SACRAMENTO — Key stakeholders in California’s online poker debate – including tribes, card rooms and tracks – have finally found an issue they can agree upon.
That issue: Banning lame puns from legislative press releases concerning online poker.
“For too many years, California lawmakers have made a mockery of the process by cramming all manner of mindless poker punnery into their statements announcing new bills,” read a statement from the National Organization for Preventing Unnecessarily Nonsensical Statements (NOPUNS).
“That ends today.”
So-called “Bad Puns” clause
The group has proposed a so-called “bad puns” clause that would sanction lawmakers who engaged in poker-related puns after February 20, 2015.
“It would be one thing if these puns were even a little clever,” said Bay Area card room owner and NOPUNS Director Kyle Ketterman. “But they’re not. It’s just “no more bluffing” this and “we’re all-in for poker” that.”
“Please, how old are you guys?” a visibly exasperated Ketterman added. “Twelve?”
Bluffing puns among most abused
According to research conducted by NOPUNS, references to bluffing and going all-in are among the most hackneyed of cliche puns in terms of average use:
“Bluffing” or “not bluffing” or “calling a bluff” – 82%.
“Putting the cards on the table” – 71.6%.
“Going all in” or “betting the house” or “betting it all” – 68.7%.
“Dealt a losing hand” or a “folding hand” – 53.1%.
“Showing your hand” or “not showing your cards” – 23%.
“It’s nice to have something we can all finally come together on,” said Mark Lacchara, President of the California Online Tribal Alliance.
“I mean, some of us don’t like PokerStars. And a lot of us can’t stand the tracks. But all of us are, to a one, abso-fucking-lutely sick of these god-awful puns.”
Lawmakers respond
California lawmakers immediately pushed back against the proposal.
“The ability to make puns is the ace up our sleeve,” said Assemblyman Roger Hall-Smith.
“When the chips are down, a well-placed poker pun is the stone-cold nuts that can leave your opposition drawing dead with public opinion,” Hall-Smith continued.
The Assemblyman then announced plans to introduce a counter-measure that would preserve his right to deploy, as he described it, “the royal flush of linguistic devices.”
When asked for a copy of the bill, Hall-Smith told BCP that “you have to pay to see.”
