Thursday, December 9, 2010

more on Reid bill

Post on 2p2 from PPA board member Skalligrim:
There is not a single post of mine that I think can reasonably be called "cheerleading" this bill. I hate this F-ing bill.

But sometimes it is necessary to take something you hate in order to get something you really want.

And I have also always said that this bill is so fraught with pain that it is a close call. But overall I support it.

But I will also say this. This has been lots of talk of more horsetrading going on in DC that we are not privy too. If only one additional poison pill is added to this bill, I may change my close call.

My best analogy is this: suppose you go into an antique shop and see a very valuable item that you have always wanted. At first it seems fair priced and you try to negotiate buying it. But the owner of the store is a real jerk and once he sees how much you want it he raises the price, and then he raises the price again. At some point the price is higher than the pleasure I will get from owning the piece. The bill as last reported on Monday was pretty close to having too high a price, but, IMHO, not there yet.

IOW, it wouldn't take much change for the worse for me to join in opposing the bill.

Skallagrim


my thoughts on it:

post by skallagrim a PPA board member in a thread saying that the bill is not going on the tax cut bill. they still think they have a chance to get it on some other piece of legislation, but that it is somewhat unlikely because Sen Kyl (tard from AZ) is doing everything possible to block it and Reid and company aren't going to make this an important enough issue to run them over on it.

the reason I post though is that skall is a PPA board member and a seemingly smart guy but not a pro (as far as I know). and if he can barely stomach this bill, the bill that his organization has fought for and backed and thrown all of their support behind, then I don't see why I should support it. Basically he's saying it's crap, we're getting screwed, but maybe down the line things might work out. and since it's my job to try and get things to work out I'm going to roll the dice and get shat on. Well since my job is to try and make money playing poker I'm probably going to say no to getting shat on. So I'll continue to not support this bill.

maybe things will change in the future and we'll have a shot to get a reasonable piece of legislation through (PPA guys are claiming that the kind of legislation I'd like to see would be supported by gaming and Reid just not Kyl and the religious right repubs) but this just isn't it. I'm more afraid that this will result in a death sentence for online poker in the US than if we just leave it alone and hope that it remains a relatively unimportant issue for the DOJ. and hopefully down the line we can get some kind of positive legislation through.

just my 2 cents, and if I'm wrong wouldn't be the first or last time.

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