<SPAN class=postbody>Greetings;

Recently, MA Governor; Deval Patrick, proposed a bill (H 4307)
that seeks to expand casino gambling in the Commonwealth
of Massachusetts. Under this same bill (in section 15(h)(2)(i)),
the Governor also seeks to criminalize online gaming,
including poker where violators will be subject to a penalty
of 2 years in the house of correction and/or a $25,000 fine.

http://www.mass.gov/legis/HD4626.pdf

"(i) Placing, sending, transmitting, relaying wagers to another
person prohibited under certain circumstances; penalties.
Any person who knowingly transmits or receives a wager
of any type by any telecommunication device, including
telephone, cellular phone, Internet, local area network, including
wireless local networks, or any other similar device or equipment
or other medium of communication, or knowingly installs or maintains
said device or equipment for the transmission or receipt of wagering
information shall be punished by imprisonment in a house
of correction for not more than 2 years, or a fine of not more
than $25,000, or both.
This section shall apply to any person who, from within this
commonwealth, transmits a wager to, or receives a wager from,
another person or gaming establishment within or outside of this
commonwealth and any person who, from outside this commonwealth,
transmits a wager to, or receives a wager from, another person
or gaming establishment within this commonwealth. This section
shall not apply to the use of a local area network as a means to
place authorized wagers in a licensed gaming establishment,
or use of said devices or equipment by the authority in it duties
in regulating, enforcing, or auditing a licensed gaming operator."

This attack on our rights is completely unacceptable. The PPA's
official position is that we will not support the Governor's bill until
such time that the specific language in the aformentioned section
is stricken from the proposed bill. Currently, the bill is in the
Joint Committee on Economic Development and Emerging
Technologies and is expected to be acted upon on in the first
quarter of 2008.

The PPA has made significant headway recently by educating the
public about the potential consequences of the bill, as well as a
substantial letter writing campaign to the Governor's office,
local State Representatives and MA State Senators. Many of
these legislators were not even aware that the Governor's bill
sought to criminalize online poker. in 2 days, more than 1700 letters
were sent to these public servants urging them to extricate
the above referenced section of the bill from H. 4307.

Ultimately, the above section of the bill is a blatant double standard
as well as a flagrant and utter example of political hypocrasy. As
such, we are calling on all MA residents and MA PPA members to
use the PPA's standard auto-letter writing form (URL found below)
and send letter to the Governor's office, as well as your local
State Reps and Senators. Here is the URL for that purpose:

<A target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://capwiz.com/pokerplayersalliance/utr/1/EZMUHUTFHM/GFWEHUWFNA/1527750881">http://capwiz.com/pokerplayersallian.../1/EZMUHUTFHM/
GFWEHUWFNA/1527750881</A>

Thank you in advance for your participation.

Also, we here at the PPA have managed to drum up some much
needed media attention for our cause. Matt Viser, a reporter from
the Boston Globe, wrote-up a very nice article bringing quite a bit
of attention to our plight. You may read the content of the article here:

http://www.wpri.com/Global/story.asp...6&nav=F2DO

If you have any questions, concerns or suggestions about the
situation, please don't hesitate to contact me at:

ma@pokerplayersalliance.org .

Also, let's get some dialogue going here on this forum. I believe this
is one of the most appropriate places to centralize a concerted effort
between all concerned members and MA residents. Your feedback
is extremely important to us.

On a personal note, I would like to thank P5's for establishing a Poker
Legislation Forum so that those of us who are in the midst of fighting
for our rights to play the game we love can spread the word that
much faster. It's really great to see how active and unified we are all
becoming.

I look forward to hearing from all of you soon.

All In,

Randy C~
Massachusetts Representative
Poker Players Alliance
</SPAN>

There is a hearing on this bill Dec. 18.

Should you all lat-back and wait? Not no, but, hell no.

From what I can recall, you all were told there would be NO hearings on this matter until spring.

Somehow December 18 is NOT spring. Someone seems to have been playing someone. Scheduling this so early and right at the height of the Christmas shopping season just seems like there may be an attempt to slide this through while everyone is busy, trying to maybe put a lump of coal in your stockings?

<SPAN>Also, besides World Winner (a Newton, Ma. skill games company), Waltham is the home of Lycos (www.lycos.com) which happens to own gamesville.com (affiliated with WW) and they too will be affected unless the language of the bill is changed. Perhaps they may not even know?

You have work to do in Mass.

obg
</SPAN>

Uglyowl brings up a good point: what is the PPA's view on joining forces with the anti-casino groups and working to kill the whole bill? Have there been any conversations with the umbrella anti-casino group? In a vacuum I prefer casinos in Mass, but Id rather they not exist than chance what ends up in the bill on internet gambling in a negotiated bill with a House Leader who hates gambling.

Plus it could act as a potential deterrent against other states trying this BS in the future. "Hey they threw in that online gambling provision in MA and it helped get the whole bill killed, lets not mess around with that"

Also, any thoughts on Gov. Patrick's statement that "if we had to take the votes today we'd have the votes?"

Thanks for the help in leading this Randy.

i haven't done any kind of word comparison w/ the two laws, as of yet, however i think it's going to be my project this week. N E Way, things are difficult to enforce regardless of any wording. it's almost as though they would have to pick out one by one who they are going to make examples of and hope it works... the whole thing is just nutz that they will even try to do this. If i didn't live in the south, i'd be up that way to speak out or make a stand. i've only participated in one item here in ga, when a local county tried to set a strange law regarding poker specifically, but it's all over w/ now. the more ppl who know it's here, the more that will appear. even people who dont play poker, ever b/c of the violation of rights.