After dropping out from Seattle Central Community College, Alex Fitzgerald, 24, says he has found the good life: winning more than $2.5 million as a professional poker player and quickly becoming one of the hottest young gamblers in the world.
Poker, he says, is his passion and his profession, and he studies it every morning. But he is doing it in Costa Rica. He said he must play on foreign land because it's illegal in the United States, after the Justice Department shut down the three largest online poker sites on Apr. 15, 2011, a day known among gamblers as Black Friday.
"I can never live in my country of birth again without giving up the only job that has consistently fed me since I was a teenager," said Fitzgerald.
One thing might change that: Congress could legalize online gaming, allowing the hundreds of U.S. poker players who have fled the country to return. While the poker industry is lobbying hard to make that happen, it's the ultimate nightmare for many U.S. Indian tribes, who fear that it could destroy their $28 billion-a-year casino business.
While no vote has been set, poker lobbyists have lined up backing from the nation's most powerful senator, Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, who once headed his home state's gambling commission. They're banking on Reid to force a bill through by the end of the year, reversing the ban approved in 2006.
To help get the job done, the Poker Players Alliance, a lobbying group representing poker players across the country, is leading a national grass-roots campaign, urging its 1.2 million members to flood Congress with letters, e-mails, phone calls and tweets. In May, the group joined nearly 20 members of Congress at a retreat for House Republicans in Florida, hosting a poker and casino night and posting photos on its website showing lawmakers crowded around a table learning the finer points of Texas Hold ‘em. Rep. Joe Barton, a Texas Republican and a respected poker player in his own right, is leading the House effort to pass a bill.
While Black Friday angered poker players, they scored a win in December when the Obama administration announced a move that could go a long way toward legalizing online gaming. The Justice Department said it would apply the major anti-gambling statute, the Wire Act, only to sports events and races, clearing the way for states to begin legalizing online gaming without having to worry about federal laws.
Two states, Nevada and Delaware, have already done so. And New Jersey could become the third yet this year. John Pappas, executive director of the Poker Players Alliance, said that legalization of online gaming is inevitable now that the Obama administration has "opened the door." He's backing a plan that would allow the Department of Commerce to certify states to regulate online poker, while allowing states to go beyond their own borders to accept bets from players.
Legalization is a worrisome prospect for many tribal officials, who predict that most gamblers would be less likely to drive to a casino, often found on isolated tribal lands, if they could play for money on their home computers.
On Capitol Hill, where House and Senate committees have been debating the issue for months, tribes have been busy trying to line up votes to block online gaming.
"We see legalization of Internet gambling as a direct threat to the economic growth in Indian country and we do not support any proposals that legalize Internet gambling," said Glen Gobin, an officer with the Tulalip Tribes in Washington state.
And Robert Odawi Porter, president of the New York-based Seneca Nation of Indians, said that "a thousand flowers bloomed for Indian nations" after Congress allowed tribes to enter the big leagues of gambling in 1988. At a Senate Indian Affairs committee meeting in February, he said online gaming threatens both tribal sovereignty and the tens of thousands of jobs created by the casinos.
But Porter said that if Congress insists on approving online gaming, lawmakers must at least allow tribes to help write the rules and take the lead in running the enterprise.
Online poker, which is already legal in 85 countries, has the potential to forever change the rules of gambling, much like online shopping re-shaped the retail industry.
"Anybody who's in the gaming business today and isn't seeking to take their business online is really going to be left in the dust, just like the book sellers were, and just like the music industry was," Pappas said. "Gaming is going to be the next wave."
Tribes worry that they could face a flood of competitors, from states to non-Indian casinos, even from media giants such as Facebook, Yahoo and Google. "Those are big companies, and that's pretty serious competition," said Chris Mercier, tribal council member with The Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde in Oregon. "Nobody really knows what's going to happen with it."
The poker players say the tribes already carry too much influence. They're particularly irked with legislators in Washington state and Democratic Gov. Chris Gregoire for approving a state law in 2006 that imposes criminal penalties on those who play online poker or place any kind of wager on the Internet.
The law, the only one of its kind in the nation, is a sore spot with Steve McNulty of Bothell, the Washington state director of the Poker Players Alliance, who has been playing poker since he was 5 years old: "Frankly, I think it's unfair, as do many, many other poker enthusiasts in the state. It's a Class C felony in the state of Washington to play poker online."
Art Reber, a retired professor and author from Point Roberts who co-wrote the book "Gambling for Dummies," called the law "one of the stupidest things on the planet." He said that while it's clearly aimed at protecting the tribes, Indians do not deserve special protection in the gambling industry, regardless of how they were mistreated in the past.
"We marched across this country and just slaughtered them and just devastated them, but in the current circumstances there still has to be a balance between special interests and the general welfare across a population," Reber said. "The tribes are doing fine. They're not hurting. They don't need to have a monopoly on online gambling."
John Lane, an executive policy advisor who handles gambling issues for Gregoire, said the law has had overwhelming support in Washington state, passing in the Senate 44-0 and in the House 93-5. But he said the state has not prosecuted anyone for Internet gambling.
Critics say it would be a big mistake for Congress to scrap the 2006 federal law, called the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act.
"Online gambling is the very worst case scenario, and the reason is because if you open online gambling, there are no rules anymore, there's no stability," said John Kindt, a gambling researcher and professor of business and legal policy at the University of Illinois.
Kindt, who testified before Congress in 2006 when members approved the ban, said electronic gaming is particularly addictive, calling it the "crack cocaine" of gambling. He said tribes are hedging their bets by opposing online gaming in Congress but predicted they're unlikely to take a financial hit and will be on the leading edge of the movement if it's approved.
The issue is causing sharp divisions in Congress.
At a House subcommittee hearing, Virginia Republican Rep. Frank Wolf said the spread of gambling has already led to "ruined families, bankruptcies, suicides and official corruption." And he scolded members of his party for advocating legalization only six years after Congress approved the ban.
"I never thought I would see that day that a Republican House would even consider weakening this law," he said. "For a party that champions families and traditional values, I assure you that Internet gambling is contrary to family values."
Democratic Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts called the ban "an inappropriate interference on the personal freedom of Americans" and said it should be scrapped. He wants Congress to approve an online gaming system that would allow "any suitable person" to apply for a license for online gaming. Frank said it would allow the U.S. to collect more than $42 billion in new taxes over 10 years and to capture both revenue and jobs that are going overseas.
"Some adults will spend their money foolishly, but it is not the purpose of the federal government to prevent them legally from doing it," he said.
Rob Hotakainen covers Washington state from the McClatchy Newspapers bureau in Washington, D.C. He can be reached at rhotakainen@mcclatchydc.com.
ROB HOTAKAINEN covers Washington state from the McClatchy Washington, D.C., bureau. He can be reached at rhotakainen@mcclatchydc.com.
