Curtis Woodard, founder of the Washington Internet Poker Initiative, said his group is working to educate voters about online gambling and to lobby politicians to repeal laws banning online poker in the state.
In 2006, the Washington legislature made playing online poker a Class C felony. The sponsor, then-State Senator Margarita Prentice said poker players should “go pump gas” instead of playing poker online. The law also bans legal fantasy sports sites. Following its passage, PartyPoker, PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker immediately withdrew from the state and online subscription poker sites have not marketed in Washington.
The Washington Supreme Court upheld the law in 2010.
Woodward said rather than ban online poker, the state should instead embrace the industry and establish a two-tiered system, allowing Native American tribes and licensed card rooms to offer full online casino gaming, while larger sites like PokerStars would operate online poker rooms within the state. Companies that wanted to participate would pay “a significant fee,” Woodard said, that would cover the costs of regulation. “This solution should please everyone. It can and should serve as a model for other states to follow because it opens the door for easy interstate cooperation and the ability to share player liquidity on common platforms across state lines.”
Woodard was a guest on Dori Monson’s KIRO-FM radio show, during which Monson said, “You can smoke pot legally in Washington now, but you can’t play poker online. That is the ultimate hypocrisy. You’ve got the state government telling us they have to raise our taxes. Yet, because we have certain politicians who got bought and paid for by other gambling interests who wanted to protect their monopoly, suddenly I’m a felon if I want to play for free, or for five, 10, 25 cents a hand Texas Hold ‘em online in our state. For the legislature to make felons out of their citizens in exchange for campaign cash, it’s one of the sleaziest bits of politics that you’ll ever see.”
