Party Poker Blog

"I think Nate is right that opponents of the gambling legislation will see their equity either skyrocket or plummet by the latter part of next week."
Mr. K

Aw hell, I'm really discouraged right now about Frist sneaking the poker ban language into the defense bill. I call shenanigans of the highest kind.

There's a huge, excellent 2+2 thread that has all the latest info, should you care to take the time to read it:
Online gambling to be attached to defense bill???

Some excellent analysis from my man, Mr.K, and hell, even the PPA president, Michael Bolcerek, chimed in with his two cents.

Allow me to give you the cliff notes.

From Mr. K:


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Friday AM update:

According to CongressDailyAM, one of the publications staff, members, and lobbyists read every morning on Capitol Hill, negotiations on the DoD Authorization conference report are still underway. Here's the blurb:

"The leaders of the two committees failed to wrap up conference negotiations on the defense authorization bill Thursday, as members had initially intended. House Armed Services Tactical Air and Land Subcommittee Chairman Curt Weldon, R-Pa., said members still have to complete work on a handful of issues and would not file the conference report until next week."

Since members go out of town on weekends to return to their districts & campaign, it seems to me that failure to complete the report Thursday night means it will now be completed no earlier than Monday night, and probably maybe even a little later than that. Staff will probably work through the weekend on it, but they are not making the high-profile decisions on outstanding items that members can make. Staff might be negotiating the gambling language, but only members can ultimately decide whether it gets inserted or not. Members won't be back in DC until Monday evening -- that's the general trend, anyhow.

So, what's the impact for poker? Well, every day that goes by that the conference report remains "open" is another day that Frist & Co will have time to try to insert the Leach bill. In that sense, delay is a bad thing. It seems clear to me that the DoD Authorization has sufficient momentum to pass, and that it will get a very brief amount of floor time needed to get through. The only question is what goes into the bill, if anything.

Look for some news updates later today and through the weekend -- but the rubber will really meet the road during the 36 hour period between Monday at noon and Tuesday night.


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Damnit to hell, the Tradesports contract has moved all the way to 40%.

Nate had this fine perspective, responding to some negative posters, which I'm sticking in italics:


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So, this realistically has a shot of passing now?
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From what I've read, it feels like we're(online poker players) all in with AK suited against two Jacks.
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And three other players folded AK.



This kind of pessimism is not warranted. It's important to recognize that the gambling langauge does not exist in the DoD bill yet. Nor, as much power as Frist has, can it be fiated into existence. He needs to negotiate it and have it approved by the conferees, many of whom are apparently quite opposed to it, albeit more on procedural grounds ("this doesn't belong here") than policy ones ("we heart gambling").

If you want to use the AKs versus JJ analogy: our main "out" is that we catch an ace or a king on the flop -- Frist gets too much blowback on the gambling language, and it doesn't go into the bill at all. Failing that, we might catch and ace or a king on the turn/river -- the language goes in, but it's sufficiently watered down so as not to be a substantial net negative. Finally, we might have some longshot backdoor outs: a "bad" version of the bill comes out of committee, but it gets fillibustered or held in the Senate.

The tradesports contract is not terribly liquid at the moment, but it's last trade was at 40%. Given how much of a black box this has become, that's probably as good an estimate as any.


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Blarg. That's all I can muster on this insanity.

TGIF.