Internet Poker Regulation Bill Alive or Dead?

UPDATE: The Las Vegas Sun has retracted their original article. They now claim the Reid Bill is still on the lame duck agenda. The Wall Street Journal is now reporting that the Bill is in fact still a work in progress. Follow PAS on Twitter @PokerAM for the latest news on the Reid Bill.

The Las Vegas Sun published an online article today at 3pm CST stating that the Harry Reid online poker bill is dead. The Sun wrote “Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told the Las Vegas Sun after a press conference this afternoon that despite a flurry of last-minute lobbying, he would not be adding legalization of online poker to his list of objectives during the lame duck.”

The article includes a quote from Harry Reid after his press conference this afternoon:

“We’re still working on that, we’re not able to,” Reid said.

It’s hard to read too much into the quote. But one could assume Reid is saying that they are still trying to get a bill to go through but it won’t be during the lame duck session.

This is the only source I can find that discusses the news of the bill being taken off of the agenda. I find it very strange that the Las Vegas Sun would break the news of the Reid bill dying. When you consider all of the major media sources who are covering the Bush Tax cuts, it seems odd that the Sun would be the one to break the news. Of course given the money and power behind the bill (Las Vegas), the news does affect the Las Vegas community more than most communities around the US.

There is still a lot of speculation swarming around the web on the death of the Reid Bill. Pokerati’s DC reporter Scarlet Robinson recently tweeted “hearing from ppl in DC that the bill is NOT dead”. Also keep in mind that hours before the UIGEA went through there were multiple reports out of Washington that the UIGEA was dead in the water. So who really knows at this point.

I will be updating the PAS blog if more sources come out to back up the Las Vegas Sun story. Until then, you can find me hitting F5 on 2+2 and Twitter 🙂