D'Amato intends to reach PPA's one million members

Former Senator Alfonse D'Amato was named the Chairman of the Poker Players Alliance few weeks ago. One plus for PPA is that he is passionate about poker. The Poker Players Alliance is confident that D'Amato's charming personality and political connections will help the organization spread its message on Capitol Hill. Everyone can see the lightning expression of his face and the pleasure in his voice when he is speaking about regulating Internet poker in the United States or telling a story about winning his first royal flush.

There's no doubt that he has talent. For example, one of his friends Howard Stern called him and asked to name four people he'd like to play poker with. He thinks of Stern, Donald Trump, Rosie O'Donnell (to "make the game really interesting"), and Ray Romano (to "give comic relief"). D'Amato is so passionate by poker that he even played it while he was stuck in an elevator in New York City.

The PPA's membership has rushed by nearly 40 percent to 220,000 since D'Amato signed on as Chairman. But D'Amato, who represented New York for three terms in the Senate, wants to reach one million members sooner rather than later and grow it as quickly as possible. He estimates the goal can be achieved in two or three months.

D'Amato role will be to plead on favor of the PPA in his former colleagues' offices on the Capitol. It's a task he has to accomplish for Park Strategies, a public policy and business development firm he founded in 1999. In order to reach this point, D'Amato said "You do it by having an opportunity that may be difficult for others to sit down with the staffers on the Hill on both sides. You don?t appeal to people just because they were your former colleagues."

He assured that he will talk to anyone who will listen, from those who objected against the UIGEA like Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), to those who were instrumental in its formation, like Sen. John Kyl (R-Ariz.). "It will be our duty to visit key members of the Congress, people like John Kyl, and to enlighten them, 'Look, we think you can realize your goals and do it in a more effective way.'"

D'Amato, former Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee and a onetime member Senate Finance Committee, is strongly confident that he can influence even the keenest fans of the UIGEA that the unplanned consequences of the legislation bring the government into a worse situation to deal with the problems the legislation's supporters are hoping to prevent.

?One way to prevent underage gambling is not banning the gambling or limitating the age. You will simply force people to offshore facilities that may not have, or who won't be tending to have the kind of regulatory controls that will see to it that there's an honest game that can be put in place to prevent underage gambling and deal with problem gamblers." UIGEA already agreed the idea. So, it seems the PPA has one ally. And with D' Amato on the leading position, who knows how to win at the poker table and in politics, the battle appear to be more easy.