Party Poker Blog

Missing my friends in Philly right now. Wish I was there.

But someone just sent me this interesting link: McCain and Team Have Many Ties to Gambling Industry

This is easily the greatest retraction ever.

Per the Absolute Poker and UB cheating scandal, Fiji offered this superb post at 2/2:

My retraction of certain statements made about UltimateBet and Joe Norton

I think someone twittered this link and it's pretty damn interesting per presidential election wagering.

Intrade Betting is Suspicious

There's something funny going on over at Intrade with respect to the pricing of the Obama and McCain contracts.

Well, I'll be dipped. I was gonna get on here and link up all sorts of random poker nonsense but I'm on an call and trying to pay attention to the shenanigans by the State of Kentucky.

To wit:

[Querying whois.enom.com]
[whois.enom.com]
=-=-=-=
Visit AboutUs.org for more information about luckypyramidcasino.com
a href="http://www.aboutus.org/luckypyramidcasino.com"AboutUs: luckypyramidcasino.com/a

Registration Service Provided By: eNom, Inc.
Contact: info2@eNom.com

Domain name: luckypyramidcasino.com

Administrative Contact:
Commonwealth of Kentucky Justice Cabinet
Eric Lycan (secretaryofjustice@ky.gov)
+1.8592540000
Fax: -
125 Holmes Street
Frankfort, KY 40601
US

Technical Contact:
Commonwealth of Kentucky Justice Cabinet
Eric Lycan (secretaryofjustice@ky.gov)
+1.8592540000
Fax: -
125 Holmes Street
Frankfort, KY 40601
US

Registrant Contact:
Commonwealth of Kentucky Justice Cabinet
Eric Lycan

125 Holmes Street
Frankfort, KY 40601
US

Status: Locked


---

Of course, if you want some perspective on the enforceability of this, please go read these responses to legal threats.

Just an update from some of the poker -- gambling firms targeted.

Nick Wood, managing director of London-based Com Laude, which holds the domain name for PokerStars, said: "We anticipated this could happen and we've developed an action plan which largely consists of us not responding." Milton Keynes-based Safenames, the registrar for Full Tilt, declined to comment.

Insane. Just announced:

State cracks down on Net gambling
Commandeers 141 playing site domain names

Lord, and Beshear is a PRO-gambling advocate there in Kentucky. Weeee.

Wow, this is crazy. Right across the river from Guinness & Poker world headquarters, the Governor wants to take control of gambling web sites. What on earth?

I'm sure Full Tilt is shaking in their boots . . .

---

Beshear seeks control of online gambling sites
Pro-casino governor calls betting sites 'leeches,' seeks to block

FRANKFORT - Kentucky's pro- gambling governor is looking to make sure all bets are off for gambling Web sites that operate in the state known for the world's biggest horse race.

Gov. Steve Beshear said his administration has asked a Franklin County Circuit Court judge to give the state control of 141 gambling Web site domain names.

Beshear said he's looking to restrict Kentuckians' access to Web sites with names that include some of the most popular gambling sites for U.S. players: bodog life.com, doylesroom.com and fulltilt poker.com.

A hearing is scheduled for Thursday before Judge Thomas Wingate.

Beshear believes Kentucky is the first in the country to attempt to block online gambling by taking over Web domain names of gambling sites.

"Unlike casinos that operate on land or on riverboats in the United States, these operations pay no tax revenues, provide no jobs and yield no tourism benefits," Beshear said at a Monday afternoon Capitol press conference. "They are leeches on our communities."

Kentucky, home to the Kentucky Derby, has a state lottery and allows gambling at horse tracks and bingo halls. Blocking Internet gambling sites in Kentucky would "protect the signature industry," Beshear said.

Such sites "siphon off money from regulated and legal games such as Kentucky's thoroughbred racing industry, our lottery and charitable gaming activities," Beshear said.

Although Kentucky officials did not have a definite estimate of how much money is being lost to online gambling in Kentucky, Beshear claimed residents were wagering millions online.

Justice Secretary J. Michael Brown said the state is asking the court to forfeit control of the domain names to Kentucky state government. Brown said if successful, the domain names would then be controlled by the state government and subsequently blocked.

"There is gambling going on on the Internet and we know that that gambling is illegal in the commonwealth of Kentucky," Brown said.

Beshear, a Democrat, largely based his campaign for governor last year on a pledge to push for an amendment to the state constitution legalizing casino gambling in Kentucky.

Beshear was unable to persuade Kentucky lawmakers earlier this year to put a proposed gambling amendment on the ballot this fall.

Beshear claimed casino gambling could bring state coffers about $500 million per year in money that could be used to bolster state spending in areas such as education or health care.

Mike Jackness, co-owner of Costa Rica-based pokersourceonline.com, which is not mentioned in the pending Kentucky lawsuit, said through a spokesman that he was disappointed in Kentucky's move. Online gambling faces regulation elsewhere, Jackness said in a statement read by spokesman Dan Cypra.

"I'm disappointed that Gov. Beshear would choose to prohibit what grown adults have access to in the comfort of their own homes," Jackness said in the statement. "Online poker is enjoyed by millions of Americans as a recreational sport."

John Pappas, executive director of the Washington D.C.-based Poker Players Alliance, said in a statement that the move was "extraordinary and ill-conceived."

Pappas said he does not believe that Internet poker violates state or federal law.

"Poker has a proud heritage in Kentucky and simply because the game has evolved into the 21st century, it should not be treated as suspect activity," Pappas said.

"You got a lot of bricks, but I don't know what the building looks like."
Don Draper

Funny how watching the WSOP on ESPN has gotten my poker itch up and running. And I can't help but scratch it.

Watching the Main Event coverage has pretty much transported me back to the event itself. I can't even imagine how it affects my intrepid reporter friends who essentially lived there for six weeks.

Tis weird, looking back.

Sone folks have asked me if I've seen anyone that I played with yet on TV, which isn't really fair because only one of my four days has been shown thus far. But there was an Asian guy named VU who played with Phil Ivey on Day One at TV table #2 that I played with a bunch. He was the guy who folded trip kings to Ivey's superb river bluff bet on Day One.

Anyway, he was a chatty mofo on Day Two, sitting two to my left. He put a nice beat on the silent 30-something corporate type sitting directly to my right, who was the big stack at the table at the time, sitting with perhaps 200k.

This was the only time I ever saw anyone become unhinged and tilt out. It literally took thirty minutes for this joker to spew every last one of his chips as poorly attempted to play directional poker at the aforementioned Mr. Vu.

I was sick watching this as I got nary a chip. After overplaying the last of his stack, Mr. Tilty stood up fast and stormed off. It really was an amazing thing to witness.

Honestly, I'm 99% sure I'll never be shown on TV unless they show my bust out hand to the chip leader at the time. Finishing 400th has no merit unless you're a pretty girl or have no arms.

But I've actually been out doing some reading and am looking to regurgitate some notes in an old fashioned copy and paste uber post here ASAP. Best of all, I am seriously backlogged on strange pictures.

Prepare for a mother lode.