The online poker industry in the United States of America certainly might just be at its darkest point these days, what with the whole Black Friday incident and all. But you know what they say, there’s always a silver lining in every cloud. Republican Congressman, Joe Barton, might just be the harbinger of good tidings his time as he is preparing to introduce a new bill that paves the way to the legalization of online poker.

A Practical Republican

Democrats might be the common allies of the idea of online poker legalization, but there are some Republicans out there who can actually see the “light”, so to speak, and Congressman Joe Barton is one of them. A true Texan through and through, Congressman Barton understands that the game of poker is all-American, and outlawing it is nothing short of insane. “It seems to me rather ludicrous that we permit gambling like lotteries and horse racing on the Internet, but we say no, a game of skill like poker, you can’t play”, said Congressman Barton, and he couldn’t have said it any better. His statement practically summed up the insanity behind all the opposition towards online poker in a nutshell. Barton is merely crusading the idea of giving people the right to use the Internet, and he pointed out several flaws in the logic of those opposing the regulation of online poker. He says that people use the Internet for several bad things and that it’s really illogical that the government bans poker and not pornography. He’s currently still working on the bill and polishing it up, but he’s already pretty confident that the bill will be passed in both houses of congress.

Explaining Black Friday

Barton may be an ally of the idea of legalizing and regulating online poker, but that does not mean that he’s siding with the Big Three on the whole Black Friday incident. He says that the poker sites were punished by the Department of Justice because they “broke the law in the transactional elements of the business”. Basically, he’s clarifying that it was not because of a moral debate that the Black Friday incident happened, but because the poker sites decided to try to ‘outsmart’ the law by circumventing the proper channels of payment. By using shell companies and radar banks, the transactions processed by these sites were all illegal, and thereby punishable by law.