US: Republicans call for online poker ban

The 2012 Republican Party Platform Committee has just released its GOP platform, which contains a plank calling for a ban on online poker. In a section of the 54-page document that will serve as the party’s manifesto going into November’s nation-wide elections entitled Renewing American Values, the Republicans advocate prohibiting online poker as not to do so would put families and children at risk.

“Millions of Americans suffer from problem or pathological gambling that can destroy families,” read the policy paper released at the convention in Tampa, Florida. “We support the prohibition of gambling over the Internet and call for the removal of the Justice Department’s decision distorting the formerly accepted meaning of the Wire Act that could open the door to Internet betting.

“The Internet must be made safe for children. We call on service providers to exercise due care to ensure that the Internet cannot become a safe haven for predators while respecting First Amendment rights. We congratulate the social networking sites that bar known sex offenders from participation. We urge active prosecution against child pornography, which is closely linked to the horrors of human trafficking. Current laws on all forms of pornography and obscenity need to be vigorously enforced.”

The Republican’s decision to insert an anti-poker plank into its manifesto harkens back to similar moves in 2004 and 2008 and seems at odds with the ongoing efforts of many Congressional leaders of both parties to legalise and regulate the activity.

Should the Republicans reclaim the Whitehouse from the Democrats later this year, this could therefore spell bad news for online poker as the GOP are seeking to force the Department of Justice to change their stance on the Wire Act of 1961, which previously only applied to sports betting.

However, Rich Muny of the Poker Player’s Alliance has hit out at the GOP’s decision, saying: “As we all know, the Justice Department’s decision the plank calls for reversing is the very one that determined that the scope of the Wire Act does not include poker. As we all know, our opponents are including poker in ‘gambling’ activities they seek to ban. Some have event taken to calling it ‘poker gambling’.”