Things aren’t exactly looking good in terms of online poker’s future in the US. The Black Friday incident that happened was indeed an unfortunate event for US poker players as a number of the US online poker sites were taken down by the US Department of Justice on April 15 of this year. Absolute Poker, PokerStars and Full Tilt poker were among those taken down during the incident. While PokerStars was able to refund its players’ accounts, both Full Tilt and Absolute Poker weren’t able to do so. The event served as a wake up call for US online poker players and it meant that playing poker online will be much more difficult from then on.
The Online Poker Player’s Voice
FairPlayUSA is a newly formed organization that will aim to “educate policymakers and the public on the broad public policy interests raised by the current ambiguous laws in the US that have led to millions of Americans gambling on the Internet”. The organization will serve as the US players’ voice in regards to the issue of playing online poker from US soil with executive director Marisa McNee’s statement which says that the coalition’s “website and online petition will be the focal point for recruiting and organizing supporters who will actively engage and make their voices heard by members of Congress”. FairPlayUSA hopes that the Congress will take on the issue regarding online gambling by passing on laws that will allow American poker players to play the game online.
Fair Play USA’s Take on Safe Online Poker
FairPlayUSA is based in Washington, DC and the organization is composed of a number of big names which include Greg ‘Gossilman’ Raymer who is the main event winner of 2004’s WSOP, Tom Ridge who is the former governor of Pennsylvania and original US Secretary of Homeland Security, and Parry Aftab – Internet Safety Specialist. Together with its members, the organization will also be focusing on giving online poker another chance by helping the government crack down on illegal online poker sites while maintaining the legal ones available for the US players who are interested in the game.
If you are one of the American poker players who feel that online poker in the US should be fine and legal, you can sign the petition in hopes of giving online poker another chance making the safe online poker sites accessible again.
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