The DOJ’s virtual handcuffing of Full Tilt and PokerStars two weeks ago not only neutered two industry giants (who made billions in North America while others sat on the sidelines), but also supposedly leveled the playing field worldwide for US-abstainers who supposedly found it harder to compete in Europe or anywhere against companies benefitting from the vast liquidity American players provided.

Thus the inaugural iGaming North America conference in Las Vegas next week is kicking off their new-era industry confab with a special session called Assessing ‘Grey Friday’ and the Expected Fallout … get it? Black + White = Gray Grey.

Should be interesting to hear from gaming industry insiders who’ve never appeared on Poker After Dark or in Day 1 chip counts speaking about “the road to regulation”, as per the theme of @iGamNA‘s shindig.

Check out the lineup here. You’ll see both Stu and I are serving on panels. @GamingCounsel‘s gonna be schoolin’ about Canada …

… while I’m a panelist for the closing session:

There’s no live-stream as far as I know, but I’ll be sure to report back as influential industry experts (and a token blogger) assess the important questions moving forward … for me probably starting with, do I need to get a tie?

In each case it will depend on a factual determination of whether you are carrying on the business of being a poker player or a gambler.

Source Income

Very generally, the “income” in respect of which one is taxed in Canada is one’s “income from source” as set out in the Income Tax Act^[1] (the Canadian equivalent of the Internal Revenue Code). What is income from source? It is a productive source of revenue from an office, an employment, a property, a business, or (without limiting the generality of the foregoing) an “other source.” Income from betting or wagering isn’t from an office or employment, and it’s not conceptually like the rents, interest, royalties, or dividends that come from property. The courts in Canada have demonstrated a reluctance to extend tax liabilities to cover unenumerated sources (the “other source” referred to above) of income; it’s unlikely that any gambling activities would be included in unenumerated sources.

That leaves income from business. When one carries on business in Canada, whether as a resident or a non-resident, one is generally taxable on the profit associated with that business. So, can a gambler be carrying on the business of gambling? The answer is that it’s conceptually possible, but it’s not easy.

In order to carry on business as a gambler based on the decided cases, one has to carry on a business with a fairly high level of skill. The two most prominent cases where a person was found to be taxable on gambling winnings involved a professional golfer who made money wagering on his own performance in matches^[2] and a snooker player who hustled drunks in money games.^[3]

There is an old paragraph of the Act called “right to a prize” that provides as follows: “a taxpayer’s gain or loss from the disposition of (i) a chance to win a prize or bet, or (ii) a right to receive an amount as a prize or as winnings on a bet, in connection with a lottery scheme or a pool system of betting referred to in section 205 of the Criminal Code, is nil.”^[4] While this language appears straightforward, this paragraph is of limited assistance and raises more questions than it answers; section 205 of the Criminal Code was repealed in 1985.

Lotteries, Games of Chance & Sports Betting

It’s safe to say that a person in Canada winning a lottery prize or winning at a game of pure chance (e.g., craps, roulette, or slots) is not subject to Canadian income tax on those receipts and, in fact, no modern reported case that I am aware of has found such receipts to be taxable. This makes intuitive sense as it would be difficult to imagine anyone actually making a commercial living based on pure chance.^[5]

What about sports betting? In perhaps the leading case on the taxation of gambling winnings in Canada right now,^[6] these kinds of winnings were not held to be taxable. The taxpayers in that case played the provincial sports lotteries. Even though they were financially successful, devoted themselves to the activity full-time, and had an organized and systematic approach to playing the lotteries and comparing posted odds to the Vegas odds, the court concluded that they were compulsive gamblers “continually trying their luck at a game of chance.”

The Poker Situation

Poker, however, provides an interesting possible counterpoint. Again, for most people, and certainly for the casual player, there will be a presumption against taxation of poker winnings as they will not be from a business. But what of the professional^[7] poker player? Although there is no remotely recent case holding that a professional player is taxable on her profits from poker, it’s possible to see how such a case could be made by the government. Among other indicia, if a resident in Canada is successful in poker with solid and consistent profits from the activity over a number of taxation years, has no material income-earning occupation other than playing poker (or related to playing poker – sponsorships, for example), and is a student of the game and works at learning and improving her game, then it seems likely that that resident would be classified as carrying on the business of being a professional poker player and be taxable on her profits from the game.

Making an actual determination like this would be extremely difficult. Where is the tipping point at which a taxpayer makes the leap from an amateur player to a professional sufficiently devoted to poker, consistently winning, and making good money? These things are much easier to nail down in theory than in practice. This is part of the reason that the Canada Revenue Agency is reluctant to assess people as having income from carrying on the business of playing poker; if business profits are taxable, then business losses can be also used to reduce income from that business and (in the case of individuals) from other businesses or from employment. If the government gets overly aggressive with taxing poker players, it could eventually find that it results in a net drain on Canada’s tax revenues.

How could the tax laws in Canada apply in a land-based poker tournament being held in Canada pursuant to applicable provincial laws and regulations? This is an interesting question. An amateur player would likely not be taxable, but let’s assume that a professional poker player who is resident in Canada wins such a tournament. Again, based on an analysis that the player has the hallmarks of a professional poker player discussed above, those winnings would likely be included in the player’s income from a business.

What of a United States resident professional player winning such a tournament? Non-residents are generally taxable on income earned from carrying on a business in Canada, and “carrying on business” in this context is broadly defined.^[8] However, the Canada-US Income Tax Convention (the “Treaty”) provides that where a US resident is carrying on business in Canada, the business profits are taxable by Canada only if the US resident is carrying on business through a permanent establishment. Permanent establishment in the Convention is an inclusive definition, which means the examples given are not exhaustive – things can be permanent establishments even though they’re not specifically itemized. However, this enumerated list includes structures and relationships like a branch, an office, a factory, a construction site, and an agent in Canada habitually exercising authority to conclude contracts in the name of her principal. It’s highly unlikely that a non-resident coming to Canada and playing in one land-based tournament and then leaving the country would be seen to have a permanent establishment in Canada.

Therefore, it doesn’t appear that a US professional playing at a Canadian land-based tournament would be subject to tax in Canada under the terms of the Treaty, which also suggests that the tournament would not withhold on any payments to that non-resident. Indeed, there appears to be no withholding obligation for such a payment to a non-resident in the Act. (In each case of a non-resident, it will be important to know what her home country’s tax convention with Canada says, if in fact the two countries have signed one.)

Income Derived From an Illegal Source

Dissolution brings to an end all business before both houses of Parliament. All government bills and private members’ bills are terminated and, to be resurrected, will need to be re-introduced in the next Parliament.

The upshot is that Joe Comartin’s bill to liberalize sports betting laws in Canada, discussed here and here, is now dead. We will have to wait and see what the membership of the House of Commons looks like after the election and whether Mr. Comartin (if re-elected) will re-introduce the measure.

You can listen to the podcast here:

(In case you can’t get the above link to work, another off-site link to the podcast is here.) Enjoy!

Joe Comartin, Member of Parliament for Windsor-Tecumseh, has been trying to change this for awhile. Last Friday, he introduced a Private Member’s Bill to do it. The bill (C-627 – An act to amend the Criminal Code – sports betting) is short; its one paragraph provides that paragraph 207(4)(b) of the Code is deleted in its entirety. This would have the effect of removing the single event carve-out; the provinces implicitly would be able to offer single game or event bets. Comartin’s electoral district is in Windsor, Ontario, across the Canada-US border from Detroit and adjacent to the riding in which is found Caesars Windsor, one of the casino resorts in Ontario. Comartin wants to make this legislative change to attract more business from Ontario and Michigan to a major employer in Windsor.

Paragraph 207(4)(b) was first enacted as part of the 1985 amendments to the Part VII (Disorderly Houses, Gaming and Betting) provisions of the Code. While there are no decisions of the Canadian courts on paragraph 207(4)(b) with respect to sports betting, it would clearly be open to a court to infer that the prohibition on single game sports betting was to minimize the risk of match-fixing.

Bill C-627 is what’s called a “private member’s bill.” As to the House of Commons, these are measures introduced by MPs that are not ministers of the government. They don’t authorize the expenditure of public funds – only government bills can do that - and they cannot order the government to take action. They are merely “an expression of opinion by the House.” Private members’ bills must address a subject under the heads of power (or the residual power) reserved to the federal government under the Constitution Act, 1867. The time allotted to debate private members’ bills in Parliament is also restricted. Private members’ bills, as a result, don’t pass that often, although, statistically, they pass more often in a minority government setting. (The Conservative Party is currently running a minority government in the House of Commons.)

This bill likely won’t pass, but it should. It will not fix the problems with provincially-run sports betting in Canada. For example, sophisticated bettors have long complained about the poor odds on offer from the provincial monopolies, among other things. Smart gamblers are already placing bets using private offshore Internet sites, and this amendment won’t change that. Nor does this measure address the continuing tension between the provisions of the Code and what certain First Nations groups in Canada claim (convincingly) is a constitutionally-protected right to conduct and manage Internet gaming and betting.

However, Bill C-627 at least goes some way towards acknowledging that the Internet sports betting industry exists and must be having an effect on the provincial monopolies. It adds some measure of reality to the criminal law in Canada which, with each passing day, seems more anachronistic as it relates to Internet gambling.

1. Crespo v. Online Poker - Interesting complaint filed in the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division filed on October 12^th. In a nutshell: A resident of Florida named Scott Crespo, who may or may not play poker online (there’s no indication from the complaint that he does or not), is suing residents of Illinois under an Illinois statute for money they purportedly won from other online poker players who may or may not be residents of Illinois. Oh, and Crespo apparently didn’t lose any money. He wants triple the amount of the unclaimed “losses” of others accruing to the defendants. Illinois was chosen because it’s one of a handful of states that have third party recovery statutes. As a gaming attorney I know in the US put it: We have way too many lawyers with nothing productive to do. [US District Court]

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2. Betfair IPO Numbers – The Betfair IPO seemed to hit the top end of what analysts were predicting as the company’s market capitalization. Betfair was valued at £1.4 billion on flotation. Fully £200 million was raised on the IPO. [Herald Scotland]

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3. Harrah’s IPO Imminent - More news from the public markets: Harrah’s is heading back to the public marketplace with an estimated $575 million offering. The money is likely to be used for new casino projects in Las Vegas and Ohio, not to pay down debt. We’ll have to wait and see how this offering fares, but there are definitely challenges ahead. [Wall Street Journal]

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4. Canadian I-Gaming Split - While certain provinces are keen to enter the interactive gaming market, others are throwing cold water on the idea. Ontario and Quebec have announced that they’re coming out with online offerings; British Columbia already offers an online experience at www.playnow.com. However, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, and Prince Edward Island recently announced that they’re not comfortable with participating in Internet gambling at this point. These latter three provinces are small - PEI is the smallest province in Canada, both geographically and in terms of population - but, interestingly, they’re part of the Atlantic Lotteries Corporation, which is working with BC and Quebec on sharing liquidity on a common Internet poker platform. [Globe and Mail; CBC]

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5. IMGL Conference in Madrid - The International Masters of Gaming Law is the pre-eminent organization for gaming attorneys and other gaming experts. Their Fall conference is on from October 24^th-26^th in Madrid and, as usual, it’s an interesting lineup and series of sessions. I’ll be tweeting on different panels and speakers throughout the conference; check out my tweet stream if you’re interested. [Gaming Law Masters]

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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]

Amongst the Americans, we’ve got:

California – 5
Florida – 3
Washington State – 2
Minnesota – 1
Kansas – 1
Texas – 1
Wisconsin – 1

Nevada – 0

That last number is particularly interesting to me. Though haven’t added up the total cash won in the main event, Nevadans got so shut out of the big money it’s almost weird. Only one player — Robert Pisano from Las Vegas — made the starting 27 today, but is already out having finished 23rd.

UPDATE: 17 left, as Scott Clements from Mt. Vernon, WA just went out.

They already offer online lottery tickets, online bingo, sports betting, competitive crossword puzzles (for money), and online mini-golf. While we may want to balk at newcomers trying to get in on the international action with their own localized version of it, ALC could be an interesting group to watch. They’ve already got mobile platforms in play, partnerships with brick and mortar casinos, and have some quite different sorts of marketing ideas to the table. For example, currently spreading the viral word of ALC’s games is a money contest catering to those with social media prowess to get your dog featured on a lottery ticket.

Why do I think that no matter what does or doesn’t pass legislatively around the world in the next few years that online poker will look very different in the not-too-distant future? Kinda shocked that we haven’t yet seen the Spuds McKenzie of Poker.

RELATED: This comes in the wake of Quebec planning on its own provincial online poker set-up — an attempt to “cannibalize illegal gambling sites” — before (temporarily?) pulling the plug just last week at the frantic request of health officials fearing major addiction problems for certain Canadian hosers.

Internet Gambling Payment Processor Charged With Bank Fraud, Money Laundering and Illegal Gambling Offenses

NEW YORK, Aug. 6 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Lev L. Dassin, the Acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and Joseph M. Demarest, Jr., the Assistant Director-in-Charge of the New York Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), announced today the filing of an indictment charging Douglas Rennick with bank fraud and other offenses stemming from his role in processing more than $350 million for Internet gambling companies. According to the indictment filed yesterday in Manhattan federal court:

Since at least 2007 through June 2009, Rennick opened a number of bank accounts in the United States under various corporate names, such as KJB Financial Corporation, Account Services Corporation and Check Payment Financial Co. In opening the accounts, he and his co-conspirators falsely represented that the accounts would be used for such purposes as issuing rebate checks, refund checks, sponsorship checks, affiliate checks and minor payroll processing. In fact, Rennick and his co-conspirators used the
accounts to receive funds from offshore Internet gambling companies that offered, variously, poker, blackjack, slots and other casino games. Rennick and his co-conspirators then disbursed those funds via checks to U.S. residents seeking to cash out their gambling winnings. Rennick and his co-conspirators provided false and misleading information to U.S. banks about the purpose of the accounts because the banks would not have processed the transactions had they known they were gambling-related. In
total, Rennick and his co-conspirators processed more than $350 million transferred from a Cyprus bank account to various U.S. bank accounts for this purpose.

Rennick is charged with one count each of conspiracy to commit bank fraud, conspiracy to engage in money laundering and conspiracy to operate an illegal gambling business. If found guilty, Rennick faces a maximum term of 30 years in prison and a $1 million fine on the bank fraud charge, 20 years in prison and a $500,000 fine on the money laundering charge, and five years in prison and a $250,000 fine on the gambling charge. The indictment also seeks the forfeiture of at least approximately
$565,908,288, which represents the amount of proceeds obtained as a result of the illegal gambling and bank fraud conspiracies. The case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Sidney H. Stein.

Rennick, 34, currently resides in Canada. Mr. Dassin praised the investigative work of the FBI and thanked the
Department of Homeland Security’s U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Internal Revenue Service for their assistance in the investigation. Mr. Dassin added that the investigation is continuing.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Arlo Devlin-Brown and Jonathan New are in charge of the prosecution, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Alberts is in charge of the forfeiture in this case.

The charges contained in the indictment are merely accusations, and the defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.

They’ve been updated through 33 events … and whether or not it matters to you, are now presented by our good even better friends at Betfair. (They were kind enough to pay for the little flags you can now see in the sidebar — because who doesn’t like little flags?)

Click here to see the Pokerati World Standings in further detail.

Obviously it’s all about the bracelets (and associated spoils) … because with a second WSOP victory, Canada has asserted itself as more than just a suburb of the United States. Not quite a poker superpower yet –but capable of outplaying nuclear-armed countries and just about all other icy, hockey-loving socialist domains.

And speaking of … Sweden showed up in the Top 10 this week, letting us all know that there’s more than just Finland and Denmark (sooo 2008) to Scandiland. But the big arrival, in the eyes of this Nevada-based Texan, is Mexico. Hmm, wonder if a recent surge in Latino marketing by poker bizzers has had an effect … or vice versa.

As is the case with individual winners, one bracelet doesn’t mean much — I mean OK, I know it’s a huge accomplishment yadda yadda, but in the bigger scheme of things you kinda need at least two … though it does mean at least a few of us are keeping our eyes open for future results.

Other interesting occurrences (to me) in this recent update that may or may not be coincidental:

The $2,000 NLH final table (that Angel Guillen won for Mexico) had a distinctly non-American flavor — with only three players from the USA to make it that far.

Both Dakotas (North and South) — hardly very powerful poker states — both cashed in $1,500 HORSE.

California still has yet to miss the money in any event … but they are virtually dead even with their neighbors in Nevada in terms of bracelets and money won.

We’re doing much better this year, btw, in terms of accuracy. So far, through 33 events, official WSOP records have 42 cashes and $285k in regional limbo the Pokerati World Standings have only 5 of 3,339 ITM finishes unaccounted for — a total of $16,439 waiting to be claimed/taxed.

He says, to clarify:

That’s not entirely what I said. What I said was that many hockey fans (Canadian or not) won’t touch the Cup without having been on the team. Some will touch it – but not all. We don’t have any issues with people who do touch it – some of us just prefer not to tempt the hockey gods into punishing us OR our team again.

NHLers are all over Vegas this week — mostly for tomorrow night’s NHL Awards, which guys like Daniel Negreanu plan to attend regardless of what tournament he’s missing. And today they’ll be all over the WSOP — along with the Stanley Cup, which will be on stage as JC Tran receives his bracelet to the tune of the Star-Spangled Banner. Should be pretty cool, as nonsensical as it may seem.

I touched the Stanley Cup in ’99 (Stars!), and at least one Canadian tells me his people are none-too-happy with my ignorant yankee soilage of the ice people’s grail. In their eyes, apparently, you’re not supposed to touch it, even if your team wins, unless you played an active role in winning it. I suppose it’s like taking communion at a Catholic church if you haven’t received the sacrament and cleared your soul of mortal sins. But whatever … Pantera got to dent it.

Anyhow, there’s a special hockey-themed tournament at the WSOP today — The NHL Charity Shootout Presented by Pokerstars.net — a 5th televised event that non-PokerStars players have no chance of getting in on, as much fun as it would be to send Matusow or Hellmuth to the penalty box:

The NHL Charity Shootout Presented By Pokerstars.net will be taped to create four hours of TV to air on ESPN Classic and ESPN2 in the US and TSN in Canada and NHL Networkâ„¢ throughout North America. Stars scheduled to participate in the tournament include current NHL players Roberto Luongo (Vancouver Canucks), Alex Ovechkin (Washington Capitals), Mike Richards (Philadelphia Flyers), Jeremy Roenick (San Jose Sharks), Sheldon Souray (Edmonton Oilers), Steve Sullivan (Nashville Predators) and Kris Versteeg (Chicago Blackhawks). NHL legends Pat LaFontaine, Cam Neely and Luc Robitaille also will play alongside celebrity participants and poker professionals Chris Moneymaker, Greg Raymer and Vanessa Rousso.

Play will begin with a round of No Limit Texas Hold’em in a shootout format in which each table plays down to a single winner. The surviving players will move on to play for incredible prizes adding up to more than $150,000 for charity. Portion of the proceeds go to the Ronald McDonald House of Las Vegas as well as NHLPA Goals & Dreams Fund. Each participating NHL player will receive $2,000 for a designated charity of his choice

Have a look at the pics taken last night, after they set up the stage for today’s big event. where the Corum bracelet display has been replaced by a hockey net, the felt has been done up to look like a hockey rink, and faux boards have been erected in front of the front row — begging fans to bang on the glass in anticipation of a big river. It’s totally gonna fall down, I’m sure! Should make for good TV!

One of today’s bracelets goes to Sweden. Any chance Tomas Alenius will request the Finnish national anthem be played — you know, to make things right in Scandiland? Doubt it …

In addition to Alenius’ bracelet, the UK picked up two in recent days, and Canada one — making things start to look a bit more normal … it’s not all about the Russians this year. In fact, are they still here?

And though Europe has caught up with the two US powerhouses (Nevada and California), they actually lost a bracelet (and some other cashes), as we’ve corrected Jeff Lisandro’s results to show up on behalf of his new homeland, Australia. (This way this data is collected, player info comes from whatever’s attached to their Harrah’s Total Rewards card … so if they haven’t updated their info in, say, several years … the old address is what’s on record.)

Lisandro’s defection from Italy to a land down under also altered the tertiary emerging market standings — with Asia-Pacific re-taking a slight lead over Latin America — despite Chile and Bolivia getting their first cashes of the year.

Texas has finally taken down a bracelet, btw.

And a player from Wasilla, Alaska, finished in the money — there’s a town we wouldn’t have taken note of in last year’s WSOP. It’s Canadian neighbors in the Yukon Territory also got on the board.

Hong Kong also made some money.

And though we don’t really track by cities, apparently Chicago is really good at sit-n-gos, as the Windy City sat three players at the final table in the $1,500 NLH-Shootout. Could just be variance, of course, but for now we’ll pretend it’s not.

California is the only region, btw, with someone to cash in every single event so far. Nevada players (mostly Las Vegans) have cashed in every tournament but one — the $1,500 7cs that Jeff Lisandro won (representing Italy).

“Europe” has cashed in every single event.

One of the biggest surprise shifts has taken place at the bottom of the table — could you theoretically have relegation in poker? — where the Latin Americans have come on strong to surpass the Asia-Pacifickers in bringing home the most skrilla. Most of this comes on the backs of Mexicans, specifically Angel Guillen’s $318k 2nd place score in $2,500 NLH, which a dozen Aussie ITM finishers and a Korean have not been able to match.

Click here to view the complete Pokerati’s complete 2009 WSOP World Standings.

Perhaps in the future the WSOP could take a note from Facebook, allowing players to enter both a current city and a hometown … so say a guy like Daniel Negreanu were to win, he would be tallied for both Canada and the USA, and would have a choice over what anthem he wants to play at his bracelet ceremony. Lots of potential “fun” controversy in that … and we’d finally get to see how good all those California-centric (but US-scattered) Vietnamese really are.

Some newcomers to the 2009 WSOP money:

Both Slovenia and Slovakia booked a cash.

Also … Rhode Island
Nebraska
Washington DC
Puerto Rico
Delaware

The UK is making a charge to challenge the Russians.

And where’s Denmark, who were certainly more than just Peter Eastgate last year? The Scandis would be doing little if it were not for a few Finns this year.

Texas is the top money-winner without a bracelet.

Mad props to the Hawaiians, who thanks to Lisa Hamilton’s bracelet in the Ladies event, silenced the Alaskans who briefly looked like they were gonna stake a claim to extra-continental American poker supremacy.

With just a few hundred dollars of separation, Maine and Spain are also in a kinda tight race money-wise. They rhyme.

It’s been fun keeping track of the 2008 WSOP by city-nation-state … taught me a lot about something — what exactly, I’m not yet sure. But I did get a clearer picture of just how significant the main event really is compared to all other poker tourneys. Just a little more than a week ago, I wrote:

Unless something really funky happens in the main event, it looks like Nevada has the edge on California when it comes to home base for the best poker players in the world.

Well I guess something funky did happen, because even with the biggest prize-pool distributions TBD, California poker players absolutely dominated in the 2008 main event (93 cashes, 2 final tableists)… while the Nevadans (mostly Las Vegas-based, of course) seemed to be napping, or perhaps just resting on their laurels (49 cashes, 0 final tableists). Regardless, looking at the 55 events that comprised the 2008 WSOP, I think it’s clear that the visitors can stake their claim: California is the Poker Capitol of the World … at least for now.

GREAT DANES: Another big surprise (to me) — apparently the Scandis aren’t so overrated after all. Denmark in particular showed up at the main event ready to play, and not only did they get one of their own on the final table, but also they performed so well in the latter events that they scooched past a bunch of other supposed Europoker powerhouses in the money won. The best non-American players, according to these results, in order: Canadians, Brits, and then the Danes … who actually could move past the Brits come November … and if you add the Danish in with the rest of the Scandis, it’s clear that Scandinavia and the UK are like the California and Nevada of European poker.

GERMAN ENGINEERING: The Deutsch, of course, also have a legitimate claim to European badassness after the 2008 WSOP — with three bracelets proving that while maybe Germany couldn’t take home as much money overall, they have at least a few players who know how to close it down when the opportunity is in front of them.

RED DAWN: And really it’s no surprise that the Russians made their statement this WSOP — we all heard they were coming, and indeed they did. Who is Nikolay Evdakov anyway? I mean other than the guy who smashed the record for most cashes in a World Series. At the same time, like so many who get kinda big heads, the Ruskies pretty much got their asses kicked overall in the main event — only four little cashes, but they do have one (scary) player at the final table,

(By the way, we’ll have to talk later about why Full Tilt won’t do business with the Russians.)

COOL RUNNINGS: Rory Chinn became the first and most irie Jamaican to cash in the 2008 WSOP, finishing 533rd in the main event, for $25,090. Pauly et al salute you … and your people every day.

Plausibly related, Steven Rosen from Armonk, New York, finished in 420th place, receiving a very Hammery payout of $27,020.

POSITIVE LATTITUDE: Two other newcomers to the WSOP money: Ecuador and Nova Scotia.

These numbers represent results of the 2008 WSOP through 54.9987 of 55 events. And $180.7 million awarded, with a possible error of + or – $185 (or .0001percent).

There is still $24,527,416 and one bracelet being fought for — by representatives from Ontario(2), California(2), Russia(1), Texas(1), Missouri(1), Denmark(1), and New York(1).

All of the above have been credited with 9th place money – $900,670 – which has been removed from the remaining prize pool.

Full list of WSOP results by country, state, and/or province here.

From Pokerblog.com:

Party Player Profile: The Foot
By: Dan Michalski – August 04, 2006

Mike Wilson from Canada did not make it to Day 3, but he considers his first WSOP a success regardless. As a competitive bridge player, he’s no stranger to big national tourneys. But Texas Hold’em is relatively new to “The Foot.”

He started playing online after leaving a local casino “ticked off” — not just because they wouldn’t accomodate his special needs, but because, he says, they were jerks about it in the process. So he signed up with PartyPoker because he just wanted to play the game like everyone else. After playing online for less than a week, he won a 3,500-player Party freeroll and a seat in the main event at the WSOP.

(Harrah’s, by the way, was accommodating, allowing him to have a friend sit nearby simply to help him push in big stacks of chips when necessary, and restack them when he won a pot.)

As mentioned, Wilson’s been eliminated. But he’s still in Vegas and can likely be found rolling the dice at a nearby craps table.