"As a member of the Poker Players Alliance, you will be given the necessary tools to become an advocate for poker."

That is a statement from the PPA's About Us page. I 'm not sure that I understand this correctly. If I pay you a yearly membership fee, then in return you will give me the necessary tools to become an advocate for poker? What tools could that possibly be? A t-shirt? The phone number to my Congressman?

The idea of a centralized voice is certainly not a bad thing. I think that the poker world needs this but I don't think that poker players should have to fit the bill for it... not when the online poker sites are the ones making billions of dollars each year.

One has to wonder why the sites are not funding the PPA entirely. They are the ones that stand to lose the most by fascist regulations that outlaw their businesses. Perhaps it's not that they do not want to fund a legitimate lobbyist group... perhaps it's just that they haven't found one yet.

I have to admit that I have not done enough research to say whether the PPA is a good representative of the poker community or not, but some others in the industry certainly have voiced their opinions. One example is Mason Malmuth of Two Plus Two Publishing. Malmuth hired the services of Greenberg Traurig, an international law firm, to look into the PPA. Here is a link to their findings.

Without giving my yay or nay to the PPA, I will offer some advice: You don't need to pay anyone for the right or "the tools" to be an advocate of anything. Your telephone book, your pen, and a good pile of facts are all the tools that you need to begin.