Normally we wouldn’t think much of a thread on 2+2 about some withdrawal problems at a major American-friendly online site. Usually these problems get resolved in a matter of days or maybe weeks, but this time something’s different.

Developing …

We’ll hold off on saying too much until we get more solid information, but basically, checks from PokerStars are “bouncing”, particularly with New York banks. Instant E-checks seems to be the payment processor most notably affected at present. However, it’s not just e-checks … paper checks are proving uncashable, too. Reliable sources tell us that this is not just a little snafu, but that it’s the direct result of DOJ enforcement actions somehow connected to the Federal Court in New York’s Southern District.

This is the same court, of course, that handled Neteller way back when, and more recently came to non-prosecution agreements guilty plea settlements with Anurag Dikshit et al. While the Party Poker dudes are officially in the clear,* is it possible the Feds are now saying, hey, that was fun, and we got a lot of money … let’s try it again with those PokerStars guys!?!

The FBI offers more clarity on who’s agreed to what between Party Poker peeps and the Feds here.

The best I can tell, right now Stars seems to be the target. No confirmation on the fates of Full Tilt and UB payment processing.

UPDATE: Problems at Full Tilt, too. (Thanks, Ken, for the info/link!) And Ultimate Bet.

Regardless, whatever shakes down (pun intended), it raises a lot of questions at an interesting time, considering how much big money gets transfered passed between poker players — particularly in the summer — often on an online site in exchange for casino chips and/or bricks of cash.

Might the value of the Euro have just gone up, at least in the poker economy? Seems plausible if they’re the only ones able to convert online bankrolls into real American WSOP buy-in dollars.

* Cases against (with?) two other Party principals, Ruth Parasol and Russ DeLeon, are still pending in the same court.

The former CEO of Party Gaming is on board with the WSOP to be sure … as CEO of the newly formed Harrah’s Interactive Entertainment. Jeffrey Pollack stays on board as WSOP Commish and President of the new parent company. All of this effective today, supposedly.

The official word:

HARRAH’S ENTERTAINMENT FORMS HARRAH’S INTERACTIVE ENTERTAINMENT
NEW SUBSIDIARY TO MANAGE THE GLOBAL GROWTH OF THE WORLD SERIES OF POKER® (WSOP)
AND EXPLORE EUROPEAN INTERACTIVE EXPANSION STRATEGY

LAS VEGAS, May 29, 2009 – Harrah’s Entertainment, Inc. (Harrah’s) announced today that it has established a new subsidiary, Harrah’s Interactive Entertainment, Inc. (HIE) to manage the global growth of the World Series of Poker® (WSOP) and explore a European interactive strategy.

“As the world’s largest gaming company, Harrah’s is taking a proactive approach toward international and interactive expansion,” said Harrah’s Entertainment Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer Gary Loveman. “It is important we position ourselves to explore new markets as well as new technologies with our best in class brands.”

Mitch Garber, a longtime gaming lawyer and public company senior executive, joins HIE as CEO. Jeffrey Pollack, Commissioner of the WSOP, remains in that role and will become President of HIE.

In addition to growing the World Series of Poker, HIE will explore the use of interactive gaming technologies to expand the reach of Harrah’s brands globally, starting in Europe. With its renowned Total Rewards customer-loyalty program, HIE will be utilized to develop new opportunities to strengthen and grow Harrah’s customer base.

The World Series of Poker, in its 40th year, has experienced record growth in the last five years. Participants from 124 nations competed in last year’s tournament, up from 24 just five years ago and entrants have gone from 13,036 to 58,720 during the same span. The WSOP expanded into Europe in 2007 with the creation of the World Series of Poker Europe® held each fall in London.

Yikes, is it really May 29 already?

While Full Tilt was proudly amassing bracelets and getting its customers to “play with the pros” a few years ago, and PokerStars was doing its best to put champions on its roster … PartyPoker was going the other way; they marketed themselves as a site for the masses — unashamed by the unaccomplished nature of their player pool. The one exception — the one pro Party claimed as their own — was Mike Sexton, who had been consulting with them since their earliest days.

He eventually cashed out much of his interest (damn UIGEA) … but now, perhaps as a sign of things to come or perhaps just out of fondness for the way things once were, Mike Sexton has re-upped his relationship with Party and will be representing them as an official face and host on the site.

More details from Party below:

More…

According to the subscription newsletter Gambling Compliance:

Harrah’s Denies Garber Hire Tale

15 Apr, 2009 / GamblingCompliance Ltd. / Scott Longley
Harrah’s has moved to deny rumours that ex-PartyGaming chief Mitch Garber has joined the company to run an online operation which would incorporate the World Series of Poker (WSOP).

A spokesperson for the Las Vegas giant said the company “did not have anything to share” regarding the Garber rumours. He added: “We haven’t announced anything, and we don’t have any plans to announce anything.”

Suggestions that Garber was about to join Harrah’s have been circulating for months, and gained new currency when they were repeated in a Sunday Times story last weekend in the UK.

Garber left Party back in May 2008 having helmed the firm through a tough period around the time of the enforced UIGEA-related exit from the US market in October 2006. He handed over control to current chief executive Jim Ryan.

I dunno … doesn’t sound like that much of a denial to me. But maybe … who knows?

We’re going on a little early … 12:30 pacific … as former PokerNews honcho John Caldwell officially joins the crew today. Tune in live or catch the podcast later on PokerRoad.com. Also on today’s episode there’s gonna be some Dan vs. BJ action, over the relevance, facts, and significance of Mitch Garber’s reported heading to Harrah’s. The important question is, of course, which one of us is Hannity, and which is Colmes?

Dannity and Bjolmes.

Mitch Garber, soon-to-be overlord of WSOP.com?

A small story in the London Times that’s actually kinda a big deal in the world of poker news:

Harrah’s has formed a new company that will oversee its web operations AND the World Series of Poker. The person who will reportedly be at the helm of this new major poker entity: Dan Michalski of Pokerati.com! Mitch Garber, former CEO of Party Gaming.

Meanwhile, with Party’s non-prosecution agreements with the US DOJ now in place, details are emerging about conscious efforts made by at least one online poker company to circumvent the obstacles of gray grey US law:

Unmasked -how gaming group hid ‘illegal’ US bets

Great, now the dot-net secret is out …

In one of the most unique episodes of Perspectives Weekly ever, we discuss major industry news as former Bet on Sports CEO David Carruthers enters a plea in St. Louis. Plus, we follow-up on Party Gaming’s deal with the US Department of Justice, and the National Footbal League’s takes a strategic aim at our industry.

On today’s episode of The Poker Beat, BJ and I lightly sparred about the significance of Party Gaming’s $100+ million settlement with the US Department of Justice. I’m pretty sure I beat him in everyone’s mind but his own … but still, I also know I got a few things wrong that might unsettle the Insider, so it’s good to know the Washington Post pretty much agrees with my take on the fluid situation:

Today’s news sent online gambling stocks soaring overseas. That’s because some financial analysts see the settlement as possibly leading to others, thus reducing uncertainty in the industry and opening the door to industry consolidation and expansion outside the U.S

Moreover, it’s taken some hard work to educate the masses on our semi-complex issue, but it’s good to see the message the (super-influential) non-poker media is putting out there:

… some legal scholars and Internet gambling proponents see the government crackdown as a disconnect between 21st-century technology and the 20th-century laws used to protect Americans from gambling.

The Justice position is considered controversial with some members of Congress and gaming analysts arguing it has steered U.S. players to unregulated offshore sites. “The U.S. government has now succeeded in driving out the reputable publicly-traded Internet gaming operators,” said Joseph M. Kelley, a professor of business law at the State College at Buffalo, who has also served as an expert witness for gaming and government interests. “It has not decreased online gambling, but has reduced the ability to monitor suspicious transactions.”

Party Gaming has entered into a non-prosecutional agreement with the US Department of Justice, in which they admitted to illegally providing gambling services to US customers from 1997 to Oct. 2006 and agreeing to pay $105m in fines in semi-annual payments thru 2012.

Their press release regarding the matter after the jump:

More…

Online gambling news from Party Gaming and the state of Texas. Plus, we follow up on our look at the European Union’s ever-changing stance on our industry. What does all this mean? Is it good news or bad?

We kick off the new year with our very last installment of Perspectives Weekly! Plus, a look back at the most important online gambling events of 2008 and current news, including Doyle Brunson vs. Anurag Dikshit with an explanation of what the PartyGaming co-founder really was thinking.

From APCW.org:

Online gambling news, as the founder of Party Gaming pleads guilty to violating the US Federal Wire Act. We also give a follow-up report on the Grand prive’ Casino Group, with evidence of thier lies as they continue to steal affiliate commissions.

Online poker software creator Anurag Dikshit agrees to pay off the US gov for his “crimes”.

From the Financial Times: Party Poker co-founder Anurag Dikshit will appear in the Southern District Court of New York Tuesday to plead guilty to violating the Wire Act, pay a $300,000,000 fine and cooperate with the Department of Justice in the hopes of avoiding a 2-year jail sentence.

Dikshit currently owns 27% of Party Gaming, but it appears he won’t have to divest his holdings in Party after pleading guilty. Ruth Parasol and Russ DeLeon, who also co-founded Party Poker, don’t appear to be near any type of settlement with the US government. Party Gaming has been negotiating with the Department of Justice for some time now; could this mean their eventual return to the US if and when Internet gaming is regulated?

More on this developing story later…

UPDATE: Party Gaming has released their own press release stating that they are still in final negotiations with the US Dept. of Justice in terms of a settlement, and that they will pay a substantially lower amount to the US government than Dikshit. At the time of this update, they’re up over 25% in trading today.

5pm UPDATE: Dikshit has entered his plea, and is free on a $15m bond, which limits him to travel within the European Union, India and New York. He has also already paid $100,000,000 with another payment due in 3 months, and the rest by September. Also, he’s scheduled for sentencing December 16, 2010. Further details here.

Serious question — don’t claim to have a clue — but am curious to see whether or not overcoming an American political hurdle (but still not near the finish line) moves the market needle overseas.

I wonder if we’ll see an impact on Party Gaming’s stock price. Trading in London closed today at 186.75 … down 1.19 percent, before this vote had gone down, of course.

My microbial knowledge of international securities gut says it would be a good time to buy. But does this accomplishment in Washington DC mean much more than a flop to the businesses heavily vested in HR 6870′s movement through the system?

We’ll see, I suppose.

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: