Is President Barack Obama for Poker?
Yes, President Obama supports poker, as he is himself a poker player, and quite good at that. He does not play much these days given his busy agenda, but it is clear that he will not support any law banning his favorite game. In addition regulating online gambling will bring much needed taxes to help balance his budget.
This website is about the new presidency of Barack Obama. And how he will deal with the laws related to online gambling,
online poker and freedom in general.
During the past eight years of Republican ruling, the emphasis of the White House and Congress has been to implement anti-gambling laws. President Bush and his allies have attempted a crusade against online poker and online gambling. The most infamous law in this framework is the so-called UIGEA.
Republicans used a trick to pass UIGEA by including it as a section of an unrelated law about port shipping. In any case, President Barack Obama has announced that he will repeal all so-called midnight laws, enacted in a rush just before the end of President Bush's administration.
One of the key technical aspect in the legislation about poker and casinos is to determine if poker is a game of skill or a game of luck. Interestingly not everyone seems to agree about this.
Freedom to play Online poker
Online poker has exploded since the turn of the Century. This is a result of the Internet technology which enables to play fast games involving many players located anywhere in the world, up to ten in the case of Hold'em Poker. This was not possible a decade ago. It all started with games involving just two players such as chess or weiqi.
The poker download process is simple, and everyone with a decent internet connection can play poker within the safety of their home. If you don’t want to risk any money, all the online poker sites offer play money games, where you can learn the rules and improve your game.
Online poker is truly a game of the 21st Century. Why do politicians want to spoil the enjoyment of millions of casino players in the United States? Thankfully the new Administration is pro-poker. In fact Barack Obama is known to be an avid poker player himself. We could hardly get a more powerful supporter of the game of poker.
Given the current financial metdown, the main argument in favor of legalizing online poker is that it will bring billion of dollars in taxes.
The Poker Players Alliance is a rapidly growing group of 650,000 player members. The PPA is an organization fighting and lobbying Congress in order to get UIEGA repelled.
The PPAs' primary goal is to overturn the United States government ban on Internet poker and to legalize poker throughout the country. A recent PPA's victory for poker was the decision by the Obama's administration to postpone the implementation of UIEGA by 6 months, a first step in the right decision.
Another well known reference for legal gambling issues is the website of Professor I. Nelson Rose, who is a 1978 graduate of Harvard Law School and an internationally known scholar. His site Gambling and the Law contains many of his publications.
Note that we do not support online gambling for players under the legal age or players with a gambling addiction problem. Children and teenagers should be allowed by their parents to wager real money, but they can learn the rules of the games if they want to. After all it can be a lot of fun to play poker with friends using fake chips. But for adults with a psychological gambling addiction, online poker or online casinos can lead to large financial losses and to a miserable life after losing your job, house and family. So always bet with reason and within a limit that you have defined beforehand. And good luck at the tables. Remember that it is possible to beat online poker, but for other online casino games the house edge makes it nearly impossible to come out ahead in the long run.
