Poker Players Alliance

excerpt:

Lobbying in Washington is a thankless task. Time and again, John Pappas has plead his case and that of poker players across the United States to the men and women who make the laws of the land, only to find himself forced to plead again. Still, his efforts aren’t going unnoticed; his organization, the Poker Players Alliance (PPA) now boasts over 1 million members. I sat down with Pappas to talk about poker, politics and everything in between.

Gary Wise (GW): State your name

John Pappas (JP): John Pappas, executive director, Poker Players Alliance.

GW: Where do you hail from, how old are you?

JP: I am 34 years old, born and raised in Phoenix, Arizona, currently living in Washington DC.

GW: You’ve been parked at a booth outside the media room on this, the first day of the World Series of Poker. Tell us what you’re doing.

JP: The PPA today launched its poker advocacy booth. It’s geared towards allowing poker players to be political advocates to defend that game they love, the reason they’re here at the World Series. We’re inviting people to use the internet technologies at our booth in order to send e-mails to their members of congress. It takes about 60 seconds to say “I’m here at the World Series, poker is a great American game and you need to protect it.”

The other reason we’re here is to encourage people to vote. We know that poker players are somehow politically apathetic and may not be registered voters… may not be involved in the political process. We’re telling them that has to change if they want their rights restored, if they want their rights protected they need to become registered voters. They need to let their elected officials out there know that there’s a constituency out there that cares about their right to play poker, whether its online, for charity, in a bar, a tavern or card room. It takes about 2 minutes –120 seconds—to register to vote and it’s all worth your time. We’re also hoping that people learn a little about the PPA and the great benefits they get for being a part of our one million member community.

read the rest at: World Series of Poker - Official Tournament Coverage and Results

Author Contact Info: Gary Wise

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 31st, 2008 at 3:38 pm and is filed under Headlines, PPA. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.