Write to your lottery commissioner!

World Poker Tour announcer and poker pro Mike Sexton went to Washington, D.C. to protest the signing of the Unlawful Internet Gambling bill and promote poker as a game of skill that should receive an exemption from the legislation, Casino City Times reports.

"Who is someone in Washington, D.C. to tell somebody who works all day in North Carolina, Ohio, Kansas or anywhere else that they can't go home and play a $20 online poker tournament at night in the privacy of their own home? Who does that hurt?'" said Sexton, who acts as a consultant for Internet poker giant PartyPoker.com.

If online gambling is so popular, and if it's a basic civil right as its proponents claim, then state lotteries clearly have an opportunity - nay, a duty - to fill the void left by the new ban on cross-border flows of gambling money.

Sexton would be better advised taking his case to the state lotteries of North Carolina, Ohio, Kansas or anywhere else. And anyone who feels their rights have been violated should write to their state lottery commissioners, demanding that they provide the kind of games that people want to play, where they want to play them - in the privacy of their own homes.