We thought it was a big deal when PokerStars got T-pain for a night, and then a bigger deal when they brought in @SnoopDogg for a party that certainly won’t be one-upped at this year’s WSOP … but what’s the point with Lady Gaga becoming a farmer?

In many ways it’s a disheartening reminder of what Phil Hellmuth can never be … and possibly indicative of poker’s future direction. Say what you will about the struggling American family farm, clearly there’s more money in virtual harvesting than poker, and hence the biggest name in poker (as far as Google is concerned) — and the most powerful celebrity in the world thanks in part to a song talking about poker — has moved beyond Texas Hold’em to sign with Farmville — and the parent company of the biggest online poker site.

Implications are clear … Zynga is planning to take over American agriculture by introducing poker players to the concept that money can indeed grow on trees. It should play great with the kids (who love Lady Gaga).

At a minimum you can see how Zynga’s at least thinking along the similar lines as Caesars:

I swear we’re not going gay(er than usual) here at Pokerati … but that song we told you about a long time ago, Poker Face by Lady Gaga, has now been turned into a male figure skating routine:

In preparation for the upcoming Vancouver Olympics, US figure skating champ Johnny Weir skated to the song about bluffin’ with muffins for an exhibition performance at US Nationals last week. Glad to see that the word about poker/lesbianism is still spreading.

And to prove we’re not homo just because we’re paying attention to figure skating, here’s Rush Limbaugh tarding rockin’ out to Lady Gaga during the talent portion of the 2010 Miss America contest:

(Oh, wait, Miss America, right …)

Evidently, something happened at this summer’s big PokerStars bash besides Nelly’s performance. (Say what?) Someone shot a video of a dance-off between Daniel Negreanu and Liv Boeree…and a few others who wanted to couldn’t help themselves. As @RealKidPoker tweeted the other day, “PokerStars party, alcohol, and Liv Boeree= embarrassing moments caught on youtube!”

(Advice: Turn the sound down; it’s muffled and contains the Lady Gaga song.)

Lady Gaga’s Poker Face officially became the most downloaded song in UK history last week.

A California thrash version by Of Mice and Men:

(For better audio but less crowd-hopping and no guitarist in a soccer jersey spitting on them, click here.)

And then in this corner, British band You Me at Six making a similar attempt to get people to listen to them:

Apparently our good friends across the pond are a bit more optimistic about the notion of the US opening its online gambling market in 2010 than we are … and in preparation, the buzz around England is that Betfair — the British online poker-and-more company and title sponsor of WSOP-Europe — is getting serious about making an estimated £1.5 billion ($2.5 billion) initial public offering.

The intent would be to raise capital in preparation for all sorts of crazy consolidation and forthcoming acquisitions in the online gambling sector.

At least one Betfair exec dismisses the talk as little more than speculation, despite meetings with Credit Suisse and other banking advisors that have the European financial press getting their knickers in a bunch as “companies seek to position themselves to enter the world’s biggest gambling market.” Should the rumored floatation happen, it would be the first major listing on the London Stock Exchange since the global economic collapse.

$400k HORSE

At the same time, Betfair last week made another move toward American soil by pledging $400,000 to the New York (Horse) Racing Association as an overlay should two specific horses face off against each other in October at Belmont Park:

Rachel Alexandra, the first filly to win the second leg of horse racing’s Triple Crown since 1924, has won her last eight races. Zenyatta is undefeated in 12 career starts, including the 2008 Breeders’ Cup Ladies Classic.

LOL, I didn’t even realize they had ladies events in horse racing!

Across the Chunnel: Refashioning French Poker

Arnault.

Betfair also just got themselves approved to enter France’s online gambling market, which is set to open next year … apparently with some nice poker-friendly alterations to the rake. (The new French law originally had players paying tax on every bet and raise, on every street … which can totally screw with your pot-odds calculations!) Helping get Betfair to the front of the French licensing line, with a better rake structure no less? Heavy lobbying efforts from billionaire bling merchant Bernard Arnault, CEO of Louis Vuitton, 10 percent owner of Betfair, and the 15th richest person in the world.

New-and-improved Yahoo! Poker Coming Soon

We’re talking Yahoo! Uk & Ireland, of course, not Yahoo! USA. The British arm of the web behemoth just re-upped its partnership with GTech G2, for two years, to provide real-money gaming options — and part of that deal includes plans to unveil a fully downloadable real-money Yahoo! poker room, not just the (lame) in-browser version currently available.

Magazine Moguls Jump into Mobile Gambling

PartyGaming CEO Jim Ryan recently said that the biggest threat to established online gaming brands comes from major media outlets, not current competitors. And sure enough … Dennis Publishing — the mega-magazine company behind Maxim, MacUser, Computer Shopper, Bizarre, Men’s Fitness, and more than a dozen other publications (including PokerPlayer, Inside Poker Business, and Stacked) — just launched its Monkey Mobile Casino, offering real-money online gambling on handheld devices. (The current issue of Monkey, fwiw, features a picture of Lady Gaga’s recent nipple slip.

The Swedish Taxman Cometh

Meanwhile, the Swedish Tax Authority (Skatteverket) has been studying all forms of internet commerce tax evasion since 2007, and has concluded that online poker companies with offshore servers are one of their biggest sources of uncollected e-commerce taxes.

Lady Gaga has a new tattoo. WTF — no spade, heart, club, or diamond?

Not exactly … but like Michael Phelps, she did get a special invite — as the pop singer will be playing a show at the Galaxy StarWorld Casino at the same time. Personally, I’m gettin’ a little tired of being bluffed by muffins, but that’s neither here nor there when you’ve got a chance to make a cameo appearance in Johnny Chan’s forthcoming Chinese-language “Poker King” movie, right?

From EarthTimes:

Dear Lady Gaga,

“I wanna hold them like they do in texas please, fold’em let em hit me raise it baby stay with me.” We certainly hope so and cannot believe the coincidence that you are playing live in Macau on Saturday 15th August while the Asian Poker Tour Macau Festival is in full swing at the Galaxy Starworld.

Your ‘Fame Ball’ Tour has been a huge hit and we are sure the plaudits in Macau will be the same as in Osaka, Tokyo, Seoul and Manila but imagine the reaction if you showed your poker face at the Asian Poker Tour Macau Festival! Not only will the venue be full of the world’s best poker players, the tournament is also the backdrop to the first ever Chinese language poker movie ‘Poker King,’ which people would go ‘gaga’ for if you took on a cameo role. Forget the wigs, keep the bleached blonde hair and think about the exposure to a huge audience!

More…

Another poppy video where PokerStars got some noticeable product placement was in Katy Perry’s “Waking Up in Vegas”. Check it out (along with an appearance by Daniel Negreanu) at about 1:15:

Apparently the original 2008-09 girl-kissing girl didn’t want to let Lady Gaga get all the poker player goo-goo … hence this video.

[via Wicked Chops]

Currently listening to the piano version of Lady Gaga’s PokerFace:

Ahh, just what I needed! Not sure if this version is by my favorite poker-minded pop-star bisexual or just a cover by Randy Newman’s kid sister … but regardless, the song was starting to get a little stale, and now this keeps it temporarily fresh.

DJ DaKnish is pimpin’ the original, too, on blip.fm (?) should you want to compare.

Ooh, I almost forgot to post these clips … we know Joan Rivers is willing to do what it takes to make something look better than it really is, and perhaps in an attempt to unoffend poker players and recharge her fan base, she and her daughter appeared on Ellen. The show started with a poker skit:

OK, hmm, interesting. At least this tells all those YouTube commenters that Melissa wasn’t acting in the original outburst.

Here’s their appearance/interview with Ellen (love the Lady Gaga intro — woot!), where Joan doesn’t exactly rescind her disgust for all things poker, but she does downgrade and de-Semitize her Annie hatred by calling her not Hitler, but The Bernie Madoff of Poker. She apparently doesn’t realize that title is already taken by Russ Hamilton — or maybe she does! — but whatever:

Now I like the Lady Gaga song even more.

Recorded the latest episode of The Poker Beat today … episode is already up. On the show a few weeks ago, we had a spirited discussion about the oh-so-important role of Lady Gaga in poker, and there I was semi-mocked for acknowledging I have a whole playlist on my iPod of just-poker music.

Though the new “All In” song by The Grouch and Eligh (w/ Pigeon John) isn’t included in my public playlist — along with a few other tunes I haven’t yet paid full price for — thought I’d share it with you in case you’re looking to fill out your own iWSOPod with just the right mix of poker-specific musical inspiration to carry you through a tournament or the cash-game grind:

Wow that YouTube, I’ll-tell-you-what …

So yeah, the song PokerFace by Lady Gaga … it’s at the top of the charts these days. It hit #1 for UK Singles this week, it’s #3 on the “Hot 100”, #2 on the “Pop 100”, and #9 on the Mainstream Top 40. And … it’s all over YouTube.

Apparently teen (and pre-teen) girls across the country world are flocking to webcams while dancing to a song that shamelessly glorifies Texas Hold’em. Whether we might be seeing the next tough female pros or gold-digging railbirds, I’m not so sure … but either way, surely it’s got to be “good for poker” when a pop song about a brash sexy-chick beatin’ a gamblin’ man at his own game inspires a generation young, impressionable lip-syncers to vocally embrace the concept of “bluffin’ with my muffin.”

Click through and around “related videos” for a sense of just how rampantly this song is spreading the poker word. Technically all the vids are SFW because they’re on YouTube … but WARNING: you may feel a little weird looking at so many perky schoolgirls bouncing around in tight clothes and short skirts to a song about poker: I know I did after watching like 80 of ’em … including:

Umm …
Uhh, poker?
Ooh So wrong
Clearly wronger

Also:

Russians
Gay
Karaoke
Kristy Gazes?

Remember that song Jen told us about way back when?

The singer’s name is Lady Gaga, and her latest single from her debut album is called “Poker Face.” And shockingly, it’s about a boy.

After googling Gaga, I find that she was signed as a major artist on Interscope as a disco-ish up-and-coming star. The label introduced her as: “Fresh out of NYC, this do-it-yourself disco-erotica queen is about to change the world one sequin at a time. She makes her own clothes, pens her own tunes, and will soon enough shatter every disco ball from here to Ibiza.”

Ummm, ok. All I cared about was that the song made numerous references to poker and bwin even contributed some props for the poker scenes. If Lady Gaga is mainstream, or hopes to be, it is good that poker has moved from All In Energy Drink promos masking as rap videos to real semi-mainstream pop music.

To see the video, click the YouTube link, as all embedding codes for her videos seem to have been disabled.