lifeofmendel

apparently the big fly-in that the Poker Player Alliance did to Washington DC and the judiciary hearing that was held a couple of weeks ago has started to shift the current US politics of online poker back in favor of the poker players.

[cardplayer.com article].

The Poker Player Alliance youtube channel put up a broadcast of the entire hearing. I haven't watched the whole thing yet, but i watched one particular clip in which Annie Duke, a reknowned poker professional, stated the following that pretty much echoes my position on it:

"...[as far as] individuals that have bankruptcies in their family [due to internet gambling], i just want to say quickly that... if we start legislating based on individual cases of people having bankruptcy, we're going to be in pretty big trouble because... people make bad decisions all the time that create bankruptcy and problems in their family. For exxample, accepting a sub-prime zero interest down mortgage has created a lot of bankruptcy recently. Online shopping or shopping in real life has created a lot of bankruptcy... if we choose to ban every activity that creates financial hardship in the family, we're going to be banning basically every activity. If we choose to ban everything that hurts a family, we're going to be banning McDonalds, for example, because many fathers died prematurely from eating fatty foods and leave their children with no means to support themselves, and a lot of ruining of lives occur because too many people are eating too many McDonald's hamburgers, and i would hope that we're not going to ban that either."

This woman was absolutely fantastic in the judiciary hearing, bringing a lot of hard statistics, common sense, and intelligence to the debate. It probably also helped that a part of her arsenal is that she has four kids of her own and expressed very well her view that the UIGEA ultimately hurts more than protects the family.

of course i don't expect to see any immediate changes, but i'm cautiously optimistic about the long term results.