day -- it has recently suffered some big-time legislative hits.
In June, citing concerns about underage gambling and illegal wagers, the Washington state Legislature banned online gambling, including poker, making it the first state to effectively shut down virtual card rooms. And in July, the House of Representatives passed the Federal Internet Gambling Prohibition and Enforcement Act, which would prevent banks and credit card companies from processing payments to Internet gambling sites. Next month, the bill is scheduled for a vote in the Senate, where it's already earned support from online gambling foes, including California Sen. Dianne Feinstein.
Hence Bolcerek's need to remind visitors that the war on online poker is no bluff.
"I wish they were just trying to regulate us or tax us," the gravelly voiced Bolcerek said of his opponents. "But they really want us wiped out, gone."
Bolcerek, a Cow Hollow resident and former Silicon Valley businessman, makes for an unlikely card crusader. He took on the role a year and half ago, he said, after he heard about California's ban on charity poker tournaments. A San Jose high school was forced to return $17,000 it raised in a Texas Hold 'Em event after the state attorney general ruled the proceeds were illegal gambling profits.
Like a lot of Hold 'Em buffs, Bolcerek, who said he plays in a local home game twice a month, considers poker a game of skill, not chance -- an important distinction, he said, that elevates poker from the illicit activity of a street craps game to a legitimate sport. So when Bolcerek saw the state government clamp down on his favorite pastime over a measly charity event, the political novice said it roused the civil liberties-activist in him.
"My wife said, 'It's only poker,' " Bolcerek recalled. "I told her, 'It was poker. Now, it's politics.' "
After Bolcerek took over the fledging alliance earlier this year, and moved its offices from Las Vegas to San Francisco, the group's membership grew tenfold, thanks to advertising on poker sites and a few well-considered publicity stunts. Earlier this summer, Bolcerek brought three poker pros -- Chris "Jesus" Ferguson, Greg "Fossilman" Raymer and Howard "The Professor" Lederer -- to Washington, D.C., to play one hand with Rep. Jim Leach, R-Iowa, the co-author of the federal legislation. Even though Leach lost the hand (but ultimately won the legislative vote), the coverage -- along with a fist-pumping rally at the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas three weeks ago -- led to an estimated 30,000-person bump in the alliance's membership, Bolcerek said.
"At the rate they are growing, they could become a legislative force to be reckoned with," said Anthony Cabot, an attorney who specializes in gaming law and is founder of the Internet Gaming Report, a newsletter that covers technology and gaming law. "Not as big as the NRA (National Rifle Association), but when you think in terms of how many people play poker today, it's that kind of power that comes from a grassroots organization."
For the past 10 years, Cabot said, Congress has tried to curb Internet gambling, claiming it's too easy for young gamblers to log on, make a few bets and get hooked. Meanwhile, as Congress has moved slowly to approve legislation, the number of Americans gambling online has grown 20 percent every year, to the point where they're now wagering $6 billion annually, according to a study from the American Gaming Association.
In Cabot's estimation, the online legislation has been "motivated by the conservative, right-wing values agenda who want to stop all gambling. But since they can't stop Vegas, they're certainly going to try and stop it from happening on the Internet."
Leach told the House on the day of the vote, "The reason the religious community has come together is that they are concerned for the unity of the American family. ... Religious leaders of all denominations and faiths are seeing gambling difficulties erode family values."
Bruce Roberts, executive director of the California Council on Problem Gambling, said the group takes no official stance on the proposed law, but is concerned that the rise of Internet gambling has fostered a new generation of high-risk players. According to an Annenberg Public Policy Center study last year, 2.9 million Americans ages 14 to 22 play cards for money on a weekly basis.
"You give me a kid and a credit card, and he can be gambling online in less than a minute," Roberts said. "This is the first generation that has grown up in a gambling-permissive society."
Bolcerek, the Poker Players Alliance director, counters that his group would actually prefer government regulation for sanctioned sites. A study his group commissioned boasted the feds could claim $3.1 billion annually in taxes if the government monitored Internet gambling sites.
U.S. federal law forbids wagers across interstate lines, except for horse racing and lotteries, so currently sites like PokerParty.com and PokerStars.com are located offshore. Most have strident sign-on formats that Bolcerek said ensures bettors are of legal age.
But Brett Hale, vice president of the American Gaming Association, said that when bettors go online, they want quick action. Last year, MGM Mirage attempted to join the online casinos with an offshore site, and built security pages so rigid, gamblers complained of the time-consuming process -- and moved on to other sites.
"They did their job too well," Hale said. "They couldn't draw a reasonable consumer base to continue on."
Still, most gambling industry officials, and certainly players, find it hard to believe an online poker ban could be policed -- in other words, the threat isn't real.
Kelly O'Hara, marketing director for the Bicycle Casino in Los Angeles, the state's second largest card room, credits online poker with tripling her club's business in the past five years. O'Hara said she witnesses a common transition: from avid ESPN watcher to online player to felt player. Yet she doubts, like many in the industry, that Congress would enact a law that would outright ban the game online.
"At this point, you are not going to tell Americans they can't sit in their home, in their underwear, and play poker," O'Hara said. "It's beyond stopping."
Yet in Washington state, legislators recently did just that.
Jason Sykes, 29, a first-year law student at the University of Washington, had been playing for just under a year in his Seattle apartment before he learned in June that if he placed another bet online, he could face a felony charge. Sykes said he'd been playing a couple hours every night as a way to relax, and the news came as a cold shock. Even though Washington's gaming commission has said it won't arrest gamblers at home, a Bellingham, Wash., Web site operator reported that his site was considered "aiding and abetting" by the state's gaming commission and so he voluntarily took it down.
After Sykes quit playing in June, he found the Poker Players Alliance Web site, and now said he's starting his own local chapter. His strategy is to put a referendum on the 2007 ballot and overturn the state law.
"I had to stop playing, but I didn't stop thinking about what I could do about it," Sykes said. "It seems pretty ridiculous to me that something like playing a game online needs to be protected ... but apparently it does."
In San Francisco, Bolcerek is currently focused on holding off the Senate vote, and then stemming the growing tide of anti-poker sentiment. Bolcerek keeps track of cases from around the country where the alliance can lend a hand. In South Carolina, where home games are still illegal, a 78-year-old woman was recently arrested for hosting a $20 limit game. In Ohio, a bar owner was shut down for hosting a Hold 'Em tournament. He'll travel to D.C. in a few weeks to lobby his cause.
"At least we've got the resources to do something," Bolcerek said. "We've created a political voice and we've got a seat at the table."
Online poker players face new Prohibition
- Justin Berton,
San Francisco Chronicle Staff Writer
Sunday, August 27, 2006
Inside the quiet San Francisco headquarters of the Poker Players Alliance, a political group that boasts 100,000 members, a laminated poster hangs above the desk of executive director Michael Bolcerek that reads, "The Threat is Real."
In this case, the immediate threat to Bolcerek and his poker-playing army is the growing anti-gambling forces that argue the game is bad for American family values and want to remove it from the Internet. Despite online poker's rabid popularity -- the game now draws an estimated 23 million Americans to their keyboards every day -- it has recently suffered some big-time legislative hits.
In June, citing concerns about underage gambling and illegal wagers, the Washington state Legislature banned online gambling, including poker, making it the first state to effectively shut down virtual card rooms. And in July, the House of Representatives passed the Federal Internet Gambling Prohibition and Enforcement Act, which would prevent banks and credit card companies from processing payments to Internet gambling sites. Next month, the bill is scheduled for a vote in the Senate, where it's already earned support from online gambling foes, including California Sen. Dianne Feinstein.
Hence Bolcerek's need to remind visitors that the war on online poker is no bluff.
"I wish they were just trying to regulate us or tax us," the gravelly voiced Bolcerek said of his opponents. "But they really want us wiped out, gone."
Bolcerek, a Cow Hollow resident and former Silicon Valley businessman, makes for an unlikely card crusader. He took on the role a year and half ago, he said, after he heard about California's ban on charity poker tournaments. A San Jose high school was forced to return $17,000 it raised in a Texas Hold 'Em event after the state attorney general ruled the proceeds were illegal gambling profits.
Like a lot of Hold 'Em buffs, Bolcerek, who said he plays in a local home game twice a month, considers poker a game of skill, not chance -- an important distinction, he said, that elevates poker from the illicit activity of a street craps game to a legitimate sport. So when Bolcerek saw the state government clamp down on his favorite pastime over a measly charity event, the political novice said it roused the civil liberties-activist in him.
"My wife said, 'It's only poker,' " Bolcerek recalled. "I told her, 'It was poker. Now, it's politics.' "
After Bolcerek took over the fledging alliance earlier this year, and moved its offices from Las Vegas to San Francisco, the group's membership grew tenfold, thanks to advertising on poker sites and a few well-considered publicity stunts. Earlier this summer, Bolcerek brought three poker pros -- Chris "Jesus" Ferguson, Greg "Fossilman" Raymer and Howard "The Professor" Lederer -- to Washington, D.C., to play one hand with Rep. Jim Leach, R-Iowa, the co-author of the federal legislation. Even though Leach lost the hand (but ultimately won the legislative vote), the coverage -- along with a fist-pumping rally at the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas three weeks ago -- led to an estimated 30,000-person bump in the alliance's membership, Bolcerek said.
"At the rate they are growing, they could become a legislative force to be reckoned with," said Anthony Cabot, an attorney who specializes in gaming law and is founder of the Internet Gaming Report, a newsletter that covers technology and gaming law. "Not as big as the NRA (National Rifle Association), but when you think in terms of how many people play poker today, it's that kind of power that comes from a grassroots organization."
For the past 10 years, Cabot said, Congress has tried to curb Internet gambling, claiming it's too easy for young gamblers to log on, make a few bets and get hooked. Meanwhile, as Congress has moved slowly to approve legislation, the number of Americans gambling online has grown 20 percent every year, to the point where they're now wagering $6 billion annually, according to a study from the American Gaming Association.
In Cabot's estimation, the online legislation has been "motivated by the conservative, right-wing values agenda who want to stop all gambling. But since they can't stop Vegas, they're certainly going to try and stop it from happening on the Internet."
Leach told the House on the day of the vote, "The reason the religious community has come together is that they are concerned for the unity of the American family. ... Religious leaders of all denominations and faiths are seeing gambling difficulties erode family values."
Bruce Roberts, executive director of the California Council on Problem Gambling, said the group takes no official stance on the proposed law, but is concerned that the rise of Internet gambling has fostered a new generation of high-risk players. According to an Annenberg Public Policy Center study last year, 2.9 million Americans ages 14 to 22 play cards for money on a weekly basis.
"You give me a kid and a credit card, and he can be gambling online in less than a minute," Roberts said. "This is the first generation that has grown up in a gambling-permissive society."
Bolcerek, the Poker Players Alliance director, counters that his group would actually prefer government regulation for sanctioned sites. A study his group commissioned boasted the feds could claim $3.1 billion annually in taxes if the government monitored Internet gambling sites.
U.S. federal law forbids wagers across interstate lines, except for horse racing and lotteries, so currently sites like PokerParty.com and PokerStars.com are located offshore. Most have strident sign-on formats that Bolcerek said ensures bettors are of legal age.
But Brett Hale, vice president of the American Gaming Association, said that when bettors go online, they want quick action. Last year, MGM Mirage attempted to join the online casinos with an offshore site, and built security pages so rigid, gamblers complained of the time-consuming process -- and moved on to other sites.
"They did their job too well," Hale said. "They couldn't draw a reasonable consumer base to continue on."
Still, most gambling industry officials, and certainly players, find it hard to believe an online poker ban could be policed -- in other words, the threat isn't real.
Kelly O'Hara, marketing director for the Bicycle Casino in Los Angeles, the state's second largest card room, credits online poker with tripling her club's business in the past five years. O'Hara said she witnesses a common transition: from avid ESPN watcher to online player to felt player. Yet she doubts, like many in the industry, that Congress would enact a law that would outright ban the game online.
"At this point, you are not going to tell Americans they can't sit in their home, in their underwear, and play poker," O'Hara said. "It's beyond stopping."
Yet in Washington state, legislators recently did just that.
Jason Sykes, 29, a first-year law student at the University of Washington, had been playing for just under a year in his Seattle apartment before he learned in June that if he placed another bet online, he could face a felony charge. Sykes said he'd been playing a couple hours every night as a way to relax, and the news came as a cold shock. Even though Washington's gaming commission has said it won't arrest gamblers at home, a Bellingham, Wash., Web site operator reported that his site was considered "aiding and abetting" by the state's gaming commission and so he voluntarily took it down.
After Sykes quit playing in June, he found the Poker Players Alliance Web site, and now said he's starting his own local chapter. His strategy is to put a referendum on the 2007 ballot and overturn the state law.
"I had to stop playing, but I didn't stop thinking about what I could do about it," Sykes said. "It seems pretty ridiculous to me that something like playing a game online needs to be protected ... but apparently it does."
In San Francisco, Bolcerek is currently focused on holding off the Senate vote, and then stemming the growing tide of anti-poker sentiment. Bolcerek keeps track of cases from around the country where the alliance can lend a hand. In South Carolina, where home games are still illegal, a 78-year-old woman was recently arrested for hosting a $20 limit game. In Ohio, a bar owner was shut down for hosting a Hold 'Em tournament. He'll travel to D.C. in a few weeks to lobby his cause.
"At least we've got the resources to do something," Bolcerek said. "We've created a political voice and we've got a seat at the table."
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