photo: The Courier-Mail

Daniel Tzvetkoff, first accused UIGEA criminal: Whoever said being a douchebag was a crime?

Dude … it’s gettin’ hot here in the US … specifically in Las Vegas.

Yesterday federal authorities arrested Daniel Tzvetkoff, a 27-year-old Australian national “on charges that he assisted illegal internet gambling companies by processing approximately $500 million in transactions between U.S. gamblers and internet gambling websites and disguising the transactions to the banks so that they would appear unrelated to gambling,” according to a statement from the DOJ’s Southern District of New York.

Illegal internet gambling companies? Yikes …

Tzvetkoff, as founder of Intabill and ACH System, faces up to 75 years in prison for bank fraud, money laundering, conspiracy to operate and finance an illegal gambling business, and … get this … for processing fund transfers in violation of the UIGEA.

I’m pretty sure that’s the first ever indictment to bring up UIGEA charges.

About a year ago the Australia Courier-Mail reported that Tzvetkoff owed Full Tilt, PokerStars, Ultimate Bet, and Absolute Poker more than $30 million as the overextended, ostentatious Gen-Y tycoon’s personal empire was crumbling. Then, Full Tilt (through Kolyma Corporation) sued Tzvetkoff in Australian Court, saying his company Intabill owed them $52 million.

Before his arrest, he was saying Full Tilt tricked him into a bad deal and his lawyer doublecrossed him. He blamed the economy for a multi-multi-millionaire having to declare bankruptcy earlier this year. More on the pre-arrest rise and fall of an online poker payment processor here.

I mean for chrissakes, he drove a Lamborghini with the license plate “BALLER”! And when a bank repossessed a competitive race car of his, they got everything except its $100k engine, which had been stripped out and hidden.

Click below for the official word from the DOJ:

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Here’s a preview of a prospective reality show/documentary called 6th Street: Life After the River, featuring Joe Cada and four of his friends from Michigan. The trailer features the highs and lows Cada and friends experienced over the past few months, with Cada’s agent Dan Frank, hip-hop party band LMFAO, Darvin Moon, and others. No word yet on when the full program will be available, but expect more details shortly.

Of course … France opens itself up, and then gets way in on the televised poker thing … and sure enough the WPT is there to follow with a new stop. No time to vet any of this (we’re minutes from broadcast-time for The Poker Beat) so read the press release below and think for yourself what it might mean to have a WPT tournament that sounds like an Eminem song.

Oh, also, a wildly speculative, unsubstantiated prediction … the next France-like poker mini-hotspot you’ll see … it’s gonna be Florida.

WORLD POKER TOUR® EUROPEAN EXPANSION CONTINUES WITH NEW STOP AT FRANCE’S CASINO D’AMNEVILLE

3200 + 300€ Tournament Marks Second French Event for 2010

(LOS ANGELES) April 12, 2010 – Further expanding its tour offering in Europe, World Poker Tour® and Casino Municipal D’Amneville announced today a partnership to create the next WPT stop in France. The WPT Amneville 2010 tournament series kicks off October 30 – November 1 with land-based qualifiers and side events, followed by the 3200 + 300€ WPT Main Event November 2 – 6.

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The hedline pretty much says it all … Poker Channel France is coming soon, in June.

See how international politics works? You change the laws to make things conducive for business, and before you know it, all sorts of new dollars Euros come flowing into your country from all over the world.

New little mini-boom getting underway over there, it seems. Probably a good time to be Benjo.

OK, that subhed might be geographically presumptuous and/or mathematically hard to prove. But hey, that’s how it goes in PLO! So allow me to do a little live poker pimping …

As twitter followers know, I’ve been hosting a new-ish game at the Hard Rock here in Las Vegas. 1/2 no-limit hold’em/pot-limit omaha. While there are plenty of 4-8 mixed games around town, there are, perhaps surprisingly, few if any low-stakes half-and-half games — and none where players have the option of running it twice. So in an effort to create what Dan personally wants to play top-quality action that serious amateurs, local grinders, and late-night drunks can’t find elsewhere in LV, you can now help your poker evolve by playing:

What: The Pokerati Game: 1/2 NLH/PLO (round of each)
When: Thursdays 7pm-? or upon request
Where: Hard Rock Poker Lounge
Buy-in: $100 min/$400 max
Who plays: Nitty locals, Euro-tourists, Action Junkies, Poker media geeks, loose-aggressive douchebags, off-duty Vegas dealers, disciples of Isildur1

We know you all know hold’em, but if Omaha’s not yet your game, check out this video of how gloriously painful PLO can be:

That comes from F Train’s assessment of poker’s #2 game. And across the pond, where they play it more frequently, our ole Betfair pal Marcus Bateman has his own strategy thoughts on the situational EV of running it twice.

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Vegas fave Annie LePage and her lapddog playing poker at the Jen Harman SPCA fundraiser. Bijou seems to like their hand or is just hoping for a walk in the big blind.

There was a big charity event Tuesday night at the Venetian … part of their Deep Stacks II series … Jennifer Harman’s Charity Poker Tournament benefitting the Nevada SPCA. This has become one of the bigger Springtime celeb draws in poker, and is always a memorable shindig because of the presence of cute animals. You shoulda seen the look on the dealer’s face when Bijou (pictured here) jumped up and scampered around the table. I think half the players nearby were all cued up with jokes of “reraise!” and “floor!” had the pup, um, pushed a potty stack across the betting line.

Anyhow, I don’t know the numbers yet …I think it was actually smaller than in previous years, with 140something entries 30 minutes before late registration closed. But it really was a lot of fun … and the NSPCA seemed thrilled about the money the event was still raising, not to mention the number of rescued pets being adopted.

Pokerati Red Carpet Video

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UPDATE: Jason Mercier FTW! [dm]

The final table of the $25,000 High Roller Bounty Shootout concludes the NAPT series at the Mohegan Sun in Uncasville, Connecticut this afternoon. If you knock out a player at your table, you collect your opponent’s $5,000 bounty. The last player standing earns $60,000, or $50,000 for Luis Vasquez, seated at the only five-player table. The six shootout winners returning at 12 noon today with live streaming available at www.napt.com/tv (with bounties won so far):

Shawn Buchanan – 4 bounties
Luis Vazquez - 4 bounties
Jason Mercier – 3 bounties
Sam Stein – 3 bounties
Matt Glantz – 2 bounties
Faraz Jaka - 2 bounties

The remaining prize pool, $350,000, will go to the winner, and whomever ends up with the most bounties earns a free entry to the next NAPT High Roller event. The date and location hasn’t been announced, but it will take place after the WSOP concludes in mid-July.

Warne.

If there’s one place that has more funked up online poker political-legal stuff going on than the US, it’s Australia. And most recently Aussie cricket legend Shane Warne caused an international stir when he used his twitter account — @warne888 — to solicit real-money players for the online poker site he represents … 888.

The tweet that caused the outcry:

All my followers get free 8 dollars poker money by signing up here

It included a link to 888.

That was enough to rile Rev. Tim Costello (one of the most politically powerful holy rollers in Australia) to publicly chastise the superstar because many of his nearly 50,000 twitter followers are kids.

It makes ya think …

a) damn, just imagine how much money retired athletes could make as poker affiliates.
b) only 50k twitter followers? I thought they said he was a huge international superstar … like the Michael Jordan of cricket!

#HesNoJoeSebok

888 — a publicly traded company on the London Stock Exchange — is currently under investigation by the Australian Communications and Media Authority, which is responding to a complaint charging the company of being in breach of the Integrated Gambling Act.

No one should get too excited about the supposed Full Committee Hearing for the Barney Frank (D-MA) bills … engines may be revving for HR 2266 + 2267, but these bills aren’t really “moving”. At best they are spinning their wheels and at worst they are flat-out stuck in political mud.

The PPA informs us that the hearing has been “postponed [until] later next week possibly”. Its being scheduled for a Friday shoulda been the first clue that the House Financial Services Committee wasn’t really serious about having a debate on these bills. At this point in an election season, the members often try to get out of Washington DC as early as possible on a Friday so they can return to their home districts.

The whole purpose of this not-so-scheduled hearing is not for debate and mark-up … but rather to appease a Spencer Bachus (R-AL) beef, who previously complained the last time they talked about these bills that Frank did not do his due diligence and invite the Deptartment of Justice and the Treasury (and maybe the Federal Reserve?) to testify. Supposedly someone from California is also looking to speak, saying these regulatory matters should be left to the states, not the Feds.

More Brian Hastings … or at least I’m pretty sure it was Hastings Townsend. I’m just getting to know these online guys I’ve been hearing about but not really paying attention to for years … Did you see last week’s “Railbird Heaven” on Poker After Dark? It was some pretty awesome TV poker … and I think I’m starting to get why everybody’s so Durrrr-crazy. He really is a fascinating player, especially when facing tough opponents for meaningful stakes.

Anyhow, enough about Durrrr … Brian Townsend is one of his semi-regular opponents and the lesson I think he’s trying to give me this week is about 2nd or 3rd level thinking as it applies to bet sizing and bet timing:

The final table of the $5,000 PokerStars NAPT Mohegan Sun Main Event came to a conclusion early Sunday evening, with Vanessa Selbst taking down the title in dominating fashion. In an interesting quirk, like her 2008 WSOP PLO bracelet win over Jamie Pickering, she defeated a strip club owner, Mike Beasley in heads-up play. Beasley held the chip lead at the final table, but within 30 minutes Selbst had regained the lead, and her aggressive style meant she never relinquished her hold on the lead. Her win brought up debate on Twitter inquiring if her win would help get more women into the game, a topic that has appeared at Pokerati here and here for two examples.

Here’s the full final table results, with the edited final table coverage on ESPN2 May 10th at 10pm ET:

1 – Vanessa Selbst, $750,000
2 – Mike Beasley, $428,000
3 – Mike Woods, $240,000
4 – Scott Seiver, $190,000
5 – Alistar Melville, $150,000
6 – Derek Raymond, $115,000
7 – Cliff Josephy, $85,000
8 – Jonathan Aguiar, $60,244

This week’s episode of The Poker Beat arrives with a somewhat sensationalistic-seeming title, phrased in the form of a question: “The Worst Week in Internet Poker History?” And no, as it turns out, hosts Scott Huff, Gary Wise, B.J. Nemeth, and Dan “the Wolfman” Michalski did not discuss Michalski’s week online.

Aside from addressing Pennsylvania now saying poker is a game of chance and Massachusetts’ efforts to criminalize online poker during the “News Briefs” segment, the panelists this week spent most of the show focusing on a couple of other downer-type stories that inspired the episode’s title.

First up was that federal grand jury’s investigation of Full Tilt Poker regarding possible money laundering and gambling violations. Then came talk about Everest Poker’s lawsuit against the WSOP over the Everest logo not appearing in broadcasts of the Series on French television.

Discussion of those topics begins around the 22-minute mark. Dial in a couple of minutes before that to hear The Darkness’ much more optimistic (and rocking) message of belief in a thing called love.

The Poker Beat
4/8/10

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The final table of the $5,000 PokerStars NAPT Main Event at the Mohegan Sun in Connecticut will be starting at noon Eastern time. Here’s how the final table will be situated, with live streaming available at www.pokerstars.tv:

Seat 1: Scott Seiver (1,125,000)
Seat 2: Cliff Josephy (1,940,000)
Seat 3: Vanessa Selbst (4,545,000)
Seat 4: Derek Raymond (1,545,000)
Seat 5: Mike Beasley (4,985,000)
Seat 6: Michael Woods (2,950,000)
Seat 7: Jonathan Aguiar (1,535,000)
Seat 8: Alistar Melville (2,940,000)

Beasley took the chip lead on the final hand of play on Saturday when he eliminated Brandon Hall in 9th place. The four WSOP bracelet winners (Selbst, Josephy, Raymond and Seiver) will look to add a NAPT title to their results. When play resumes, there will be about 30 minutes left at level 26, 25,000/50,000 with a 5,000 ante. The poker world will still be focused at the Mohegan Sun on Monday as the $25,000 High Roller Bounty Shootout will get underway, with the shootout winners playing Tuesday to determine a winner. Full coverage will also be available at pokerstars.tv, with edited coverage to air in the coming months on ESPN2 of both the Main Event and Shootout.

Poker will have to wait to see Isildur1 in more-than-virtual action. Tony G informs us that they mystery Swede has backed out of a staking deal with the G that woulda had him playing on PartyPoker’s televised Big Game IV.

Meanwhile, even without a highest-stakes masked man at the tele-tables, PartyPoker still plans to bring a new component to televised cash games, with each player choosing “walk-on music“.

Click below for the Isildur1-less roster of players who have submitted their personal soundtrack poker theme songs:

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A month-and-a-half ago Barney Frank (D-MA) was prepping us for life with the real UIGEA in fully enforced effect — at a time, no less, when Federal law enforcement was saying “we know who you are Full Tilt, and you better be ready to tell us who Isildur1 is!”

But this upcoming week, Frank’s online gambling bills apparently are moving … on the docket for Friday, April 16, are Full Committee hearings for H.R. 2266, Reasonable Prudence in Regulation Act and H.R. 2267, the Internet Gambling Regulation, Consumer Protection, and Enforcement Act-Governmental Perspectives.

Click here to watch the committee hearing live when it happens.

UPDATE: This hearing has been postponed, without a new date set.

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