PPA Activity Increases Across States
Written by Renee K | Wednesday, March 17th, 2010
The Poker Players Alliance has been hard at work in the past months trying to promote the game at state level, all the while waiting impatiently for the House Financial Services Committee to announce a mark up for Barney Frank’s HR 2267 bill.
In states such as Florida, Delaware, Alaska and California, the PPA’s presence could be keenly felt, as the one million member strong group worked at grassroots level to inform players and pressure lawmakers into making significant changes to their poker legislation.
In Alaska, the PPA has been hard at work trying to convince lawmakers that charity poker games should not be considered illegal gambling. The group asked the State Director to reconsider its ban on allowing charity organizations to host free poker tournaments.
The PPA also congratulated Delaware Governor Jack Markell for approving an initiative to introduce table games in the state and for setting “in motion an implementation process that will provide expanded opportunities for poker players to play the game they love and will create over 700 good paying jobs.”
John Pappas, the Executive Director of the PPA, testified in front of California’s Senate Governmental Organization Committee as the state explores the possibility of introducing intrastate online poker. The group has questioned the reasoning of limiting Californians to proposed sites and said that everyone should be allowed to play.
In Florida, Pappas also testified in front of the Senate Regulated Industries Committee last month as more and more demands for intrastate online poker are being heard by the state’s many poker players.
Pappas described the Sisyphean task of educating lawmakers about online poker. “I think they need to have a greater understanding of how internet poker works because there’s a misconception that you can just build an internet poker site and all players will start playing. That’s not how it’s going to work,” he said.
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· Written by Renee K · Filed Under Poker Gossip · Comments Off
