The lobbying group looking to get online poker legalized and regulated in the USA has blasted the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for saying online poker is too crooked to make legal.

In fact, the group said, that’s precisely the reason online poker should be legalized and regulated.

The Poker Players Alliance (PPA), a Washington, D.C.-based lobby group that claims one million members, responded this week to FBI comments made public last week.

In a letter to U.S. Congressman Spencer Bachus, the FBI’s cyber division assistant director, Shawn Henry, said Internet poker is rife with cheating and manipulation.

The letter, written last month, was released last week during a hearing by a U.S. House of Representatives committee that is looking at the issue of legalizing online poker and other forms of online gambling.

“There are several ways to cheat at online poker, none of which are legal,” Henry wrote. “Technology exists to manipulate online poker games in that it would only take two or three players working in unison to defeat the other players who are not part of the team.”

Henry went on to list other concerns about online poker, such as other methods of cheating in addition to collusion.

He also expressed concern about other issues, such as how one can ascertain 100% whether gamblers are not underage when they play online.

But those and other problems are not a reason to make online poker illegal, the PPA contends.

Instead, those types of problems are reason enough to totally legalize online poker, which would include licensing it and regulating it.

In a press release issued earlier this week by the PPA, PPA executive director John Pappas responded to the claims made in the FBI letter.

Pappas said: “Every concern the letter raises is better addressed by licensing and regulation than by prohibition.

“The letter misconstrues much about the current state of online poker, but it does so in a way that clearly makes the case for why Federal oversight is necessary.”

For the full text of Pappas’ comments re the FBI letter, visit the PPA website at www.theppa.org.

(E-mail Tom Somach at tomsomach@yahoo.com.)