US Online Poker Needs State and Federal Level Legalization: Barton
Joe Barton, the Congressman from Texas, has expressed his opinion that online poker legalization in well-populated US states will accelerate federal-level online poker legalization.
Speaking at a Poker Players’ Alliance (PPA) hosted conference call, Barton said that a federal-level poker bill is essential even if several US states legalize and regulate online poker. Barton bears the credit of introducing the latest federal-level online poker bill, the Internet Poker Freedom Act of 2013.
According to Barton, increased state-level legalization of online poker will inspire more poker players to voice their rights to play real money online poker in a licensed and regulated environment. As more states legalize online poker, the need to establish a federal-level regulatory framework for online poker will be increasingly felt, he opined.
Barton said: “As people see how well and fair it is in states that allow it, they are going to demand through their congressmen and senators to have it in their states. I can’t say when that general mass will occur, but I can say it will occur and that it won’t be 20 years from now. It will be, if not next year, the year after or soon after that.”
He also confirmed his plans to release bipartisan co-sponsors for his bill within the next two weeks. In 2011, Barton had introduced a similar bill, which had led to a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing. Barton, a member of the committee, said that he will urge Fred Upton, the working committee chairman, to arrange another hearing, but admitted that he cannot guarantee that a hearing will be held.
He further said: “I don’t think this policy of ‘Just Say No’ is going to last much longer. Once neutral congressmen or senators who may not have interest one way or another see what’s happening intrastate, I think it has a good chance to pass and become law.”
Giving reasons why his bill is exclusive to poker, he said that he had purposely kept other forms of online gambling out of his bill to maintain neutrality. Explaining that he has nothing against online gambling, he said, “A lot of congressmen are opposed to pure games of chance. In terms of defending the bill, it’s much easier to defend poker because it’s a game of skill and you don’t come across many people who challenge that.”
Explaining that his bill excludes credit card deposits to protect players, he said that only debit card deposits will be allowed because he doesn’t want poker players to go broke and end up with huge credit card debts.
Talking about the 5-year bad actor clause that his bill includes, he said that it implies that companies will be not granted a license five years after being convicted by the federal government, which means that PokerStars will not be affected by this bad actor clause.
Earlier, PPA chief Pappas had remarked that online poker bills such as the one introduced by Barton are essential to further the cause of online poker in the US.
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