Sen. Jon Kyl Opposed to Online Poker...and Hope
2008-05-03 16:36:30
By:
Gene Bromberg
One of online poker's most fervent Congressional opponents is Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ). Sen. Kyl labored for nearly a decade to get some kind of anti-online gaming law passed, and thanks to some legislative sleight-of-hand from his former Senate collegue Bill Frist the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) was passed after it was tacked on to the Safe Port Act of 2006.
Kyl's moment of triumph, however, has been tainted by the fact that the regulations proposed by the UIGEA haven't yet been put in place. It seems that no one--not the Treasury Department, not the Justice Department, not the World Trade Organization, not the American banking industry, and certainly not the American people--wants to have anything to do with this law. No one wants to be responsible for creating these regulations and they especially want no part of
enforcing them. As Wayne Abernathy, executive vice-president of the American Bankers Association,
said
"If this (the UIGEA) were implimented, banks would basically say, 'This is now a trap for us. We're not processing any payments to anything that might look like a betting activity--no payments to Churchill Downs even."
There have been several hearings in Congress about the UIGEA, hearing that went a long way into proving just how short-sighted and anti-American the law is, as well as showing how enforcing it would be well-nigh impossible. No doubt fearing that momentum is brewing to defang the UIGEA or even overturn it after the 2008 election,
Kyl is trying to crack the whip in the hopes regulators will rush to impliement the law. In an article from the
Las Vegas Review-Journal, Kyl was quoted thusly"
"The people who are violating the law need to know that they're not going to be able to get away with it and I think that the failure to get these regulations promulgated on time has perhaps given some hope and it's given life even to an idea over in the House of Representatives to put a moratorium on the regulations.
Of course, "the people" Kyl is speaking about are "the American people", as upward of 80 million Americans regularly play poker and about 20 million play online. To Kyl, We the People are just a bunch of criminals, and we need to know that we're "not going to be able to get away with it". Kyl is also concerned because those who oppose the law--i.e. 75% of the U.S. population, according to at least one poll--has been given hope by members of the House who are trying to overturn the UIGEA.
House members like Barney Frank (D-MA), who called the UIGEA the "stupidest law ever passed". The fact that Kyl seems oblivious to public opinion, the facts, and common sense comes as no suprise to those
who have read his other public pronoucements about the UIGEA, which are filled with misquoted statistics, willful misinterpretations of plainly-stated facts, and a surprising disregard for the laws already on the books. On the one hand, those of us who think online poker should be legal should be thankful that one of our staunchest opponents is someone so badly out of step with the times. On the other, it's very disappointing that someone like Jon Kyl holds so much power and influence in our government, and is able to exert that power so cavalierly. But then, that's what we have elections for.
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