yielding billions of dollars in revenue for the federal government, all without having to raise taxes,' D'Amato said. 'Billions of dollars that today flow across our borders and onto offshore websites could be kept here. 'The problem that we have now seems to me very parallel to what we had in Prohibition,' D'Amato said, referring to the 1919-1933 US ban on alcohol that gave rise to a flourishing underground liquor industry. 'Had we had legislation we could have prevented players from being taken advantage of,' said D'Amato, a former senator from New York who now chairs the Poker Players Alliance. US prosecutors compared Full Tilt Poker to a ' Ponzi scheme' last month and said the site stole $440 million from players around the world.
In April, 11 people were charged with bank fraud, money laundering and other offenses in a crackdown on the three largest online poker companies - Absolute Poker, PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker. US law prohibits US financial institutions from knowingly accepting payments for online gambling made through credit cards, electronic transfers and checks, but bills have been introduced in Congress to ease the restrictions. Alphonse D'Amato also told a hearing of the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade that legalizing and regulating online poker would help prevent abuses by the offshore companies that currently dominate the industry.
