After failing to get relief at the Washington state Supreme Court, Lee Rousso has decided not to appeal the 2006 state law that classified online poker as a Class C felony to the US Supreme Court. In a statement released on Wednesday, Poker Players Alliance Executive Director John Pappas announced that, after consultation with State Director Rousso, the PPA has decided to quit this battlefield in hopes of fighting another day on more favorable terrain.
The PPA statement read, in part, as follows: “Given the procedural posture of the case and the state Supreme Court’s decision having been made without benefit of a full factual record, asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review this decision does not provide the kind of opportunity that this issue truly deserves. Both Mr. Rousso and the PPA are instead working on alternative strategies for continuing to press the issues raised by the case.“
The fallout of the state Supreme Court’s decision has been swift and dramatic. Major online poker rooms like PokerStars and Full Tilt, presumably under the misguided impression that online poker was about to become legal at the federal level, barred Washington state players from participating in cash games on their sites. Now, with fewer poker rooms accepting Washington state players, and the international companies that do accept them under sustained eCom attack by all levels of US law enforcement, it just got a little colder and wetter in the Pacific Northwest. Just in time for Christmas…
