Episode 22
SpartanFox is back in the host seat with Tyresias to talk about the first three days of WPT-Festa al Lago, Full Tilt’s mobile Rush Poker app, Deliverance Poker unsuing Full Tilt, and Scott Montgomery’s getting robbed at Bellagio … on this week’s edition of the Rabbit Hunt.

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The PPA speaks out on the South Carolina Supreme Court’s game-of-skill hearing, where they helped provide legal counsel for the five players contesting their misdemeanor illegal gambling convictions.

This case has nothing to do with casinos or video poker.  This case is about the freedom of adults to play a game of skill, like poker, in their own home and that is it.

- John Pappas, Poker Players Alliance

Fair enough. But it does stand to set precedent and interpretation that other states will at least look at upon (finally) recognizing their own old gambling laws may not really work in today’s day and age.

Sure, we all know that poker is a game of skill and therefore Truth is on poker’s side here, but that may not be the deciding factor when all is said and done. Likewise, the private residence argument could ring a bit hollow because we all know the difference between a self-dealt home game and a for-profit poker room.

But regardless, clarity in and of itself could be a worthy end-result, no? Is it legal to host a weekly sit-n-go and take a “rake” for pizza and beer? What about to pay for nice tables and utilities? Professional dealer maybe? Would it make a difference if you operated as a non-profit? And If an undercover cop wins the bad-beat jackpot, do they have make-up in their backing deal with taxpayers?

Obviously, the South Carolina Supreme Court won’t be making such scenario-specific determinations. However … assuming they don’t just kick it back like Kentucky and Washington did (saying essentially, “eh, not our call”) … this court is being asked to decide, ultimately, just how far the government’s reach extends when dealing with a game of skill played for money … and that’s a question powerful people are wrangling with in different jurisdictions all around the world.

If you haven’t already, help Pokerati determine where poker falls on the spectrum of luck vs. skill here, and read below for the PPA’s official take on today’s important poker activity in South Carolina:

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Just a quick post in case you haven’t already heard, but the WSOP has announced the Poker Hall of Fame Class of 2010. The winners, Dan Harrington and Erik Seidel, are almost exactly at least pretty close to the choices that this non-voting member made in a series on the subject last month, but is actually exactly how the Pokerati non-scientific poll voted this time around.

Both these players boost incredibly long resumes and seem very deserving of the honor. Dan Harrington is the 1995 Main Event champion and has made the final table of said Main Event a staggering 4 times, including back-to-back appearances in 2003 and 2004. His books are probably what he’s most known for by many that have entered the poker world post-boom, and has helped many players get through their first few tournaments knowing the basics. Erik Seidel doesnt have the books to go for, but he can point to his bracelets instead to show why he is being inducted. 8 WSOP bracelets, helping launch Full Tilt, and his impact for being in “Rounders” all gave the voters good reason to vote him in. He may have taken some heat in some circles for being a vocal critic of hole card cams, but if his tournament record post-boom is any indication it doesn’t seem to have affected him that much.

Congratulations to both Harrington and Seidel for their induction into the Poker Hall of Fame! Two very deserving individuals get in, and the countdown to electing Phil Ivey at age 40 goes down another year.

CardRunners hired Nicolak because their other pros needed someone who could buy beer.

Finally … a new pro at CardRunners I can relate to. The kids at CR are smart and all — and really do offer probably the very best poker training available on the internet — but as I’m sure many of you who’ve signed up for TrulyFreePokerTraining have discovered, they also can be a reminder of the life hard-working poker players over 32 will never live no matter how many MTTs you take down.

Something about John Kim, aka Nicolak, the newest CardRunners instructor, connects with the aggressively balding. Not sure if it’s because he can remember a day when Atari was our internet, or because his scores have come in tournaments that seem a little more realistic to a lower-stakes player. Check out his Hendon Mob stats. He also recently began cohosting Cash Plays on PokerRoad, with Jeremiah Smith, a skill-based show I don’t listen to enough.

I’ve played with Nicolak once, at Detox, and he certainly doesn’t fit the mold of your typical high-stakes online aggro-baller. In fact, he seems way too mentally fit and life-steady to be a truly successful poker pro. But he must be doing something right …

Check out his personal blog, where he writes about balancing the game as a career while supporting a loving family and fantasy football team. He’s been publicly chasing a $1million bankroll goal all year, and is only about a quarter of the way there so far. You can just see his pursuits are a more familiar grind to many, whereas I’m not so sure they are yet for Jungleman.

Read his introduction to CardRunners here. And then get on over to TFPT for some free poker training, as Nicolak will soon have videos showing the keys to his slightly smoother jazz.

My goodness, how many new poker (and non-poker) internet shows can there be … it’s like everyone in the world has a built-in laptop cam and a connection to the internet!

But this new venture from a couple of Poker Beat cohorts on the tournament coverage frontlines could actually do it for me, as I can’t think of a more morning-friendly way to find out all I need to know about WPT-Bellagio/Festa as it nears the money bubble. It’s like Regis & Kelly for poker junkies in a G4 generation.

Topics of the day include Allen Kessler, Phil Ivey, Annette Obrestad, and Matt Affleck … but really, it’s way more fun that that.

Poker is back in the state-level Supreme Courts … this time in South Carolina, with five appointed justices set to decide if playing Texas Hold’em in a private residence is a crime.

The decision, which will likely reverberate throughout the Carolina underground and beyond, will rely heavily on matters of skill and chance involved in poker, as gamecock law calls for a “dominate factor test” to determine whether or not a game violates South Carolina gambling statutes. Like we saw in Kentucky and Washington, the SC SC will just be hearing arguments tomorrow, for about 30 minutes from both sides combined, and not issuing a ruling for a few months. But when they do … well read below for what’s at stake beyond a few misdemeanor convictions.

In the meantime … we know there’s skill in poker, but how much is often debatable. Where on the continuum do you draw the lines for these different “games”?

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Pokerati’s pirate feed is back … and to celebrate, the amazing Joey Stapleton from PokerStars’ The Big Game joins Huff, Sirius XM’s “fantasy guy”, in studio as Gary is off getting married and BJ leaves Jess to work the floor of WPT-Bellagio/Festa (unprotected from knife-wielding bandits!) so he and an angry Wolfman can tell you 2/6ths of everything there is to know about:

The Poker Beat: October 17, 2010

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• Rush Poker in your pocket – and the perks of Full Tilt’s Black Card
• Russian spy Anna Chapman – and the wisdom of a poker dalliance with black ops
• Nick Schulman on MTV’s World of Jenks
• Weeds poker TV
• Regional COOPing in the USA
• WPT-Festa al Lago and WSOP-Indiana
• WSOPC on Versus TV

After a night of partying and after-partying with the Heartland Poker crew, pretty excited to be celebrating their fifth anniversary, I am reporting (barely a)live from the two-day $1100 main event at the Shooting Star Casino at Mahnomen, MN.  I’d rather be playing with @FossilMan, but my AK (er.. offsuit) short-stack jam didn’t hit vs 99 in a $250 Qualifier satellite.

Registration opened @ 2pm CT (noon Vegas-time).  Cards get in the air shortly @ 4pm CST/2pm LV.

Play starts with a chip stack of 15000, with blinds at 100-100.  Levels are 40 minutes.

Day 1 will play to the completion of 12 levels or after the bubble breaks, whichever comes first.  Day 2 will begin @ 10am CST/8am LV.  The final table will be televised.

Follow me on my cross-country poker road trip @scarlet_lv, with live-tweeting  from @HPTpokertour‘s Shooting Star Casino main event.

Time for some of the major legal developments in gaming over the past week, as selected by @GamingCounsel:

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1. Netherlands I-Gaming Attitudes - Probably the most interesting international story of the past week is the ruminations from the Netherlands that the new government may be interested in liberalizing the country’s Internet gambling laws. It’s not clear how far this process would go and what games or betting would be included, but a lot could happen in what has been a very restricted online market in the EU thus far. [eGaming Review]

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2. Nova Scotia Says No (That’s in Canada, Folks) - Another international piece is the recent pronouncement of the premier of Nova Scotia that that province will not pursue a government-sanctioned Internet gaming offering. Nova Scotia’s finance minister added that any estimate of the revenues associated with Internet gaming would be “a wild guess.”(That’s an interesting comment given that the province of Ontario has publicly estimated that it could turn a profit of at least C$100 million/year; many have questioned the basis for such a projection.) The CEO of the Nova Scotia Gaming Corp. (rightly) pointed out recently that Internet gambling will continue to grow whether the government is involved or not. [Globe and Mail]

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3. Betfair Move - Hot on the heels of the Betfair IPO announcement, there is speculation that Betfair may move out of the UK to a jurisdiction with a lower tax rate. William Hill and Ladbrokes recently moved to Gibraltar because they perceived that UK taxes were too high. Some are saying Betfair may make a similar play. With competition increasing among Internet gaming jurisdictions, more and more operators are paying attention to applicable taxes. [CasinoGamblingWeb]
   

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4. Station Casinos Trademark Infringement/Cybersquatting Suit - Station Casinos Inc. has sued two website operators in Federal Court in Nevada: SL Enterprises (www.vegasstationcasino.com) and Ryan Murphy (www.stationcasinos.org). If the Station marks have sufficient rights attached to them through use and/or registration, they should have a good case. This kind of thing happens in i-gaming all the time and it’s a big problem for operators; it’s tremendously time-consuming and potentially expensive to vigilantly prosecute misappropriation of property rights. [Las Vegas Sun]
   

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5. PartyGaming in Venezuela - PartyGaming plc has set up an online poker offering in Venezuela. This continues two trends: Party’s continuing march around the world into new markets and the increased interest in South America as a lucrative and growing market for interactive gaming. [Gambling Zion]

Washington state’s anti-internet gambling law has been getting a lot of attention lately after the Supreme Court in that state upheld the law late last month. Its worth noting, however, that this has been a struggle that’s been going on for over 5 years, where only now sites such as Pokerstars have pulled out of the mix. Here’s a look back at the big dates as we look at how we got to where we are now in my first “news timeline” of a big news story:

• June 2006 – The law is initially passed, specifically banning online gambling and making it a Class C felony to gamble on the internet. This made it an equivalent crime to forgery, possession of child pornography, and possession of marijuana with intent to deliver. As with all Class C felonies it also carried a 5 year sentence and/or a $10,000 fine. Critics even in the early stages said the law was too broad to hold up in court [Seattle Post-Intelligencer]

• April 2007 – In order to protect Washington State citizens from government intrusion, state legislators passed Bill 1243 to correct excessiveness in the 2006 law. Now, it is legal for a Washington state resident to gamble online for recreation, but not for “organized profit” (read: profession). Although the change was made, it is still illegal for online operators to provide online poker to the state, making the change largely cosmetic. [Pokerpages.com]

• May 2008 – A King County court judge is the first to uphold the gambling law from challenges from Lee Rousso (attorney and the PPA’s Washington State Director).The judge in the case, Superior Court Judge Mary Roberts, stated that Rousso had not proven that the state law unfairly protected gambling within the state at the expense of interests outside of Washington. [Seattle Times]

• March 2009 – An appeals court was the next destination for Rousso’s quest to overturn the 2006 law. Unfortunately, he was not successful either. In a unanimous decision by three Division I appeals judges, Rousso would have to prove that criminalizing online poker imposes excessive burdens on commerce. Even by this point, there hadn’t been any prosecutions of online poker players to date, but Rousso felt this was an important enough issue to appeal to the Washington Supreme Court. [Bluff Magazine]

• May 2010 – The PPA hold a rally outside of the Washington Supreme Court to try to show the justices of the court support for overturning the law. [PPA]

• September 2010 – The last possible court before forcing the case to go to federal once again sided with the State of Washington after arguments were heard earlier in the year. While the state was not delegated power to deal with online gambling, the law does not violate the commerce clause nor is it considered an “excessive” law, with the court citing gambling problems that are found in off-line and on-line casinos alike in its ruling. [Eric Goldman Tech & Marketing Law Blog]

• September 30, 2010 – After spending years stating the law did not apply to online poker, Pokerstars announces that Washington state players may no longer play on Pokerstars for real money. They cited the Washington Supreme Court decision as the main reason for its decision, though in theory nothing has really changes so its interesting that Stars waiting until all appeals were exhausted before enacting the ban. [Pokerstars]

• October 5, 2010 – As announced here earlier, Full Tilt has stated that they are monitoring the Washington state situation closely and will make a decision regarding offering real-money play to the state’s citizens in the near future. With Pokerstars’ pullout from the state a week earlier, the pressure has been turned up on other US-facing sites to make a decision. [Part Time Poker]

This week’s show included a lengthy interview with featured guest Mike Sexton, a cameo from Daniel Negreanu to discuss PokerVT, MAXIM Hometown Hottie finalist and WPT Royal Flush Girl Melanie Iglesias, and a discussion with Matt Parvis about Poker News and the role of poker media.

All that plus the Tina Fey of Poker Jess Welman delivers this week’s big poker headlines.

Detailed episode highlights at WCP.

I’m not sure I really get the lawsuit, but Tiger Woods and Roger Federer have gotten caught up, by proxy, in some sort of big-time shady gambling allegations, where a printing company claims the owner of Woods’ and Federer’s management company, IMG, placed millions of dollars of bets, sometimes against his own clients, based on “inside” information. And somebody owes someone shares of the company to pay off debts?

Hmm, again, not claiming to really get these non-poker lawsuits, but sounds like it could all be as inconsequential as Crispin Leyser vs. Jamie Gold. Possibly truly scandalous, maybe not, but either way, don’t these guys understand real gamblers have a lot pending on gambling matters these days … and we don’t need douchebag pro athletes screwing things up for us by making gambling look “shady” or “bad”!

Jeesh … if you’re gonna bet against a friend, colleague, or client — especially with potential match fixing perceptions in play — you gotta at least tweet about it. Friggin’ non-poker amateurs.

At least they didn’t do whatever they did online.

To Fargo or Bust

I’m en route from Las Vegas to DC, taking the long way I guess you could say, and was driving over the state line of Wyoming => South Dakota when I got the following DM tweet:

@Pokerati to @scarlet_lv:  “10/15 is Heartland’s 5th anniversary bash near Fargo ND.  Think about going.  I can hook u up.”

Fargo?, I thought.  Really, DanM? It was about 600 miles in a completely different direction from where I was heading, but free booze …a party?  I quickly rerouted the Prius GPS to head northeast, and arrived in the city-of-the-distinct-accent late Monday night.

Yesterday afternoon, I ate some Thai with Jen Mastrud, GM and Director of PR for the Heartland Poker Tour, based here in Fargo, ND.  Waiting for the mint-leaf spring rolls appetizer, we chatted about the festivities, upcoming Season VI and VII events, and some poker poli-biz topics as they relate to a nationwide, smaller-stakes operation such as the HPT. 

Heartland’s currently in the middle of their Season VI Shooting Star Casino event in Mahnomen, MN (just across the North Dakota border), and Friday will be celebrating their 5th anniversary with a party hosted by Greg Raymer. @FossilMan will also be on hand playing some cash, and will compete in the 2-day $1100 Main Event, which final-tables on Sunday.

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“In the works”, they are saying … but sounds real … real awful, lol, if the new half-hour poker comedy — supposedly about a couple brainiac Vegas grinders chasing the WSOP main event dream — were being done by anyone but the exec prods of the hit Showtime show Weeds. [via Wicked Chops]

Of course poker fiction hasn’t done all that well since Rounders really … we had Lucky You and what was that show on ESPN? Tilt? … not exactly memorable beyond making Norman Chad oddly more palatable. But at the same time, you can kinda see what the production team of Jenji Kohan and Matt Salsberg could be going for, taking on the two biggest issues in the original Barack Obama national suggestion box — poker and pot — but with Ws.

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