The Tax Cheapo

The Poker Players Alliance have been quite active in the United States, continually lobbying their representatives and senators in the big house in Washington, and they’re still at it, this time heavily researching the voting records of the congress and putting them on a grade scale similar to secondary school.

One can look at the guide at www.congressionalpoker.org, and the PPA urges people to look over the research to help them decide on which representative would most support the poker player’s rights to continue playing online poker and keeping online gambling open in their state.

The guide itself assigns the grades from F to A, with A being the highest, and includes plusses and minuses to provide a more exact picture of similar candidates.

Currently the criteria is fairly limited on which to base the grading. For the House of Representatives, the PPA researchers use the voting record on HR 4411 (the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act) HR 2046 (Internet Gambling Regulation and Enforcement Act) and HR 6870 (Payment Systems Protection Plan).

All of these immediately impact the gaming industry and one can expect this list to continue to evolve as more legislation is written regarding internet gambling.

As for the Senate, the criteria is based on a much smaller list of legislation. SB 692, 3006, and 972, all of which deal with obscure financial issues regarding internet gaming, so currently the senate list is a bit lacking.

In any event, the PPA is doing so much for the online poker world, even if this doesn’t necessarily evoke a game changer in the election process, it sends a powerful message to the representatives. Namely, their constituency does include poker player and that there is now a group watching them as seriously as other civil rights groups such as the ACLU and others watch them regarding other issues.