Obama is a busy man, but will he find time for Poker?

Gambling News - July 3, 2009 - Written by Glen

The Obama campaign featured the keyword "Change" as one of their driving points. He wants to change this, fix that, and alter the other, but one issue that has been brought up by many citizens of the United States, online gambling, has not been spoken of much since Obama took his place in the White House. As an extreme liberal, you'd think the improvement of civil rights in America would be on his agenda, but it has yet to come up.

There has been much talk in Congress about the regulation of online gaming, and particularly poker, but the President has not weighed in on the subject in quite some time. Liberal and Civil Rights activist Rep. Barney Frank has introduced several Bills to advance the agenda of the poker world, but there has been very little recourse from our President.

The Poker Players Alliance, a special interest group with the intent on keeping poker free from persecution - online and in the real world - has recently been up in arms about the lockdown of an enormous amount of money set to be disbursed to online poker players. The accounts holding these funds were locked down by the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. As a federal attorney, Lev Dassin, reports to the Attorney General, who in turn reports to the Executive Office - the seat of Obama's power.

The decision had nothing to do with Obama, but could be overturned by the President through an executive order. He has not yet done anything regarding this, but there is still time to regress on the decision to lock down the accounts. The push toward nationalized banking is still an idea on the table, and the recent acquisition if almost a third of Citibanks shares, the federal government may have the power to continuously lock down poker winnings. The UIGEA has been under heavy scrutinizing, and may in the near future be overturned.