It’s always better if sports and politics do not mix. The same goes for poker and politics. However, the Unites States government -- an entity that has been on a major roll when it comes to vexing the universe -- has decided that it wants to annoy the approximately 23 million online poker players in this country by dealing with the matter in the laziest way possible.

Late last month Congress passed the Security and Accountability for Every Port Act, which on the surface seems to have as much to do with online poker as the Boston Tea Party. However, in the wonderful world of Washington, pork-barrel politics can turn a simple bill into a clown car stuffed with irrelevant add-ons -- and that’s the case with the above act.

Riding on the coattails of SAEPA was the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006, a bill concocted to bully banks into steering clear of doing business with the overseas Internet gambling sites that have given Americans a way to play poker -- a game of skill, certainly more skill than the state lotteries that rake more than half of the money wagered by middle- and lower-class citizens.

Want to talk about exploitation of people with a gambling weakness? Walk into a 7-Eleven when the Powerball reaches nine figures and watch minimum-wage workers dump a week’s wages onto those pink tickets.

Anyway, back to poker. It is a game of skill, one in which the players have the power to make decisions about the fate of their hands. Is it right that overseas entities are enjoying the game’s popularity and raking in hundreds of millions of tax-free American dollars? Of course not. However, it isn’t as if the businessmen who run the online sites are unwilling to become fully legitimate businesses on our shores. It’s the government that, for some bizarre reason, has refused to so much as research the issue.

If the government were to open its arms to the online-gambling business, its arms would be filled with cash. We’re talking hundreds of millions of dollars -- granted, that would only put a small dent in the gigantic national deficit the White House has created in the last five-plus years, but it would be enough to offset the annual "supplemental budget" George Bush uses to keep the Iraq war spinning its wheels.

The House version of the UIGEA was sponsored by Republican congressman James Leach of Iowa. Among the 35 co-sponsors were Pennsylvania Reps. Charlie Dent (R-15) and Joe Pitts (R-16), both of whom represent districts not far from ours (Dent represents the Lehigh Valley, Pitts the Lancaster-Unionville area).

All but one congressman from Pennsylvania approved the act; of course, the fact that it was attached to a national-security act basically tied the hands of anyone who didn’t like the legislation. Who is going to vote against protecting our ports to stand up for poker players?

But that’s the point. It was a sneaky, dirty shell game played by the pols, and there has to come a time when people take note of this and other scams played out in Washington.

How do you remedy it? Well, all you need to do is check out the party affiliation of the 36 congressmen who sponsored the act to realize it was a Republican-led witch hunt.

Change in leadership will at least offer an opportunity for fresh faces and thinkers to make the correct decision and devise a win-win situation where online poker players aren’t swept under the carpet by a meddling government.