AGA won’t back Barton

The AGA have surprised onlookers by taking a step back from Congressman Barton’s bill to legalise online poker

In an interesting turn of events the American Gaming Association (AGA) has rejected the legislation put forward by Congressmen Joe Barton representing Texas’s sixth congressional district. Instead the lobby organisation campaigning for the legalisation of online gambling in the United States is backing its own bill. At this time it is unclear what that bill is and how it varies from that put forward by Barton.
Barton’s legislation is known officially as the Internet Gambling Prohibition, Poker Consumer Protection, and Strengthening UIGEA Act of 2011. This legislation is the closest that the online gaming community has come to seeing the legalisation of Poker and other games that involve chance. The Bill was proposed in response to the April 14th crackdown on online poker and the indictments handed down to 11 poker executives from charges ranging from money laundering to fraud. What the bill does is ensure that both casino and racetrack operators would be allowed to establish online poker sites that would be regulated by the federal government. All states would be covered by the legislation, though there is a clause that allows them to opt out should they choose to do so.
The surprising statement coming from the AGA is so unexpected because their own bill is expected to be very similar to the one being pushed by Barton. Washington DC pundits smell some partisan manoeuvring here and look to Nevada politics for the reason. The AGA has recently come out in support of Shelley Berkley the Democratic Congresswoman representing the first District of Nevada and also running for a seat in the senate. The AGA recently held a fundraiser for the Congresswoman and she has ideas of her own about how to legalise online gaming. It is possible that the AGA have been caught up in the rivalry between Barton and Berkley and have come down firmly on the side of Berkley.
Support for legalising online gaming seems to be picking up fast. After years of having American players sign up to companies that were willingly breaking the law to provide a service that tens of thousands of US citizens want, the government is finally coming around to the idea that perhaps it would be better to have regulation of the activity of online poker rather than outright attempts to ban it. Even now there are still poker sites acting illegally to provide online poker services to the US market.