Posts Tagged ‘internet biz’

GamingCounsel’s Weekly Briefs

Full Tilt out of Washington, Jersey shores up i-gaming bills, Party fights back, GTECH-who? & Domain event

by , Nov 16, 2010 | 11:22 am

The midterm elections and the November Nine are over, but interesting things keep happening in the gaming world. For starters, the lame-duck session of Congress is underway; time will tell if anything that affects Internet gaming will pass before the start of the next congressional session. In addition, here are the legal tidbits that I thought were the most interesting and/or relevant coming out over the past week:

  1. FullTilt Turns Off Washington – In big news from last Friday, FullTilt Poker has elected to follow PokerStars’s lead and discontinue providing real money games to players located in Washington State. This impacts players residing in Washington and non-residents of Washington visiting Washington. Tilt’s FAQ on the matter is here. This is being done to preserve Tilt’s Internet-poker-only-is-legal argument. A related fact is that they’re able to protect their poker-only and transparent processing solutions by turning off Washington. This leaves fewer offerings out there willing to service Washington State poker players. [Poker News Daily]
  2. #

  3. New Jersey Moves Forward on I-Gaming – Irrespective of what’s happening in Congress, New Jersey continues to move forward in its review of an intra-state Internet gaming offering. This week, the NJ Senate’s Budget and Appropriations Committee reported out S490 (Permits Internet wagering at Atlantic City casinos under certain circumstances); the bill now goes to the full State Senate for consideration. This bill has State Senator Ray Lesniak as the primary sponsor. It seeks to authorize Internet wagering in Atlantic City casinos, thereby allowing New Jersey residents to place wagers on casino games by means of the Internet. All games, including poker, which may be played at a casino in New Jersey, may be offered through Internet wagering under this bill. Several commentators have been saying for some time that New Jersey is one of the more promising states for intra-state gaming; if this bill becomes law – and there’s a ways to go yet – those predictions may turn out to have been prescient. [NJLeg.state.nj.us]
  4. #

  5. Kentucky v. PartyGaming – In other US state news, PartyGaming is not (initially, at least) rolling over in the Commonwealth of Kentucky’s attempt to extract damages from Party. Recall that Party was added to the state’s suit against Pocket Kings (Tilt) earlier this year; Microgaming was added last month. Party has now brought a motion to dismiss the complaint on several grounds. This will be interesting litigation as it rolls forward alongside the Kentucky domain name litigation. Watch for one or more of the identified defendants in Pocket Kings et al to settle. [EGR Magazine]
  6. #

  7. GTECH Worldwide Expansion – GTECH, a Lottomatica subsidiary, continues to generate interesting news and business. Recently it has struck a number of deals with various operators, including with provincial operators in Canada. Last week two more deals were made public. The first was a 10-year agreement with the Shenzhen Welfare Lottery Center to upgrade existing Keno systems, selling online lottery games, and increasing the operator’s terminal base. [iGaming Business] Then came word that GTECH has received a two-year extension to continue providing support to Pronosticos para la Asistencia Publica in Mexico. [Gaming Intelligence] Even though the parent posted a net loss in Q3, keep watching GTECH, folks.
  8. #

  9. gTLD Expansions – This is the most important ongoing story in Internet gaming (and, indeed, in intellectual property) that you’re hearing nothing about. Basically, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is opening up the general top-level domain registry well beyond what’s currently available. Instead of .com, .biz, etc., people will be able to create their own extensions and registries. Some of the new registries could include cities (.london, .nyc), Internet auction providers (.ebay), and people with strong trade-marks and domain names in a host of industries (think of .pfizer or .coke). The implications for Internet gaming are huge. Not only could operators register trade-marked names (e.g., .pokerstars), but they could add security to their offerings by owning, domiciling, and managing their own registries. Some think that a more generic name could be registered by one or more parties: .bet or .poker, perhaps. A summary of changes in the proposed final new gTLD applicant guidebook are here – worth a view. [via CircleID]

WSOP.com Gets Overhaul, New Webmasters

by , Oct 30, 2009 | 1:09 pm

The new World Series site just went live, just in time for the November Nine … check it out at either WSOP.com or WorldSeriesofPoker.com.

For the past couple years, Bluff has been running the WSOP website — they actually paid them for the privilege. But now Harrah’s has said we don’t want your stinkin’ money! what, you can’t keep paying us? Fine then, we’ll run it ourselves … and the keys to the WSOP internet machinery (now a division of Harrah’s Interactive Entertainment) have since been handed over.


How Spammers Hurt Poker

by , Aug 11, 2009 | 7:58 am

Nothing new here … but I saw this old Dave Chappelle clip the other day on what it would be like if the internet were a real place. Though most of it is about porn and penis enlargement, “online gambling” finds its way into the skit in the last minute of it … and by the time Chappelle punches out the guy pimping “our kinda sites”, the crowd is cheering.

Anyhow, something to think about in lieu of online poker’s political efforts — that it probably doesn’t help us to be in the same game as debt consolidation penis enlargement free mp3 downloads paris hilton sex goat fucking:


EMBED-If The Internet Was Real – Watch more free videos

Maybe some day we’ll see “legitimate” sites refuse to reward affiliates who use such methods?


GoDaddy to Sponsor National Heads-Up Poker Championship

by , Feb 10, 2009 | 1:21 pm

GoDaddy.com will be the presenting sponsor for the National Heads-Up Poker Championship, according to the official press release with dates and other pertinent info. Big news, really. When a company like GoDaddy.com embraces the poker industry by sponsoring such an event, it lets other major corporations know that’s it’s okay. C’mon in. There’s money to be made from this kazillion dollar industry!

In truth, it’s a brilliant move from GoDaddy.com to make itself a friend of the industry, as poker is filled with internet-savvy, blogging, html-minded people, some of whom (not naming names!) tend to buy domain names like they’re rebuys in a tournament. And it doesn’t hurt that the National Heads-Up Poker Championship ends up airing on NBC, which is some solid air time on a major network. Welcome to our little niche, GoDaddy.


Child Protection Poker

by , Sep 23, 2008 | 12:58 pm

Interesting rant over about those eTrade baby commercials — pointing out similarities between online stock trading and gambling.

Interesting to me because one of the big issues being raised by online poker opponents is whether or not we can protect children from calling an all-in with just a gutshot and daddy’s credit card worth of rebuys. It really isn’t that different from the unstudied trying to day-trade for dollars … and yet that industry can comfortably run ads like this:

A little perspective as we discuss all these big-time online poker money exchanges currently being considered in courts and Congress …


Betting on Winstar/Harrah’s

by , Aug 18, 2008 | 5:11 pm

As Dan has informed me, my gambling has become a problem. However, the compulsive gambling that I’ve been accused of takes place nowhere near a casino. And quite honestly, in this game of roulette, I’m betting on the house.

Pokery Domains I own… And, yes, would consider selling 😉

*** Oklahoma Poker ***
REDRIVERROUNDUP.COM/.NET – I don’t think Winstar abandoned this one after the rebranding. I’m thinking they never thought to buy it.
WINSTARBLOG.COM – Not bad. I actually know the guy who bought WinstarPoker.com,.net, etc. He’s somewhat to blame for my addiction.
OKIEPOKER.COM
OKPOKERBLOG.COM,.NET
CHEROKEEPOKERBLOG.COM,.NET
CHOCTAWBLOG.COM,.NET
CHOCTAWLIVE.COM,.NET
INDIANPOKERBLOG.COM,.NET
INDIANPOKERNEWS.COM,.NET

*** WSOP/Harrahs ***
THENOVEMBERNINE.NET,.CO.UK,.INFO,.ORG,.TV – Not sure why somebody doesn’t buy all versions of the domain. Didn’t they learn anything from the WSOP.com ownership battles?
THENOVEMBER9.NET,.CO.UK,.INFO,.ORG,.TV
THENOVNINE.COM,.NET,.INFO
THENOV9.COM,.NET,.INFO

More…


Happy Birthday to YouTube RawVegas

by , Apr 3, 2008 | 9:32 am

RawVegasTV is celebrating its 1-year anniversary … a not-so-shocking milestone for an operation built on the concept of Joe Sebok eating four taquitos to Gavin Smith’s 2.5 and Google searches for “denise pernula naked”.

With a staff of 12, they’ve put up more than 1,100 videos, generating more than 35 million views. [via Robin Leach]

Congrats, dudes! Pretty impressive for a web-something that “has nothing to do with Wicked Chops,” according to RVTV president Steven “Chops” Preiss … it’s amazing how many eyeballs you can capture by putting up high-quality vids (I mean resolution-wise, mixed quality content-wise) in players that always work and are easily link/embeddable. Having a sassy lass who isn’t afraid to grab her own boobs while doing the news probably also helps, as does Barrett Applegate: