LV Sun: Neither candidate supports online gambling

The LV Sun has actually been providing better than half-decent coverage of online gambling lately.

Today, they featured a story by Jeff Haney, who tackles the obvious fact that online gambling is such an insignificant issue that neither candidate can be considered a pro or anti online gambling crusader.

The article quotes Jay Lakin from PokerSourceOnline, who seems to spend most of his days providing quotes for newspaper articles. Anyway, Mr. Lakin provides a nice analysis of the situation.

Of particular note, and what is revealing to me, is the fact that Lakin brings up when discussing the Frank-Paul bill which stalled in committee a few months ago after a 32-32 deadlock:

Of the 32 lawmakers voting against it, 28 were Republican.

“It’s pretty much split down party lines,” he said. “Republicans don’t want gambling legalized, Democrats do, and Republicans will do or say whatever they need to do to make sure it stays illegal.”

That about sums it up.

This article follows another nice article the LV Sun published a few days ago, titled "Loyalists, until it comes to Internet gambling", which explains the bizarre situation brewing within the Poker Players Alliance, whi... [More]

Republicans flip-flopping on their platform

This is the state of the Republican party...

First, under pressure from Alfonse D'Amato and his Poker Players Alliance, the Republican Party stripped the opposition to internet gambling from its official party platform.

But then, under pressure from right-wing zealots, they decided today to flip-flop from that flip-flop and re-inserted the language back into their platform.

Ahhhh, we were on the cusp of an American society where the government doesn't intrude into our homes, but the right-wing nut-jobs couldn't live with that.

So here we are again.

The part that I find most infuriating is this quote from the story:

"The full 112-member platform committee acted on pleas that Internet gambling victimizes poor people and children.

“Internet gambling represents the most invasive and addictive form of gambling in our history,” said Kendal Unrah of Colorado, who sponsored the amendment."

Uh... no it isn't. Not even close.

You know, in the past I have flirted with the idea of supporting the Republicans (yes, I know I'm not American, but I do have a soapbox), but it is shit like this that makes me wonder how ANYBODY can support a party that believes and perpetuates lies like this.

Hey! You guys in the "Politics" forum who spend all day bashing Obama and re-printing articles from Republican blogs... Te... [More]

Betbrokers shuts down?

Let's cue the violins.

The news is coming out of the UK that Betbrokers Plc has been delisted from the AIM financial market. This follows the news that its subsidiary, Betbrokers Ltd., was placed in administration. Which means it is bankrupt.

As mentioned a couple of months ago, Betbrokers was a company with a questionable business model - which some might say included patent trolling.

This very website was involved in one such patent dispute, which was settled a few weeks ago - the terms of which I am legally not allowed to discuss. Suffice to say, I am deeply saddened that our settlement was not sufficient enough to keep Betbrokers financially flush to stay afloat - although I am fairly certain that all of the lawyers involved made out nicely, thank goodness.

All of which supports the idea that maybe, just maybe, Betbrokers was a company that tended to make questionable business decisions that ... [More]

International Poker Network (Boss Media) takes a legal hit

The ongoing dispute between Boss Media and PokerTrillion has reached a new level.

PokerTrillion has been hitting a number of poker news sites with the news that a judge in Malta has ordered Boss Media to turn over all of their Malta-based servers to PokerTrillion within 30 days.

Wow. If this is true, it is a bombshell. Boss Media's Malta operations include their IPN (International Poker Network) servers, which means that licensees such as VirginPoker and 24hPoker could be offline within a month.

At the moment, there is no reason to doubt the story, although PokerTrillion has made statements in the past that were less than 100% truthful - including a statement back in April that Boss Media's bank accounts were frozen. That statement was proven false.

Boss Media has posted their own statement on their website. It is interesting to note that while Boss is claiming that PokerTrillion's statement is "reckless" and "without merit", nowhere in the statement does it dispute PokerTrillion's central claim that Boss Media's servers have been ordered to be siezed.

Interesting.

Instead, Boss states that "player funds are not affected by the current proceedings" and that "In the extremely unlikely... [More]

Vancouver Sun goes after Bodog

The Vancouver Sun has never been especially friendly to it's local hero, Calvin Ayre. I believe the Sun was the first to break the story of Ayre's spotty past, including allegations of marijuana smuggling.

So it is really no surprise that Sun reporter, David Baines, is gleefully predicting the demise of Bodog in a column published today.

Baines outlines how the seizure of millions of dollars of Bodog funds casts a suspicious light on the "retirement" of Calvin Ayre a few months ago.

Baines wraps up the short piece with this statement: "Now that the IRS has a choke-hold on Bodog's financial conduits, it may be only a matter of time before the firm taps out (to use the lexicon of its mixed martial arts division, Bodogfight) and heads for the showers."

Ouch!

Now, I'm a lot less pessimistic than Baines about the future of Bodog.

Granted, Bodog's sudden move to Kahnawake a few months ago now makes a lot more sense in the light of last week's news, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Bodog, under Ayre's watch, had become a runaway train that was running out of track. The constant quest for publicity was a strateg... [More]