ALFONSE SPEAKS OUT

18 May 2007

PPA chairman gets coverage in Boston press

Over the weekend an article on Internet poker authored by a familiar name appeared in the Boston press, where Poker Players' Alliance chairman and former Senator Alfonse D'Amato described the campaign by Congressman Barney Frank to legalise online gambling in the United States as "heroic."

"Perhaps the biggest government blunders in U.S. history have been prohibitions," wrote D'Amato in the Boston Herald. "The prohibition against alcohol led to black market smuggling and speakeasies, and reaped huge profits for organized crime. Today, the prohibition on Internet gambling promises to funnel players underground, diminishing society’s ability to deal with serious challenges such as underage and problem gambling, and, more importantly, interferes with the right to individual liberty and privacy."

Describing the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act and other anti-online gambling legislation as "outrageous" the PPA executive praised the efforts of Congressman Frank to regulate and license online gambling in the USA, thereby raising significant tax revenues, as "heroic."

After examining the additional work that pursuing online gambling inflicts upon the American financial and enforcement system, D'Amato avers that playing poker online is simply an American tradition evolving into the 21st Century.

"It is unfathomable that poker, an American pastime and game of true skill, should be banned for the millions who enjoy playing responsibly," he writes, revealing that the PPA now has a membership of 425 000 Americans and counting.

He predicts that just as the prohibition of the 1920s failed, so too will today’s restrictions of Internet poker. "Only meaningful regulation of online poker, like the Frank plan, will produce positive outcomes for the players, children, the economy, the taxpayer, and society in general," he claims.

Pointing out the dangers of trying to shut down reputable sites that use age-verification software, leaving underground sites that do nothing to prevent minors from playing to command the field, D'Amato opines that problem gamblers are left as prey for unscrupulous operators that will work outside the law.

"[Congressman] Frank has introduced a more sensible solution," D'Amato informs readers. "His plan creates a licensing and regulating mechanism that will allow us to sort out the most responsible sites - those that are good corporate citizens - from those engaged in unscrupulous activities and practices. The legislation also protects minors and problem gamblers while allowing the majority of adults to play poker and other games online.

"The truth is that today’s technology makes licensing and regulation of Internet gambling possible. Age verification technology tools that exist today to keep kids off of poker sites were non-existent even a decade ago. As a result of these tools, many of the larger operators are able to keep kids off poker sites."

These technological advances make it possible for the U.S. to effectively regulate the industry, following the example of more than 80 countries and jurisdictions, including the United Kingdom, which are demonstrating how to successfully oversee the [Internet poker] industry, the article points out.

The taxation benefits that could flow from the Frank initiative are also addressed in D'Amato's article: "There is another important benefit to this commonsense approach: revenue. An analysis conducted by a leading economist reveals that more than $4 billion in federal and state revenues could be raised annually if Internet poker were properly regulated and taxed in the United States," the PPA chairman claims.

"It can be done, and it should be done. For the 23 million Americans who play poker online, the Internet has provided a forum to socialize and match their skills."

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