Just yesterday, we reported that New Jersey has suffered from a disappointing 2018 as far as its online poker revenue is concerned, and that things could be looking even worse this year with the reversal of the Wire Act. Now, the former frontman of the largest poker advocacy group in the United States is also making negative predictions about the industry’s future.
As the former president of the Poker Alliance, which was previously known as the Poker Players Alliance, Rich Muny has expressed serious concerns regarding the reversal. Plus, he believes that the actual players of online poker have not come to terms with the fact that this could be a very dire situation for them. In fact, Muny likened the reversal of the Wire Act to the fateful day when the Unlawful Internet Gaming Enforcement Act (UIGEA) came into effect. He said that poker players are behaving as though this move “is nothing”.
It’s not something that online poker operators will simply have the option of overlooking and bypassing, Muny says. In a series of Tweets on Twitter, Muny said that regulators “won’t simply ignore the DoJ”, before remarking that banks won’t allow transactions to online poker platforms with the new version of the Wire Act.
Perhaps players should listen to Muny’s words though, as he does possess a wealth of experience in lobbying for the legality of online poker.
Looking for Some Sort of Unison
Muny is pressing for a united front from anyone who holds an interest in being able to participate in legal online poker in the USA. He calls for such people to band together and put pressure on elected officials within their own states. Yet, even with this, the poker advocate doesn’t really appear to be so optimistic about the outcome. This, he says, is due to the poker media being “complacent” when it comes to any impact that the DoJ ruling will have.
While nobody is quite sure what will happen overall, one thing is probably quite certain – that the reversal of the Wire Act will affect the progress of online poker in the US. In fact, it’s already had an effect on the state of Pennsylvania and its move towards a successful online poker sector. The Keystone State was expected to have a big enough impact on the industry so as to boost revenues via cross-state gaming.
Yet, just last week, the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board put forth a letter to all operators within the state. This letter warned them of being under an obligation that requires them to “comply with federal law in all respects” when it comes to establishing their gaming operations, which the letter said, “must be entirely ‘intrastate’”.
Not only that, but any and all payment processors, as well as their servers, must now be located within Pennsylvania’s state lines. That provides further barriers to an industry that is already complex enough.
