On the cover of Newsweek Magazine‘s August 22 edition will be a child in a white t-shirt holding a tablet with playing cards on it. Below him in big black letters are the words “Poker Face,” which accompany an article from Leah McGrath Goodman entitled, “How Washington Opened the Floodgates to Online Poker, Dealing Parents a Bad Hand.”

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The articlestarted with a brief history of online poker in the United States and then moved to the December 2011 proclamation from the US Department of Justice that the Wire Act of 1961 only applies to online wagering on sports. The interpretation came at the behest of the Illinois and New York lotteries.

The decision, according to Goodman, had far-reaching effects. She wrote, “Seitz opened wide the door to online gambling, and in the process, critics say, may have opened a Pandora’s Box. Lawmakers and experts warn that online gambling is dangerously addictive for some, especially children raised in a culture of online gaming and smartphones.”

According to one public policy analyst, “That a single, relatively unknown person in an office at the Justice Department can just bring about such massive change to our economy in direct contradiction to what Congress sees as the governing law signals a gravitational shift in powerthat is very concerning.”

The article then dove into quick-hit quotes from Congressman Jason Chaffetz (R-UT, pictured), who introduced legislation to rid the US of online poker, including games in regulated markets like New Jersey, Nevada, and Delaware. Chaffetz told Goodman, “This is just the beginning. I am afraid that if we don’t move quickly and get some decent regulations in place, which we really don’t have right now, it will be too late to stop it from reaching all the states.”

Chaffetz, whom Newsweek subtly reminded readers is a father of three, warned the world about geo-location issues and pitfalls in restricting underage gambling, saying, “Many parents already can see how easy it is for a kid to get addicted to a video game that does not involve money. You put them on the internet and they are gambling with money, now you have a real problem.”

The piece goes on to call out the Caesars-powered Slotomania, an online slot game that the article dubbed “slots for tots.” A Professor at McGill University warned Goodman, “Once they’re addicted, these kids will take their parents’ credit cards, gas cards, anything they can find to gamble with. I had one kid being raised by a single mother who stole two of her credit cards and lost $20,000 on PokerStars in one month.”

Also quoted in the article is Executive Director of the National Council on Problem Gambling Keith Whyte, who told Newsweek that the line between play money and real money online gambling isn’t as defined as you might think: “The legal and technical distinctions between whether or not the poker you are playing is gambling don’t really matter to us or to the kids who get addicted. The definition of addiction does not depend on whether the real money you bet and lose is translated into virtual coins. You are still betting and losing money.”

The seemingly slanted article asserted that PokerStars hires “pricey, big-name lobbyists” and outlined links between the Obama Administration and the gaming industry.

Poker Players AllianceExecutive Director John Pappas (pictured) did not react too favorably to the piece, as expected, telling PocketFives, “I’m not sure where I should begin. There are so many problems with this story. It is full of inaccuracies and twists of truth that it would take days to sift through them all. Most troubling though is that the reporter clearly only spoke to one side and then wrote a story. There has been a robust and ongoing debate on this issue and to only present one side is a failure in journalism.”

PPA Vice President Rich TheEngineer Muny added on Facebook, “Wow, what a one-sided opinion piece… Nothing but opinion, cherry-picked supporting quotes, and personal attacks on a DOJ attorney who interpreted the Wire Act as it’s written rather than by how some with agendas sought to twist it.”

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