Stu notes that the investigation leading to Bodog’s shutdown wasn’t singular in scope, and asks who might be next on the DOJ’s hit-list. The answer to that question, I believe, is in the indictment itself — and though they don’t name any magazine or website by brand, the DOJ does reveal that after more than five years of investigation they consider certain media part of a criminal conspiracy to facilitate illegal online gambling.

Read and decide for yourself on the not-so-subtle nuances of the DOJ-Maryland office’s carefully chosen words:

6.Through these communications, members of the conspiracy caused the media reseller to create and execute an advertising campaign to increase the participation by gamblers in the United States on the BODOG.com website.

7. Through these communications, members of the conspiracy caused the media reseller to send invoices to BODOG ENTERTAINMENT GROUP S.A., d/b/a BODOG.com. These invoices represented the costs and fees for the creation and execution of the advertising campaign.

8. Members of the conspiracy caused funds to be sent by wire from accounts located outside the United States to accounts located in the United States to satisfy the invoices sent by the media reseller. These wire transfers totaled more than $42 million during 2005 through 2008.

The DOJ has been telegraphing their next move(s) with virtually every court filing for two years or more, and with Ayre’s indictment, you can see the legal play being set up by calling it all a conspiracy, bringing charges of “aiding and abetting” into play, and putting a specific dollar amount ($42 million) on at least one media operation’s ill-gotten gains.

Yeow. So what unnamed media had such a deal with Bodog worth $42mm? I have few ideas can assure you it wasn’t Pokerati. There’s actually a remote possibility that since we’re talking about sports-betting here it’s not “poker media” at all … but assuming the DOJ understands the difference between rev-share and CPA, then if poker media isn’t in line for indictments or big money seizures of their own, then I’m pretty sure it means they’re cooperating.

Though I’m sure plenty will disagree with the above analysis, I’ll take the upward Super Bowl trend for Nevada sports books as a win.

Meanwhile, semi-related but not really, Delaware is looking into how the new DOJ Wire Act interpretation (heralded by online poker types) could actually help the state offer more-better sports betting options to the masses via the internet.

• Bloomberg Business Week @BW | Betfair May Boost Profit With Fixed-Odds Sportsbet
• Fox5 LasVegas | Mobile wagering expands to iPhone {Leroy’s Sports Books/American Wagering}
• The Hill | Let states legalize online gambling to stimulate the economy | h/t @taxdood
• Indian Country | Internet Gaming Tops NIGA Agenda | h/t @taxdood
• Irish Times @the_irish_times | FTP Dublin subsidiary makes 180 positions “redundant”
• Bloomberg Business Week @BW | Online Poker Should Be Dealt a Fresh Hand With Regulation
• Charleston Daily Mail | Lottery funding goes to (WV) casino slots upgrade | h/t @casinocityvin
• Inside Poker Business |  Poker Networks 2012 | h/t @InfiniteEdgeKim
• @hardboiledpoker | Reports from the (FTP) Department of Redundancy Department
• @InfiniteEdgeKim | Buyers Beware {handy shopping tips for iPoker purchasers in US}

Watchit

• Livefeed @ Congress | “iGaming: Is There A Safe Bet?” | http://energycommerce.house.gov/
  The House Energy and Commerce Committee will be holding a hearing Oct. 25 called “iGaming: Is There A Safe Bet?” at 10:30AM EST in the Rayburn House Building RM 2123. Details of this hearing (and witness list – ty to @WriterJen for pointing this out) may be found on the Committee website -> here.
• @AGAupdate posted this testimony from Frank Fahrenkopf for tomorrow’s congressional hearing.

Witness List:

• Parry Aftab | Member, Board of Advisors Chairman | FairPlayUSA
  —> Witness Testimony
• Ernest L. Stevens | Chairman | National Indian Gaming Association
  —> Witness Testimony
• Keith Whyte |Executive Director | National Council on Problem Gambling
  —> Witness Testimony
• The Honorable Alphonse D’Amato | Chairman | Poker Players Alliance
  —> Witness Testimony
• Kurt Eggert | Professor of Law| Chapman University School of Law
  —> Witness Testimony
• Dr. Dan Romer | Director, Adolescent Communication Institute
  —> Witness Testimony

Nevada Gaming just approved some new wagers for the November Nine … some of which are obv, and others that may or may not be a little more silly.

The list of approved wagers, at house odds:

But I decided to look at who was left, what the chipstacks were (in relation to the blinds), position at the table … damn, this is a tough FT … and indeed, offered up a prediction, based on the above factors and a little bit of karmic guesstimating. We already knew Huck Seed was out in 6th, so that one was a freebie. But with that could I accurately call the bust-out order for the remaining five? I bet I could …

And that got me thinking about what kinda impact Epic might have on or with sports-betting, as recent changes to Nevada law have allowed casinos to offer betting lines on non-athletic events, such as the WSOP .

So with imaginary money on the line, I made my predictions:

EPL Pick Six
1. Erik Seidel Jason Mercier
2. Jason Mercier Erik Seidel
3. Chino Rheem
4. Gavin Smith
5. Hasan Habib
6. Huck Seed

UPDATE: Game over: Seidel out, Chino wins, creditors rejoice.
UPDATE: Jason Mercier 3rd.
UPDATE: Hasan Habib 4th.
UPDATE: Gavin Smith out in 5th.

Hmmm, now I remember why I stopped betting horses.

One of the new things with this latest World Series of Poker (as significant as ESPN’s live coverage, imho) was the introduction of sports-book bets on WSOP outcomes. Think about how much effort went in to making that possible — first, changing the law such that Nevada sports books could expand their offerings to include non-athletic contests … then running specific bets through Nevada Gaming regulators … all so non-Caesars casinos could spread action on the WSOP? That’s not exactly the kinda thing done on a whim … especially when the introduction of “live” TV coverage adds a whole new element of necessary oversight for GCB enforcement.

The Wynn seems to be wanting to take the lead on spreading such non-athletic “exotics”, with Race and Sports Book Director Johnny Avello establishing himself as the go-to guru for entertainment-based wagers — having set for-entertainment-only odds (with remarkable accuracy) for the Oscars, beauty pageants, Dancing with the Stars … even fashion at the British Royal Wedding, and the breed of dog to win the Westminster Dog Show.

Read below for more official word on Wynn Las Vegas/Encore’s WSOP offerings:

Wynn Las Vegas Accepts Bets on the $10,000 No Limit Texas Hold’em Poker Main Event Championship for the first time in gaming history
Odds are set on the nine players participating in the November final table

LAS VEGAS, July 20,2011—The Race and Sports Book at Wynn Las Vegas is now accepting wagers on the $10,000 No Limit Texas Hold ‘em Poker Main Event Championship to be held November 5 – 7 in Las Vegas. Wagers can be placed on each of the final nine players to win the event or on the top two finishers (quinella).

New Nevada gambling regulations this year allow casinos to offer wagering opportunities on non-sporting events. On July 15, the Nevada Gaming Control Board provided approval to accept wagers on the $10,000 No Limit Texas Hold ‘em Poker Main Event Championship.

Wynn Las Vegas became the first Las Vegas casino to offer wagers on non-sporting events in early July, when the Race and Sports Book accepted bets on the preliminary rounds of the No Limit Texas Hold ‘em Poker tournament. Lines included whether a woman would finish higher than 40th and whether poker legends Johnny Chan, Allen Cunningham or Erik Seidel would win money in the event.

“This is a great event for wagers,” said Wynn Race and Sports Director Johnny Avello. “Not only will gamblers be betting on other gamblers, but non-gamblers who just have a love of poker and follow this event every year can get in on the action too.”

Wynn Race and Sports Book Director, John Avello, has been providing entertainment odds on the Academy Awards, the Emmys, the Golden Globes, beauty and other popular reality competition shows for more than three years.

Punters here will now legally be able to bet on:

The Winner
Top Two Finishers

Click here to read official notice of the newly allowed wagers. I’m guessing it didn’t look good for the WSOP to be championing monster prop bets that existed in a “gray area” of Nevada Gaming regulations? Or they were simply pissed that so many of these wagers were going to Bodog? Or they wanted to provide November Niners an ability to hedge their bets. But unlike the case with Pete Rose, it doesn’t necessarily seem like in poker, that betting on one of your opponents will automatically keep you out of the Hall of Fame.

I’m watching the “Live” ESPN coverage and it sucks. It’s like it was before the cameras. Not only don’t we see all the hands, but we don’t know whether the better has the “Nuts” or is bluffing. Since they are afraid of people telling what the other players have, how about a one hand delay?

Marvin, Marvin, Marvin … c’mon, can’t you see the positives at all? This is semi-monumental … not the kinda Poker TV you see on Versus, ya know? Though not perfect yet, they gotta start somewhere, right? You bring up some good points that I’m sure they’ll consider in the future … but really, remember, while not necessarily “alpha” version of live coverage, it is rather “beta”.

In an ideal world — according to Pokerati — all cards and chips would be RFID’d worldwide and you could watch all poker anywhere in any place at any time, as live as possible as permissible by gaming jurisdiction, and decide for yourself whether or not you wanna see hole cards. (I tend to enjoy guessing sometimes.) With super-duper extra-HD All-360 technology, of course … on my iphone should I so choose. But we’re just not quite there yet!

From the Rio sportsbook: For people not glued to Twitter, "live enough" coverage is ... um ... not too different from reruns usually airing on screens in many sports bars.

Not sure how it would work with exposed hole cards and future "in-game betting" on the WSOP. (Seen at the sportsbook in the Palms, where you can't yet bet that way.)

And remember, one other factor complicating matters here is approval by Nevada Gaming. Even just allowing twitpics in casinos and cell phones in sports books is relatively new territory for them. And there are some people who don’t believe you should be able to know a players cards a half-hour later when your buddy — or even the players themselves — can find out if that key tell thy picked up goes along with the nuts or nothing.

Click the promo banner to watch things as live as we’re gonna get them for now.

• Players from one of two groups of 13 to last longest
• Will at least one player from a box of 3 make the money
• Will a woman finish in the top 40
• Will at least one of a group of 7 men last longer than all women
• Age of the winner

Kinda a strange bunch of props imho … but hey, they do seem to support Rule #2 of Poker Life, which is, of course, “Never Stop Gambling.”

Should be interesting to see what kinda action Caesars wants to wrap around these newly approved fully legal prop bets … and what additional props show up in future lines.

All this became possible, btw, in January of this year, when Nevada Gaming approved and adopted amendments to Regulation 22, allowing the state’s casinos to offer wagers on events other than just horse races, greyhound races, and athletic events. So now, you can bet in Nevada on the outcome of non-sporting events such as The Academy Awards or American Idol … or whether or not one man out of a group of seven can outlast all women in a $1,500 no-limit hold’em tournament.

UPDATE: @OskarGarcia was all over this one last week, and noted that the Wynn became the first ever Nevada casino to offer non-sporting bets in their sports book with the above wager options on the WSOP. He also talks to a regulator who says this new practice should have big implications for betting on the November Nine.

2011 WSOP – Episode 11: Bookies, Dumpsters, and Mavericks (5:16) – Dan and Pauly ditch the action at the WSOP and wander over to the sportsbook to watch Game 6 of the NBA Finals, because Pauly bet the Mavs, which is also Dan’s hometown team. Dan asks Pauly to describe some of the complexities of sportsbetting, both in Vegas and in the shady underworld of online bookies.

For more episodes, visit the Tao of Pokerati archives or subscribe to the Tao of Pokerati feed.

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!

Congress, as the court points out, enacted PASPA in 1992 to limit the expansion of sports gambling in the United States by making it unlawful for a government to license or a person to operate a betting, gambling, or wagering scheme based on professional or amateur sports. The grandfathering provision provided an out for those states that conducted a sports wagering scheme prior to PASPA’s passage, and certain sporting activities are beyond PASPA’s reach. The plaintiffs in the iMEGA case claimed that PASPA’s limitations violated myriad provisions of the US Constitution, including the Commerce Clause, the Tenth Amendment (limiting the powers of the federal government), and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The court started with the standing issue. Standing is (very generally) the ability of a party to bring a case or participate in it before the court; a party with standing has a sufficient connection to the law or action that’s challenged, or experiences harm from the law or action, to support its participation in the case. iMEGA and the plaintiff representatives of the New Jersey horseracing industry argued that PASPA prevents their members from pursuing the business of sports wagering in New Jersey. It also denies them and citizens of the 46 states not grandfathered in under PASPA (all except Nevada, Oregon, Montana, and Delaware) from the ability to take advantage of several forms and platforms for sports betting based solely on geography.

The court held that iMEGA and the horseracing industry plaintiffs had not demonstrated that they suffered injury. There was no actual or imminent harm resulting from or that would result from the plaintiffs advocating (or “promoting”) that sports gambling should be legalized. As to operating sports gambling businesses, the court noted that these plaintiffs did not actually engage in gambling activities themselves; they sought to represent the interests of their respective members in this respect. However, there must be some injury to a plaintiff (not just its members) and that a plaintiff’s members must face some obstacles preventing them from pursuing their own claims, neither of which the court was satisfied were proved here. In an obiter dictum, the court also held that, even if there were an injury, and even if PASPA were declared to be unconstitutional by the court, that declaration in and of itself would not bring relief to these plaintiffs. New Jersey law would still outlaw sports betting. Presumably there must be a change in New Jersey law first before the court can consider granting an order to address the alleged harm. (That may yet happen, starting with Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 132. That resolution would amend the New Jersey constitution to permit the legislature to authorize sports betting at Atlantic City casinos and certain horse tracks, with some limitations. That amendment will be decided by New Jersey voters in a referendum during the next general election.)

As to Senator Lesniak and another individual intervenor, State Senate President Stephen Sweeney, the court also found that they were without standing. The senators had challenged PASPA on the grounds that the prohibition interfered with their discretionary rights as legislators to propose, consider, and enact legislation (including with respect to sports betting) that was in the best interests of the people of New Jersey; this is the concept of “institutional standing.” The court concluded that the institutional injury that was alleged here was too abstract for redress. It was the New Jersey constitution that constrained the senators here, more so than PASPA, as the constitution currently precludes the New Jersey legislature from legalizing sports betting. As the court put it: “The Senators’ argument thus puts the cart before the horse in many respects, because they presume voter passage of the referendum, subsequent legislative authorization, and then federal preemption via a civil enforcement action … Essentially, this lawsuit is an attempt to preempt the federal preemption of PASPA.” The mere threat of federal preemption here was not sufficient institutional injury for state legislators to have standing to challenge PASPA’s constitutionality.

Finally, all plaintiffs lacked standing to challenge PASPA on Tenth Amendment grounds. Such a claim is reserved to the various states and the State of New Jersey was not a litigant in this case.

What’s interesting about this case is what could happen next. A number of options make the landscape quite fluid. The plaintiffs could appeal. Some of the facts on the ground could change, e.g., the referendum could pass, authorizing the amendment to the state constitution, and the New Jersey legislature could then attempt to act on that. New Jersey could launch its own case and some of the members of the horse racing associations could bring suit. While changes to PASPA don’t seem to be on the radar for federal legislators, this week’s judgment out of New Jersey likely won’t be the last word in the discussion.

The Nevada Gaming Control Board released the state’s take on the Super Bowl last week from its 183 sports books. $87.5 million. Not a totally shocking number — bigger than the last two years but nowhere near the glory days of 2006 … and the state lost money in ’08. But what was surprising to me is how much Nevada won — a mere $724k … less than 1 percent of money wagered, and the second smallest amount won by the state in the past decade. I mean she-ot … that’s less than a single Phil Ivey prop bet!

Check out the stats, and discern for yourself …

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.

I thought so, too … and maybe that’s why few seem to be recognizing the historic happenings right here, right now, with sports betting in Nevada. Check out the new TV commercials — seen on the local ABC affiliate before the UT-Tech game — for the first ever legal wagering app in the United States, moral opposition be damned:

We knew the release of “Leroy’s App” might be kinda a big deal … and the CEO of Leroy’s parent company, American Wagering, Inc., spells out pretty clearly their intent to have their finger on every “online” sports bet in the country with “interstate sports betting networks, phone betting, and real-time handheld devices”:

Yikes, fairly dramatic … but a 31-year gestation period for online sports betting in America? That’s not so ridiculous when you consider the foundation of all opposition to “online gambling” traces back the Wire Act of 1961, made law of the land 49 years ago. Forget Harry Reid health care … it takes a long time for the kinda change we can believe in (in Nevada).

With Leroy’s fully legal online sports betting now marketing itself en masse — a development we hardly heard a whisper about until shortly after removal of sports betting from the Frank bill — you gotta think it’s only a matter of time before Cantor Gaming gets approval to take their “real-time handheld devices” (pimped by Doyle Brunson) beyond a casino property’s firewalls.

Even the bankruptcy-challenged Station Casinos has a fully legal online sports betting option — just no app yet. Haven’t figured out how long they’ve had this, but they apparently just launched a program allowing you, from home or wherever, to convert slot machine points into real-money sports wagers.

Who says sports betting won’t be part of legal online gambling in America? Seems it kinda-sorta already is, and is just being set up to ensure Vegas won’t lose out to bookies in London or New Jersey.

Check out this article from the AP about what will be called “Leroy’s App”.

American Wagering Inc. launches their new Blackberry app supposedly like next week … in time for the NFL and college football seasons. And then in coming months they’ll have the same thing for iPhones, Droids, and other “smart” mobile devices, they say. The Blackberry version has already been approved by the NV Gaming Control Board, while the others will face similar vetting upon release.

The catch: You can bet on sports from anywhere — your home, the grocery store, a bar, middle of the desert, Pahrump whorehouse, etc. — so long as you do so somewhere in the state of Nevada.

The things I find curious about this, both technologically and, um … license-and-regulatorially(?):

• GPS tracking applied to online gambling, creating a virtual gaming wall at the state lines; makes me think of both Kentucky and California.
• Different than Cantor Gaming devices at M Resort, the Venetian, and (coming soon) the Hard Rock, as their mobile sports-betting tech only works on casino property.
• Wonder if Leroy’s app will have in-game betting, like Cantor’s casino product.
• Would love to meet Leroy. He’s got to be an interesting character.
• Wonder what this has to do, if anything, with stripping sports betting from HR 2267.
• GCB approval suggests confidence in ability to block underage bettors online. Live first-deposit at Leroy’s seems to be the key.

Here’s a little more on the forthcoming release as per the tech-biz media at cnet.com.

It was the King-Meeks amendment that assured the league the bill would exclude sports betting. One key supporters of this measure was John Campbell, a decidedly right-wing Republican from California who, incidentally, wrote the amendment that calls for a “blacklist” of “unlawful internet gambling enterprises”.

Photo special for Pokerati © James Berglie / BePhotography

Rep. John Campbell supports the rights of Americans to gamble online, so long as they can’t bet on football.

The effort to remove sports betting gives insight into the process of converting undecideds into supporters, as seen in the video below. Just a week earlier, Campbell had told the House Financial Services Committee, “You know I don’t gamble, and I don’t particularly like it; but freedom is not about legislating what I like to do and making illegal what I don’t.”

But as it became clear during markup that the NFL would be getting what they wanted and sports bettors would not, Barney Frank, who believes all forms of online gambling deserve the consumer protections HR 2267 advocates, couldn’t resist posing a somewhat humorous, if not uncomfortable question to his colleague from across the aisle:

With both the Campbell and King-Meeks amendments passing by voice vote, later that day Campbell signed on as the 70th cosponsor (and fourth Republican) willing to align themselves with online gambling.