Despite coming across as having a relatively neutral – if not thoroughly uninterested – stance towards online poker over the past few years as the issue came before congress, the American Gaming Association has come down in support of the legalization of online poker since the events of Black Friday. Thanks to a recent interview by Card Player Magazine, conducted with President and CEO of AGA, Frank Fahrenkopf, the views of the AGA and the man at its head have been made more clear.
The AGA has held a conservative withdrawn stance towards the online arena so far in its history, maintaining a neutral position towards state bills that would provide internet poker, and even towards bills which have come before congress that dealt not exclusively with poker, but with online gaming as a whole. Fahrenkopf is said to support the DOJ taking action against gaming entities which violate federal law, presumably a strong reference to the events of Black Friday, in which the DOJ and FBI went after major US poker sites PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, Absolute Poker and UB, forcing them to withdraw their real money operations from the United States market.
With that said, since Black Friday the AGA has been working towards an online poker bill, to provide a situation where gaming entities can offer online poker without violating the law. Lawmakers and casino executives have been in discussion since Black Friday, Fahrenkopf says, and he expects the bill to be shown to congress within the coming months. Fahrenkopf sees the facts that government, on both a state and federal level, stands to gain financially from legalized and regulated online poker as important, but secondary. The main issue for him is providing a safe environment for consumers to play online poker, as when this is not available they will not simply cease to play but will instead have to seek more untrustworthy platforms. Fahrenkopf is convinced “that the vacuum left by PokerStars and Full Tilt will be filled shortly” and that players will once again have to play on unregulated and unsafe sites, unless legislation is passed.
One of the large fears of poker players is that, should legislation be passed to allow online poker, they will be restricted to playing only with other players from within their state, causing dramatically reduced player pools. Fahrenkopf seems to consider this unlikely and that “it’s hard to see how state-by-state legislation is the way to go”, pointing out that, with the possible exceptions of California and Florida, practically no state can viably offer within-state online poker and therefore an inter-state solution is need. With that said, he sees it as important that participation in this inter-state online poker system is voluntary, to keep with the constitution. “You have to make sure each state has the right to say yay or nay.”
The largest barrier to achieving online poker legislation and regulation, according to Fahrenkopf, is that many of the key players such as those in congress lack the understanding of – and therefore crucially the belief in – how online systems can be effective in providing security and enforcing regulation. There are other barriers, such as religious beliefs, but Fahrenkopf considers these to be insurmountable and therefore largely to be ignored. Despite the obstacles and barriers, the current government is very friendly towards poker at least in its live form, with regular poker games taking place between government high-ups, and so there is a beacon of hope that we may well be able to achieve regulated, legislated online poker which viably provides safe and fun games for US players.