A Full Tilt-supported televised poker game in Cardiff, UK — The Poker Lounge — was canceled mid-event today, when the TV production company walked off the set after an expected wire-transfer from Ireland did not arrive, reliable sources say.

Supposedly, Presentable Productions were waiting on a second installment of funds from Full Tilt subsidiary Pocket Kings that had been promised by today, and at 4pm GMT, after recording the 3rd heat, they sent the camera crew and players home, with no plans for return. (The show is an 8-heat event featuring $20k sit-n-gos with seven players at each table.)

It remains to be seen whether this was just reactionary angst over a technical blip that could normally be resolved with little problem, or indicative of cash-flow and money-transfer issues that have far more severe implications. But either way, it does confirm a certain unease in the UK after problems in the US.

Presentable has been producing poker television shows since 1999, when their show, Late Night Poker, debuted in England.

Minimal info at the moment … but around 12:30am today, according to Las Vegas Metro Police, a lone gunman walked into the Stratosphere and reportedly headed straight for the 8-table poker room, where he jumped a table, attempted to grab a bunch of chips, and then fled on foot. But apparently he ran into a casino employee on the way out and left empty handed.

Police tell local Channel 13 they have a “vague description” of the suspect and are looking for him now.

Pic: Rex (2009)

Probably shouldn’t be laughing about violent crime FAILs, but LOL … just realized I wrote “walked into the Stratosphere” … so clearly the wannabe robber must be Criss Angel. OK, I jest … but what do you think the odds are that this amateur thief could be an online poker player who just lost his roll and is considering new career options? I’ll bet … either that or a neighborhood crackhead.

More tales of the Stratosphere poker room from a local low-stakes grinder here.

In a special episode of Rabbit Hunt, Matt and Mark are joined by CR Coach Matt Matros, Dan Michalski of Pokerati, and gaming and corporate attorney CK to discuss the indictment and what it means for poker players. In part 1 the panel discusses the charges themselves, the winners and losers of the case, and how this will affect poker players and the community.

In part 2 of the special edition of the Rabbit Hunt, the 5-person panel discuss effects the indictment has on the US poker industry. We look at the current legislation efforts and see whether there is any change of legalization soon, whether the PPA is a good spokesman for poker players, and some advice on how poker players should be reacting in these tough times.

Most of you have heard about the Radio Free Poker discussion going on over at QuadJacks/UStream. But if you get a chance, step away to listen to this week’s 2+2 PokerCast. (Sorry Marco for redirecting listeners … but don’t worry, they will be back.) I got to be part of a rather good lineup of informed voices answering Mike and Adam’s thoughtful questions.

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(And LOL when they refer to the lineup on the QJ never-ending stream as “the cast of Rent”.)

I show up at about the hour-and-a-half mark. But others on the episode (most of whom I’m looking forward to listening to, too) include:

Bill Rini — the old-school blogger and early poker-boom programmer, who btw was having a lot of really insightful posts in the week or so leading up to Friday, and has carried on from there.

I. Nelson Rose — one of the foremost authorities on gambling law in the United States. Be sure to check out his latest … an assessment of our current sitch, where he sees, too, the timing of the online poker indictments as “suspicious”.

Todd Terry — Manhattan attorney turned online pro. I think Jess has told me about this guy.

Mason Malmouth — the non-Sklansky of 2+2. Wrote a book or something.

Tonight I’m carrying on the Pokerati’s vigorous rambling with Gahagan, as we record Rabbit Hunt. And then back to Donkdown Radio (more LIVE stuff) where it all began on Wednesday.

Like seriously, how hooked up is anyone about to embark on a long road trip or do lotsa chores around the house?

From @SrslySirius:

There are two actions pending against online poker companies in the Southern District of New York — an indictment of individual defendants, and a civil forfeiture complaint against the companies. The civil forfeiture complaint seeks forfeiture of all assets of the defendants, including specified domains and bank accounts.

There have been several civil and criminal forfeiture cases brought by the DoJ in recent years, including Daniel Tzvetkoff’s and Douglas Rennick’s (which are the original and first superseding indictments in the current case). Similar forfeiture cases have also been brought against other payment processors, but in none of these cases, as far as I know, have the Poker companies filed claims objecting to the seizures. Also of note is that no players made claims either.

Any player who makes a claim [for their deposits] should expect criminal inquiry by the FBI and IRS, and would not be able to recover on provable claims for some time. If the Poker companies default on the civil forfeiture, players will have no real legal recovery.

For the purpose of filing Foreign Bank Account Reports, some players may have taken the position, consistent with the position of the IRS, that they are general unsecured creditors in a common pool fund of deposits, and as such have no control or discretion over the investment of the funds. If this position is correct, then the DoJ’s forfeiture claims may have legs, as there may be no players to come forward able to make the specific factual statements necessary for a bonafide claim. Further, in order for the Poker companies to make claims, they likely would have to submit to jurisdiction of the U.S. and open their books and records to the DoJ and IRS among others.

More…

In a bout of Democrat-on-Democrat tongue-lashing, longtime online gambling champion Rep. Barney Frank pointed to the Obama Administration, which oversees the DOJ, for pointless prosecutions and an unsmart use of resources, but came short of defending any indicted online poker defendants.

Frank mocked the seizures as the administration “protecting the public from the scourge of inside straights,” and lamented that the Justice Department is more focused on prosecuting online poker sites than those responsible for the mortgage crisis and financial meltdown.

“Go after the people responsible for empty houses, not full houses,” Frank added.

Doh! Barney was doing so well with that first poker metaphor, but then kinda blew it with the addendum, imho.

Still, you see the venerable liberal Congressman willing to finger the President more so than Bill Frist and the Republicans or Eric Holder and SDNY or Spencer Bachus or anyone else. Why would he direct his balk at Barack like this? Sour grapes, non-partisan principle, or something more he’d like the DC press corp to know about Obama’s role in the timing of these indictments?

Not everyone is unhappy about the elimination of PokerStars and Full Tilt from the American online poker marketplace. Shares of Bwin/Party soared today on the London Stock Exchange, closing up nearly 35 percent on rather high trading volume.

And while in some ways this graph looks like the inverse of Party Gaming’s graph in ’06 come the UIGEA and their subsequent, calculated US pullout. But zoom out and you’ll see today’s rise for Party (now officially Bwin.Party Digital Entertainment) is merely a token blip in their long-term efforts to get back atop the online gaming world.

In fact, they had plummeted rather hard just this month as US legislative efforts began making it seem as if Stars and Tilt would be white-list operators in any future, regulated American online gaming economy.

Meanwhile, Scarlet got her hands on some detailed equity research from the venerable banking institution Barclay’s … assessing the impact of of the US DOJ’s actions on the European gaming market. Good in some spots, not as promising as some might think in others.

Click here to see for yourself.

The “bull case” they make, interestingly, is a scenario where both Stars and Tilt end up in full collapse.

The DOJ dropped an A-bomb on the online poker industry Friday, and, as you’d expect, the impact was devastating. Within hours of the DOJ’s indictments, PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker had shut down real money gaming in the US, effectively killing online poker and leaving millions of customers with nowhere to play.

And while the sites are scrambling to readjust to a world where approximately 40 percent or more of their business just disappeared and mount legal defenses for themselves and their executives, the fallout from Friday’s bombshells continues to spread far and wide from its epicenters in Dublin and the Isle of Man.

I could go on, but I’ll just end up depressing myself and that’s no fun.

While Full Tilt and Stars were certainly the two biggest poker sites operating in the states, their reach extends far beyond the virtual felt. Until Friday, these sites were the drivers of a whole industry that revolved around their players, television programs and live tournaments around the world. With the sites gone, the poker economy they supported is sure to follow.

As I write this, a number of my friends are getting trashed on Pisco Sours down in Peru, where they’re covering the end of an LAPT event for PokerStars and PokerNews. The sad fact is, though, this may be the end of poker reporting as we know it.

Providing live tournament coverage is expensive and resource-intensive, and sites like PokerNews can’t exist without financial underwriting provided by sites like Stars and Tilt. With those players now out of the US market, there’s no reason for them to be spending resources on tournament reporting when that money can be better spent on the high-priced legal teams they’re undoubtedly going to need to put in place. Bottom line – that WSOP coverage that everyone has been gearing up for next month probably isn’t going to happen.

More…

Pokerati Morlock here…we’ve installed and activated the Disqus commenting system. This addition allows you to now log in and comment with any number of popular social networking platforms like that Twitter dealio the kids use, and that Facebook whatchamacallit that your mom uses.

Should you run into any problems, leave a comment — we’ll find it and fix it.

Over and out…

A few interesting things have taken place since the implosion of online poker we’ve been warning you about here at Pokerati for about nine months became a reality.

We’ll save the 9/11 comparisons for later — because no one has died yet — and it’s just kinda coincidental that the DOJ has 9 charges against 11 defendants. But there seems to be a need for people to talk through these matters openly and honestly … and in kinda an organic way, the few truly independent operations (that don’t rely on Stars, Tilt, or UB for their existence) have come together to fill that void.

What began with appearances on an “EMERGENCY EPISODE!!!!” of Donkdown radio has migrated to a 24/7 live podcast put together by @AgentMarco from QuadJacks.

It’s been a rather loose-aggressive media emergence … with old-school cooperation in play. Pokerati has taken part … Tom Schneider, myself were on for the first few hours, Mark Gahagan is on now, and I’m about to rejoin to share some new information. Others that have been on have included Dutch Boyd, Scott Matusow, Micon-Brandon-and-Dandruff from Donkdown, The Maven, Kevmath, Pete the Blunt-smoker, Thomas the Rapper … as well as just regular ole online poker players sharing their stories about how a “little” government action has greatly affected their lives.

Anyhow, blah blah blah to infinity … the podcast that won’t stop is still going on — they’ve been going for 48 hours so far, with no sign of stopping, even if Marco eventually needs a nap. More than 1,000 listeners at this moment, so check out the chat room and keep it on for background music. Here’s the link:

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/day-2-qj-live-show

Funny how once the concept of “conversions” stopped mattering, 24/7 poker radio could finally emerge.

Fun and frivolous, even though in some ways it touches on serious issues such as cheating and stacked decks … Aussie magician James Galea’s “673 King Street” bit, which cleverly tells a story of a couple poker players out on the town before finding a game they can beat:

Clearly magic is rigged.

The first visible indicator that we will be able to see after Friday’s indictments might be coming up in just a few hours. The National Heads-Up Poker Championship is the first new show to air in this new online-pokerless environment in the United States, with its debut episode set to air at 12p ET on NBC.

Could be interesting to see what the advertisements during the broadcast are. If the network’s a bit slow in reacting it might be one of the last times we ever see a FullTilt or PokerStars advertisements on American airwaves. With the exception of a few WPT episodes in production or already in the can, it will almost certainly be one of the last times we see so many patches from the companies involved in Friday’s indictments on players.

The most troubling possibility is that it would not air at all. Sound ridiculous? Consider the following: Kevmath had a retweet late Saturday night in which @buckwild33 noted that a scheduled WSOP Main Event 2007 marathon was not airing and boxing was shown in its place.

While it would certainly be a stretch to try and correlate this change in broadcast schedule on ESPN in some way with the upcoming NHUPC broadcaston NBC, it certainly should not be dismissed outright. There will be several small milestones that come up periodically in the coming days, weeks, and months, and we who are most affected might want to pay attention to their outcomes.

The information that we may be able to get from these indicators could provide a significant portion of the information that comes our way as things progress. Both the sites and the DOJ are likely headed for a process that is going to go very slowly, and information will trickle out slowly.

Again, this is just the direction that my thought process brought me in, and I don’t claim to have any information that is unavailable to everyone else. I think the NHUPC is at least an interesting talking point and the first small event in a series of events that will eventually have effects on millions of people around the world. Now is the time to keep your eyes open.

On a side note, it’s interesting to see how the title sponsor of the NHUPC, GoDaddy, could be the least toxic element at this point in time. Who would have thought two weeks ago that Godaddy’s CEO’s elephant hunting fiasco would become old news so quickly.

We showed you the 52-page criminal complaint — 9 charges against 11 individuals facing between 5 and 30 years in prison. Now here’s the 80-page civil complaint in the DOJ vs. PokerStars, FullTilt, AP/UB, et al:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/53170382/3bb-Civil-Complaint-DOJ-vs-PokerStars-Full-Tilt-UB-AP-et-al

The Feds’ allegations tell a rather compelling narrative of illegal gambling, bank fraud, money laundering, and conspiracy to circumvent US law — that if proven calls for the forfeiture of not just domain names, but also:

$1.5 billion from PokerStars
$1 billion from Full Tilt
$500 million from UB/AP

The court documents also spell out the details on the 76 bank accounts money allegedly passed through … in multiple countries and currencies, making USA vs. PokerStars+ not just a federal case but also an international one. And with the US Feds seeking to freeze these accounts, industry types get a hint of which Stars- and Tilt-funded paychecks may soon be in jeopardy … if they aren’t already.

With the criminal indictment and civil complaint together, federal prosecutors Arlo Devlin Brown and crew, seem unafraid to telgraph their intent: People have to go to prison and we take their money, but if that’s not gonna work, we’re at least gonna get $3 billion guaranteed … and we now have two tries to take it down!

(I use the term we because these cases are technically “the people of United States of America vs.” … thus it really is you and I and my dad and grandma and her priest and the electrician and Bristol Palin and Justin Bieber … claiming that all those online poker spoils are rightfully ours.)

* * *

The regulated online poker-only “Reid bill”, if you recall, promised to generate $1 to $4 billion a year for the US government. So you gotta figure $3 billion in forfeitures buys another year for the forces who do wanna see fully legal licensed and regulated online poker — and other casino games — to craft a bill to their liking.