A week ago, a hearing in a House Subcommitteediscussed the merits of the Sheldon Adelson-backed Restoring America’s Wire Act, or RAWA, which would ban online gambling in the US, including in the three states where it’s already regulated. There have been several legislation-related headlines in recent days, so to get caught up on them and discuss the possibility of RAWA advancing, we sat down with Poker Players AllianceVice President Rich TheEngineer Muny. Adelson is pictured.

PocketFives: In recent days, RAWA Senate sponsor Lindsey Graham has said he’s open to a carve-out in RAWA for online lottery sales. What’s your opinion about that?

Rich Muny: It shows there are some differences between Jason Chaffetz, who is sponsoring RAWA in the House, and Graham. Chaffetz seems like he’s against all gaming. You keep hearing things about daily fantasy sports and what will happen there and the witnesses at the hearing said RAWA would eliminate online lotteries. Chaffetz told lottery directors to come to Congress if they wanted to sell tickets online.

Chaffetz is taking a hard line, whereas Graham, who hasn’t said much of anything, is giving a signal that he might be looking at a carve-out for lotteries. In total, Graham’s bill could be different than Chaffetz’s bill.

I don’t know if poker is in the running for a carve-out, as we do know Adelson is firmly against poker. It’s hard to imagine horse racing, DFS, lotteries, poker, and existing states with online casino gaming all receiving carve-outs. If you carve out enough things, lawmakers might not be interested in pushing a bill. The House is going to be making a case for banning all online gaming, but in the Senate they’re talking about a different bill. That divide might be a good thing.

PocketFives: Should daily fantasy sports get a carve-out?

Rich Muny: The PPA is poker only, but I think DFS should be treated the same as poker. I don’t think DFS should be ahead of poker. I’m not rooting against them, but I don’t think they should get a carve-out and not us.

PocketFives: We’ve heard that Congressman Joe Barton will be introducing a bill to regulate online poker only in the US. He’s done so in the past, but why is he doing it this time?

Rich Muny: Barton (pictured) believes in our industry. He has put out a couple of bills in the past. Now, we need a good offense on Capitol Hill, so a competing bill from Barton is good. Barton’s bill will likely be hands-off everything except for poker.

PocketFives: Why were there no tech experts or regulators at the RAWA hearing?

Rich Muny: Our opponents stacked the deck. It was a show hearing for lawmakers to get their checks, demonize gaming, and move forward to the next phase. I don’t think they were looking for the truth. They were looking to have demagogues in the room and I think they overstepped it. The hearing lacked credibility. They tried to showcase three people advocating for a ban and one person, Parry Aftab, was an opponent of that and stronger than they thought. It left them without any credibility.

The next step after the hearing is a markup. I haven’t heard anything about when that will be. Unless something changes, I would anticipate there will be a markup, though. Given it’s an election year and Adelson has a lot of money, it’s hard to imagine lawmakers not trying to push this forward. A lot of bills would have tanked with this kind of disastrous hearing.

PocketFives: What can concerned poker players do?

Rich Muny: People need to keep making sure their lawmakers know we’re paying attention. Politicians care deeply about getting reelected, so if they think they’re doing something unpopular, they’ll listen. It’s incumbent on all of us to keep up our part of the fight.

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