‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ potentially very bad for poker (players) in the US + STAY ON TOPIC!!

Agree with the gist, but one reason we spin our wheels too much is thinking of "the left" and "the right" as coherent ideologies embodied by the political parties. L and R are just descriptions that could apply to a range of issues and philosophies.

e.g. there are like 5 countries that don't guarantee paternity leave and the U.S. is one. 80% of Americans including most Republican voters want us to have it. Our media and both political parties don't want us to have it. Therefore this common sense policy that almost everyone supports is "far left." There are many issues like this.

These issues really have nothing to do with certain moral/social issues that often involve identity politics. But they are bundled together in a way that muddles everything up. Like "the far left wants us to have paternity leave, and for certain extreme ideologies to be taught as fact in schools." No, these are two different issues that have very little to do with each other materially or philosophically. It would easily be possible to have paternity leave and not promote extreme ID politics in schools.

The same model applies to some things that are labeled right wing. "The far right thinks immigrants should get background checks and that creationism should be taught in schools."

In a nutshell, identity politics and material politics are different things. But extremes in identity politics are used to make sure good material policies that most people want are never passed. Ultimately Wall Street DGAF if there is prayer in school or not, so we are free to go back on forth on that. But we will never fix our HC system or have a foreign policy that aims for peace or go back to the days when politicians made a nice UMC income for serving their country instead of millions from being openly corrupt.

Agreed.

"Never argue with an idiot. They will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience." -Mark Twain

The last thing I believe is that the Democrats are good. In California, they were going to get rid of the hidden feees in restaurants and the most pride-waving, virtue-signaling Democrat there is - Scott Weiner - nixed it at the 11th hour because he got paid off by the restaurant lobby. And yes they focus on fringe culture issues like trans women in sports instead of stuff people care about like cost of living.

My message was that _on the issue this whole thread is supposed to be about_ the Democrats are obviously superior. The Republicans caused Black Friday and they indisputably introduced this issue now.

The reason I say this message is because basic facts are attempting to be buried by Trump cultists.

There's a general attempt at deflection by people who are clearly GOP apologists where because this issue is so crystal clear that the GOP did something bad, tehy want to shift the conversation to some broad "both sides are bad in the end" picture which is a whataboutism fallacy that pulls us away from the actual thing being discussed where the GOP are clearly in the wrong.

We already had one lunatic claim it was introduced by a Democratic parlimentarian in spite of that being predicated on a fundamental misunderstanding of the role and no evidence. We already had another lunatic say that Trump is still better than the Democrats because they're at fault for not defeating Trump.

If you want to say "both sides are bad", sure, but they're not equally bad, and especially not equally bad on all issues, and it's crystal clear that Democrats are better for poker. Not because they give a **** about poker players, but because they largely don't and largely leave us alone. They are actually the party of small government on many issues.

As far as being independent, I'm a centrist and a moderate and I've voted third party in every election that wasn't a close election, usually Libertarian Party. But it's a protest vote. It's a complete fantasy that a third party would emerge as a contender, and if one did, it would not be led by the poker industry or anyone a part of it.

If you really want to go that route, Andrew Yang is promoting the Forward Party and campaigned on bringing back online poker. The only problem is the route is a dead end. But FWIW, another pro-poker politician who was Democrat, not Republican.

The poker industry is small and niche and if it wants to effectively advocate for itself, it has to identify candidates behind one of the two major parties that has a prayer at winning the electoin and support them. And the obvious truth that people are struggling to admit is that means that it's in the poker industry's best interest to rally around pro-gambling Democrats, who don't have to worry about the moral busybodies in the GOP messing with them (and btw its ironic that many poker players accuse the Dems of being moral busybodies and completely forgot the GOP has the evangelicals who are far worse and more numerous than the woke peopleat busybodying) .

The simple conclusion is that in the two-party system we must exist in, you must choose candidates from those two partys and for poker, Democrats have a far, far better track record. Whether poker is your top priority is another question. But there's been a lot of lunatics and cultists in this thread trying to deflect from this very obvious conclusion.

Thing is republican's back then were not the best, prefer the ones we have now.

But the democrats back then were not the worst and not radical/extreme, prefer the ones we had back then.

Definitely not... my mom was born in one (Tule Lake).

-No issue with this bill. Just means you need to collect 10% more losing horse betting slips!

-In reality it does suck, nothing good about, only bad. Mainly bad for high buyin tourney players and online players. Not really an issue for anyone else with some common sense.

-Manner Please is so clueless it's frustrating to think anyone believes the stuff he posts.

-Democrats don't care any more about gamblers then republicans. Just sucks that a conservative republican attached this crap in the Senate and was able to sneak it thru since it was not a big enough issue to anyone to slow down the BBB getting pushed thru before July 4th. Out of all the issues gambling is way down on the list

The UIGEA passage was even worse. The conservatives pushing that had been trying for years and unable to pass it, until the attached it to the Patriot Act that was never going to not get passed. Same type thing, the Patriot Act was such a big deal, nobody was going to vote against it just because of a "silly gambling" attachment. This tax thing this year came out of nowhere.

Democrats had plenty of chances to rollback the UIGEA when they controls house, senate, president. But they could care less as well.

FYP

I found the loophole. Just never have a loss and this change won't affect you.

I was told poker is one long session. Now you’re telling me it’s not and I need to book those winning and losing sessions strategically to not owe taxes on nonexistent profits?

Is that scruge McDucks brother?

Sorry you are simply incorrect. Losses *90% is max deduction but your gambling net still cannot be a loss.

Great point, easier to hand wave away everything I say as 'clueless' than challenge yourself by trying to read at a 5th grade level and address anything I specifically said.

You seem to be repeating the main complaint others have against the Democrats, that they didn't do enough to rescue poker players from the awful decisions Republicans made.

And you completely missed my other point, which is that Democrats not caring about poker players is exactly why they're better, because they simply ignore us rather than let their evangelical friends actively mess with poker players.

It's frustrating that people like you are allowed to vote, one of democracy's leaks.

Compared to 2024 can you point to any new tax cut for the rich? Just one.

Republicans pass a horrible bill that destroys online poker in the USA, and the conclusion is its Obama fault for not takign time away from fighting for the Affordable Care Act to put Full Tilt back (and their sponsored, scamming pros like Mike MAGA Matusow) .

Its literally "Thanks, Obama", the meme, in real life, by a real idiot

You confuse facts and spin. Yes you can factually state who voted for or against the bill. Those are objective facts. But you went further. You are calling your characterization of motivation as a fact. That is not factual. That is when you moved into spin.

Lastly its hilarious yet sad that right now so many of you are STILL insisting "both parties are the same and neither party cares about poker players" and "Democrats are just as as bad" when

RIGHT NOW Dina Titus is a Congressperson who actively is doing interviews calling out the damage this will have to Las Vegas.

RIGHT NOW Dina has a tweet with 3k views calling out that its damaging to poker players and should be changed, even when the American Gaming Association told you to **** off and turned off replies.

RIGHT NOW there is immediate evidence that you can find with a 5 second Google search demonstrating a Dem congressperson advocating for poker players in the public sphere

And the Trump cult still has to come into this thread and call me clueless for suggesting both parties are not the same. And Im demonstrating my cluelessness by pointing out facts that they find inconvienent

If this was simply a thread about the best interest of poker, "rally around Dina Titus, the only major power broker who gives a **** about us at all" would be the obvious conclusion but because she has a D next to her name, there. needs to be a debate and I'm called clueless

For those still speculating that Democrats (or absurdly, the parliamentarian) are behind this, here’s a Washington Post article on specifically on the changes in this provision:

Lose bets, pay taxes? New bill has some ...

Just to recap:

* The UIGAE was introduced in 2006 which made online poker in the USA effectively illega, and it was introduced by a Republican named Jim Leach, under a Republican white house (Bush), a Republican majority Senate, and Republican majority House, and influenced by major Republican donors like Sheldon Adelson

* The UIGAE was enforced in 2011 (Black Friday) and the only real criticism of the Democrats is they didnt go out of their way to unravel this (when they were in a massive political battle over Affordable Care Act)

* Democratic politician Andrew Yang makes federally regulated online poker a part of his 2020 platform: https://2020.yang2020.com/policies/regul...

* In 2025, A Republican House, Senate, and President introduce a new tax law that could greatly increase the tax burden of all winning , and even breakeven and losing players, undermining the viability of entire events like WSOP High Rollers. All Democrats voted against, almost all Republicans voted for

* A Democratic politician Dina Titus publicly condemns this, specifically calls out poker players as people she wants to advocate for on Twitter, and does media appearances talking about the damage of this bill.

The history of Republicans and Democrats is so crystal clear that the Democrats have a massively better track record.

Yet I'm called naive, by people delusional enough to suggest poker players should get a third party candidate to be president?

Yet I'm called clueless, by people who don't have a single refutation to any of the above points, but are either so stupid or so intellectually dishonest they can look at the above points and still come to the conclusion that both parties are the same?

Yet I'm constantly told that Democrats don't care about poker players, when a 5 second google search would show a Democrat advocating for poker players in the public sphere.

The facts could not be more clear that, if the viability of poker is your priority, the Republicans are the problem and the Democrats are the answer.

Yet people are going to huge, incomprehensible lengths to muddle the obviousness of the above. And we all know why. Because they've been infected by a mind virus and joined a cult led by a conman, and they will ignore all evidence of their eyes and ears that will show them that they've been conned. They will enter into a state of derangement so deep they will start psychologically projecting it onto other people who do things like point to the facts of reality.

And that so many people along the way told them they were being conned, and they refuse to listen, only makes the con drill in that much deeper because of how much of their identity they would have to re-evaluate to admit that they've been had after all. Cults are a powerful, dangerous thing.

This is how we operate in a post-truth world. It's the worst part about MAGA. They've built a giant disinformation system, so facts don't matter.

Truth™ is Obama passed the UIEGA and Trump loves poker. 🙄

Lie, deny, delay, new crisis.

This thread is actually super interesting to study. Our industry is literally being attacked by GOP religious nuts and these folks blame Democrats. MAGA is sort of a culty pyramid scheme like Amway. The members can't admit they're wrong because of sunk cost, ego, etc. Instead they recruit the next members to victimize.

https://itep.org/top-1-to-receive-1-trillion-tax-cut-from-trump-megabill-over-next-decade/

ITEP

Top 1% to Receive $1 Trillion Tax Cut from Trump Megabill Over the Next Decade

Yes, this is such a perfect look into the maga mindset. If you admit you were wrong, you lose, so you have to continue eating **** with a smile on your face until you die.

Absolutely! It is like USA is some alcoholic or drug-abusing person going down to the very bottom and thinking they are the king of the world at the same time.

I am not from U.S but we also have tiny part of population in my country (in EU) who have gotten tangled in disinformation web made by Russian propaganda machine. They are raging lunatics who shout about flat earth, vaccines etc. But the scale of intellectual and moral decadence in the states is off the chart. It is fascinating to see the mightiest country in the world to become this MAGA-cult, just like Jonestown cult led by Jim Jones in the 1970´s. It will be interesting to see how far cultist are willing to go, since in Jonestown they actually drank poison and committed mass suicide with over 900 people. Maybe some cultists end up being thrown in some of these concentration camps and still keep saying "this is good, Im gonna obey my leader" etc.

Chinese must be laughing so hard to USA, they are being handed the crown of most powerful country in the world so easily. Social media is very powerful tool to make people go nuts and these eastern nations really know what they are doing.

For many decades I looked up to Americans, since WW2 they were like this beacon of hope and freedom when compared to Soviet Union. Now USA is becoming like some authoritarian shithole country and I have lost all respect towards them. Arrogance and foolishness is a combination that really puts me off. It is sad, but very interesting at the same time.

You directed porn videos you never had any morals to begin with. I have Aspergers, just because I made a vote doesn't mean that you should shun others. What has happened in our society where having an opinion or view has you ostracized. Why are you so adamant about this topic? Kamala was never going to be the answer. Your mental health was already weak to have the viewpoint that you have. I voted for Trump because he has a spine and Kamala I didn't like. Having an open mind and not being jaded my help you.

Perhaps Trump has a grudge against gambling because his casino filed for bankruptcy four times