With around 3 million Americans indulging in the game of poker online, potential Federal intervention in their right to gamble from their bedrooms is not coming as a welcome potential change. Just when it seemed that online poker couldn’t put a foot wrong, should several upcoming bills go through, Congress will effectively have banned foreign poker websites by stopping credit card transactions to the sites, and even blocking Web access directly.
Throughout Europe, too, online gaming exists in a shadowy legal grey area whereby even if a country’s own laws prohibit gambling over the internet, a poker site is deemed to be “in” the country in which its server sits, so when you’re playing there, it’s as if you’re actually offshore. “No gaming here, I’m officially in Rio/Gibraltar etc. etc.” European countries such as Italy officially outlaw online gaming (casinos and poker sites lumped in the same boat as usual) but little is done to actually prevent citizens from opening accounts and wiling away the hours pressing the ‘raise’ button.
The American national Poker Players Alliance is understandably worried about such legislation making their game illegal overnight, and have been lobbying in Washington. It was perhaps unavoidable that the bigger online poker became (in terms of TV coverage, advertising – another murky legal area – and internet promotion) the more negative coverage it would get. Gambling helps services like Gamcare highlight the potential for addiction and financial problems home gamblers face, but it is often the casino attachments of sites which pose the biggest challenge in this area.
American civil liberties issue or not, it will be tough to impose any online poker bans, as the computer-savvy populace find ways to circumnavigate restrictions, or use online payment methods rather than the traditional credit cards. It’s clear that with over 20,000 members, the Poker Players Alliance doesn’t think that Americans’ right to play the homegrown game of poker anywhere they like should be tampered with. As is stated on their website, www.pokerplayersalliance.org:
“It´s unfathomable how placing the word "Internet" in front of "poker" could turn an American tradition into a game where the most respected players would be outlaws.”