US Senate Meets to Further Clarify the 1961 Wire Act

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How Much Clarification Do We Need?

The United States Senate Committee on Indian Affairs will hold a hearing on February 9th that should be and dear to the hearts and minds of online poker players. The subject of the hearing is online gambling, specifically, the impact of online gaming on tribal gaming properties and investments. If you’re keeping score at home, this is the third hearing related to online gambling in the federal government in the past couple of months.

The Feburary 9th hearing will be broadcast live on the Indian Affairs website starting at 2:15 Eastern. The hearing’s official titles is “The U.S. Department of Justice Opinion on Internet GamingL What’s at Stake for Tribes?” indicating that the focus of the hearing is on how tribal gaming groups can cash in on Internet poker. Government sources aren’t saying it specifically, but the name of the hearing and conventional wisdom suggests that Native American tribes with gaming properties will be a big part of the push for legal online gaming.

How Close is Tribal Online Gaming?

It doesn’t take a real stretch of the imagination to imagine tribal gaming sites offering poker games online. Tribal gaming is a huge part of the American gambling market, and they have all the funds and lobbying support you’d need to push for regulated online casino gaming to become part of their gambling operations.

The fact that a Senate committee is holding a hearing to investigate the possibility of tribal involvement in online poker and other casino gaming is the best sign that movement is already underway for tribal casinos to operate online gaming sites. Don’t think for a second that the tribal gaming lobby has nothing to do with this new hearing.

Most online poker fans don’t care who is providing their game, as long as the game is available. Sure, there are libertarian-leaning online poker fans concerned about government involvement in poker, but for the most part, Americans are hungry enough for easy access to online poker that they’ll take the game from just about any source.

As for what tribal online poker sites would look like, who knows? I think a big part of a tribal poker site’s success would be its ability to emulate the best of current online poker sites and provide a familiar game. Since the American poker market is big enough to make the game better all over the world, interest in the new regulated American online poker game is global. That’s another reason why it really doesn’t matter whether regulated online poker in America comes from tribal or non-tribal interests.

This hearing will be broadcast live, a great opportunity for poker fans to see how our government works. Don’t expect anything entertaining, this hearing will be pretty boring unless you’re really into the legal side of online gaming. Want a sneak peek into what tribal gaming on the Internet may look like? This hearing is the first peek at what could be the next big online poker venue.

Tags: Indian Affairs, Native American, Wire Act

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