During the run-up to the recent elections, I was puzzled by a series of Twitter posts from well-known professional poker players not only expressing their support for Harry Reid, but saying or suggesting that he would be good for online poker, while his opponent, Sharron Angle, would be bad for online poker. Here are the ones I remember, from Andy Bloch, Howard Lederer, and Barry Greenstein:
Erik Seidel took a more humorous approach:
I responded to a couple of these, asking what evidence they had that Reid had been or would become a friend of the online poker industry. My questions were ignored.
I have not heard of any explicit public statements from either Reid or Angle on the subject of online gambling generally or online poker specifically. (Lederer provided no pointer for his claim about Angle's stance. I checked at the time, and could find nothing about it in her web site's list of formal positions.) I thought that I was sufficiently tuned in to poker-related news that if either of them had made an election point of either supporting or opposing online gaming, I would have heard about it. But the Twitter statements from Lederer, Greenstein, and Bloch left me wondering if I had missed something.
Apparently not. In the current issue of Poker Player newspaper, Wendeen Eolis reviews what the last election did for online poker. Here are a few excerpts about Reid:
The powerful Majority Leader who won a hard fought election helped the
Democrats hold onto control of the Senate. He was the beneficiary of substantial support by online poker interests but yet to be settled is his commitment toward affirmative online gaming legislation this year.
The wily Senator, whose constituents include casinos around Nevada, has been slow to warm up to online gambling. Even in the face of vigorous support by the likes of Harrah's, Sen. Reid has done little more than give equivocal lip service toward U.S. Rep. Barney Frank's supportive bill to regulate online poker.
As of today, Senator Reid is still holding his cards close to his vest....
The online poker lobby sought to turn Sen. Reid's hotly contested re-election bid for his Senate seat into an opportunity, plowing significant support into his campaign, but Reid has continued to hold his cards close to the vest, presumably weighing the incomplete unity of the casino industry. Casino operators remain splintered over the best strategies in the development of online gambling....
Sen. Reid's continuing equivocation has been matched by Representative Frank's fading optimism toward passage of a bill during the upcoming lame duck sessions.
So I appear to have been correct: Reid has neither expressed nor demonstrated support of online poker. Here's a political truism: If a politician seeking your support during an election is unwilling to go on the record as being in favor of your interests, he's not.
Of course, the same would have been true of Angle. I would not have counted on her to support any expansion or explicit legalization of gambling. Even lacking any clear statement from her one way or the other, it's easy for me to believe that her hard-core religious views would win out over the general ideas of freedom, leaving people alone, smaller and less intrusive government, etc.
In short, neither of them could be considered a champion of liberty generally, nor of online gaming in particular. If I had to guess, Reid's loyalties will lie with the brick-and-mortar casinos, and if he ends up supporting anything at all, it will be something that favors established casino corporations entering the online realm, almost surely at the expense of established online operators such as PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker. (See, e.g., Grange95's analysis of the amendments to H.R. 2267 earlier this year.) Reid has certainly been a political friend of Nevada casinos, and I see no reason to expect him to be removed from their back pocket anytime soon.
Which brings me full circle. Reid has not been a supporter of any proposal to license, regulate, or explicitly legalize online gaming, and if one had to guess where he would throw future support, it would be toward facilitating Harrah's, MGM Mirage, etc., moving online, and making life difficult for the current online providers. (It is hard to see those two factions ever not being in opposition over legalization, as each would like to preclude competition from the other.)
So why on earth were prominent representatives of the world's two biggest online poker sites shilling for him? Either they're missing something, or I am.
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8 comments:
Sadly enough, the answer is probably more obvious than it appears. My guess would be that while their skills at the poker table have brought them fame and fortune, Lederer and the gang do not realize that they should have forced Reid to make concessions in return for their support. I believe they were hoping throwing money and support at him would soften his approach. I also believe they are about to find out the hard way what makes American politics work. Money.
I believe they think that paying lip support to Reid would sway his opinion towards online poker, seeing how he already has a soft spot to B&M casinos. The problem is they forgot a major part of swaying a politicians view. Offer campaign contributions in return for support, if support is refused then start funding a smear campaign against him.
Reid is ONLY concerned about what MGM and Harrah's tell him to be concerned about. That is not a snarky comment either. It is political fact. Lederer, Greenstein, et al are taking their chances with Reid because they felt they had zero chance with Angle. That may be true but it really will not do them any good.
The fact remains that legislation at the federal level has no shot in the next 4-8 years and at the state level the various GCB's will follow the established b&m casino providers who want to get into online gaming. That will mean MGM, Harrah's etc.. will get online ops in places like NJ, NV, IL, and maybe will license software from TiltWare. But, all the monies will go to their bottomline; not Lederer and Gordon's pockets.
Backing a winner in a marginal race can make a political lobby look stronger than it really is. If they felt Reid was going to win, they'd want to jump on his train. Its a bit of a gamble, but...
The cynic in me thinks that the Full Tilt folks merely want to get in good with an influential Senator, if and when the "bad actor" amendments ever get considered. But I think poker legislation is dead for at least 2 years, likely longer.
As for Angle, if the Republicans had nominated anyone who wasn't a far right nutjob, Reid would've lost in a landslide. Same story as Delaware, and a couple of other spots.
There's got to be some variation of a "how many [xyzs] does it take to screw in a light bulb" joke to be found here. As in how many years, and still more years (or for that matter decades) will it take before it starts to dawn on poker folk that there is no significant support at all, in either party, for legalization of online gaming in any form, never has been, and there isn't gonna be.
Not now, half a decade after UIGEA, not in another two more years, or four, and not very freaking likely in another twenty. It has the support of just about 15% of the Congress, both incoming and outgoing, and that is actually slightly higher than the public support in the professional polling that I've seen on the issue.
Move the decimal point on your estimate of how long death will stay dead, Grange.
Oh, and Harry 'The Weasel' Reid? The delusional and amateurish poker publications consistently gloss over the matter, with that recent Poker Player piece greatly understating the clarity of Reid's longstanding opposition, for example:
New York Times (05/26/09):
"The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, has opposed lifting the ban in the past, questioning whether the government could effectively regulate Internet gambling."
New York Times - national feed, as reprinted by the Gainsville Sun (10/03/10):
"At the same time, officials here are watching another potentially disruptive storm on the horizon: legislation in Congress that would legalize Internet gambling. Mr. Brown said he was hopeful that online gambling would not draw people away from Las Vegas because “Internet gambling appeals more to addicted gamblers than people who are seeking a casino experience.”
"But Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Senate majority leader who is in the middle of a bruising re-election fight, said he would oppose such a move because it would hurt the state’s tourism industry and cost jobs."
I won't even bother to take up much space here about Speaker Pelosi's "over my dead body" position on the matter, or the President's longstanding opposition to all forms of gambling going back to his strident opposition to allowing casinos in Illinois.
Conclusion: In the poker subculture, personal political preferences and cultural prejudices are in the front seat doing the driving; but their undying love for their political heroes remains thoroughly unrequited.
There's got to be some variation of a "how many [xyzs] does it take to screw in a light bulb" joke to be found here. As in how many years, and more years (or for that matter decades) will it take before it starts to dawn on poker folk that there is no significant support at all, in either party, for legalization of online gaming in any form, never has been, and there isn't gonna be.
Not now, half a decade after UIGEA, not in another two more years, or four, and not very freaking likely in another twenty. It has the support of just about 15% of the Congress, both incoming and outgoing, and that is actually slightly higher than the public support in the professional polling that I've seen on the issue.
You should move the decimal point on your estimate of how long death will stay dead, Grange.
Oh, and Harry 'The Weasel' Reid? The delusional and amateurish poker publications consistently gloss over the matter, with that recent Poker Player piece greatly understating the clarity of Reid's longstanding opposition, for example:
New York Times (05/26/09):
"The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, has opposed lifting the ban in the past, questioning whether the government could effectively regulate Internet gambling."
New York Times - national feed, as reprinted by the Gainsville Sun (10/03/10):
"At the same time, officials here are watching another potentially disruptive storm on the horizon: legislation in Congress that would legalize Internet gambling. Mr. Brown said he was hopeful that online gambling would not draw people away from Las Vegas because “Internet gambling appeals more to addicted gamblers than people who are seeking a casino experience.”
"But Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Senate majority leader who is in the middle of a bruising re-election fight, said he would oppose such a move because it would hurt the state’s tourism industry and cost jobs."
I won't even bother to take up much space here about Speaker Pelosi's "over my dead body" position on the matter, or the President's longstanding opposition to all forms of gambling going back to his strident opposition to allowing casinos in Illinois.
Conclusion: Personal political preferences and cultural prejudices are in the front seat doing the driving; but their undying love for their political heroes remains thoroughly unrequited.
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