NYC Card Rooms - Change the Law

[Andrew Fletcher]

Why don't the NYC players/owners have a public meeting and organize to change the law? Get the legislature to clarify the rules and make it legal to run a poker room-- similar to CA. That would be a lot easier than setting up offshore accounts and all that crap.

Hire yourself a community organizer and a lobbyist. This ain't rocket science. Best of all, you've got no organized opposition that will have any crediblity in NY. Except maybe the Indian casinos....

[TakeMeToTheRiver]

Probably a lot harder than rocket science, actually... and there is organized opposition. Here is one example of the opposition. I have heard of others as well.

[cokehead]

if it were only that easy...

[ QUOTE ]
Why don't the NYC players/owners have a public meeting and organize to change the law? Get the legislature to clarify the rules and make it legal to run a poker room-- similar to CA. That would be a lot easier than setting up offshore accounts and all that crap.

[/ QUOTE ]

This would actually require an amendment to the State Constitution.

[Andrew Fletcher]

There is going to be some opposition, of course, but I doubt you'll lose in a public debate. People like poker. Just get a poll done or something that shows how much public support you have.

Trust me, politics is not rocket science. And you have a funding base which is really the most important thing.

[tonypaladino]

[ QUOTE ]
There is going to be some opposition, of course, but I doubt you'll lose in a public debate. People like poker. Just get a poll done or something that shows how much public support you have.

Trust me, politics is not rocket science. And you have a funding base which is really the most important thing.

[/ QUOTE ]

NY laws are 1000 times harder for citizens to get changed than CA laws.

See my lenghty post in the other thread about ny legalization for an in debth discussion

[zokbarjazz]

[ QUOTE ]
in debth discussion

[/ QUOTE ]
go to class

I just saw this: http://newyork.craigslist.org/mnh/act/105611211.html

on craigslist nyc.

I ordered two. Solidarity brothers!

[JFB37]

There is a good post on this in one of the many other NY poker threads. Basically, NY politics is a mess. NYC is not capable of changing the law itself, it would require action from the State Assembly. The Assembly is controlled by upstate politicians who generally hate the city.

Getting this changed would require significant support from the City leaders and Bloomberg has shown little interest in bringing in gambling. Rudy actually had more interest.

Mounting the lobbying effort would be time-consuming and expensive so there is a big free rider problem. Nobody would want to spend the money to get the law changed unless they had some assurance that they would have an advantage over potential competitors if it were passed. In other words, they would ask for some sort of "special permit" system under which they would, by magic, be the only one who would qualify for a permit.

I dearly wish this would happen but I'm not optimistic.