More on Black Friday: Talking with Joe Brennan Jr., Chairman of iMEGA
I think one of the most important things that US poker players do post-black friday is inform themselves as much as possible about what happened to Stars/FTP/UB and why. There is a ton of confusing information out there, and I've done what I can to help clear things up.
After a buddy read my last blog, he put me in touch with a friend of his, Joe Brennan Jr., who happens to be the Chairman of iMEGA, and probably the top legal mind in the country regarding the legal and legislative situation for online gambling and online poker. For anyone who doesn't know, iMEGA is a Washington-DC based industry association that represents the online gambling industry. They pursue lobbying efforts both on the state and federal level, and in addition they litigate online gambling cases all over the company. Two recent examples are that they have worked with several state senators in New Jersey to pass the intrastate gambling bill there, and they are the lead plaintiff in the case against the State of Kentucky, who tried to seize 141 online gambling domain names because they claimed that the websites violated state gaming laws (even though its legal to bet on the ponies inside Kentucky).
Joe is a super nice guy (very funny too) and spent a generous amount of time with me during what has to be a very busy period for him. I recorded an hour of our conversation and got his views on several subjects regarding poker's legal fight, black friday, and what poker players can do to affect change. My hope is that this answers some questions for poker players and gives a clearer picture about poker's legal and legislative state in the US.
Here's the link to my interview with Joe, I uploaded it to the new member video feature here at DTB so the link is free and does not require the user to be logged in.
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May 7th, 2011 - 14:23
Great Listen I recomend it for sure