Apparently our good friends across the pond are a bit more optimistic about the notion of the US opening its online gambling market in 2010 than we are … and in preparation, the buzz around England is that Betfair — the British online poker-and-more company and title sponsor of WSOP-Europe — is getting serious about making an estimated £1.5 billion ($2.5 billion) initial public offering.

The intent would be to raise capital in preparation for all sorts of crazy consolidation and forthcoming acquisitions in the online gambling sector.

At least one Betfair exec dismisses the talk as little more than speculation, despite meetings with Credit Suisse and other banking advisors that have the European financial press getting their knickers in a bunch as “companies seek to position themselves to enter the world’s biggest gambling market.” Should the rumored floatation happen, it would be the first major listing on the London Stock Exchange since the global economic collapse.

$400k HORSE

At the same time, Betfair last week made another move toward American soil by pledging $400,000 to the New York (Horse) Racing Association as an overlay should two specific horses face off against each other in October at Belmont Park:

Rachel Alexandra, the first filly to win the second leg of horse racing’s Triple Crown since 1924, has won her last eight races. Zenyatta is undefeated in 12 career starts, including the 2008 Breeders’ Cup Ladies Classic.

LOL, I didn’t even realize they had ladies events in horse racing!

Across the Chunnel: Refashioning French Poker

Arnault.

Betfair also just got themselves approved to enter France’s online gambling market, which is set to open next year … apparently with some nice poker-friendly alterations to the rake. (The new French law originally had players paying tax on every bet and raise, on every street … which can totally screw with your pot-odds calculations!) Helping get Betfair to the front of the French licensing line, with a better rake structure no less? Heavy lobbying efforts from billionaire bling merchant Bernard Arnault, CEO of Louis Vuitton, 10 percent owner of Betfair, and the 15th richest person in the world.

New-and-improved Yahoo! Poker Coming Soon

We’re talking Yahoo! Uk & Ireland, of course, not Yahoo! USA. The British arm of the web behemoth just re-upped its partnership with GTech G2, for two years, to provide real-money gaming options — and part of that deal includes plans to unveil a fully downloadable real-money Yahoo! poker room, not just the (lame) in-browser version currently available.

Magazine Moguls Jump into Mobile Gambling

PartyGaming CEO Jim Ryan recently said that the biggest threat to established online gaming brands comes from major media outlets, not current competitors. And sure enough … Dennis Publishing — the mega-magazine company behind Maxim, MacUser, Computer Shopper, Bizarre, Men’s Fitness, and more than a dozen other publications (including PokerPlayer, Inside Poker Business, and Stacked) — just launched its Monkey Mobile Casino, offering real-money online gambling on handheld devices. (The current issue of Monkey, fwiw, features a picture of Lady Gaga’s recent nipple slip.

The Swedish Taxman Cometh

Meanwhile, the Swedish Tax Authority (Skatteverket) has been studying all forms of internet commerce tax evasion since 2007, and has concluded that online poker companies with offshore servers are one of their biggest sources of uncollected e-commerce taxes.

Happy Saturday, ya’ll! This is Dan here, taking over for KevMath this morning so he can enjoy a well-deserved day off to show him who’s boss. So here we go, recapping last night’s action from the Amazon room and beyond … (brought to you by the internet):

Players to Watch

Brunson

Lisandro

Rouhani

Smith

Schneider

Vahedi

Brunson Bracelet Countdown

In the $10k 7CS-HL (or “Split” as @TexDolly calls it) Doyle Brunson is going for his Hellmuth-tying 11th bracelet, while Jeff Lisandro looks for his second of 2009 while making a surge up the Player of the Year leaderboard. Below’s who’s left. No plans yet (as far as we know) for Bluff or ESPN360 to be carrying this live — though we wouldn’t be surprised if that changed should Brunson and/or Scotty Nguyen make the final table.

Abe Mosseri 950,000
Jeff Lisandro 786,000
Doyle Brunson 525,000
Farzad Rouhani 494,000
Yan Chen 476,000
Perry Friedman 378,000
Lyle Berman 333,000
Scotty Nguyen 298,000
Frank Mariani 267,000
Justin ‘Boosted J’ Smith 237,000
Mike Wattel 96,000
Anthony Rivera 92,000

Rouhani, btw, is Iranian. In case you poker-only degens weren’t aware, there’s some big shit going down in his homeland right now — and to some extent (especially after Iran’s protesty soccer team got eliminated from World Cup contention this week) isn’t a 7-Stud Hi-Lo World Championship exactly what that country needs?

Advanced Beginners

In $2,000 NLH, 17 (out of 1,695) players remain — competing for prizes ranging from $21k to $586k. You may not recognize many of the remaining players in this one, but most have found success in smaller tourneys, circuit events, and, of course, online. Spread around the final two tables, there are zero bracelets in the mix, 49 WSOP cashes, and six WSOP Circuit money finishes. The favorite is probably Jordan Smith (from Texas!). Click here to follow throughout the day and see who’s really ready to step up on a bigger stage.

Oh Brother, Who Art Thou?

In the $2,000 Limit Hold’em event, 107 out of 446 players remain. David Baker is the chip leader, while some known names still alive in the field waiting to get eliminated include Scott Lazar, Rafe Furst, Diego Cordovez, Phil Hellmuth, Greg “FBT” Mueller, John Monnete, Marcel Luske, Maria Ho, Daniel Negreanu, Mike Schneider (part of some strange Minnesota Limit Posse), Shannon Shorr, and Abdol Vahedi — who for the moment we are presuming is Amir Vahedi’s brother or at least cousin, as both Iranians hail from Sherman Oaks, CA. Day 2 gets underway at 2 pm pacific — click here to see who else is left in the field and where they’re sitting.

So there you have it. Hopefully KevMath will be back next week, or otherwise you may never have it again.

Yours truly, meanwhile, got a call from some of his old homies and will be playing (poker, not basketball) in an NBA charity event later today.

Just some early-morning semi-pokery stuff that’s caught my eye … actually, first part’s not so pokery, but I think a lot of poker fans might be curious about this upcoming ESPN piece on the governor’s efforts in Delaware to bring sports betting to that state:

(And no wonder Doyle Brunson loves it in Montana.)

E:60 Delaware Betting Preview

And this job ad, for a new position in London … Investigator – Poker Specialist. I don’t have much to say about the specific position (London usually means PartyPoker, but not always) … except that I’ve never seen such a title before. New.

Key Responsibilities:

• Fraud prevention, detection and investigation
• Understanding of international online payment methods
• Knowledge of Money Laundering detection and regulation
• Knowledge of foreign language/customs
• Experience of reading Poker hands in relation to chip dumping cases.

First, a link from the San Antonio Express-News showing that our efforts to legalize poker in Texas are taking hold:

Legalized poker rooms in Texas closer to a reality

And in Florida, which is in the midst of its own mini-poker boom after legalizing the game a couple years ago, is continuing to improve the game, pushing forth legislation to raise cash-game limits and allow for bigger buy-in tourneys:

Florida House plan raises poker stakes

What’s particularly interesting about Florida isn’t so much the poker, but the tax-tweaking related to it. And with that, the ussual opposition seems to be taking a different tack:

The House plans to expand poker and lower the tax rate are paired with an effort to shut down blackjack tables at Seminole resorts.

Fellow Republicans in the state Senate, though, have a different vision. To maximize revenues, senators want to authorize full casinos at Seminole resorts, complete with craps and roulette, as well as blackjack at South Florida tracks and bingo-style slots at facilities across the state. The Senate goes even farther than the House, allowing no-limit poker wagering.

Meanwhile, a pretty good summary of gambling-related initiatives in Texas comes from an email sent out by our opposition in the Christian Life Coalition. And the poli-blogger who subscribes acknowledges that while he is plausibly opposed to much that has to do with expanded gambling in the state, he still endorses Jose Menendez’s HB 222:

Of all the various gambling expansion options I’ve seen, allowing for poker seems to me to be the most sensible and least potentially harmful. Plus, as a bridge player who has had the chance to play for money legally, I think poker is a legitimate game of skill and should be treated as such. In fact, poker players in Pennsylvania and South Carolina recently won court rulings that agreed poker is a game of skill. As such, it’s not clear to me that the AG’s opinion would agree with the CLC about the inherent level of chance here. Of course, I Am Not A Lawyer, and Lord only knows what Greg Abbott will do.

Yeah. People are starting to get it. Go Poker!

Coming soon, at least in theory …

Poker Face Wine — my guess: an Australian Shiraz.

Bingo Poker – some silly card game. Knowing nothing about it, I give it no chance of catching on … with anyone.

Multiple Round Pokers — a casino-game variant of poker, played against the house and without shuffling? Plural? I don’t really get it, but I kinda like the bad beat bonus circle!

UPDATE: Oops, the above is from 2006. I guess it didn’t catch on …

Round Card Poker — either poker baseball cards or maybe a Magic: The Gathering-style game? Possibly just cards cut in circles?

With a cold coming on, I juiced up on cold medicine and headed down to Commerce Casino last night for the pre-tournament WPT Invitational cocktail party. In more of a stuffy-headed fog now, I give you a few observations from the festivities:

photo: pokergossip

William Hung was the first “celebrity” I noticed, as he arrived as soon as the red carpet was ready for action. And the poor guy was the only one from the red carpet featured by Perez Hilton today, and not featured in a particularly good way.

Food was excellent as usual, with a random assortment of Asian and Greek set-ups, along with the yum-yum appetizers floating around the room on waiters’ trays.

No DJ in the outdoor area like last year’s event, but it actually made for a more conversation-friendly atmosphere on the patio.

Wicked Chops scored seats in the tournament. I spent way too much time trying to figure out how that happened.

photo: pokergossip

Reports of the demise of the Phil Laak/Jennifer Tilly relationship were evidently untrue, as the two looked typically couple-y as usual – Jennifer in a beautiful outfit, Phil in saggy jeans and a hoodie.

Some celebrities on the “confirmed” list were no-shows, such as Camryn Manheim, Montel Williams, and Nelly. (Yes, I was more than disappointed about one of those absences!)

CORRECTION: Manheim was there, and Jen was still disappointed. -DM

Shannon Elizabeth and Derek Hough are still a couple and just as adorable as ever, with Shannon checking on Derek and his amateur poker experiences throughout the evening.

Contrary to all reports from the tournament, Antonio Esfandiari was not the first person eliminated from the tournament, as Mike “SirWatts” Watson (former WPT champion) was out of the tournament and standing with us at the bar when that announcement was made. Ouch.

New to my social radar were Mike Watson and Shane Schleger, both of whom were introduced to me by Gavin Griffin and Kristin Roberts and very nice to chat with.

Also met Jamie Gold for the first time, who was extremely friendly and psyched about his Aced Poker affiliation, though my question about his possible ownership in the company was met with the standard “details of the contract cannot be disclosed” line. Good brief chat anyway. (His calling card gives him the title “Poker Philanthropist.”)

Mekhi Phifer took the reigns during the rebuy period, grabbing the mic and encouraging players to rebuy (or even just donate) to his charity, The Vine Group, to help educational efforts in Africa. He was a great spokesperson for the organization and raised $78,270 for it, while managing to maintain his usual humble but outrageously sexy demeanor.

A few people have asked me WTF I’m talking about saying that November 2008 will go down as an historical month where everything changes/d. To spell it out, you have:

The November Nine — historic simply as it pertains to the conclusion of a single not-so-little tournament that seems to be the barometer for all things related to the poker industry.

Midnight Rule-push for UIGEA Regs — we’re just one of 100 single-issues affected by the Bush administration’s attempts to party it up like frat boys and trash the joint before checking out … but regardless, it means we have a whole bunch of additional clean-up to do.

60 Minutes/Washington Post Exposés — whether it’s determined to be fair-and-balanced good-for-poker coverage or a damning hatchet job hacked with a double-edged blade of lies … the Thanksgiving weekend stories represent the official exposure of the online poker biz, hairy warts and all, to the non-poker world.

Clonie Gowen vs. Full Tilt Lawsuit — a loyal soldier turns on her poker-biz commanders, with attempts to air grievances in American court threatening to bring the multibillion-dollar operations of a super-private jurisdictionally challenged business into the public domain. While FTP reps actively petition the Feds to let them open these books but only if they can pay extra taxes, the former Full Tilt covergirl arms herself with a taser gun and takes aiming at a Red Pro.

Formation of Cereus — the two most scandal-ridden online poker sites officially join forces to create a recovering cheater supersite, flooding their own tables with “refund” money to keep the action moving.

Plug Pulled on PokerBlog.com — hardly the biggest deal in the bigger picture … but PartyPoker’s apologetic canning of Dr. Tim represents a new fiscal reality facing even the most legitimate of online poker sites and their workers.

Introduction of HB 222 in Texas — Take 2 on trying to bring the game that had everything to do with the creation of an $18 billion industry (subject to all the hubbub above) back home where it belongs.

All this, of course, is going on in the midst of a major lawsuit related to internet authority in Kentucky — where unprecedented government action has shaken up/down the online poker industry, forcing noticeable shifts in business ops and resource allocation. Clearly:

Just got back on the grid and playing electronic catch-up … here are some of the things that are making good browser viewing, but not quite stimulating a full-fledged post:

Jay Busbee (from Bluff) has a good State of the Poker Union address on ESPN.com, where he officially declares the poker boom dead. Also interesting to see ESPN, for the first time I remember in a long-long while, running (non-affiliate) PokerStars ads. [ESPN.com]

Poker Shrink Cranky Olde Coot has a good post wondering why FIDPA still hasn’t made the “new rules” they’ve long ballyhooed public. [PokerBlog.com]

Full Disclosure: FIDPA is one of my MySpace friends. [MySpace.com]

Liberal columnist Michael Kinsley shares a story about John McCain going on some extremely unpresidential tilt at the craps table. (The TJ Cloutier of Politics? Tons of success, a sometimes dangerous love of craps, and never quite able to win the Big One?) [The Daily Beast, via Huffington Post, via Short-Stacked Shamus]

Beyond the Table has a new home online. [Podcast.com]

I think Dr. Pauly’s starting to get a little miffed at me for not working out some production kinks and posting our re-constituted incarnation of Tao of Pokerati, but I think I can make him feel better by simply reading his blog. [Tao of Poker]

With all the talk of what really goes into a world-record endurance poker session, I forgot to send y’all to live-forum coverage of The Poker Den 3 — PartyPoker’s 36-hour high-stakes televised cash game. [MatchroomPoker.com]

Dutch Boyd apparently bought Steve Hall’s Pokerfolio in a semi-hostile takeover. Poor Steve … but he has found a new home for his poker updates/pictures of attractive Asian female dealers. [Pokerfolio.Spruz.com]

Also, the X-10 electronic table — a knock-off of the PokerTek PokerPro popping up in so many places — sharing the same name as a hidden camera used by so many pervy peeping toms before a few lawsuits encouraged them to re-market themselves as a security device. [SlipperyBrick.com]

And long overdue, here’s a great tale of a totally degenerate poker blogger/gambler rescuing his bankroll by poetically chasing/hitting the Station Casinos bad-beat jackpot. [TheTrooper97, via Up for Poker]

There’s more, too, coagulating in my bookmarks and inbox. News stories, forum threads, tourney results … Who knows … maybe I’ll get to them for your reading pleasure, but as is always the case from Head Slacker at this Little-Ole Poker Blog, no promises. It’s good to be back with you all.

LATE ADDITIONS:

Lacey Jones is getting ready for her co-hosting duties of Real Deal, the pokery interactive musical at The Venetian, which kicks off next week. [PokerListings.com via LasVegasAdvisor.com]

She also hosted an interesting event at Cathouse (as simply Lacey J) where women showed up for a seductive-attire contest where the winner got a boob job. [Photobucket.com]

Meanwhile, there was a hardcore SWAT-team poker raid in Fayetteville, NC. A firsthand account as well as some non-poker media coverage here and here. [Triangle Poker Journal]

Ahh, remember the good-ole-days when there were only like three stories at a time coming in on the Google News Alerts for “poker”, and only like three bloggers who had signed up for them? Me neither … it was never quite like that (but close) … and though I make no promises to keep this up on a daily basis, in an effort to inform the poker-news-hungry to the best of my abilities keep my open browser tabs to a minimum and my email backlog < 500, I will try to provide you some basic links to the plausibly worthwhile shizznit shaking down:

CardRunners and StoxPoker have joined forces to create a poker-training supersite. [PokerOnAMac.com]

Original PartyGaming honcho Anurag Dikshit — creator of some of the earliest online poker software — is one of three Indians to make Forbes’ list of 34 web-innovator billionaires … as well he should be. [MSNBC]

More on the Fed’s aggressive pursuit of Bodog — including criminal investigations on the company and Calvin Ayre. [Forbes.com]

Barney Frank has re-introduced the Payments System Protection Act, a revised version of HR 5767, which was shot down in his own committee earlier this year. [PokerNewsDaily]

Las Vegas visitation is down — to its lowest point since the start of the Iraq war. [Las Vegas Advisor]

And thus it only makes sense that LV gaming revenue is down — 14 percent this time — for the 7th consecutive month. [Forbes.com]

You know those new poker rooms popping up in Arizona? Well the Pascua Yaqui tribe doesn’t like them and is trying to get them shut down. (Funny: the mayor of Phoenix is named Phil Gordon.) [Zonie Report]

Poker parties and poker school are all the rage in Croatia. [CroatianVillas.com]

FUN RUMORS: Apparently Johnny Depp is quite the poker player, but he’s having a hard time getting alt/indie band We Were Scientists to pay up the $28k he beat them out of. (But all debts have been settled with Orlando Bloom, whom he supposedly beat out of $800k during the filming of Pirates of the Caribbean.) [Online Casino Advisory]

And in hardly related non-poker news … Sarah Palin’s teenage daughter‘s pregnancy … do we want to start this century off in a world where teens (sometimes) use birth control and occasionally have an abortion or one where we preach abstinence and then glorify/celebrate the shotgun wedding? The MySpace page of the potential VPson-in-law Levi Johnston: [NYPost via HuffingtonPost via Kevin Allen/Sun Times]

“I’m a fuckin’ redneck” who likes to snowboard and ride dirt bikes.

“But I live to play hockey. I like to go camping and hang out with the boys, do some fishing, shoot some shit and just fuckin’ chillin’ I guess.”

“Ya fuck with me I’ll kick [your] ass,” he added.

He also claims to be “in a relationship,” but states, “I don’t want kids.”

Perhaps we all have something to learn from a billion (Non-American) Indians. Not only did “these people” give us one of the founders of PartyPoker and hundreds if not thousands of terrible customer service reps, but also they made what is arguably the best condom commercial ever:

Good morning. I hope you are having a wonderful day. I am here at the WSOP in the post-wee hours … pretty much just to show up Pauly. And to that extent, I’m gonna bounce around the room a bit, saving and posting as I go along …

Speaking of … funny coincidence. As I was writing this, I had my iTunes on random, and this dueling-recorders interview between me and Pauly in 2005 just happened to come up. Good stuff-ish:

Stupid interviewing

OK, so anyhow, yes … the early hours at the WSOP … things never stop here in the Amazon room, but they do slow down dramatically — no tourneys going on, just five tables of cash action, ranging from a 2/5 NL game where the tired players are mostly just trading chips for the benefit of the rake … to a $25 7-stud game where stacks are in the thousands.

As much as I generally don’t like mornings, the pace here during this time is much more my speed.

The media room at this time:

dscf1162

While just about every change at the WSOP this year has been an “improvement,” one terrible thing — no more free coffee for the media 24/7. Making matters more difficult pre-poker times: the kitchen is closed.

The added bathrooms for the WSOP are a reminder of poker’s trailer-park roots (and its outhouse present).

But poker players expect certain niceties, so where else but the WSOP can you expect to see a port-a-pot with hardwood floors?

UPDATE: The slow period must be over … a sixth table just opened up in the cash area — it’s either a 2/5 or 5/10 game. That’s kinda funny, btw, to think how slow five tables is here — and yet how thrilled any poker room I know would be to be spreading 5 tables of NL (ranging from 2/5 to 10/20), some Omaha, and a big game of 7-stud hi/lo?

6:25pm Edit: Unfortunately Tom’s out, he took AcKc against 3s3c and the board ran out 7 high.

9:20 Edit: Current chip leader is Tony LiCastro. He took down a huge pot with 10-10 v AA and KK to take his stack to over 310k. When he was last seen at the WPT Foxwoods in 2006, finishing 2nd to Nick Shulman, his standard play was to move all-in (which is more difficult in pot-limit) expect him either to keep building his stack or busting short of the money.

Here’s some links from around the WSOP, wishing I had a whiff of Tom’s POY banner:

Daniel Negreanu’s provided his own live updates, including news that Phil Ivey’s offering was offering 1.8-1 odds to anyone interested that he’ll win a bracelet this year.
More…

I probably should have posted this first, but since Dan twisted my arm encouraged me to do some posting here on Pokerati while he’s busy with the WSOP, I figured I’ll give it a shot.

On the heels of UB’s press release (found below): The CBC radio show Search Engine did a report on the Mohawk Internet Technologies server farm on the Kahnawake reservation. Not surprisingly, it took quite a bit of time and effort to be allowed in.

Now for some WSOP stuff:

The poker room opened yesterday, and here’s a soft opening report as well as some pictures from LasVegasVegas’ own FlipChip.

Taking place right now is the $500 WPA Poker super-satellite and seminar with Mike Caro.

For those hoping to get a seat at Saturday/Sunday’s $1,500 NL event, there’s rumors that the event will be capped at 4,000. Brasilia (which has 65 tables) is being used for other purposes until June 12, which would explain why you’re not seeing as many $1,500 events until after June 14.

ESPN.com’s poker staff held their 3rd annual WSOP Fantasy draft and the crew over at Wicked Chops Poker attempted to live blog it. Gary Wise provides a preview with his 2008 WSOP storylines.

More to come later tonight (if I’ve figured all this stuff out).

I like to troll Craigslist every so often for some hot, anonymous NSA poker action. Not looking for games — there’s no shortage of ‘em here in LV — just wanting to take the pulse of what people are pushing related to poker. Look at the ads all together and you get some interesting tells on the state of the poker world and its semi-anonymous inhabitants:

There are a lot of chips , tables, fancy custom tables and chips and tables for sale, of course, and for $15 a made-for-TV WPT video game. WSOP: Tournament of Champions for the Playstation goes for $8

For $150k you can have documentary footage of the rise and fall of Jamie Gold.

A WSOP baby’s blanket.

More chips, from the Aladdin, and from the Atlantic City Playboy Club. “Omaha Table” from Sante Fe Station.

Perhaps frighteningly, there are even poker bots for sale. At least one suspicious reader is questioning whether or not this is legal.

More…

Some interesting developments in the off-the-table workings of the online poker world. Millions of votes and billions of dollars at stake:

BARNEY FRANK’s bill is picking up steam — with 44 cosponsors. Not sure of the party breakdown, but the willingness of others to sign on suggests undoing the UIGEA could be a good “sensible government” issue that, frankly, is easier to deal with than so many other pressing political concerns.

Meanwhile, the conservative anti-gambling forces are starting to organize their troops and take fighting against us a little more seriously. Poker enemy FOCUS ON THE FAMILY is calling gambling “out of control” (via Citizen magazine) — possibly because our political successes are a chance for them to raise funds regardless of the results.

They do, however, remind everybody that you have until DECEMBER 12 to let the feds know what you think about the online gambling issue. (Anyone got a link to a email-your-rep thingy?)

And here’s an interesting article from a decidedly non-poker source about how the UIGEA has been responsible for getting rid of spam. While ZDNet’s RYAN NARAINE guest-posting expert on INTERNET SECURITY makes some good points about how some semblance of internet regulation was able to put poker spammers temporarily? out of business, he carries on to show he doesn’t really know what he’s talking about:

[The UIGEA] effectively caused the death of numerous black hat SEO companies–comment spammers. Perhaps the UIGEA measure against processing of payments proved too difficult to overcome. Not being a lawyer I can’t say exactly how UIGEA caused this death. No matter, US online gambling operations were effectively destroyed.

Spam decreased. The underlying cause for that was that the clients weren’t there due to the inability to process payments because of the online Casinos law.

Not only black hat SEO companies suffered, many spam operations lost clients. There is nearly no more Casino spam in our mail inboxes. Isn’t that grand?

Um, yeah. Wanna make a wager about the casino spam? It just took a break … the pathetic side of the industry shifted around about, that’s all. But by his grand logic, we could get rid of all spam by banning all sorts of stuff on the internet. This is semi-true, but would require the U.S. enforcing its laws beyond its borders … which is part of the problem we currently face.

Anyhow, his GADI EVRON’s semi-informed ignorance is indicative of the types of landmines the poker politicos will have to avoid this year.

A few click-worthy items populating browsers throughout the poker world this week:

The WSOP-Europe is kicking off right about now — with a £2,500 HORSE event. Click here to follow that action. Then comes £5,000 PLO and £10,000 No-Limit Hold’em. Remember, that’s $20,000 to US Americans.

And click here to see Gavin Smith topless pictures from the LAUNCH PARTY for the WSOP-E, held at PURE in Caesar’s the day after the end of WSOP-LV.

PAULY will clearly be having a terrible time covering the three bracelet events in LONDON:

Ahh, London …

PARTYGAMING’S stock has been sinking. And upon reporting half-year earnings last week, the company that was minting more money than they knew what to do with a year ago is operating in the red.

PartyGaming also made a pretax loss of $32 million on revenue of $212.5 million, down from revenue of $662 million before the U.S. clampdown a year ago.

Maybe we just miss the good-ole-days with some good-ole-friends (half of whom no longer work for Party), but Pokerati says Party is still a BUY! (The Motley Fool agrees.) We first thought that, of course, shortly after the stock plummeted to 26. We acted on it at 36, then thought it again at 56. Currently trading at about 28.5.

Meanwhile, PartyGaming continues to seek retroactive amnesty from the US DOJ for its execs.

The BRITS are having to come up with corporate policies these days to deal with online gambling in the workplace. Uncertain waters … but depending on how the cards fall, its theoretically possible that multitabling while on the clock could get you some paid leave.

Gah, you just gotta love the LIMEYS. Their government is also funding a program to teach tight play and bankroll management — “responsible gambling” they call it.

All this coincides with some new gambling laws that went into effect September 1 across the UK.

With companies from GIBRALTAR now allowed to advertise in England, PARTYPOKER (and PARTYBETS) will be turning 70 official UK soccer clubs’ websites into affilliates. But footballers better not be punters … an unusually bad game could land players who bet on their own action in jail for two years.

The latest from J TODD and the Affilliate Wolverines at APCW:

In and outside of TORONTO, police seem to be in the midst of a POKER CRACKDOWN that seems all too familiar ’round these parts. NEW JERSEY police doing the same thing.

Only difference was in DALLAS it made for good TV. (Old article, but one I just stumbled across, and found interesting in light of the Dallas SWAT poker raids.)

In MISSOURI, where what appears to be a $20 (w/ rebuys) barbershop tourney has the barber headed to an actual trial, facing felony jail time.

USA TODAY has an article about how fraudsters are using bots at online poker sites not to beat the game, but to launder money by programming them to PLAY badly. A little confusing, but read the comments for how poker players respond to any anti-poker propaganda written by someone who may or may not understand how internet poker works.

An editorial in NEW YORK NEWSDAY about how it’s time to regulate online poker. This viewpoint has little to do with your rights to play, but the legitimacy of the WTO if the United States doesn’t either re-legitimize online poker or ban all forms of online gambling, including what’s currently allowed under the UIGEA.

The claims against the US from the European Union and Antigua and Barbuda exceed $22 billion. Japan, Canada, Macau, Costa Rica and India will each be asking for a few billion as well. So far the US hasn’t put up much a defense beyond “not paying.”

In other legal issues, Bodog lost a PATENT INFRINGEMENT lawsuit … and their domain! Try it yourself … Bodog.com no longer exists. Now you gotta go to newbodog.com.

Apparently the HOLLYWOOD Set is still learning to love poker — as actress JESSICA BIEL found herself pulled into a game — reportedly with pros, but whom I don’t know — at the opening of the Ivy Hotel in SAN DIEGO. The girlfriend of JUSTN TIMBERLAKE is new to poker, and started out doing really well before she lost all her chips.

Did you know Jennifer Tilly is 48-years-old? Never woulda guessed it. She’s about to turn 49.

Oh, speaking of Hollywood … almost forgot to drop a name. Robert Wilonsky — the only Batface home gamer with his own Wikipedia entry — has started a new gig on national TV, filling in for Roger Ebert on Ebert & Roeper for the rest of 2007. Very cool! Congrats, Big Bob. With all his exposure to C B A-list actors, I wonder why he hasn’t learned how to pretend he doesn’t have a really big hand sometimes when he does. Click the pic for a funny-ish Robert Wilonsky highlight reel.

One year after the poker laws in this country changed … TODD BRUNSON gets on the anti-UIGEA soapbox. From his efforts to be an ambassador:

By the way, if you work for the Treasury or Justice Department, or any gaming control commission, please disregard that comment about “anyone with a brain.” I realize that it’s the politicians who are passing the laws, and you guys are just doing your jobs (and doing them well) by enforcing them. I also realize that you guys are much more powerful than a poker player, and could crush me like a bug. Please don’t hurt me.