The Poker Players Alliance, poker’s leading grassroots advocacy group, according to a recent YouTube video (www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rz50spAmRI&feature=youtu.be&a) has officially petitioned Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, to have peer-to-peer skill games such as backgammon, chess, and of course, poker, exempted from the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) before it goes into effect June 1st.

The new petition, which already has over 22 Congressional sponsors, attempts to clarify the murky language of the UIGEA, further defining what constitutes “illegal gambling,” while helping to prevent “overblocking” by banks, unwilling to break the new guidelines but also unable to properly interpret them.

The PPA’s last petition, with the help of the horse racing lobbies- who also could benefit from this most recent petition- successfully delayed UIGEA implementation for 6 months.  Unfortunately, the resulting fallout from that delay, namely Senator Jon Kyl’s (R-Ariz.) alleged unwillingness to approve crucial Treasury nominees in retribution, has made it fairly clear that another delay is highly unlikely. 

Though the coming June 1st UIGEA implementation is not seen by the PPA as a “doomsday scenario,” according to the PPA video, it is clear that it could present significant problems for the online poker industry; and as that implementation is now less than 3 weeks away, it is also clear that this petition is perhaps the PPA’s final salvo, in a long drawn out battle, dating all the way back to 2006.

For more information on this story check out a recent excellent article from PokerNews.com, or watch the new PPA YouTube video, posted here.