Apparently, some in the non-poker media recognize the historic nature of the first-ever UIGEA charges — and they’re not happy about it. Check out Reason Magazine’s jumping to the defense of Daniel Tzvetkoff, or at least being extremely of Department of Justice pursuits:
I find this article particularly interesting because of how it pairs politically with the recent story in The Hill about legalized online gambling creating jobs, according to a new study. Though jobs are appealing on both sides of the aisle, it’s clearly an issue the Dems are looking to own in coming months.
Meanwhile, Reason, a Libertarian magazine, speaks more to the Tea Party set. So regardless of what happens to Tzvetkoff, you gotta like the plausibly bipartisan sales pitch taking shape in the Beltway for whatever online poker bills may or may not come to fruition later this year.
Prosecutors protested his release, claiming he was a flight risk as a foreign national who is believed to have a $100 million hidden stash at his disposal.
Check it out … Washington DC is starting to get the picture, as yet another study circulates about the benefits of fully legal online gambling. However, this study doesn’t champion just the 10s of billions in tax revenue — it points out how many jobs it would create: 32,000 over the next five years. I wonder if that triple-counts those who will surely get hired, fired, re-hired, and re-re-hired in the industry. Also can’t tell if Mathers’ pay in chum will be counted as a full-time job. Kinda funny when you think how many people currently working got into this industry trying to avoid the concept of a “real” job.
The study comes from the UK-based H2 Gambling Capital. And though The Hill hardly notes any pressure from the looming UIGEA drop-dead enforcement-enforcement deadline, it does give lawmakers something to work with as they look to keep any bills they’re pushing forward in line what will obviously be a key Democratic talking point as we move toward November.
Interestingly, though we knew this all along, the study also attaches a quantifiable number that online gambling would add to the economy beyond the straight tax revenues. $94 billion in new economic activity. Wow, we an use that. Perhaps they see a Galctic Series of Poker in the future?
For the third time in seven weeks, a woman has won a major poker tournament. Today, it was UB sponsored pro Liv Boeree the winner of the PokerStars.it EPT San Remo event, officially winning 1,250,000 Euros (about $1.7m US), defeating Jakob Carlsson in heads-up play. Below is a clip of the winning hand:
Meanwhile at the WPT World Championship, Heather Sue Mercer started Day 4 second in chips (1,364,000) with 35 players remaining. The only woman to win a non-ladies WPT event was Van Nguyen’s win at the sorta-open 2008 WPT Invitational. Among other notables remaining when play resumes at noon PT: Shawn Buchanan (1,841,000), Billy Baxter (887,500), Faraz Jaka (856,000), Phil Hellmuth (806,500), David Benyamine (731,000) Carlos Mortensen (586,000) and JJ Liu (495,000). Follow the live updates over at the the World Poker Tour site.
It’s no secret I’ve been nosing around in Full Tilt’s business lately. They are the ones who, after all, practically built the poker world as we currently know it — and helped create an industry that so many of us rely on for food. But considering what these good people potentially face and how it could impact us all, I couldn’t help but start cashing in favors for information from some of the highest ranking, super-reliable people I know.
Alas … still haven’t gotten the details I’m seeking about Howard Lederer and Phil Ivey’s meeting with Barack Obama in February — what did they say? what did he say? — but perhaps as a consolation prize, my source told me he had one piece of info that he/she could confirm with “100 percent” certainty.
OK, I’m listening …
“Viktor Blom is Isildur.”
Oh, that’s it? I mean thanks.
“Yes. 100 percent.”
He’s not under investigation or anything, is he? Got a DWI maybe, or how ’bout an illicit rendezvous with Guy Laliberte and the Swedish women’s curling team … that would all be good for traffic.
“Nope. Just playing high-stakes no-limit hold’em and PLO.”
The PokerStars.it EPT San Remo reached their final table earlier and the most notable player remaining in the field when play resumes Wednesday afternoon (6am ET for those in the US) will be Liv Boeree. Following the wins of Annie Duke at the NBC Heads-Up and Vanessa Selbst at the PokerStars NAPT Mohegan Sun event so far this year, could Boeree follow in their footsteps tomorrow? The final table will be seated as follows:
Seat 1: Claudio Piceci – 4,460,000
Seat 2: Alexey Rybin – 1,890,000
Seat 3: Atanas Gueorguiev – 2,520,000
Seat 4: Jakob Carlsson – 13,525,000
Seat 5: Giuseppe Diep – 1,830,000
Seat 6: Liv Boeree – 3,440,000
Seat 7: Toni Pettersson – 5,035,000
Seat 8: Michael Piper – 4,600,000
Updates will be available over at PokerNews, along with live streaming video of the final table over at www.PokerStars.tv at 6am ET.
Poker was exploding. On April 20, 2004 (420, dooood!) Pokerati.com went live. WTF was I thinking? Happy birthday to us. The concept was simple, and reflected in our subtitle: “Are you thinking about poker?” I was. A lot. And so were my friends.
We of course weren’t the only ones. Another new site also went live that same week … FullTiltPoker.com. Their launch was the subject of our first post. Huh … it’s been quite a ride to say the least — I’m not sure Durrrr was even born yet! What I do know is that I had a lot more hair back then.
Now, six years since, I actually think poker is about to implode.
I know I’m in the minority amongst the well-informed and so-called poker media on this … but gather round folks … we’ve seen implosions in Vegas before, and they always make for a good show. You’ll hear and feel the charges — boom-boom-boom-boom-boom-boom … and then there’s a pause before the support beams fall and moments later what once stood gloriously is collapsing on top of itself leaving behind jagged piles of rubble and a spectacular cloud of dust. It’s all part of clearing the way to build something even more fantastic than anyone previously conceived.
The Los Angeles Times is reporting that a L.A. County Superior Court Judge has thrown out a lawsuit brought by two poker players against five L.A. County casinos in which the players had contended the casinos falsely advertised their jackpot games in which a buck was taken from pots for the jackpot as being “no purchase necessary.â€
In May 2009, poker players Dennis Chae and Jeff Kim sued five L.A. County casinos — the Bicycle, the Commerce, Hawaiian Gardens, Hollywood Park, and the Hustler — arguing that the $1 taken from the pots in jackpot games didn’t jibe with the casinos’ claim the games did not require a purchase to play. Judge Emile H. Elias ruled both that players couldn’t sue to recover gambling losses, and that Chae and Kim “chose to play the games despite the knowledge that they would be charged†the jackpot fee.
In a state law dating back to 1989, jackpot games are considered “illegal lotteries†in California if they require a fee to win. Since the mid-1990s, casinos have therefore advertised poker games in which a jackpot is taken as “no purchase necessary,†a disclaimer which apparently includes a promise to deal jackpot games without a fee upon request.
Sounds sort of like those giveaways at McDonald’s in which one doesn’t technically have to buy a Big Mac and fries to play, but folks rarely ask to play without buying something. As Commerce Casino general counsel Andy Schneiderman explains, “there are very few players, if any†who request to play jackpot games without paying the fee. Schneiderman also notes that all the games the Commerce offers “are approved by the state, including jackpot games,†and so the casinos were confident they’d win the case.
That’s the word from noted British investment analyst Daniel Stewart … And our sources in Washington DC (highly reliable sort) unofficially confirm that indeed, the beleaguered Senate Majority Leader is working on an online-poker-only bill. Might he be looking to pull a Bill Frist (his predecessor as #1 US Senator) and give a little gift to his Big Casino backers before he gets booted from office?
The stockbroker noted speculation that US Senator Harry Reid and his pro-legislation cohorts are preparing a Bill that could be introduced into the Senate within the next three months and ready for approval by the President during H2 2010.
Daniel Stewart believes that the proposed Federal legislation will encompass just online poker and exclude casino and sports betting services, which should ensure that it is easier to implement.
…
“The legalised US online poker market represents a massive pot of gold for the entities that can monetise a market we estimate to offer likely annual gross gaming revenue of >$8bn annuallyâ€. According to Daniel Stewart, the clear winners from the proposed US legislation will be the US-based gambling giants such as Las Vegas Sands, MGM, Harrah’s and Wynn.
Remember those rumors about Phil Ivey plausibly bringing the Big Game at Bellagio to the new high-stakes room at Aria? Well … unless these pricey invitations mailed out to an undisclosed few are just some sort of elaborate belated April Fool’s joke, they certainly seem to be true … with a poker christening in the form of a million-dollar freeroll that could-well rival the WSOP-TOC.
Take a look … The Ivey League $1,000,000 Poker Invitational … coming May 22:
The two major tournament circuits not named The World Series of Poker are currently running at the same time, with vastly different results. First, the $25,000 World Poker Tour World Championship at the Bellagio drew a field of only 195 entrants as registration closed after the conclusion of level 8. This continues the downward trend in the field size of most WPT events the past few years. Two years ago, the field in the WPT W.C was 545 players (won by David Chiu) and 338 last year (won by Yevginey Timoshenko). Only 18 spots will be paid, with the winner earning around $1,500,000. WPT Player of the Year leader Faraz Jaka is the current chip leader with 500,000 in chips. Follow the WPT Live updates here.
Meanwhile, the PokerStars.it EPT San Remo event drew a field of 1,240 entrants paying €5,000, just 24 remain when play resumes Tuesday for day 5. The current chip leader is Allan Bække (3,483,000), winner of the most recent EPT event in Austria, looking to be the first to win a second EPT main event. The other recognizable name to the casual poker enthusiast is Liv Boeree (1,337,000) First prize is a cool €1,250,000, and you can watch live streaming coverage of the final two days (volcano permitting) will be available at www.pokerstars.tv starting at 6am ET or you can follow the live updates over at PokerNews.
Aspiring character actors take note: Pauly and the Tao of Poker wants to find the Rich Little of poker hours of personal entertainment … and specifically wanna see who can deliver the best embeddable video interpretation of blowhard poker impresario Tony G. The contest runs all week, with a deadline of midnight-pacific on Friday.
First prize is, of course, a signed copy of the amazing great revolutionary controversial revealing brilliant! unpublished book Pauly has been promising for nearly a year.
In the meantime, a little inspiration from one of the best/worst trash-talkers in the game:
So Philly.com is the pioneer, banking (finally?) on the UIGEA carveout for fantasy sports to offer real-money gambling. (Holy shit, like you actually get to use Paypal to fund your account!) Limits are small — right now the most you can lose in a day is $50, and the most you can win is $90 — and it’s not heavily promoted elsewhere on the site. Philly.com, the web home for both the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News, has partnered with British company FanDuel.com to run their games.
How this pertains to poker is it gives a teensy glimpse of what the landscape could look like down the road. It might not be about PokerStars sending players to the WSOP, but rather the Des Moines Register hosting satellites. (And this could work within an intrastate framework, too!)
Katkin bought in for a single $300 tax-deductible good-cause bullet, and with blinds rising quickly, maintained a 10-20 BB stack throughout to get to the final table. There, he knocked out Howard Lederer and outlasted Allen Cunningham to win $5,000, a week’s stay in a fancy-room suite at the Rio during the WSOP main event, and $1k in food comps at any of the restos there.
Tonight at 7pm ET is the first of six $2,000 freerolls featuring bloggers such as Change100, Short-Stacked Shamus, Smokkee and myself among dozens of other bloggers, poker celebrities and other dignitaries. The top two spots in each BBT5 Invitational will be entered into the BBT ToC.
There will also be ToC spots available to winners of two private tournaments over the next six weeks. Those events are the weekly $24+2 Poker From the Rail tournament Mondays at 10pm ET and the $10+1 Mookie at 10pm Wednesdays.
One final $2,000 Bracelet Race package and $2,000 freeroll will be available to participating bloggers in the Blogger Battle Royal on June 6th at 2pm ET. Further details on all of these events can be found at FTP’s Poker From the Rail blog.
randompoker: RT @MeanPokerDealer: I think it's SO cool how you guys loop the earbuds around your ears so they're hanging there all not in your ears and stuff. I hate you. 57 minutes ago
For those who like to blog and play poker, 
