In last Friday’s twitfeed, my favorite tech-biz site Tech Crunch tweeted about their post  “Is Zynga Trying To Patent Virtual Currency?” Apparently, the leviathan of multiplayer gaming networks — and big wildcard in the future of real-money online poker — filed a US Patent Application in March of this year in an effort to corner the virtual currency market.

At least that’s my take. After reading the actual legal document, “Virtual Playing Chips in a Multiuser Online Game Network”, I gather what they are really trying to do is define and patent the purchase and flow of “Non-Redeemable Virtual Currency” as it pertains *specifically* to gambling on social networks.

 

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Internet super-behemoth Google seems to be wasting little time positioning themselves to profit from licensed internet gambling in the United States by investing in “social gaming”.  Both the New York Times and Techcrunch are reporting that Google has agreed to purchase “Slide”, a software development company specializing in Facebook apps involving the exchange of virtual money.

Sale price estimates range from $182 million to $228 million (in real money). Supposedly, Google will officially announce the acquisition tomorrow.

This follows last week’s quiet confirmation from Google CEO Eric Schmidt about their partnership with Zynga — clarifying speculative reports in July that Google had “secretly” invested $150 million or so in the enormous play-money poker site.

With a current user base of 28 million budding poker degens at the ready, Zynga is primed for real-money poker with their popular Facebook app Texas HoldEm Poker. You can read more about Zynga’s interest in HR 2267 from Business Insider: JACKPOT FOR ZYNGA: Congress Wants To Legalize Online Gambling.

Conveniently, Zynga uses PayPal for a method of payment (and happens to be PayPal’s biggest client).  This method of payment — turned off years ago for anything related to gambling — could be ideal for a would-be internet gambling licensee under HR 2267 with Barney Frank’s Manager’s Amendment, which prohibits credit card transactions for gambling should his bill become law.

As the dust settles from yesterday’s big poker heist at EPT Berlin, I was just thumbing through the Berlin poker robbery links and videos KevMath amassed. My favorite Google translation so far comes from the interview with a German photographer on hand:

14 clock in Berlin’s luxury hotel “Grand Hyatt”: The European Poker elite has the honor. It is the biggest tournament in Germany. Prize money: one million euros! Even Boris Becker was as an advertising face of Pokerstars.de at the table there – until he is rausflogen on Thursday. In addition, author Charlotte Roche ( “Wetlands”). Today I want to photograph the friend of Poker Europe champion Sandra “Black Mamba” Naujoks (28). He had lost a bet, now disguised as a woman sitting at the table. So far, so ordinary.

While so much can get lost in Google translation, sometimes it spits out pure poetry. The robbers haven’t even gotten there yet, and it would be Theater of the Absurd if it weren’t about to become so real.

For a firsthand account via second-hand language filter, the translated version of Benjo’s blog also becomes must-read, obv:

And that’s exactly what it is: a story that I tell surely in abundance in my back, emphasizing the amusing details. But on the stroke during the two minutes that lasted the confusion, I fear the belly.

We got a pretty sophisticated audience at Pokerati. All you lawyers, execs, programmers, Congresspeople, and part-time rodeo clowns … I gotta say, the search engine traffic is pretty dull compared to what brings people to sites like this and this. But while most of our search traffic comes from blase matter-of-factoids like Pokerati, WSOP, deep stack tournaments, and Julie Schneider stack em up, we do get a few visitors looking for peculiar, perverted, and/or misinformed content:

tied up hands and feet
lesbian poker
naked fat chick
joe cada is a jew?
hogtied men
the novembrists
oliver tse
are maria and tiffany gay
are the poker girls amazing race gay
(and lots of variants of the above theme)
joe cada shirtless
pictures of amy calistri nude
mitch garber asshole
hot boys guy donkeys
hookers at the commerce casino
óòðî
chau giang rub titties

LOL. Seriously … who are you people? And were you able to find everything you’re looking for?

I kinda thought I was the boss around here … but we recently got a letter from Google informing me that Paul Leggett is now the “Ultimate COO” of Pokerati.com:

Crap, if he’s moving in I guess I gotta get an airbed?

OK, I’m definitely Tivo-ing this one:

The economy is definitely taking a toll on everybody, but unlike many people, Norm Zada took a chance and became a millionaire–by gambling! Norm made $100,000 in one year which he eventually turned into $100 million by playing poker. Watch him talk about his journey on TV Land Prime’s new original series “How’d You Get So Rich?,”- hosted by gossip diva Joan Rivers- which premieres on August 5th at 10pm. Multi-millionaire Norm is able to live every man’s dream in a lavish 11 bedroom house surrounded by famous neighbors and beautiful women serving as his employees.

WTF? That’s what MTV (parent network of TV Land) is saying … even though this Norm Zada character has no listing in the Hendon Mob database nor on Pocket 5s. So who is he really?

For one, he is founder of the implant-free porn magazine Perfect 10 (nsfw). He’s the same guy who sued Google (and won) over their use of thumbnail images from his publication. He’s also the author of a book, Winning Poker Systems, which was a follow-up to his not-so-heralded paper, “Theoretical efficiency of the Edmonds-Karp algorithm for computing maximal flows.”

Prior to poker (and porn), he apparently taught mathematics and computer science at Stanford, Columbia, and UCLA. And then he tried to start money management competitions called the U.S. Trading Championship and the U.S. Investing Championship … essentially the World Series of Finance? In 1996, he supposedly made the claim that balancing the US federal budget would lead to “economic disaster” — and offered $400,000 to anyone who could prove him wrong.

Zada, a Ph.D., is the son of famed UC-Berkley mathematician and computer scientist Lofti Zadeh, who received the 2009 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Electrical Engineering for “inventing and developing the field of ‘fuzzy logic,’ in which a system applies a quantitative assessment to inherently ambiguous ideas, thus providing a new paradigm to improve artificial intelligence and automated control systems.”

Oh, and he’s part Iranian.

Day 6 of the Main Event resumes today at 12 noon today, with the plan to play down to 63 players, which may make today the longest day of the WSOP so far. Here’s a few tables to scroll through, consisting of Day 6 table draws, payouts so far, and the 2nd page consists of Nolan Dalla’s tournament report.

For those that don’t care to click ahead, follow the live updates over at www.wsop.com and I’m sure Pauly and Dan will be providing updates on their run to Dream Team Poker glory.

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A Judge in Washington State has made a ruling in the Betcha.com online gambling case involving our old friend, Nick Jenkins! Plus, we cover industry news from the United Kingdom about Google’s online gambling advertising policy, and the Toronto Sun article about which finally covers the Absolute Poker cheating scandal.

We have online gambling news from the UK as Google loosens advertising restrictions for our industry. Also, what can US poker players do right now to help their cause?! Plus, we start to put the pieces of the Cardspike puzzle together!

And earlier in the week … Are we finally starting to learn the truth about Cardspike? Yes! But is it the whole truth? That’s still to be seen. See the latest “confessions” from those involved in the Cardspike scandal. Plus a visit to the Affiliate Summit and take a brief look inside!

What is the United States Department of Justice doing with an investigation of Google and Yahoo? Speculation is there may be some trouble for their years of accepting online gambling advertising. Subpoenas and depositions have been given! We have that story, plus updates on the Bodog situation, Party Gaming troubles, the Gambling Wages Challenge, and other industry news.

More at APCW.org

My poker pal Jim Killeen first parlayed his poker winnings into a successful chair massage business at the Commerce Casino and now has gone big time and made a movie. Always breaking the mold, Jim’s movie is available to watch for free on YouTube. Tom and I watched it recently on the drive from Phoenix to Las Vegas and both enjoyed it. Angry Julie, not so much. If you happen to watch it, let me know what you think.