True, the outgoing occupant of the White House engaged in a little "midnight rulemaking" to ram the Unlawful Internet Gaming Enforcement Act down the gullet of an unwilling world. But it's not Game Over.

"Most experts say [the George W. Bush-imposed regulations] don't solve anything," American Gaming Association President Frank Fahrenkopf told a morning press briefing at G2E. He said he's not sure what can be done to unravel Bush's rules under the Congressional Review Act of 1996 (which essentially gives the next Congress until the end of January to undo damage wrought by the exiting president), but guesses that efforts will be made to undo or modify the UIGEA rules.

He also hinted at a partial repeal, at least as far as online poker is concerned, saying, "I know personally that members of the Supreme Court, members of Congress and of the Cabinet love to play poker." Fahrenkopf also cited a Pricewaterhouse Coopers study that projected between $8 billion to $15 billion in federal tax revenues stemming from legitimized Internet gambling, 65% of those dollars coming from punters paying taxes on their winnings. (Guess we don't need that one-year, federally funded study now, huh?)

AGA membership, however, is splintered into three camps: Those who want in and would support a federally regulated regime; those who'd like to get in but want regulation at the state level (much as is done with parimutuel wagering, Fahrenkopf said, citing the Interstate Horseracing Act of 1978); and a third faction of brick-and-mortar casinos who see 'Net betting as a threat and want nothing to do with it.

Since everybody and his brother is getting a guvmint bailout today, Fahrenkopf was half-facetiously asked about going to Capitol Hill to get in on the gravy train. "I might suggest it, but dealing with Congress as I have, I don't think that's going to happen," he replied. The AGA prexy did note that the banking industry has done well from its association with gambling "and we hope that they would come back to the table." He also raised the prospect of even further expansion of the casino industry (despite current economic contraction) by reminding listeners that the riverboat-casino boom in the Midwest coincided with a recessionary period during the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Gosh, wouldn't that have been during the reign of Bush the First? The more things change ...