Washington State Supreme Court’s last week verdict that uphelds the state’s Internet gambling prohibition has attracted many voices of disappointment and shrill reactions from Poker Players Alliance (PPA).
The ruling claimed that a law that was enacted in Washington making online gambling a Class C felony, was not unconstitutional. The law had been challenged by Poker Players Alliance. 
With this verdict, now real money poker players can no longer play on the online poker websites. The worlds biggest poker website, PokerStars.com has sent an e-mail to its Washington players bearing this unfortunate news as soon as it was confirmed. “To date, PokerStars has operated in Washington on the basis of legal opinions where the central advice was that the state could not constitutionally regulate Internet poker, or at least could not discriminate in favor of local card rooms and against online sites. However, inlight of the last week’s verdict, following extensive consultation with our legal advisors, we believe that the right course of action is to block real money play by Washington residents on the PokerStars.com site”.
On the verdict, former U.S. Senator and PPA chairman Alfonse D’Amato issued a statement that” We are extremely disappointed in the State Supreme Court’s ruling given the clear evidence that the state legislature never sought to regulate Internet poker as it does in-state bricks and mortar card rooms and internet horse racing, but instead simply banned internet poker and, even worse,criminalized the players. This law is still a mistake, and we will continue to fight to have it overturned,”.
Despite the feeling of disappointment, it seems alliance have not given their hope. Senator concluded his statement by saying… “By no means the fight over. The PPA will pursue other legal and legislative efforts to overturn this law and will continue to work with lawmakers in Washington State and Washington, D.C., to pass legislation to license and regulate online poker and protect the rights of poker players to enjoy the game they love wherever they chose to play it”.
