Mr. Obama,

Let me start out by congratulating you on your win, and wish you the best of luck in your upcoming term.

I am writing you because of an issue that affects me and millions of other Americans.  As I am sure you are aware, the Bush administration is trying to enact the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA).  This bill does not make sense on any level of thought.

The UIGEA has its greatest impact on poker players, American or otherwise (It has affected players in other countries as poker sites have weakened without an American player base; some have been forced to shut down).  It makes it illegal for banks to transfer money between themselves and a known online "gambling institution".  There are two problems that I see right away.

The first I see, is that poker is not a game of chance, like roulette.  If poker were a game of chance, we would not have professional poker players, such as Doyle Brunson, or Daniel Negreanu.  Their long-term success (along with countless others) is proof that there is a good amount of skill involved in the game.  If you don't believe me, I would invite you to contact one of these players, and I'm sure they'd be happy to play some poker with you (while padding their pockets).

The second problem I see is that, even if poker were a complete game of chance (such as roulette), assuming the purpose of this bill were to limit gambling, why not make state lotteries illegal?  This bill is hypocritical in nature.  Rather, the only reason people want this bill passed is because it a) takes away from Brick and Mortar (B&M) casinos, and b) the government can not tax it.

The problems with the bill do not end there.  For one, how is this going to be enforced?  While I may be unable to make a transaction directly from my bank or personal credit card, I can always place money on an e-wallet (such as ePassporte), or use a generic gift card.

An ideal solution would be to make online poker official legal.  Encourage the poker sites to base operations in America, where the government would be able to tax not only player's winnings (as it already is), but income from the poker site as well.  This extra tax would help bring in more much needed cash, given the state of our economy.  With government regulation, you would have less worries about corrupt businesses (I am of course referring to the P0TRIPPER scandal on Absolute Poker).  It would be possible to prevent underaged gambling.  If you want to get really extreme, you could limit the amount of money a player could deposit in a given month (although, if you did some research, you would notice many poker sites already have some form of measure in place).

I realize you are not in office until the end of January, and it is President Bush who will be enacting this bill.  However, I ask that you use whatever powers you are now in possession of to do whatever it takes to stop this bill from being enacted.  Work with the Poker Players Alliance, and I'm sure a solution that would benefit both poker players and the United States can be reached.

Sincerely,

Kevin Marsteller