Reid's online poker bill...

[Talking Poker]

I was gone on a cruise for 5 days and came home to find all sort of craziness going on. In case you hadn't heard, Harry Reid, a Senator from LV has put together some legislation to license and regulate online poker in the US.

The legislation is still a draft and is changing daily, but it sounds like there is a very good chance it will be attached to a bill that extends tax cuts and will be passed, ironically, much like the UIGEA was in 2006 when it was attached to the safe Ports Act.

A few highlights, as I understand them:
-States would have to opt-in
-Sites would be for US players only for at least 3 years
-There would be a 15 month period of NO legal online poker before any licenses are issued
-Stars/Full Tilt would have 30 days to pull out of the US market if they wanted to have any chance of getting a license and would then have to wait an additional 2 years after the 15 months before they could reopen to US players

This is the most


Decent summary of the latest stuff:


2p2 thread:


My take... I'm pretty torn on this right now. While I'm not sure that the status-quo is sustainable for online poker, I think this legislation would be a serious blow to the online poker community. Many people are calling it the lesser of two evils and saying it's better than nothing, etc.... but frankly, I'm not so sure.