Cantor Gaming officials on Monday said the company has been working closely with Nevada gaming regulators after the arrest of Mike Colbert, now a former vice president and director of risk management with the Las Vegas-based company.
Colbert was one of eight people arrested Wednesday in Southern Nevada in connection with a nationwide illegal bookmaking operation that generated $50 million in seven months.
Robert Hubbell, a spokesman with Cantor Gaming in New York, said Colbert was no longer an employee with Cantor Gaming. He said to date the company has “found nothing to indicate that (Colbert) was using our system or accounts for wrongdoing.”
“Although the charges were not related to his responsibilities at Cantor Gaming, it is important to note that our account wagering system is designed to prevent misconduct,” Hubbell said in a statement.
“The former employee’s responsibilities with Cantor Gaming had nothing to do with accepting or distributing patron money.”
Colbert on Monday did not speak during his brief initial procedural hearing in Las Vegas Justice Court.
More…
A federal judge in New York shook the gaming world in August 2012 by ruling that poker is predominantly a game of skill and therefore not “gambling” under the federal Illegal Gambling Business Act (“IGBA”).
The editorial headline from the Christian Science Monitor was typical: “Misdeal on Internet poker gambling: A federal court ruling that poker is mainly a game of skill and thus not gambling could steer Congress down the wrong path of approving Internet gaming.”
The opinion is significant. The IGBA was the most important remaining federal statute that could be applied to Internet poker, now that the Department of Justice has limited the Wire Act to sports betting. And any court that wants to declare that poker is predominantly chance will have to deal with Judge Jack B. Weinstein’s detailed 120-page-long opinion.
But the impact will be less than most commentators think. The decision deals with only one specific statute, the IGBA, and expressly states that poker is still illegal gambling under other laws. And the decision is so weak in so many places, that it will probably be overturned, if taken up on appeal.
More…
The DOJ has laid out more of its case against Isai Scheinberg, Ray Bitar, et al — in a 58-page response to the response from two Black Friday indictees, payment processor Chad Elie and the Utah banker John Campos.
The People vs. Online Poker
Among other denials, Campos and Elie sought to get much of the case thrown out on the grounds that the UIGEA is a bad law and/or poker isn’t gambling. With the action back on the DOJ, Preet Bharara assistant Arlo Devlin Brown delivers some rather compelling legal composition (the best writing is in the footnotes, imho) that reads like a big STFU from SDNY … with a message of hey, better watch it or we could indict the whole damn poker industry!
I’m paraphrasing, obv … but here’s the full Government’s Response to Defendants’ Pre-Trial Motions. They purport to have a mountain of evidence ready for trial … and show a century’s worth of precedent to snuff out any hopes that poker people could actually win this case.
With the standard disclaimer of “I’m not a lawyer but …” some fascinating elements include:
More…
