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Adam Wilson expounds on Washington state government, workers and politics. Wilson began covering those issues for the Olympian in 2004. He can be reached at: awilson@theolympian.com.
Rossi: I would not have signed poker law
Dino Rossi says he would not have made playing online poker a Class C felony, which occurred under a 2006 law Gov. Chris Gregoire signed. While not a terribly hot topic in the mainstream media, the new law has cropped up repeatedly in the poker world, which has grown significantly over the last few years.
Bob Pajich of Cardplayer.com talked to Rossi about the subject in this interview:
CP: If you were governor, would this online gambling law have made it through?
DR: I would not have signed this bill.
CP: If elected, would you work to at least have poker exempted from the law?
DR: What I’d like to do is to make sure that we are not making people felons and we are not being intrusive in people’s homes and checking their computers and trying to hunt them down because they played Internet poker. It’s kind of ridiculous to equate that to five DUIs or stealing nine cars. It just doesn’t make sense to me, so what I’ve been clear about is I think that the heavy-handiness is ridiculous, and I would defiantly file legislation that would change that to something more reasonable.
It’s an interesting interview. Rossi, for instance, makes it clear he has not supported expanding gambling in the state, but does say he thinks poker is a game of skill. Pajich uses that for the follow up, would Rossi support making it a game of skill in legal terms? Rossi demurs.
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