Le Monde du Poker.

January 26 2012, Matthew Kredell

The Poker Players Alliance is asking the poker community to help in another attempt to get President Obama to address online poker.

The Obama administration has taken to YouTube to field questions for the president to answer at a post-State of the Union conversation that will take place Monday from the White House. There are already more than 100,000 questions asked, including 123 about poker. The site vaguely states that the president will answer several of the top-voted questions during the interview.

PPA executive director John Pappas has submitted the following question with video and text: “Regulating internet poker will establish strong consumer protections; create new jobs and revenues for states and the federal government. President Obama, will you support this common-sense public policy?”

As of this writing, the PPA's question has 446 likes and 46 dislikes. To find the question, go to the White House YouTube channel linked above and search for poker on the right-hand side. A login is required to vote. There are multiple questions unrelated to poker that have tallied more than 3,000 likes. The deadline for votes to be counted is Jan. 28 at midnight Eastern time.

The poker community is still waiting for the response promised by the Obama Administration for the “We the People” online poker petition.

The petition got off to a strong start last September, quickly passing the required 5,000 signatures to get a response. The petition finished with 9,296 signatures, less than the final required total of 25,000, but was still guaranteed a response because it passed the original requirement before it was raised.

To date, 41 responses have been issued. The responses come not from Obama himself but from someone within the administration who deals with the topic. Judging by the responses made so far, the poker response won't be worth the wait. The responses have not addressed concerns made in the petitions but instead merely stated the administration's stand on the topics.

It's so bad that, in a second set of petitions made at the end of last year after some of the initial responses had come in, a petition was created with the title, “Actually take these petitions seriously instead of just using them as an excuse to pretend you are listening.” The petition goes on to say: “Although the ability to submit petitions directly to the White House is a noble and welcome new feature of the current administration, the first round of responses makes blatantly clear the White House intends to just support its current stances and explain them with responses everyone who has done any research already knows.” The petition got 33,714 signatures.

Still, the Obama administration has never said much of anything about online poker so any stance taken could be interesting. Perhaps that is why the online poker response is taking so long.

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AppId is over the quota
October 11 2011, Matthew Kredell

Americans are more interested in aliens than their right to play poker. That is the impression the Obama administration is going to come away with from its "We the People" petitions unless poker players quickly become active.

The petition to license and regulate Internet poker on the official White House website hit 5,000 signatures in its first three days but has sputtered since and now sits at just over 8,000 signatures.

A petition to "formally acknowledge an extraterrestrial presence engaging the human race" has passed it by. The alien petition has more than 9,000 signatures, 23rd among petitions. Poker is 26th. A petition to legalize and regulate marijuana leads the way with more than 53,000 signatures.

"There's millions of poker players out there and I have to say I'm a little disappointed that not many have taken this simple action," said John Pappas, executive director of the Poker Players Alliance.

The PPA sent out multiple emails on the petition to its activist list, which includes more than 100,000 people. The PPA had hoped to get at least 15,000 signatures. That still may be possible, though players will have to rally before the Oct. 22 deadline. Rich Muny, the PPA's vice president of player relations, urged poker players who have signed the petition to email it out to friends and family to get as many signatures as possible.

"We the People" began Sept. 22 as an opportunity for Americans to get their voice heard by the Obama administration. Originally it was required that petitions get 5,000 signatures within 30 days in order to get an official response from someone within the administration. That threshold has been raised to 25,000 signatures, though the poker petition already qualified by hitting the 5,000 signatures before the figure was raised.

Signing the petition requires taking a couple minutes to get a whitehouse.gov account, providing your real name and a working email. Only a first name, last initial and location of signers are shown on the petition.

Poker players may have become complacent after hitting the original target number in impressive fashion. Although the poker petition will get acknowledged no matter how it does in the final stretch, it won't garner much respect from the administration when it is so far under the new threshold and behind even UFO conspiracists.

There are four petitions already over the 25,000 mark. If everyone owed money by Full Tilt Poker signed the petition, poker would be well ahead of all others and would really catch Obama's attention.

After saying during his campaign that he considered himself a pretty good poker player, Obama's presidency has seen the collapse of online poker, and the U.S. The Department of Justice, under his administration, has gone after online poker even more aggressively than under the administration of George W. Bush.

Through Black Friday and all the troubles poker players have faced over the past six months, Obama has never acknowledged the issue. This is a chance for poker players to get the Obama administration to make its first ever comments on online poker.

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