Online Players Alliance
 Protect Your Freedom of Choice –
The Right to Continue Gaming Online
The U.S. Congress and President George Bush have finally succeeded in enacting a specific ban on Internet gambling. Literally in the dark of night, without debate and input from players (and voters) like you, Republican leaders in Congress added an Internet gambling prohibition bill to completely unrelated legislation on port security. A few hours later, Congressional representatives passed the entire measure before adjourning for their election recess, and likely without even reading the prohibition language.
While Congress did not make online poker and casino games illegal for individual players, the new law attacks the financial underpinnings that make the games possible – the transmission of money from the player to the operator of the gambling site.
The end result: Congress has taken away your freedom to play online games with your hard earned “after-tax” dollars. Many of your favorite web sites, operated by the most responsible companies, have been forced to stop providing real-money games.
The Online Players Alliance has been created by the Interactive Gaming Council (IGC) to continue to fight U.S. politicians, protecting your right to play online. Players are urged to help fund the effort to lobby for the freedom to play games of mixed skill and chance and games of pure chance online in the USA. While we all recognize that the Internet provides unique challenges to the regulation of any activity, Congress demonstrated no interest in even studying these issues before taking away some of your freedoms.
The prohibition bill, the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006, was criticized in an Oct. 4 editorial by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. The newspaper quoted from a statement by Rep. Jim Leach, the Iowa Republican who was the bill’s main sponsor: “Gambling from your bedroom or living room or dormitory is not a socially useful activity.” As the editorial concluded, it’s an ominous development when the government dictates which activities in our homes or dormitories are “socially useful.”
As you go through the process of closing your online accounts, we urge you to contribute some small amount of money to our cause – your cause.
Regards,
IGC Board of Directors
www.onlineplayersalliance.com
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