The leading online poker proponent in the Senate
Former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D – Nev.) passed away on Wednesday at the age of 82. Reid underwent surgery for pancreatic cancer in 2018 and said in early 2019 that he was in remission. It is unknown if his death was cancer-related.
Senator Reid was known to poker players for most of the last several years of his Senate career as one of the staunchest supporters of online poker on Capitol Hill. He was a powerful ally to have on our side, but unfortunately, was never able to get online poker legalized on the federal level.
Reid’s strongest push came in 2010, when it seemed like his Internet Poker Act of 2010 had a legitimate chance to either pass on its own or in some form or another get tacked onto the tax relief act. On December 16, 2010, however, the Poker Players Alliance announced that the bill was dead . Then-PPA executive director John Pappas told Poker News Daily , “When the tax package fell through and things became much more political for it – not related to our bill – it became clear that another controversial addition to the tax bill could sink it.” An imperfect bill
Pappas tried to sound optimistic about online poker’s chances in 2011, but with a Republicans taking control of the House of Representatives that year, it was highly unlikely anything would happen. Pappas said, “The online poker bill that was floating around needs some improvement, so the PPA wants to go back to Senator Reid and talk about how we can improve on his current draft. There’s going to be a renewed focus in the Senate and we’ll be taking some of the legislation in a different direction so that it’s not focused on the Financial Services Committee, where we have a known opponent.”
But that was it. The poker community was divided on the issue. This was post-UIGEA, but before Black Friday (just a few months before – had we known online poker would shut down in the United States in April 2011, […]
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