ESPN Claims "No Legalization For Online Poker in 2010"

Published on December 16th, 2010 6:35 am EST

Despite the fact that the 111th Congress is still in session, ESPN.com Poker Editor Andrew Feldman is declaring that Harry Reid's online poker bill is "officially dead".

Earlier today, Feldman penned an article for ESPN.com titled "No Legalization For Online Poker in 2010". The article claimed that, according to multiple sources, "the bill will not be voted on or attached to another bill during the last few days of this session".

The article also included a quote from John Pappas, executive director of the PPA - I have included a link to the article below.

After multiple head fakes over the past couple of weeks, it's easy to be of the opinion that the poker bill is not officially "dead" until the 112th Congress is officially sworn in early next year. Having said that, it seems as though the Twitterverse is fairly resigned to the fact that Reid's online poker legislation no longer has any chance of going through.

If the bill is indeed dead as ESPN.com now claims, two things were mainly responsible for its demise:

1. Senator Jon Kyl.

2. The media.

Senator Jon Kyl is fervently opposed to any type of legalized online gambling in the United States, and his steadfast refusal to change his stance is probably the biggest reason why the US won't pass online poker legislation this year, or anytime in the near future for that matter. There just doesn't appear to be any type of room to negotiate with Kyl on this issue.

Reid's battle to pass his online poker legislation became a much tougher one as soon as the media caught wind of the story. Sure, there was a great deal of positive coverage and multiple organizations came out in support of the bill, but many media outlets elected to focus on the fact that Reid's bill would benefit some of his biggest campaign supporters (casinos). This certainly didn't help the cause. Reid likely would have had a much greater chance of success if he had been able to keep his bill off the radar for an additional couple of weeks.

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Due to the fact that the Republicans will have the majority in the House of Representatives for the next two years, online poker players in the US will likely have to wait until at least 2013 before there is any hope of passing online poker legislation.

Source: ESPN.com - No Legalization For Online Poker in 2010

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Filed Under: UIGEA