Here’s how you play online poker in the U.S., according to a recent article in Business Week:

1. Finish playing poker online with your buddies
2. Close out all non-U.S. accounts
3. Go to NETeller
4. Open new account
5. Select new poker site from the Best Places to Play List
6. Sign in at your new poker site
7. Deposit via NETeller
8. Start playing poker online with your buddies

Playing Poker - Now Easier than Ever.

Ping Out: To Catherine Holahan for her consistently professional reporting on this issue over at Business Week.

The Association of Professional Casino Webmasters [APCW] has produced a series of short videos highlighting the issues and controversy behind the Internet Gambling Prohibition Bill. The fourth video is a simple plea for you to assist those politicians afflicted with CDD. They need your help today… before it’s too late.

Check it out, then head over to the APCW. We all need to work together.

The headline alone should tell you how broad this issue has become. When FOX News allows an opinion that berates the Republicans for their stance on online gambling, one must take notice. The focus of the piece is on the moral aversion to gambling held by its chief sponsors - Goodlatte, Kyl, and Leach - and their desire to impose that moral rectitude on the rest of the country, coupled with the dirty pool that led up to the ban. Go read the whole thing over at FOX.

There is no ‘1′ solution to reversing the un-American UIGE Act, but collectively there are many ways to kill it. And that is exactly how this underhanded deal will be reversed - by the simple work of everyone. Poker Patriots supports all efforts to bring about the reversal and death of the un-American UIGE Act.

So far the Pro-American Poker movement is made up of:

• All the poker sites still serving the American Poker Player
• The Poker Players Alliance
• Poker Patriots
• Save Online Gaming
• Downsize DC
• Jim Perkins Petition
• The Journalists keeping this issue front and center by reporting on it daily
• The 50 Million American Poker Players in this Nation

This is a pretty big tent. And it’s getting bigger by the day.

Your voice is your most powerful weapon in this fight. Talk poker. Play poker.

We support American Poker, its legacy and tradition. Poker is America.

What happens to your business when the source of your recent overwhelming growth dries up? This is the question facing organizers of the World Series of Poker, who saw event entrants grow by over 1,000% in two years, thanks to the increased exposure of online poker and the qualifiers who came through the online poker sites.

The likely answer is: your business suffers, badly.

Now, whether through sheer determination, lack of foresight, pure bravado, or simply an unwillingness to admit that the sky is blue, the WSOP doesn’t agree:

“In 2005 and 2006 we had record fields each year. We’re confident again that 2007 will be the best one ever.” - Gary Thompson, WSOP Tournament Spokesman

This flies in the face of what other industry insiders are saying. Mike Sexton, host of the World Poker Tour, thinks the WSOP will be “devastated” and Michael Bolcerek, president of the Poker Players Alliance, agrees. There’s a great article over at Business Week with all the gory details.

Considering that many of the entrants were awarded entry fees to the WSOP via low buy-in qualifying tournaments, we think they might not be so keen to shell out the actual $10K buy-in.

What do you think? Will you still go, even if you have to pony up the full fee?

Given that Congress is out of touch with America, and that certain politicians work for special-interest instead of the voters, let’s try the “Rank and Yank” method this mid-term election.

What’s “Rank and Yank“?

Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric and proponent of the Rank and Yank Method

Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric, famously installed the Rank and Yank method into GE when he was running things. The Rank and Yank method is also known as the “20-70-10″ system. Here’s how it works:

• Top 20 : the top 20% of the workforce is most productive. They get the best promotions and opportunities.
• Vital 70 : the middle 70% work adequately. They fill out the rest of the company.
• Bottom 10 : the lowest 10% are nonproducers and should be fired.

The assessment and firings happened like clockwork every year. With this system in place, GE experienced a 28-fold increase in earnings.

If it works in business, it should work in government. At least it couldn’t be any worse than the culture of corruption that’s in there right now.

So where to start?

Why not start with answers to our own Congressmen and Senators On the Record post:

I fully support American Poker in all its forms: Yes or No

I will reverse the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act: Yes or No

I will work to legitimize the Great American Game of Poker online: Yes or No

Let’s get those answers. After that, we can compare attendance records, voting records and campaign donations against the polls of regular Americans. Very quickly we’ll see who’s working for America and who’s working for special-interest.

There’s also the Radar article that describes this congress as “busy doing nothing”. Their ranking of the Top 10 Dumbest Congressmen is as good a place to start as any.

Rank and Yank. It worked for GE. It could work for the USA.

In a strikingly bold move, Hollywood executives have decided to take two innocuous topics - terrorism and poker - and blend them together into one film, the new James Bond actioner Casino Royale. What will they think of next? [ed. note: I believe this is sarcasm]

This time Bond plays high stakes poker against a private banker who “funds the world’s terrorists.” Oh man. They say it’s based on the original Ian Fleming book, and subsequent movie, but I’m not so sure of this. Were poker and terrorism hot topics back in the early 60’s? And didn’t Woody Allen play Bond in the original film? Perhaps he reprises his role…

Can’t we go back to the day when Ernst Stavro Blofeld simply wanted to steal nuclear weapons? SPECTRE was so much easier to deal with, what with all the infighting among villians and the constant electrocution for disloyalty. They practically killed themselves off. Today we would call this “cannibalizing your market share.”

Blofeld: The firing power inside my crater is enough to annihilate a small army. You can watch it all on TV. It’s the last program you’re likely to see.

James Bond: Well, if I’m gonna be forced to watch television, may I smoke?

Blofeld: Yes. Give him his cigarettes. It won’t be the nicotine that kills you, Mr. Bond.

Anyway… here’s the new trailer from Casino Royale.

Pink Floyd : The Wall

Prior to the signing of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act [UIGE], Business Week published an article addressing the point of prohibition vs. protectionism. We highlighted this point in a release we sent to the media last week, and the protectionism angle has certainly picked up some steam.

While the proponents behind the bill [Rep’s Frist, Goodlatte, Leach & Kyl] have argued their motivation was based on eroding American morals and values caused by online gambling - the bill that passed only affected the methods of transaction. The bill did not make online gambling illegal.

The response by the major public gaming operators of pulling out of the US market was about protecting long-term shareholder value and avoiding arrest if entering the United States, not an explicit law against online gambling. The cases of BETOnSports CEO David Carruthers and Sportingbet’s non-executive Chairman Peter Dicks put the fear into international gaming exec’s and certainly altered their travel plans.

The case is made, by ourselves and others including Business Week, that beyond the obvious pre-election “playing to the base” impact of the new law, that the door is still open to US-based gaming companies such as Harrah’s, MGM Mirage, Wynn and Trump to launch online gaming sites. The argument that we’ve read on many sites focuses on the fact that the taxation available to the US government from online gaming is just too great to outright ban or ignore. $6 billion dollars in online gaming revenue last year in the US alone? A few lobbying dollars will be spent to grab that booty.

So we’re wondering: if this is a protectionist move, and online gaming will be licensed and regulated inside the US in the future, is the new law the most effective move by the government? Is closing the market to outside competitors an intelligent free-market play? What if other countries block US companies from competing in their markets? Does the world need more walls?

We’d like to hear everyone’s thoughts - write a comment and voice your opinion.

You can read the Business Week article here.

Bill Gates found out in the 90’s that building a successful company in America not only took skill, smarts, money, marketing and product - it also took politics.

In fact, you can readily find coverage of the ongoing business battles Microsoft has with the United States, European Union, Asia and every other region in the world where it sells its products.

That’s the sign of a mature industry. It constantly works in political realms to maintain free-market freedom.

Calvin Ayre of Bodog on the cover of Forbes

Free markets don’t just happen. They are constructed by a myriad of interests: government, business, supply, demand, resources, regulation, community standards, and capital. Each of those interests has an agenda and fights for their agenda to be instituted. Through the give and take of that unending process, a balance is achieved. But that balance is always in flux with the times. Which is why free markets are a constant pursuit, never a destination.

Calvin Ayre recently commented on the UIGE Act and said, “I think that the existing issues relating to the recent online gaming legislation ought to be left in the hands of the electorate and policymakers.”

Well, Calvin Ayre is a billionaire. And billionaires never leave anything to chance – even ones involved in the gambling business. If he did, he wouldn’t be a billionaire. So he’s either being coy or forcibly naïve. My bet is that he’s coy, playing it close to the vest, as he should since he’s already witnessed what happens to flagrant gambling executives.

However, mature industries lobby for their interests. That is a reality.

Here’s hoping that Bodog is working behind the scenes as successfully as they are in front of the camera.

We at Poker Patriots encourage every poker industry player to promote and support whatever effort is needed to overturn the underhanded UIGE Act. Lobbying for American Poker is one of the ways to achieve that.

Ping Out: To John Caldwell and his Learn Lessons from the Music Industry article in Poker News. Thanks for the valuable insight.

The Poker Patriots blog was officially launched last week and already we’ve been written up in a spate of online reviews.

• Online Casinos
• Eye On Gambling
• Poker Listings
• iGaming Business Magazine
• Poker Player Magazine [registration required]

Our newsletter has become the hot read of the inbox and the Poker Patriots RSS feed is spreading like wildfire.

But we didn’t get into this fight for the fame; we got in to make a difference. To right a wrong. To overturn an underhanded deal. To promote a level playing field. To honor the American legend of Poker.

In that spirit, we’ll be presenting useful tools for battling against the un-American UIGE Act in the coming days and weeks. We urge you to use them and pass them on to others interested in the cause. As we pull together, you’ll see that this war will be won within 36 months. In today’s culture and technology, when the nation uncovers such an egregious injustice and then works together to right the wrong, it usually takes about 3 years to see the results.

Backing us is the fortunate timing of the mid-term elections, as well as the internet and millions of smart poker players ready to stand up for the great American game of poker. We fight to bring back the legitimacy of our sport, and in the process, cut-out the special-interest agenda that is ruining this country.

Talk your game. Play your game. And remember - there are 50 million of us. So on November 7th, vote your game.

Make the difference.