button in SafariBarney Frank, Congressman Who Fought to Legalize Online Poker, Passes Away
Barney Frank, a former congressman who relentlessly fought to legalize and regulate online poker in the U.S., passed away Tuesday night at his home in Ogunquit, Maine.
The veteran Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives was 86. Frank, who retired in 2013 after more than three decades in Congress, is best known for being a gay-rights pioneer and co-authoring the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act in 2010, a response to the late 2000s financial crisis. He also advocated for legal online poker, and to repeal the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA).
A Champion for Legal Online Poker
Frank, who spoke to media at the 2009 World Series of Poker (WSOP) about his pro-online gambling stance, was never in office when legal online poker sites first launched in Delaware, Nevada, and New Jersey in 2013. But his efforts while a member of Congress certainly helped.
The Democrat representing Massachusetts, in 2007, introduced legislation to ban the UIGEA, a 2006 piece of legislation that previously made it illegal to operate online poker sites in the United States. He'd later propose H.R. 2267, the Internet Gambling Regulation, Consumer Protection, and Enforcement Act, arguing that poker is a game of skill.
Frank, a vocal supporter of the once prominent Poker Players Alliance (PPA), felt that legalizing online poker would bring the federal government billions in tax revenue. During his final term in office, he returned campaign donations from Full Tilt Poker executives following the "Black Friday" scandal that destroyed the online poker industry in the U.S.
Frank's pro-poker efforts never translated into legal online poker while he was still in office, and the poker community still hasn't fully recovered from Black Friday. But they did pave the way for individual states to license and regulate onliner poker sites.
Outside of supporting the poker community, Frank, one of the first openly gay membes of Congress, was a champion and pioneer for LGBTQ+ rights.
Born March 31, 1940 in Bayonne, New Jersey, the late congressman won his first congressional race in 1980, defeating Richard A. Jones, the Republican candidate. He'd go on to win 12 consecutive elections before declining to run again in 2012.
Frank served numerous roles in the House, including the Chair of the House Financial Services Committee (2007-2011). He passed away from congestive heart failure after spending the past few months in hospice care at his home in Maine.
*Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
