Million members for PPA

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ONLINE POKER GROUP MEMBERSHIP TOPS A MILLION

Poker Players' Alliance announcement expected this week

One of the most active pro-online poker groups in the United States, the Washington DC-based Poker Players Alliance, is expected to show phenomenal growth and influence this week when it announces that membership has passed the one million mark.

Reliable sources say that the announcement will be accompanied by the formation of a new political action committee and a voter-registration drive as part of the PPA's "If You Play, Have a Say campaign."

The PPA's main objective is the legalisation of online poker, by either regulation or exception to current laws, and it has leant strong support to the efforts of Capitol Hill politicians such as Congressmen Barney Frank and Robert Wexler who are pushing legislation which will achieve this among other goals. The Alliance has also invested significant funds in lobbying (see previous InfoPowa reports).

PPA chairman, former Republican Senator Alphonse D'Amato, says: “Reaching one million members puts the PPA on par with such political powerhouses as AARP and the National Association of Realtors."

This year's World Series of Poker in Las Vegas during July will again provide a focal point for the Alliance, which plans to have representatives at the event, signing up members and registering voters for the November national election in the United States. The group will also have computer terminals at the event so fans can send e-mails to their members of Congress supporting the idea of legalised and regulated online gambling.

In an initiative earlier this month, the group’s members sent more than 15 000 e-mails to members of the Financial Services Committee after a House hearing on the burdens that the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 placed on banks and other financial institutions that will be required to police gambling transactions.

The group signed up hundreds of thousands of members after Congress approved the UIGEA anti-online gambling enforcement bill, PPA executive director John Pappas said.

Interest has built steadily since then, but Pappas hopes the hearing and new legislation designed to derail the UIGEA introduced earlier this month by Frank and Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) will spur more poker players to sign up. The new bill could effectively gut the current law by prohibiting the Treasury Department from issuing or implementing new rules that would require banks to prevent these transactions.

Several religious groups and the National Football League have vowed to oppose any moves to tweak or upend the existing law.

The alternative to defanging the UIGEA lies in an exemption for online poker from existing law, as is currently the case with online betting on horse racing and state lotteries. D'Amato personally feels that this is a better bet than the possibilities of overturning the UIGEA any time soon: “My own feeling is that it will be impossible to get a broad bill,” D’Amato opines. “A carve-out is the way to go.”

Pappas said PPA hopes to raise $250 000 this year for the group's new political action committee, Poker PAC. Most of that money will go toward helping lawmakers who support the poker community, but Pappas said the group could eventually target other members of Congress, as well.