Port problems in a rule

["Kurzawa, Kevin" <kkurzawa () co pinellas fl us>]

The port variable doesn't seem to like me. I recently started playing with rules and found an unexpected problem. 
Wondering what I'm doing wrong.

# works
alert tcp any any -> any any (msg: "LOCAL-RULE Test for TestMyIDS.com"; content: "testmyids.com"; 
classtype:misc-activity; sid:1000001; rev:1;)

# doesn't work
#alert tcp any any -> any 80 (msg: "LOCAL-RULE Test for TestMyIDS.com"; content: "testmyids.com"; 
classtype:misc-activity; sid:1000001; rev:2;)

# doesn't work
#alert tcp any any -> any $HTTP_PORTS (msg: "LOCAL-RULE Test for TestMyIDS.com"; content: "testmyids.com"; 
classtype:misc-activity; sid:1000001; rev:3;)

Everything is the same with these rules except the destination port variable.

My conf file lists HTTP_PORTS as follows:
portvar HTTP_PORTS 
[36,80,81,82,83,84,85,86,87,88,89,90,311,383,555,591,593,631,801,808,818,901,972,1158,1220,1414,1533,1741,1830,2231,2301,2381,2809,3029,3037,3057,3128,3443,3702,4000,4343,4848,5117,5250,6080,6173,6988,7000,7001,7144,7145,7510,7770,7777,7779,8000,8008,8014,8028,8080,8081,8082,8085,8088,8090,8118,8123,8180,8181,8222,8243,8280,8300,8500,8509,8800,8888,8899,9000,9060,9080,9090,9091,9111,9443,9999,10000,11371,12601,15489,29991,33300,34412,34443,34444,41080,44449,50000,50002,51423,53331,55252,55555,56712]

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