It’s been a busy old time here in England. Last weekend, a lot of people crowded into London to shout at an old lady on a boat, as part of a big ‘thank you’ party for giving us two days of extra holiday, or something like that.

Meanwhile the rest of the world sent their poker ambassadors to Las Vegas for the WSOP, so you might think this would be a quiet week for non-American poker news. You’d be right of course, but it hasn’t been a totally barren period so stop looking so smug.

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels

There’s a lot of talk among poker players about the nobility of their business. Such as a man only being as good as his word. The flipside of this is that when something goes awry all that dirty laundry gets a very public airing. The latest whistle blower is Douglas “WCGrider” Polk, who is claiming missing payments from Brad Booth. The player known as “Yukon” lost over $1,000,000 in the Ultimate Bet cheating scandal and has reportedly been borrowing money left right and centre. That includes $30,000 from WCGrinder, of which only $2,000 has been paid back. Booth has now changed his phone number and left the country. [TwoPlusTwo]

British pro Sam Trickett is threatening to reveal the identity of his own bad debtor, unless the unnamed (but apparently well-known) player pays up. [Tight Poker]

Spanish Freedoms

After a couple of minor bumps in the road, Spain has finally put its new regulatory plan into action. Companies hoping to operate in the country are required to apply for a license, which the Spanish seem only too happy to grant. PokerStars are already up and running, alongside familiar names like bwin.party, 888, and Bet365. The latest company to be granted an Iberian permit is British betting exchange, Betfair. [Reuters]

Dutch Poker Plots

Online Casino Reports suggest that the Netherlands are looking to “adopt the Danish model”. Presumably this news concerns online gambling regulations and not foster parentage of a pastry statue. The Dutch currently have laws in place to prevent their citizens playing online, but much like UIGEA-era U.S.A everyone just ignores them. Unlike America, the government’s response has been to draw up plans for an open, regulated market. It parallels the system in Denmark, in that online casinos will be charged a lower rate of tax than their bricks-and-mortar counterparts. [Online Casino Reports]

PokerStars Tournament Hubbub

The huge jumble of tournaments over at PokerStars is undergoing some reconstruction. First up, the Macau Poker Cup has been cancelled. No reason has been given other than, “events beyond our reasonable control,” which could be pretty much anything. Maybe they got wind that the high stakes cash game players aren’t planning to trek back to Asia after the WSOP finishes. [Card Player]

It’s OK, dry your eyes, there’s a new online jem to take your mind off Macau. The MicroMillions festival is like the World Series for people who pay for things with loose change. There are one hundred events of all different shapes and sizes, with buy-ins ranging from $0.11 to $22. [PokerNews]

There’s a lot of Jubilee detritus littering the streets right now. I’ll do my best to avoid it and so long as I’m not swallowed up in a storm of bunting and miniature flags, I shall see you next week for more news from the Wider World of Poker.

Time for some of the major legal developments in gaming over the past week, as selected by @GamingCounsel:

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1. Netherlands I-Gaming Attitudes – Probably the most interesting international story of the past week is the ruminations from the Netherlands that the new government may be interested in liberalizing the country’s Internet gambling laws. It’s not clear how far this process would go and what games or betting would be included, but a lot could happen in what has been a very restricted online market in the EU thus far. [eGaming Review]

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2. Nova Scotia Says No (That’s in Canada, Folks) – Another international piece is the recent pronouncement of the premier of Nova Scotia that that province will not pursue a government-sanctioned Internet gaming offering. Nova Scotia’s finance minister added that any estimate of the revenues associated with Internet gaming would be “a wild guess.”(That’s an interesting comment given that the province of Ontario has publicly estimated that it could turn a profit of at least C$100 million/year; many have questioned the basis for such a projection.) The CEO of the Nova Scotia Gaming Corp. (rightly) pointed out recently that Internet gambling will continue to grow whether the government is involved or not. [Globe and Mail]

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3. Betfair Move – Hot on the heels of the Betfair IPO announcement, there is speculation that Betfair may move out of the UK to a jurisdiction with a lower tax rate. William Hill and Ladbrokes recently moved to Gibraltar because they perceived that UK taxes were too high. Some are saying Betfair may make a similar play. With competition increasing among Internet gaming jurisdictions, more and more operators are paying attention to applicable taxes. [CasinoGamblingWeb]
   

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4. Station Casinos Trademark Infringement/Cybersquatting Suit – Station Casinos Inc. has sued two website operators in Federal Court in Nevada: SL Enterprises (www.vegasstationcasino.com) and Ryan Murphy (www.stationcasinos.org). If the Station marks have sufficient rights attached to them through use and/or registration, they should have a good case. This kind of thing happens in i-gaming all the time and it’s a big problem for operators; it’s tremendously time-consuming and potentially expensive to vigilantly prosecute misappropriation of property rights. [Las Vegas Sun]
   

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5. PartyGaming in Venezuela – PartyGaming plc has set up an online poker offering in Venezuela. This continues two trends: Party’s continuing march around the world into new markets and the increased interest in South America as a lucrative and growing market for interactive gaming. [Gambling Zion]

Everybody seems to want more of him … especially in Europe, where he’s arguably the most famous faceless person in poker since Isildur1/Viktor Blom.

The Dutch contingent of PokerNews Radio tracked down Kevmath — the great Googler from 2+2, Pokerati, and PokerStarsBlog — to discuss the latest in the ongoing UB Scandal (as per the recent feature from Wicked Chops).

Always providing reader-service … for those who may not have more than a few minutes to get caught up on the scandal they long got too confused about to follow … Kevmath gives the quick essentials of the current situation as seen through his insightful culling of the internet.

Check him out with @webjoker and @happyfreaked:

And if you haven’t seen it already, while listening be sure to check out the lol-laden thread on 2+2, Who/What is Kevmath?

A little late, but here’s the first half recap of Sunday’s action…

Naalden in Dutch for Bracelet

Marc Naalden went nearly wire-to-wire to victory in the $2,000 Limit Holdem event, as he held a large chip lead over the field, handing it over to Steve Cowley for a few hands when play got to heads-up, but then going on a rush at the end to take a bracelet home to the Netherlands, as well as $190,770.

Can Cantu Can Do?

The $1,500 NL Holdem event is down to ~80 players, and Brandon Cantu is the current chip leader with 530,000 in chips. Other notables remaining include Joe Bartholdi (390,000), Raymond Davis (342,000), Nam Le (125,000) and Alex Jacob (78,000). Play will end at the 3am deadline well short of the final table, so the remaining field gets to return at 1pm to play down to a winner.

May the Schwartz Be With Him

Noah Schwartz is the current chip leader (674,000) in the $10,000 Pot-Limit Omaha World Championship with 42 players remaining, only 27 getting paid. Jonas Entin (434,000), David Williams (359,500), Erick Lindgren (270,000), Nenad Medic (216,500), Padraig Parkinson (173,000), and Barry Greenstein (111,000) are some of the other notables who’ll be happy to reach the 3am deadline with chips.

Shootout at the Rio, 5k NL Version

A field of 280 is down to 30 in the $5,000 NL Holdem Shootout with the remaining players meeting at five tables of six players each to create a five player final table on Tuesday. Phil Ivey, Jean Gaspard, Joe Serock, Jennifer Harman, Neil Channing, Peter Feldman, John Monnette and Mark Teltscher are some of the returnees for day 2 at 2pm Monday.

All Mixed Up

The debuting $2,500 Mixed Event drew a field of 412 to play eight different games (HORSE, PLO, NL Holdem, 2-7 Triple Draw) with 335 players remaining. JC Tran appears to be the unofficial chip leader at 27,000, followed by Steve Billirakis at 26,000 and Sabyl Cohen-Landrum at 19,000. The players just returned from their dinner break to play another four levels before they do it all over again at 2pm Monday. More coming from me in the morning update, and check out Pokerati for other accusations of cheating, while www.wsop.com will cover the updates and other exciting stuff that’s not as controversial at the World Series of Poker.

News every American needs to hear! If you thought the UIGEA and Patriot Act were bad, you won’t believe what your government has for you next! Plus, European online gaming news from Scotland, Holland, and Switzerland.

The World Poker Store announced the expansion of its Bar Poker League into Mexico with plans to host 40 free tournaments per week in or around Mexico City, beginning in February of 2009. Liga Mexicana de Poker is set to become the licensee of the Bar Poker League and manage the tournaments.

Other Bar Poker Leagues are set to begin in 2009 – China and Germany in January, The Netherlands in February. Those ideas sound great…but Mexico? Has someone missed the news recently about the LAPT’s rather serious problems with hosting a tournament in that country? Like when Mexican officials shut down the event without warning, refused to let the tournament resume despite talks between attorneys, and supposedly seized all of the production equipment that the government still holds nearly a week later… Sure hope someone lets the World Poker Store know about that little poker snafu south of the border.

Part 1:

Click here to watch Part 2. Brought to you by APCW.org.