Last week, the executive director of the PPA, Mr. John Pappas, outlined some of the plans that his group has for 2008.

The Poker Player’s Alliance is one of the most influential gambling bodies in the United States. The organization works on a membership basis and has ongoing campaigns in order to fight for the status of poker as a recognized game of skill in the US.

The Poker Player’s Alliance’s membership base presently stands at 800,000. Pappas said that a powerful drive to attract more members will be undertaken this year, to try and up that number to a million. However, Pappas is not stopping there. He already foresees passing the ‘one million milestone’, saying: "If there are a million supporters for the game of poker, why not 1.5 million?"  Pappas was quoted earlier last year saying that 1 million members was the number they needed to make an impact.

Efforts to gain more members will continue at the 2008 World Series of Poker along with setting up a booth to allow players to contact their representatives.

The main focus of the PPA, however, will be their continued efforts to regulate online poker in the United States. All the group’s strategies will be directed towards this one goal. Pappas said that recent events in the global online gambling industry point to the fact that regulation is the only way to go.

He said, “It's not a question of if it will happen; it is only a question of when it will occur. It's a political impossibility to ignore the realities, that we need a regulated industry to protect the players and the game itself.” 

John Pappas said that the PPA would be taking a number of different avenues in its efforts to pressure for the regulation of the industry. He described “aggressive plans” to continue the group’s work in Washington DC, specifically in “fine tuning” legislative bill proposals to overturn the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act and regulating the industry in the United States. Another area of intense interest for the group was a bill proposed by Representative Wexler to have poker declared a game of skill, thereby removing it from the tentacles of the UIGEA.  

Efforts are also being made on other political fronts. The Poker Player’s Association is encouraging its members to get involved in the upcoming elections for Presidency in the country.  Pappas also noted that while they have support by the House they will need to gain more support from the Senate to support their bills.

In addition, there has been an overwhelming response to the PPA’s call to members who might be interested in acting as State Directors for every US State. Said Pappas: "We expected maybe three to four hundred responses and got over 1000! These State Directors are going to be at the forefront of many of our efforts across the U. S., from recruitment to legislative efforts."

Author:  Renee Kingsley