Choosing the Person of the Year in any medium can often be a daunting and controversial task. The job of the selectors is usually not to choose the most popular person, but rather the one who has made the greatest amount of impact in a given year.

There were a number of people who were in the online gambling industry spotlight in 2006. Calvin Ayre graced the cover of Forbes magazine; David Carruthers was a sympathetic character in light of BetonSports hanging him out to dry; Jamie Gold won the 2006 World Series of Poker and then was sued for the winnings and Michael Bolcerek and the PPA banged hard on the pro-poker drum.

All these people were prominent, but only get an honorable mention—at least in our opinion.

The person, who made the biggest impact in our estimation, wasn’t someone who enjoyed playing a hand of poker at Pokerstars. In fact his actions were detrimental to the industry.

Prior to the fall 2006, Bill Frist was known only as a possible presidential candidate for 2008, Senate Majority leader and doctor and many insiders think that his ambitions for 2008 led to the industry’s biggest news story of the year, the passage of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act as a part of the Safe Port Act.

Perennial anti-online gambling opponents and U.S. Representatives Bob Goodlatte, James Leach and Jon Kyl were once again attempting to push through unfavorable legislation in 2006 without much success.

Jon Kyl was stonewalled while attempting to attach an online gambling ban amendment to a Lobby Reform Act, which was ironically sidelined by another amendment, aimed at preventing the United Arab Emirates from managing U.S. ports.

The gambling ban movement gained a bit of steam in March when Leach’s Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (HR 4411), which was introduced back in November, was approved and referred to the House Judiciary Committee by the Committee on Financial Services.

But the major turning point was in September.Senate Majority Leader Frist decided to throw his support in the corner of HR 4411 and began working with Kyl to polish it up.

Frist first tried to attach the unfriendly legislation to a military authorization bill but was rebuffed by two prominent members of the Armed Services Committee, Senators John Warner and Carl Levin, both citing that it wasn’t related to defense.

But like a guy who just won’t take no for an answer, Frist tried to slip related language into the defense bill that would prevent the use of credit cards and money transfers from banks and financial institutions for online gambling, but once again was blocked by Senator Warner.

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