Barack Obama's Impact on Online Poker

I spent last night closely watching the U.S. Presidential election. At first the race for President was a tight one, with lead changes going back and forth amongst the popular vote, typically holding within 50,000 votes or less. Obama swept the Northeast as expected, while McCain locked up the Southern States. As the poll closures and vote counts began to spread West, Obama's lead grew progressively further ahead. Once Obama reached a 900,000 popular vote lead, he never looked back. The distance between the 2 primary candidates grew longer and farther until Obama's victory was announced as the votes still continued to pour in, adding to his 2.5 million vote lead.

As I write this, the current popular vote count puts Barack Obama in the lead by over 7 million popular votes.

Barack Obama is to be the next President of the United States of America. Love it or hate it, it is a fact.

Another fact appears to be Democratic control in all 3 branches. Not only will the White House be held be a Democrat, but both the House and Senate are soon to be run under a Democrat Majority. This doesn't likely mean that all bills liberal will fly into the law books as easily as one-dollar bills fly out of the mint, but it is likely that there will be less resistance.

So I pose this question to you. What do these major U.S. political changes mean for online poker in the States? Over the course of the next 4 years, could legal online gaming return to the United States? Will things remain the same? Or will restrictions become even tighter?

My understanding is that President-elect Obama is a renowned poker player who hosted a weekly game during his tewnure in the Illinois State Senate. You may be aware that former US Senator Al D'Amato of NY is also an avid poker player and is spearheading efforts to get Congress to legalize poker. His organization is the Poker Players Alliance and their website is at http://pokerplayersalliance.org/ I think that if we all summoned a fraction of the effort which the Obama campaign mustered, we can get poker playing recognized by Congress as a legitimate expression of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness".

I'm not sure there will be any impact. The thing that wasn't mention in this thread is that both Democrats and Republicans passed the online gambling laws.

well if he is a poker player then i think we should recruit him for a honary donkhard membership i dont mean to step on the adminstrations toes but that would be cool lol. but seriusly we need some one to step up too the plate for usa on this online debate and get us more us sites so i dont have to figure out wtf time it is on different sites and then all the sites that want to ban usa can go to u know where. trucker 103 and yes having a bad day lmao. again!!!

The word I have heard is that the Bush administration is going to try and push through some 11th hour legislation to ban all online gambling. The stories I have read are mostly vague speculation but lame duck presidents have been doing this kind of thing for decades. As a citizen/voter/taxpayer in the US I see it this way; make money off the sites that are making money on US players so my taxes don't go up. Where is the problem with this concept? For the vast majority this is disposable income, not next month's mortgage payment.

awry13 wrote:The word I have heard is that the Bush administration is going to try and push through some 11th hour legislation to ban all online gambling. The stories I have read are mostly vague speculation but lame duck presidents have been doing this kind of thing for decades. As a citizen/voter/taxpayer in the US I see it this way; make money off the sites that are making money on US players so my taxes don't go up. Where is the problem with this concept? For the vast majority this is disposable income, not next month's mortgage payment.

Here's what I think the problem with taxation is on online gaming. And please keep in mind here that I am a f#$%ing boob, so I could be way off here. The problem with the U.S. taxing online gaming is that I don't think most online gaming sites could comply. Of course they would love the idea of being welcome in the U.S. market, but this would likely open a pandora's box of other nations banning online gaming, then agreeing to lift the bans for a cut of the profits. Even if the U.S. were happy with a 1% cut (yeah right), once 99 other nations followed suit, the online gaming sites would either no longer make money or would lose players all over the globe.

As far as the 11th hour bills being shoved through, it appears that the current U.S. administration is involving the U.S. Federal Reserve in the latest shove of the UIGEA.

The only real solution for the problem of online gaming restriction is to convince the U.S. government to lift the bans, plain and simple. It would be a tremendous help if everyone here on Donkhard were to take a few minutes of their time to call Consumer Complaints at 888-851-1920 or Public Affairs at 202-452-2955.

Tell them:
# The federal agencies responsible for our nation’s economy should not be focused on Internet poker regulations.
# Finalization of the UIGEA rules will add additional burdens on our already crippled financial systems.
# Internet poker is a game of skill and form of recreation for millions of Americans; it should be exempted from the UIGEA.
# Please do not finalize the UIGEA regulations until their impact on our banking systems and average Americans has been fully studied.

The calls will only take a few minutes of your time. Keep in mind that the most powerful tool in a Democracy besides the vote is the public voice. Since this is a matter being handled by elected officials and not by the popular vote, the weapon of the people in this situation is public outcry.

Take a few minutes right now and make your voice heard!

he is going to have a huge impact on online poker in my opinion. the only reason i bought a laptop in december is because he was elected. doyle brunson a life long republican voted for obama this election. i can't say for sure why he voted for him, but it is well known that barrack is an avid poker player. as intelligent as obama is i think he knows undoing uigea will drastically cut the decifit

With everything that is happening in our country and the world today, it's safe to say that the subject of online poker is not in the forefront of our President and our Congress. How much impact will Barrack Obama have on Online Poker?..... A lot could very well depend on how much we, the online poker community, voice our opinions to the President, Congress, our individual state government, and the governing bodies that reside over the online poker industry.

We have a very strong and powerful voice.... IF we let it be heard. Call those numbers..... CALL your congressmen and women and let them know and get all your friends to do the same. It's a difficult time to try to get any attention focused on this issue, but we can keep it alive... it's up to us... and no one else.

but the ruling last month in georgia that poker is a game of skill by a judge there{tho he probably never played a freeroll lol}could change the laws.once we establish a legal precedant..from their the validity of other laws can be challenged siting precedent,,,i my self go back to our founding fathers and quote thomas jefferson who said
"when a law is not just,a man is not only right to disobey it,he is obligated to do so"