PPA Phone-In Hailed As A Success
Published: Wednesday, September 13, 2006 Online-Casinos.com
PPA PHONE-IN HAILED AS A SUCCESS
Red hot telephones in Senatorial offices this week
Early indications are that the player "Phone March To Capitol Hill" protest organised by the Poker Player's Association yesterday (Tuesday) has had a significant impact on U.S. politicians.
The PPA, aided by prominent poker portals widely publicised the protest initiative against current political attempts to ban online gambling (see previous Online-Casinos.com / InfoPowa reports). US players were urged to telephone 800 numbers where they were routed to their political representatives to express opposition to anti-online gambling legislative activity. The project ran for much of the day and it seems that support was strong.
Writing on the Eye On Gambling (EOG) site, veteran portalmaster and online gambling expert Ken Weitzner reported that he spent several hours during the day tracking the volume of phone calls to different Senators' offices around the United States, with some startling and detailed results.
In summary it appears that most Senators experienced high volumes of calls protesting against the contentious Bill HR 4411 which proposes to ban online gambling (with of course the usual carve-outs for state lotteries and horse racing) Hundreds of calls were reported, some volumes overwhelming the systems which left messages requesting callers to try again later.
One aide told Weitzner that he doubted that the Internet Gambling Bill would come to the Senate floor this year, and said his Senator hadn't taken a position on it and it was considered "low priority." A Texas aide reported up to 200 calls by midday at his principal's office.
Following his cursory but widespread sampling, Weitzner concluded: "Overall, it appears to me from scouting different areas of the country today that apparently at least five thousand calls were made collectively to one hundred Senators.
"Could it make a difference? Judging from the offices I spoke to on the phone today, they all believed it can.
"It's really anyone's guess as to whether or not this bill is brought up before the Senate adjourns for the year which at the earliest is October 6, but may be extended.
"For those who enjoy Internet Gambling, I sincerely believe that the "phone march" today was a great success but I wouldn't stop now. I strongly advocate repeating this process once per week until the Senate recesses for good this year.
"What about next Tuesday?"
