Posts Tagged ‘NCAA’

November 17, 2008

NCAA: Online Poker Perfectly Legal and Dandy

Not the same as sports betting

Tags: , , , ,
Nick Calathes lost lots of money playing online poker because he just couldn’t lay down his beloved pocket 3s.

Online poker found itself in another brouhaha in the non-poker press last week — in Florida, where UF’s star point guard Nick Calathes (and prospective NBA first-round draft pick) was under investigation for NCAA violations over a $600 gambling debt. The investigation found he did indeed lose money playing online poker, but the NCAA only penalizes athletes who gamble on sports … or commit criminal acts. So Calathes is in the clear, and online poker, by the transitive property, is declared an acceptable recreational activity fully within the law. Yay-win! Go team.

It probably didn’t help, however, that one of the dudes hosting basketballer home games was a former walk-on who previously had been busted for allegedly hooking up the team and others with weed. (Though a friend with weed is a friend indeed…) probably not the kinda guy you want handling money transfers online.

An online-casino-biz response to situation and the suggestion on how his industry needs to work openly with the NCAA.

Alligator Army laments the nonsense online poker hubbub distracting them from the b-ball at hand.

Posted by DanM at 12:33 am

Comments (1)

March 26, 2008

Microsoft Begins Dealing with Online Cheaters

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Microsoft, we know, likes to fight … and the company fired their first shot against cheaters in their online Xbox Live community by conducting a little neighborhood sweep. They aren’t banning players, but instead dropping their player points down to zero and marking their profiles with the digital equivalent of a scarlet C. Not sure how that would work in poker … but it shows the relevance of poker issues in a non-poker world, and perhaps suggests some potential allies who have an interest our fights. Online gam(bl)ing and online gaming, after all, aren’t that far apart.

Online video game competitions for money are already in play — the Fifa Interactive World Cup, for example, awards $20k to the winner. And the shoot-em-up game Kwari has started offering real-money competition, where you win cash for kills and the house takes its cut by charging you for ammo. Bullets, chips … tomato, D’amato … Seriously, how familiar does this sound:

More…

Posted by DanM at 2:01 am

Comments (1)