Fans of regulating online poker in the US took only three days to garner the 5,000 petition signatures needed to receive an official response from Obama and co. The official website of the White House had asked US citizens to send in petitions for them to review and then forward to the appropriate experts. The petition was posted on Friday by Poker Players Alliance (PPA) Director of Grassroots and External Affairs, Drew Lesofski, and from there on in it had 30 days to reach the big 5k.
Rich Muny, VP of PPA player relations, told PokerNews, “What we really want is to show the administration that a lot of people care about this liberty.
“We want it to always be in their heads that poker is in the top-tier of Americans’ interests. To me, that is more important than what response we get from the administration.”
As we’ve noted here before, the PPA is in favor of intrastate regulations but only if they advance the case for online poker at a federal level. State-by-state is looking to be the more likely of the two though and it’s unlikely that this petition will cause that much hoo-ha at the White House. The petition is currently in 22nd position out of the 100 that have been proposed and the 7,011 signatures is nowhere near overturning Marijuana legalization’s lead at the top.
This is another example of the push for online gambling legislation that is being seen all around. The astroturfers at FairPlayUSA as well as the American Gaming Association have put their two cents into the ring from the casino business side of the fence and it seems likes poker is also joining in with the push. It might be all for nothing.
Even though it has already reached the nadir of 5k signatures, it’s being reported that the threshold may rise due to the large amount of petitions that have been sent in that reach of the 5,000 signatures needed. In the meantime, the PPA can be rest assured that the first likely regulation, if it happens, would be at an intrastate level.
