News

Monday, 20 December 2010 07:42

The high hopes of poker players right across the United States have been dashed as Senator Harry Reid's Online Gambling Bill falls at the final hurdle.

It looks like the end of the road for what promised so much but in the anticlimactic end, delivered nothing. The intention was to use the same tactic that got the UIGEA passed in 2006, by tacking Reid's bill to legalise and regulate the online gambling industry onto the back of another piece of legislation that would have been voted on during the end of year lame-duck session. However, it now appears that will not happen, nor will it get voted on in its own right as a standalone bill.

It also looks as though Senator Reid will have to face some big name executives back in Las Vegas who were pinning their hopes on a favourable result and explain to them just exactly what went wrong. Several very big names in gambling have put a lot of money behind projects in readiness for what they believed would be a legalising of online gambling. Harrah's in particular have been prominent in the news of late with their re-branding and significant investments in the online gambling arena. PartyGaming have also been making big inroads into the US gambling industry in preparation for what was expected to be a change in the gambling laws to happen before the end of the year.

Being one of the Senate's top ranking Democrats, it seemed like a pretty sure bet that Reid would have the political clout to convince legislators to get behind him in supporting his bill. Unfortunately, many top Republicans came out in force to shoot down in flames Reid's attempts to push his online poker bill through. They claimed that Reid's only intention with this bill was to keep his supporters in his home State of Nevada happy. It was a lot of political mudslinging, but a well worn tactic that also paid off. 

There are millions of honest poker players all over the country that are outraged by this setback. With Conservatives set to take over control in January of the House, and Barney Frank almost certain to lose his seat as leader of the House Financial Services Committee, this was seen by many as the very last chance for players to be given the freedom to play legally and be protected by legislation from unscrupulous unregulated operators. It seems they have once again been let down by the people they elected to protect and serve them.