As a poker player, your game must evolve to improve.
As a poker state, our laws must evolve to improve, too.
As you read this, 160 men and women you helped elect to write the laws we live by are huddled in Tallahassee, working to solve some of the biggest problems Florida has seen in a generation.
A smothering economic climate has many of us wondering whether the paycheck we just received might be the last we see for a while. The ripples of that fear lap against the state capitol, and the immediate responses no doubt will be to raise taxes or reduce the services on which many of us have come to depend.
But there just might be a gold lining in those stormy clouds hanging over the Panhandle. Poker remains as popular as ever here in Florida, and as a reliable tax producer that has been muzzled for far too long, every legislator, regardless of party, regardless of religious or moral conviction, will be hard-pressed to ignore that one small solution to our very big challenges just might lay with America’s favorite card game.
But as responsible, passionate residents of this great state, we would be ill-advised to just sit back and hope the legislators that represent us will recognize that, and act on it appropriately, without a gentle reminder of those who sent them there in the first place.
So, on behalf of poker players across the state, Ante Up asks you to take just a few minutes to write your representative and senator to tell them just how important it is to us, and the state, to see poker laws change for the better.
Personal letters, written from your head as well as your heart, are always most effective. But time is of the essence, as “yeas” and “nays” are already being recorded. So, on the next four pages, Ante Up has printed two copies of a letter you can tear out, sign, fold and send to your representative and senator.
Don’t underestimate the power of volume.
Just imagine what tens of thousands of these letters would mean to the game you love so much.
Christopher Cosenza and Scott Long
