by Hillary LaClair, Senior Editor
December 5, 2008
Following Sunday night’s ’60 Minutes’ online poker segment on CBS, where a less than pretty picture was painted of the industry, anti-gambling lobbyist and Republican Congressman Spencer Bachus has shared his thoughts of the story.
The program which discussed the cheating scandals that surround Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet made the statement several times that online poker was illegal. It has caused uproar among online poker players, but this was the official reported position of the Department of Justice.
Nelson Rose, a law expert and official on internet gambling, told Poker News Daily that the legality of internet poker was left to a variety of stipulations. “You can’t say for sure that online poker is illegal. There are too many variables,” he said, and while the news program called to speak to Rose, his opinion was never incorporated in the final edit.
Bachus, well known in the internet gambling industry for his conservative views on the subject, said in a press release, “Off-shore internet gambling sites operating in the United States are all illegal, and therefore, by definition, they are run by criminals. When you deal with criminals, you should expect to be cheated and taken advantage of.”
His statement, of course, does not refer to overseas gaming websites which cater to U.S. horse racing wagers, which are clearly classified as legal internet gambling by the UIGEA for which Bachus voted. The Congressman voted against both HR 5767 and HR 6870, proposed legislation which seek to clarify what the U.S. considers to be “unlawful internet gambling.”
When the UIGEA was reintroduced last month, the Congressman commented, “Hopefully, the publication of this information will warn people to avoid these unsafe gambling sites, but it is welcome news that the regulations to enforce the provisions of the law we adopted two years ago to stop these criminal activities are finally being put into effect.”
Bachus later told the Birmingham News, “No longer will offshore gambling interests benefit from turning any computer into a casino that is available every minute of the day.” His concerns on the subject of internet gambling lie with its addictive nature and the belief that it is unlawful.
The news story prompted Poker Players Alliance president John Pappas to release a statement, where he explained what CBS meant by their comments that online poker was an illegal activity. “What the Department of Justice is saying is that it’s illegal for the companies to offer the services, but not illegal for the players to play. The Department of Justice has said that offering internet gambling is unlawful, even horse racing.”
’60 Minutes’ producer Ira Rosen told Casino City on Thursday, “From the people I have talked to, we’ve gotten a very positive response. We feel strongly that it was fair and accurate. The fact that some people might feel otherwise isn’t really a concern because that’s the nature of the beast.”
Tokwiro CEO, Paul Leggett feels otherwise however, as he commented, “After talking at length with the two gentlemen [of CBS] it became very obvious to me that they had no interest in telling a fair story.
“They were only interested in getting me on camera to try and make me and my company look bad. Basically, it came down to them wanting to produce a sexy story about the 'dark underbelly' of online poker and embellish it with details of the cheating scandal. Knowing this, I decided not to grant the on-camera interview and instead just provide them with a written statement.”
Rosen Responded, "He's just doing what he thinks he needs to do. But I'm not going to sit here and get in a back-and-forth with Paul Leggett. All I'll say is that we pursued the UltimateBet side of the story very aggressively. We went above and beyond what we needed to do to get him on camera. But all of a sudden Leggett and their press people stopped responding. In the end I was disappointed in him. I thought he would eventually step up to the plate."
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