Meet Cheri Jacobus.



She is a lobbyist, and I'm ashamed to say, typically works for the GOP.

She has been employed by an unknown party (maybe Sheldon Adelson) to discredit the currently-legalized online poker rooms, and legalized online poker in general.

She is tweeting about it today:

https://twitter.com/CheriJacobus

Obviously she is highly biased and a paid lobbyist, but she did raise a point that concerns me:

Cheri Jacobus ‏@CheriJacobus 3h
PPA was offered a demo & briefing (same FBI got) open to press & live stream to PPA members plus Q&A. They refused.

Cheri Jacobus ‏@CheriJacobus 2h
It's almost as if PPA wants to protect online poker cheaters among us rather than honest players.What abt innocent 1st-timers?

Cheri Jacobus ‏@CheriJacobus 1h
PPA refused demo then insisted we break the law, tape ourselves and present it to them as "proof" the FBI letters are correct


She could be full of crap (or twisting the story), but if her group (whatever it is) wanted to present a live streamed demo as to how cheating and money laundering could be done via existing legalized online poker rooms, why did the PPA refuse to watch it?

I doubt they were going to show anything groundbreaking (probably just standard chip dumping and collusion), but shouldn't the PPA want to see the ammunition is going to use against them?

Given the amazing incompetence displayed by some of the existing legal poker sites, I wouldn't necessarily expect them to catch anything.

She is making the point that the current system of regulation is poor, at least where it comes to catching cheating and money laundering. I have to agree.

Ignoring these arguments will be at the peril of our legalization fight, as they are likely to come up many times in the future, and without a counter other than "The sites will catch this, don't worry", it could destroy a lot of legalization efforts.