Shake Hands With The Devil Poker

It seems that the pressure placed on regulators for Minnesota, by both the Poker Players Alliance and regular players, who are protesting the possibility of online poker been banned by law, could have just forced the officials who’s job it is to make the decision to either ban or allow online poker to continue, to fold their hand.

The decision to drop their requests to Internet Services Providers (ISP) to ban access to hundreds of online poker rooms for any connection within the Minnesota area came about due to a legal lawsuit that has been placed by the entire gambling industry, carrying a huge amount of power behind the claim.

This news means that the pokerstar gambling industry, lead by Interactive Media Entertainment and Gaming Association, have completed official legal papers to declare that they are satisfied with the outcome, ending their legal court case.

Chairman for the Interactive Media Entertainment and Gaming Association, Joe Brennan Jr., made a statement on behalf of the association:

“Broadly, it’s a victory for Internet rights because what you had was a government administrative branch deeming a list of sites to be a blacklist that should be censored, it was preventing Minnesota residents from freely accessing the sites.”

The ongoing battle to keep online poker and gambling legal has been closely watched by the internet service providers, with them looking to some of the biggest organisations in order to get their thoughts and opinions on the issue, with the states Alcohol and Gambling Enforcement Division writing that they did not know if ‘iMEGA’ would or would not have won should the case have gone to court.

This offered the ISP very little information or insight in their quest to join the side that was going to offer the strongest argument but the new agreement means that they no longer need to choose where they stand on the issue, no doubt a great development in their opinion.

John Williams of the Alcohol and Gambling Enforcement Division for Minnesota also told the ISP “I believe it may be more appropriate to resolve this problem by working to create clear and effective government policies concerning regulation of gambling.”

When asked if the Minnesota regulators had ‘folded their hand’, the response from the regulator camp was delivered by their spokesman Andy Skoogman, who said “We have not folded our hand,

the action raised awareness of the broader issue about who is policing the Internet and protecting the consumer. At this point, we don’t feel there is anybody. This is an issue that every state is going to face sooner rather than later.”