We all know how difficult and complicated poker-related legislation can get/be in the United States … and we often look at Europe as providing a model of how things could and should be. However, things can actually get pretty complicated across the pond — different languages and all — and if anything, what we have to compare is how actively engaged so many different countries are in dealing with difficult online gambling legal matters … while we in the US seem much more content moving slowly as we figure out how we really will handle billions of dollars worth of online, multi-jurisdictional financial transactions in the 21st century … you know, in a way that doesn’t get the NFL’s fantasy panties in a wad.

Seriously, if it weren’t for the PPA — which we all know is a mere infant, toddler at best, amongst American political organizations — I’m not so sure we’d be moving at all on these matters … and the United States would be leaving it to the Europeans to establish frameworks for what ultimately will prove to be trillions of dollars worth of virtual finance in the future. That’s the undercurrent of why we’re all here in Washington DC right now … as much as we say, and many believe, it’s just about the freedom to bring more dead money into the game.

It’s a lot to chew on, I know. And while you may not have the inclination or scratch to lay down for Gambling Compliance‘s new book on the online gambling situation in Europe, you can click here to read a 5-page summary of Market Barriers: An impartial and comprehensive evaluation of the current legal, regulatory and market landscape for online gambling in Europe:

An entirely new and independently researched 80,000 word survey, the report provides an impartial and comprehensive snapshot of the regulation of Europe’s online gambling sector – a market that the European Commission estimates to be worth US$10.1bn by 2010.

Detailed analysis of all 27 EU member states underlines how the proliferation of national level rules is steadily balkanising Europe’s gambling market and creating new conflicts and regulatory risks for operators:

Europe’s online gambling map is being redrawn with unprecedented speed. 19 of 27 member states across Europe are currently addressing online gambling through reform, while seven of these have made concrete plans to shift towards local licensing models.

Financial transaction (FT) and ISP blocking restrictions are gathering momentum. Since the introduction of payment blocking regulations in the United States in 2006, seven EU member states have introduced mechanisms for blocking online gambling, and a further eight jurisdictions are presently considering blocking measures as part of broader reform debates.

As the nature of European licensing changes, existing land-based casinos and national lottery monopolies are starting to move online while previously excluded private operators are entering markets as B2B service and payment providers.

A product of GamblingCompliance’s international legal research team, the report cites legislation, much of which is not available in English, and uses over 50 primary sources including exclusive consultation with regulators and legal experts on the ground in each jurisdiction.

Price costs £899 for non-subscribers and £799 for subscribers.

I just busted out of the wild-n-crazy USO/PPA charity tourney benefitting wounded vets. Jordan Morgan clearly doesn’t respect my play … how else could he, with monster stack, call my M=3 all-in UTG with only A-9? Crap … though I did flop runner-runner outs, alas my 2-4 didn’t get there.

Anyhow, might be for the best, as I’ll be making an appearance in about a half hour to talk Phil Ivey, poker, and the WSOP on a show called The Black Whole:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/TheBlackWhole

Tune in live at 10:15 Eastern, or listen to the podcast later. (I’ll be the white guy.) Should be good, barber-shoppy times + poker.

UPDATE: Here’s the podcast. Poker talk starts about 34 minutes in … but honestly, all the good stuff on this show comes before then:

Howard Stern wasn’t the only one to join the PPA this week (aka “National Poker Week”). Caught up in the poker-politicky whirlwinds emanating from Washington DC, Russ Hamilton also became a member, as seen here:

Says Hamilton, according to sources plausibly fabricated out of thin air: “Joining the PPA is the right thing to do. It shows you are a good person who really cares about protecting poker players from internet malfeasance. We need US regulation to ensure a fair playing field for all, and so we can appropriately punish anyone who might steal 10s of millions of dollars from unknowing American players. Ha ha ha ha! LOL.”

Hamilton says he also plans to sign the Poker Petition (350k electronic signatures and climbing) and may even submit a video to MyPokerStory.com.

“Mine is a really good one,” he says.

Congressional staffers hold the keys to Representative doorways, and one of the first steps this week was educating these gatekeepers on WTF we’re talking about. Not the issues at hand per se — yay personal freedom and taxation! — but the logistics of regulating the pokery brand of internet commerce (while protecting players and children, keeping addiction in check, generating tax revenue, etc.).

Joining Annie Duke and PPA Exec. Dir. John Pappas for the panel discussion — attended by some 50 or so congressional staffers — were:

· Dr. Parry Aftab, Executive Director, Wired Safety (www.wiredsafety.org)
· Stuart Dross, Vice President, Cigital (www.cigital.com)
· Paul Mathews, independent consultant, former executive with International Game Technology

Big news out of the Russian Federation, as the global (and inevitable) poker shakedown continues …

According to this PokerListings article translated via Google, the Ministry of Sport, Tourism, and Youth Policy have revoked poker’s status as a sport — making it illegal to play except for in four designated gambling zones, one of which happens to be in Siberia.

Some 70 Russian poker clubs face a shutdown as a result of the non-sport designation, and it’s not yet clear what this will mean for the fate of EPT Moscow, the next European Poker Tour event, scheduled for August, other than that the Pokerstarzistan-spawned tourney tour would likely have to cough up some extra bucks for appropriate licensing to play — as that event has been planned to take place in a Radison hotel, as opposed to a casino.

Fuckin’ commies! Russians won the fourth highest amount of money for any nation at the 2009 WSOP, and the Ruskie Federation finished 6th in the world in terms of bracelets and final tables.

Here’s a thread on 2+2 from The Engineer (@TheEngineer2008) with his pics from the various meetings around the Hill this week.

National Poker Week kicked off with Al D’Amato on Howard Stern yesterday, and Howard Stern joining, on-air, the Poker Players Alliance. While I couldn’t help but wonder if anyone listens to Howard Stern anymore — or is he kinda like Friendster … you know, very Web 1.0 — apparently Stern does still have a few million listeners, most of whom had little clue about poker issues before yesterday, when D’Amato also discussed the possibilities of more legal marijuana in America and the joys of an elder man banging his pregnant wife. So mission accomplished, at least as far as injecting our issues into the semi-intelligent American discourse is concerned.

From the Examiner:

D’Amato (who sounds a lot like Gilbert Gottfried to the untrained ear) told Howard Stern that he believes that America should get out of both Iraq and Afghanistan immediately, stating that both wars are unwinnable. D’Amato also spoke about current efforts to reform the U.S. healthcare system. D’Amato stated that he preferred “marginal” reform to overhauling the entire system, which he states would result in huge tax increases for most Americans.

“What about legalizing pot?” asked Howard Stern, pointing to new reports about the flourishing legal marijuana industry in California.

After thinking on it carefully, D’Amato responded: “I think there’s some merit in it.”

It wasn’t all shop talk for Alfonse D’Amato. Howard Stern asked D’Amato some of his classic questions. Alfonse D’Amato admitted that he still regularly has sex with his 6-month pregnant wife, spoke about it openly, and then sheepishly followed up his response by saying: “This isn’t going to be on TV is it?”

To celebrate this momentous kick-start to a week of DC-centric poker politicking, the PPA unveiled a press release font upgrade and added the color blue to its official statement on Stern’s membership:

More…

Kinda-sorta. Zynga’s Texas Hold’em was the most popular game on all of Facebook — more popular than its sister games Mafia Wars, Yoville, and that farming game — which was all fine and dandy until people started hocking play-money chips on eBay.

http://tweet.pkrrd.com/news/posts/zynga-texas-hold-em-maybe-a-little-too-popular

So now they’re apparently in the midst of a Facebook poker crackdown, looking to lock out multi-accounters, for example, and take play-money pushers to court. Conspiracy theorists say it has more to do with black-market undercutting of Zynga’s chip-selling business … but regardless, kinda effed up, not just because of poker, but because of the inevitable hubbub that seems to spring up whenever you see any semblance of a free market on the internet leading to unregulated virtual finance transactions.

The American Government recently froze over $30 Million belonging to online poker players, and now a payment processor is fighting back! Plus, the British betting company Betfair prepares to bring legal online gambling to the US!

Sometimes I think they’re important to have. Other times, um, lol? From Facebook:

J ***** sent you a message.

Subject: WSOP

“You still in the main event? In the money yet?”

Hey, so if all you could play along … I’m thinking of telling him yeah, it’s Day 3, I’m good for like $160k and am thinking of cashing out before I lose it all. Cool? If he asks who’s winning we’ll say Greg Raymer, OK? Ooh, or even better, Phil Ivey … er …

Few details, other than that I think you can now bet on horse racing there … as of a few minutes ago, or at least today. (No sports betting?)

My source is @CommerceCasino:

And awaaay they go!! The Racebook at Commerce Casino is now open!!
3 minutes ago from web

While we know sports betting and poker have gone hand in hand ever since Stu Ungar introduced the concept of winning millions playing cards and almost immediately losing it all on the Bengals, I’m not so sure there’s as much overlap between the horses and poker. Could be wrong … and still, the convergence of poker and horses is kinda what we were going for in Texas earlier this year, except we had horses first and were trying to add poker, as opposed to the other way around.

There’s a new company in the song (and video) downloading game — Zookz.com — and its entire business model is based on selling “pirated” copies of American songs and movies, as permitted by WTO sanctions against the United States for infringing on Antigua’s ability to compete in the online gambling industry.

Click below for the press release announcing Zookz’s existence. From what we understand, ZookZ offers a subscription-based model for unlimited monthly movie and music downloads. It is not pay-per-song like iTunes, nor a file-sharing “service” like LimeWire or BitTorrent. Members simply download stuff directly from Zookz’ servers in Antigua. Supposedly the new company operates within the parameters of the 2007 WTO ruling between Antigua and the United States, which allows them to break US copyright law to the tune of $21 million/year.

What’s not clear is if that means they can peddle $21 million worth of rights-protected bits, or run a business limited to $21 million in profit. Either way, I gotta think the ever-litigious RIAA won’t take lightly that much money being ganked from its artists. Could be wrong … we’ll see.

UPDATE: TechDirt, for a non-poker perspective.

More…

Beating almost everyone’s expectations, the November Nine was established before 11pm Wednesday night with chip leader Darvin Moon cracked Jordan Smith’s aces, flopping a set of eights. Here’s how the final table is scheduled to be seated when the players return on November 7th to the Penn and Teller Theater at the Rio:

Seat 1: Darvin Moon – 58,930,000
Seat 2: James Akenhead – 6,800,000
Seat 3: Phil Ivey – 9,765,000
Seat 4: Kevin Schaffel – 12,390,000
Seat 5: Steven Begleiter – 29,885,000
Seat 6: Eric Buchman – 34,800,000
Seat 7: Joe Cada – 13,215,000
Seat 8: Antoine Saout – 9,500,000
Seat 9: Jeff Shulman – 19,580,000

As some Twittered earlier this morning, the appearance of Phil Ivey at the final table caused much joy to the WSOP staff, ESPN, and the poker forum community. You’ve got the chip leader a good ol’ boy from Maryland who’s involved in the most dangerous job in the US (logging), meaning those who wonder what happens if someone in the November Nine passes away or is incapacitated may have their wish come true. You have Begleiter, a former executive at Bear Stearns, You’ve got two European players (Akenhead and Saout), you’ve got the lightning rod for the “bad for poker” audience in Shulman, who made statements that he would throw away the bracelet if he won, criticizing the WSOP’s stance on exclusivity in poker reporting. These stories and many others will be played out in the coming days, and Pokerati will be there to sift through them all, starting this afternoon on The Poker Beat over at www.pokerroad.com.

Found this little gemstone while doing a routine look-see of my spam filter today:

Your account requires
immediate action

As part of the Distribution Plan, you were given final notice in December of 2007 that you had until January 26, 2008 to withdraw funds from your NETELLER account. You still have 574 USD in your account.

To receive this money, please fill out and submit a request by July 26, 2009 and include your current mailing address. We will begin processing your request and, when approved, you will be mailed a cheque for the full balance.

Please note: if you do not request your funds by July 26, 2009 (at 11:59PM EDT), they will be forfeited.

Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter. Should you have any questions, please contact us at uswithdrawals@neteller.com

NEOVIA Financial Plc
(Formerly NETELLER Plc Group)

Just before the Final Table Ten became the November Nine, I made my final attempt to get near the action. The closest I could get was the “media” area, which was soon an uncontrollable mess of fans pushing their way through to capture the Ivey Kodak moment with their disposable cams. But before that happened, here is what the packed stands looked like:

UPDATE: Gene got a good shot of the eruption!

The November Nine, upon its creation.