"The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act"

Lot's of discussion has started about the new "Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act" and it's impact on the future of online poker and poker at all.

A good analysis can be found here by I. Nelson Rose - an authority in gambling laws.
Another interesting analysis can be found from Allyn Jaffrey Shulman as she comes to the conclusion that the new law can't be enforced on online poker due to past court decisions.

But not much has been said about the way this act has been attached to a total unrelated bill about port security. Not being a US citizen I usually avoid critics about internal laws of a country that isn't mine. But this is an outrages abuse of democracy and everybody (not only poker players) should be alerted about what happend here.

Fortunately there had been at least one person who spoke out what lot of Democrats (and hopefully at least some Republicans) must have thought. Kudos to Shelley Berkley and her speach before the voting (and thanks to Jan from 50outs to post this first on his blog):



There are two great organisations that need your support now and will help to defend this law as good as they can. For every US citizen interested in poker they should consider to join the Poker Players Alliance to create a strong lobby that can't be overheard in the next elections.
Additionally I would again stress my support for the World Poker Association. The WPA is an organisation for tournament poker worldwide and we all know that tournaments are one of the most important channels for bringing poker to the public.

I really like Allyn Jaffrey Shulmans conclusions and the PPA is doing the right thing in my opinion as they try to clearly exempt poker from this law. If her conclusions are correct the PPA should have a good stand to succeed here.