So he did it, and in the end it by a fair margin, Mr Obama is back for another term and many people are celebrating this fact. Not least online gamblers who feel that with President Obama at the helm they have a much better chance of online gambling, especially poker becoming legalized. For the Reid/Kyl federal online poker bill to have any chance at all then three things needed to happen. Firstly, an Obama win was paramount, secondly Harry Reid needed to retain his place by keeping a Democratic majority in the Senate and lastly Senator Dean Heller needed to win and keep his leadership in Nevada, which he did by a mere 15,000 votes, meaning that the stars aligned and all three things happened. So, how and why does this all work for online poker? Online Poker is by no way a big issue in congress, the US has many bigger and more important things on her agenda and so no way is a poker bill about to become a law in its' own right. To get this bill passed it has to be attached to something much larger and of more importance, something like tax cuts or defense bills would do. Usually after an election there is a period called the "lame duck" period where to be honest not a lot gets done, however this is not the case this time around and this means there is a good chance that the Reid/Kyl bill will get attached to one thing or another. The next session of Congress starts in January so we will wait and see what happens, needless to say that this is the best outcome for all online gambling in the US. So let's hope that Republicans simply look the other way as the Poker bill becomes an attachment and we can all have sociable game of cards!
