New US Poker Bill Aims To Dodge Kyl Opposition.

Frank Catania, principal of Catania Consulting Group and lobbyist for the Interactive Gaming Council expects that Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey will introduce a new Internet Gambling Bill including Online Poker that differs from Barney Frank's current proposal.

That bill, called the Internet Skill Games Licensing and Control Act, seek to provide a licensing regime for the offering of skill games like online poker, bridge, mah-jongg, and backgammon.

On Sept. 26, 2008 Menendez presented his bill before Congress adjourned and the election season reached its climax. Washington insiders viewed the move as indicative of the senator's intention to resume efforts in 2009.

When Frank published his latest bill in May, it was said that a sponsor in the Senate would show the same companion bill. It is understood that those efforts are still underway. If Menendez presents a skill-games-focused bill, criticism is likely to arise that casino gaming and less controversially, sports betting would have been left.

However, Catania, a former lawmaker in New Jersey, thinks a poker-only bill has a better chance of appeasing Senator Jon L. Kyl, the Arizona Republican who remains the most outspoken opponent of Internet gambling in the US Senate. Catania said it remains earlier saying Frank and Menendez, both members of the Democratic Party, will work for cooperation.

Opponents of Menendez's expected bill, meanwhile, are sure to argue that poker is more by chance than by skill, But proponents are likely to counter that latest decisions in lower courts in Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Colorado believed that poker is a skill game.

Base in congressional lobbying reports, Menendez's 2008 bill was supported by Poker Players Alliance, the million-advocacy group member funded by US about online gambling operators.

In July 2006, as a member of the House, he cast one of 93 votes against an earlier version of the UIGEA called the Internet Gambling Prohibition and Enforcement Act that were verified by Republican Representatives James A. Leach and Robert W. Goodlatte.