The Fight For Online Poker Is Still On

The American Gaming Association, a casino lobby that has been responsible for the fight over regularizing online gambling in the US, has recently strengthened their staff in anticipation of a very long 2014 as far as the presence of online casinos and gambling is concerned in the US. Five additions to the staff of the AGA was announced last week with an aim of reorganizing and placing an emphasis on using a campaign style trade advocacy to bring awareness about the gambling industry.

New addition to the staff

The Washington based top casino lobby group’s CEO and President, Geoff Freeman, has said that the AGA has welcomed five new and highly talented members to their team. He has also said that the new individuals would help the AGA build off the success they have enjoyed and take their mission to the next generation of the organization. The new group of experts at the AGA would use research, outreach and other activities to help the existing team to position AGA in a favorable manner to drive the economic and innovative growth of the gaming value. The fact that all of the new staff members at the AGA come from diverse backgrounds including different industries, associations and also the public sector organizations.

As the AGA has been campaigning continuously for an online poker bill at a federal level, those in the industry view that the bill at present is drawing dead. However, online poker is steadily spreading throughout the US at the state levels. It was also widely available in US before the Black Friday events that took place in April 2011. Today, some of the players in the US have access to a handful of smaller offshore online poker sites and the AGA along with its members intends to put an end to this practice.

More about the new staff

The five new members of the staff at the AGA come from a range of diverse backgrounds, providing the AGA with experience and expertise from diverse industrial sectors, associations and also the public sectors. Here’s a little more about these new members,

Vice president of government relations – Chaka Burgess: Chake Burgess brings into the AGA an experience of over 20 years in building coalitions, developing allies and lobbying. Burgess has worked with global government affairs division at Amgen Inc as the director of the division. Burgess would be joining Whitaker Askew, who is the vice president of government affairs and they would be working closely and lead the advocacy efforts at the AGA.

Vice president of public affairs – Sara Rayme: Sara Rayme has worked with the likes of MGM Resorts International as a vice president of government affairs and has lead several projects for the expansion of casinos. She will be overseeing the communications at AGA along with the initiatives for campaign-style and also research.

Director of gaming policy – Elizabeth Cronan: Elizabeth Cronan has experience working with International Game Technology as the director of global government relations and public affairs. She has also headed the US legal and Research division for the Gambling Compliance and has been an advisor to the board of a geolocation company known as GeoComply that has been involved in the expansion of online gambling. She would be leading the public policy activities at the AGA that include anti money laundering initiatives along with regulatory reforms.

General counsel – Virginia Hurt Johnson: Virginia would be working with the AGA as a part time general counsel and will help address the day to day legal needs of the AGA while also helping to manage outside counsel and guidance to the organization to attract new opportunities as well as members. Virginia has over 30 years of experience in both, the private as well as the public sectors. She also has extensive knowledge of the legislative as well as the executive branches.

Senior director of communications – Allie Barth: Allie Barth has joined the AGA as the senior director of communications and she would help implement and execute all of the AGA’s communications platforms. She brings along to her experience from the US Travel Association where she had developed and managed the internal as well as the external communications for the organization and implemented several strategic campaign initiatives. This will be the regulations for different poker sites like situs judi slot terpercaya

Congressional hearing and the online poker bill

Earlier in December, Freeman had participated in one of the federal hearings on the topic of online gambling, focused predominantly on poker. The meeting also included brief discussion by Rep. Joe Barton’s bill on web poker. The hearing took place in a brisk pace and lasted less than two hours. It was a very sad scene as nothing of significance took place in the hearing with most of the discussions being nothing but rhetoric statements being repeated months before the hearing. There were, however, a few funny moments at the hearing such as when Joe Barton said that the online poker bill had God’s support.

The hearing seemed to be completely pointless as there was little chance for the legalization of online poker of even being banned as states such as New Jersey and Nevada have acted on the issue at a state level. As a result, the hearing is highly unlikely to have any action on the debate in 2014. This could also be the fact why the AGA has been bolstering it’s staff as they prepare to wage an uphill battle to bring back online poker in the US.