Las Vegas, May7…Forget about the black loyalists, the white backlashers, the blue collar red-staters or the white collar blue-staters, Efraim Durg knows who holds the key to the 2008 election—the online poker players.
“The next President will decide whether online gambling is legal or not,” Durg says. “And online gamblers will decide who the next president will be.”
Online gambling has been under attack by state and federal legislators. Under pressure from the casino lobby Congress passed legislation outlawing the operation of online gambling sites in the United States. All the action was moved to foreign locations. Several state governments have since criminalized online poker and the state of Washington made it a Class C felony, which means that players could be imprisoned for playing online.
Durg, a professional poker player and founder of Save Our Sanity.org. says that millions of online gamblers in every state will be watching the candidates carefully to see who is supporting them and who wants to shut them down.
“Now is the time for the candidates to show their cards,” he said.
With a million members in the Poker Players Alliance alone the online gambling lobby has already flexed considerable political muscle. When Iowa Republican Congressman Jim co-authored a bill to ban online gambling they came out strongly against him. Leach, a popular long term legislator lost in an upset.
So far, they’re getting mixed signals from Barrack Obama. Joe MacDonald of Covers.com, reports that the Clinton campaign released some negative remarks Obama has made about gambling. In 2001 he said, “you have a whole bunch of people who can’t afford gambling their money away, yet they’re going to do it.” And as late as 2003 he said, “the moral and social cost of gambling, particularly in low-income communities, could be devastating.”
This worries Durg. “He wants to punish us just because a couple of deadbeats can’t control their habit.”
Gambling 911.com reports that Obama is an “avid” poker player and his campaign has said it would support a study on online gambling,
Hillary Clinton has not been photographed doubling down, but she has said that online gambling should be regulated so that American business can compete with off shore gambling sites.
John McCain portrays himself as a high rolling casino regular and has been photographed at a crap table behind a pile of chips. But he sponsored legislation to ban betting on college sports in Las Vegas. He did this to discourage bookmaking and possible game fixing on campuses, his campaign says, but Durg is not impressed. “He’s messing with our Constitutional right to go broke,” he says. Also, he says Republicans are more likely to be anti-gambling because of the right wing Christians in their ranks.
This is how Durg ranks the candidates.
Obama…”He’s sitting with case aces and hoping he doesn’t get beat on the flop.”
Hillary…”She’s all in and praying for a miracle on the river.”
McCain…”He’s holding fold cards, putting in his blinds and waiting for the other two to tap each other out.”
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