War of Words Waged for California's Poker Interests

California USA is embroiled in a serious confrontation between the Tribal gambling interests, land based casinos with poker rooms and the online poker lobby group Poker Players Alliance.
The words were flying in the form of open letters to and from the Commerce Casino which opposes the legislation that would legalize online poker and gambling in the U.S. Poker players and the Poker Players Alliance sent their open letter, asking Commerce Casino to reverse it's negative stance.
Tom Malkasian and  Haig Papaian, Commerce Casino Board members have revealed that the Bicycle Casino, Hawaiian Gardens, and Hollywood Park also oppose the proposed legislation before Congress.
Malkasian stated in his testimony before the hearings involving the new regulations that in part HR 2267, is "based on false revenue assumptions that would require removal of the right of any state or tribe to opt out of the bill in order to achieve the advertised tax revenue of $42 billion over ten years."
John Pappas director of the Poker Players Alliance was quoted by Poker News Daily "They don’t want to compete with existing online operators or Harrah’s or Wynn or Google or anyone else who may get involved in internet gambling. They prefer to have their own fiefdom in California… A lot of lawmakers went out of their way to address their concerns via amendments, yet they still continue to oppose the bill."
The PPA has launched PlayersBeforeProfits.com. a new web site to provide information to it's members regarding this issue.
Nearly 7,000 players have signed the online petition and the PPA is looking for at least 10,000, which outlines the players concerns over the Commerce Casino board member's remarks and stance.
A boycott of the opposing casinos was a suggestion offered by the poker players. 
Pappas commented,  "We felt that poker players can make those types of decisions on their own. We want to reserve a boycott and I don’t think it’s something we intended to call for. Should the Commerce continue to be obstinate, then we might revise our stance there."