L8Bloomer

Mr. President,

I know you are receiving many canned letters from poker players tonight, but this one will be a little different – it comes from MY heart.

I am a hard-working tax-paying American. I serve my country by working as a third grade teacher in a public school in one of the poorest parts of my city of Phoenix, AZ. Despite that, the school in which I teach is making some amazing things happen with our mostly English Language Learners. We are in position to become the first Excelling school in our area. If we don’t do it this year, we will most certainly do it next year.

When I am not working hard at school to help my students be the best they can be, I usually turn the computer on and play some poker. Now, I am not a full-time poker player, but I love the game enough to spend a lot of time learning everything I can about the game. And I do like to play… a lot.

Shortly after I started playing this amazing game, I began to realize that it was not simply a game of luck, but truly a game of skill. Not only that, I actually became a winning poker player. It was never a question in my mind that I would pay taxes on my poker winnings. I have done so because I believe it is my responsibility to do what is right for this great nation in which I had the privilege of being born – A nation I have always thought of as “the land of the free.”

I think you can imagine my shock and surprise, on April 15th, 2011, when I came home from a job I love to play a game I love only to find that that right had been taken away from my by other Americans who felt that they understood better than me what it was okay and not okay to do. It was truly one of the more depressing moments of my life. Deep down, I felt what it must have been like for those who like to wind down their day with a glass of wine or a mug of beer to be told they could not do that anymore. By the way, I am not a drinker, but I do believe in the right of every American to enjoy those things in life that do not endanger others.

Mr. President, I know you are an avid poker player. I know you are familiar with the history of the game, and the importance it has played in many historical events. Skills honed at a poker table can help an average negotiator become a skilled one. Being able to look a world leader in the eye without flinching is a skill that is sharpened with a well-timed bluff based upon the many “tells” you see in your adversary. I know you use these skills for the highest benefit of our country. I know this because I am a poker player, too. Good poker players have an appreciation of the skill and cunning of other good poker players.

The recent decision by the Department of Justice to shut down the very websites on which I legally play poker flies in the face of the very freedoms we so cherish in this country. To take away my freedom of choice of entertainment is an insult to the freedoms that were put in place by our Founding Fathers.

I know there are some players who win money and do not pay their taxes. Clearly, this is an issue that needs to be resolved. However, it is not something you resolve by punishing the many who do pay taxes on their winnings. Poker is going to be around no matter how much our government might want to quash it. Rather than fight it, why not regulate it instead? It is an industry that can more than pay for itself through taxes. It is to the benefit of our country to regulate a game that many call our “true” national past time. Don’t kill the game that many presidents from Abraham Lincoln on up to the present have had a familiarity with. Some of our greatest presidents have loved the game – most of them in secret because they knew the game had a negative connotation with so many of their constituents. The game has changed a lot from the river boats on the Mighty Mississippi and the saloons of western towns. It is much more controlled. Cheating is very difficult. Frankly, if it was still the game it was in its infancy, I honestly wouldn’t be playing it.

Be the first president to come out and say, “You know what, poker is a fascinating and beautiful game.” Because it is – if played by reasonable people.

I urge you to come out against your own Attorneys General in the state of New York and take steps to make Internet Poker legal – precisely because it is a game of skill rather than luck. I urge you to call on Congress to regulate a game that can more than pay for itself through taxes.

I look forward to your response on this issue. I hope that I, along with my over one million fellow Poker Players Alliance members, can count on your support.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,
Dave “L8Bloomer” Hatton