New article in the Las Vegas Sun, looking at the WSOP and the Nevada Gaming Control Board’s comfort level with online poker sites that do and do not accept American players. No one’s wagging any fingers at the WSOP specifically, but the article does take a closer look at Full Tilt’s and PokerStars’ presence at the Rio (and a little bit UB’s) as well as partnerships these sites have with other casinos.

You get a subtle clue of what the implication might be directly from the article’s URL, as well as quotes from GCB’s chief enforcer of dot-net-dot-com issues:

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2010/jul/13/guilt-association/

After the [UIGEA] passed Congress, some sites left the U.S. market, fearing prosecution by federal regulators. Some sites, including PokerStars.com and Full Tilt Poker.com — whose .net logos adorn the clothing of many World Series of Poker players — continue to allow action from Americans, however. Those sites are “purposefully putting that product in the United States in disregard of Department of Justice interpretations of federal law and also Nevada law,” [GCB member Randall] Sayre says.

This closer look stemmed from what would become the rapid rise-and-fall of NAPT-Venetian. The Venetian does confirm in the Sun article, btw, that they have no current or future relationship with PokerStars … you know, despite appearances one might get from PokerStars.net and NAPT logos on 119 felts throughout this summer’s Deep Stack Series.

GCB makes it clear that they don’t like to see its licensees in bed with American friendly online poker sites, but they’re still not being clear on where they draw the lines for what might constitute just messing around. Even the regulators contend they can’t begin to tell people what they can and cannot wear on their bodies.

That, of course, begs the question, then why not just let people wear hats and shirts logo’d up with dot-coms?

The bad news: People in France were recently blocked — just last week — from playing on PokerStars.com.

The good news: They’ll be able to play on PokerStars.fr, in a fully legal and regulated way.

They just won’t be able to play against anyone not in France … which sets up a new dynamic of what licensed and regulated online poker could look like worldwide in the not-too-distant future.

France’s regulatory body ARJEL released a list on Friday of nine more approved licensees, adding to 17 previous approvals. French parliament passed a law in October 2009 that ended its state-run online gambling monopoly, allowing up to 30 licenses for privately owned websites. PokerStars got one in this second wave of approvals, and PartyGaming got five.

The newly licensed companies and their completely legalized domains are:

LIL Managers Ltd (FriendBet.fr): sports betting
Reel Malta Ltd (PokerStars.fr): poker
Electraworks SAS (PartyBets.fr , GameBookers.fr, PartyPoker.fr, ActPoker.fr, LuckyJeux.fr): poker, sportsbetting
Gaming Iliad SAS (Chilipoker.fr): poker
Partouche Gaming France SAS (Partouche.fr): poker

[Source: eGaming Review]

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Not sure what really happened yesterday, but I guess I started paying attention to the poker tournaments … or at least wandered near them. And it just so happened to be on a day when the 2010 WSOP faced its first brushes with meltdown.

First probs came with PokerNews’ suffering extended downtime … You’d expect the Lithuanians to have it all fixed by Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 … With hand reports and chip counts hard to find, the big story of the day was supposed to be the $50k Mix, whittling its way down toward the money. However, it was the first of six $1k NLs getting too close to the money too quickly that had Ty Stewart potentially facing his own Day 1-Donkulus. And it apparently came at a time when Nevada Gaming regulators were supposedly on premises breathing down necks while studying payout structures. Perhaps to his chagrin, Stewart had little choice but to give an unrehearsed, impromptu press conference in the face of a Tao/Pokerati ambush, complete with cussing and follow-up questions.

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Episode 6: Universal Tech Tilt

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It seems as those tech issues have been plaguing the poker media from Poker News to the Tao of Pokerati. Dan quizzes Pauly about what really goes on behind the scenes at Poker News.

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Episode 7: Ty Sweat

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While “brainstorming” for future episodes of Tao of Pokerati, Dan and Pauly encounter WSOP VP Ty Stewart, who is returning to the Rio around Midnight to keep an eye on a potential disaster, as he sweats the thinning field in the last level of Day 1B of the $1k Donkulus.

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Click below for the first thing that comes up, from Urban Dictionary, when you do a Google search for “donkulus”:

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The first in a four-part series about Nevada Gaming wrangling with a new era of poker regulation as Harrah’s and PokerStars fight …

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The inaugural NAPT-Venetian was by most accounts a smashing success. PokerStars announced the tournament in January, and less than six weeks later — at a time when big-money players usually would be heading to California for the WPT-Commerce — 872 entrants made it to the Venetian for a televised $5k main event in Las Vegas.

(The February event, and others from the fledgling North American Poker Tour, are currently airing on ESPN-2 and TSN, the leading sports television channel in Canada.)

But it wasn’t the field size, TV cameras, or $4.1 million prize pool that made the NAPT-Venetian special … it was that the Las Vegas tournament was “presented by PokerStars”. Dot net.

Perhaps surprisingly, because we see so much PokerStars on TV … this was the first time since the UIGEA that a licensed Nevada casino partnered with PokerStars (or any site like it) for a major open tournament.

Its success didn’t go unnoticed. And that may prove to be the problem for PokerStars and the North American Poker Tour, as the inaugural NAPT-Venetian will probably — almost certainly — be the last.

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A cover story in the latest issue of Forbes magazine (the main story asking if Al Qaeda is bankrupt) features an article discussing the US government’s possible crackdown on online poker with the impending June 1 deadline for the UIGEA to be enforced. The article can be found on their website here and includes a slide show of the big names behind online poker.

A report from CTV in Canada is reporting that Loto Quebec has received approval from the province’s Cabinet to allow online gambling, including poker. The Quebec site, expected to launch in fall 2010, would be restricted to residents of Quebec, but they would be able to play with players from the BC lottery and the Atlantic Lottery Corporation, which handles the lotteries of the provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador and Prince Edward Island in offering a common platform for the players in the six provinces, similar to what the government of Sweden offers with the Svenka Spel site, which offers legalized online gambling to its residents.

Kinda. They probably don’t want to ban it, or even take over Costa Rican domains … but they do want to have their say in how Iowans go about the business of online money games.

From the Iowa Politics Insider:

Iowa should keep its options open and develop plans to “protect its borders” while Internet gambling legislation is being debated in Congress, Iowa Lottery Chief Executive Officer Terry Rich said Tuesday.

[...]

The legislation could include provisions authorizing the federal government to regulate and tax Internet gambling in Iowa if the state’s elected officials don’t take action within a specified time frame, Rich said. He is urging state officials to protect their right to either reject or approve Internet gambling, and to impose taxes.

“The decision may be to do something, do nothing; but to at least have control so that if you do something in the state of Iowa that the state legislature and the governor decides what it should be,” Rich said.

And therein lies what seems to me the next big obstacle for regulated online poker — the states. They want theirs. And eventually all will follow in the footsteps of Kentucky, Minnesota, California, Iowa, et al. and take a look at the revenue possibilities should the Feds want to tax activities within their borders. Then it becomes a matter of who has the right to grab what … and issues of states rights, no matter how any level of legislation looks, is usually only settled in the higher courts.

Senator Robert Menendez has submitted S 1597 (AKA Internet Poker and Games of Skill Regulation, Consumer Protection and Enforcement Act of 2009) to regulate online poker and other games of skill. The full bill has been uploaded by the PPA for viewing here.

Editor’s Note: The previous week’s episode never made it up on Pokerati … but it should’ve — particularly as we enter into a summer-fall of political discourse on the plusses and minuses of online gambling regulation. Specifically, check out about 7 minutes in, where J Todd discusses how our good friends at Betfair were able to help protect the integrity of tennis by alerting authorities to a noticeably heavy bet-load on an obscure Wimbledon match.

Three more guilty pleas in the BetOnSports case in the United States, and the European Commission is now warning the American government to reconsider its ban on online gambling. Plus, industry news from Antigua and Wimbledon.

As Dan mentioned during his Poker Beat podcast debut last week, former New York Senator Alfonse D’Amato is on the case of the UIGEA in Washington, D.C. He published a piece in Roll Call, the magazine of Capitol Hill, in which he points to online poker – and the billions of dollars in revenue potential – as a potential source of revenue for the economically-challenged U.S. government. It’s worth reprinting here, not because of the message that went out to the politically-minded last week, but because it shows that the Poker Players Alliance is working behind the scenes in D.C. It might be worth it to be patient with the PPA during this time of relative silence, as they may just have a few aces up their sleeves.

Here is the article in full:

The New Deal: Regulate and Tax iPoker
By Alfonse D’Amato
Special to Roll Call
January 27, 2009, 4:21 p.m.

As the Obama administration and the new Congress evaluate their policy priorities, they cannot ignore the significant challenge to fund these programs given our nation’s financial situation. Our new leaders have been dealt a struggling economy, and even President Barack Obama can agree that tax increases to pay for his agenda won’t reveal the winning hand, politically or practically. A possible solution, however, is not out of reach. Our new president needs only to look at his favored form of skillful avocation: poker.

Yes, I said poker. While business leaders and politicians debate how much, or how little, we should regulate the business community, the online poker industry and the millions of Americans who play on the Internet have been crying out for regulation and taxation. The absence of government regulation, and in fact the quixotic efforts to ban Internet poker, has left U.S. consumers vulnerable and left billions in potential tax revenue on the virtual poker table.

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Call it a rally cry or a jump on the bandwagon, but with the UIGEA hitting poker so hard over the past year, it is high time we see some hope on the horizon. That hope comes in the form of a new president taking office on Tuesday and the old one (and his sneaky midnight regulations) getting the boot.

President-elect Obama and his transition team established a website to give the people of America a voice. Change.gov has a section called Citizen’s Briefing Book, wherein with a simple log-in, anyone can sound off about issues that they’d like to see the Obama administration put on its radar. Poker players have stepped up and taken action, not only by posting entries about online poker and the UIGEA, but taking one post in particular and ranking it so high (second at one point) that the Obama administration will have to take a look at it.

The entry called “Boost America’s Economy with Legal Online Poker” didn’t use spell-check isn’t the most detailed, but sometimes short-and-sweet is all that’s necessary. By thousands of people logging in and hitting “vote up” next to the entry, it has become one of the most viewed on the site. It takes a few minutes, and each subsequent vote will push the issue that much closer to Obama’s desk.

Meanwhile, in Congress, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) has introduced the Midnight Rule Act in an attempt to negate – or at least call into review – the last three months of regulations put into effect by the lame duck Bush administration. That would include the UIGEA that, despite objections by financial institutions, will go into effect on Monday, January 19th with compliance required by December 1st. If Nadler’s bill passes and gets to Obama’s desk, all of those midnight antics would go through a review, and possible rejection, by the appropriate members of Obama’s cabinet. This is a chance to reverse the enforcement dates of the UIGEA and give us more time to lobby Obama to help us change it.

Get on over to the PPA website, where you can get in touch with your Congressional representative and urge their support of the Midnight Rule Act introduced by Nadler.

The Safe and Secure Internet Gambling Initiative, another lobbying organization on the side of internet poker players, released a statement first thing this morning regarding the recent 60 Minutes broadcast and corresponding Washington Post articles. SSIGI really doesn’t mince words, starting with wording that calls government prohibition of internet gambling being “a failure and a mistake.” More about legislation that would regulate the industry in the following statement:

“60 Minutes” and Washington Post Coverage Highlight Why Congress Should Regulate Internet Gambling and Protect Consumers

Current prohibition leaves Americans unprotected

Jeffrey Sandman, spokesperson for the Safe and Secure Internet Gambling Initiative, today issued the following statement in regards to recent coverage on CBS News’ “60 Minutes” and in The Washington Post on the dangers Americans face when they gamble online.

“The 60 Minutes and Washington Post stories demonstrate unambiguously that the existing government prohibition on Internet gambling is a failure and a mistake. The millions of Americans who continue to gamble online are vulnerable to being defrauded by offshore operators who exploit U.S. prohibition policies, leaving U.S. consumers without legal protections when they make a bet or play poker online. It is clear that a different approach is necessary to protect consumers, as well as to recapture the billions of tax dollars currently lost to offshore gambling operators and out of the U.S. economy. Now more than ever, Congress should understand why it should step in and regulate the industry to protect the public. We are hopeful that increased attention in the media about the issue will lead to increased movement in Congress.

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From APCW.org:

Coverage of the Global Gaming Expo in Las Vegas, Nevada. Interviews with the President of the American Gaming Association, the Executive Director of the Poker Players Alliance (about the possibility of legal online poker in California), and a major industry announcement from the APCW, the GPWA, Affiliate Guard Dog, and Poker Affiliate Listings.