Lee Davy takes a look back at a week in poker that has seen Californian online poker bill author, Mike Gatto, agree to meet and greet the Amaya Coalition, Senator Harry Reid joining forces with Sheldon Adelson in the ban online gambling argument, various U.S. Networks under attack from hackers, upward trending New Jersey online poker numbers, and a catch up with the week’s biggest winners.
The biggest news story of the week concerns legislation, and of course that means the not so United States of America. The week started with an admission from State Senator Harry Reid that online poker could only be legalized, at a federal level, if it was piggybacking a bill that was connected to an online gambling ban.
“Poker alone is not going to work.” Reid told the Las Vegas Review Journal.
It seems Reid is joining his good friend Sheldon Adelson in his belief that online gambling could potentially be more lethal than a pair of Kryptonite underpants on Superman, as he tries to get jiggy with Louis Lane.
“I think the proliferation of gambling on the Internet is not good for our country. I think it is an invitation to crime. I think it is hard to control for crime when you’ve got brick-and-mortar places, let alone something up in the sky someplace, and it is very bad for children.” Said Reid.
An invitation to crime? Very bad for children? Something up in the sky someplace? Is Harry Reid the type of man who lives on a farm, uses candles for lights, and shits in an outside toilet? It’s about time we had younger politicians methinks.
So Reid believes that online gambling is the devil, but he doesn’t have the same feelings about online poker, hence his belief that carving out an online poker ONLY bill is the only way forward.
Amaya and the Coalition to Get Involved With AB 9
Talking of online poker only carve outs, and news emerged this week that Amaya Gaming and the Coalition will get the opportunity to have their two pennies worth, in relation to the Californian online poker bill: The Internet Poker Consumer Protection Act of 2015, or AB 9, for those writers not paid by the word.
In an exclusive interview with Marco Valerio, for the OnlinePokerReport, the bill’s author, Californian Assemblyman, Mike Gatto, said that he had dates in the diary for a pow-wow with the owners of the most successful online poker model in the world, and would expect for the chinwag to have taken place by the end of the year.
Gatto also said that his buddy in the legal industry doesn’t believe that the wording around the ‘Bad Actor’ clause has become more stringent and aggressive. There you are then. He also wanted to point out that his bill is only the beginning of a document that will change many times before the end. At which point I can’t help but feel the end will be depositing the document into a bin and setting fire to it.
New Jersey Online Poker Traffic Points North
Has anybody told Mike Gatto that online poker is legal in New Jersey?
I have an idea. I know it’s a little bit out there, but bear with me. You have to sometimes think ‘blue sky’. Why don’t the Californians just do what they have done in New Jersey – only a lot better?
I write a lot of shit, and I cannot remember writing any shit about under age children in New Jersey going mental on the online poker tables of Atlantic City? I am also failing to recollect the voluminous numbers of washed out failed online poker players who have been produced since regulation was introduced.
It’s been tough though. Both Betfair and Ultimate Poker found that out in the worst possible way, but according to PokerFuse things are looking positive, with a 20% gain in cash game traffic for the Garden State.
Hackers Target U.S. Online Poker Sites
I don’t know what’s more disconcerting? The fact that someone is clearly attacking the online poker industry in the U.S, or the fact that the acronym DDoS contains three capital letters and one baby letter and I don’t know why.
Get over it Davy!
Ok…I’m over it.
The Winning Poker Network (WPN), and the Equity Poker Network (EPN), have both been subjected to a series of Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks that has wreaked havoc on their site as Christmas looms.
The biggest disaster was saved for the WPN, who, after being brave enough to host the first-ever $1m Guaranteed tournament since Black Friday, had to shut it down, five and a half hours into the event, and with the guarantee within their reach.
But who would do such a thing?
Who would benefit should the U.S online poker industry fall apart?
Perhaps we have under-estimated the old codgers handle on the technical vernacular? Anyone know Noam Chomsky’s number?
Winner, Winner Lentil Dinner
As has become customary in my weekly round-up I will end with the biggest winners of the week. Last week it was all EPT and this week it’s all WPT as Adam Pliska and his gang of merry men and women close time on a very successful 2014.
Two titles to bring you up to speed on, and two meaty first prizes. Mohsin Charania become the 21st poker player to win multiple WPT Main Event titles with victory at the WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic at The Bellagio. Chicagocards1 overturned a 9:1 chip deficit, when heads-up against Garrett Greer, to win his second WPT Main Event title and over $1.4m in prize money. The second WPT winner was Andrew ‘LuckyChewy’ Lichtenberger. The man with one of the healthiest lifestyles in the biz, defeated Tom Marchese in heads-up action to win the WPT Alpha8 event also at The Bellagio, for a huge score of $2.2m.
Away from the WPT and Mark ‘dipthrong’ Herm topped back-to-back FTOPS leader boards. He won two events during FTOPS XXVII to beat Nelson ‘FeCoNiCuZn’ Maccini by 284 points, and earns a four month rake free Black Card sponsorship from the site; and former spelling bee champ, Pratyush Buddiga, continued his impressive run during 2014 by picking up half a million dollars with victory over Larry Wright in an Aria Resort $25k High Roller Event.
I bet Buddiga knows the answer to my DDoS puzzle.
