Wow, I'm impressed with myself.

I actually suppressed my desire to title this post "Playboy Poker Goes Tits-Up".

I'm growing up.

Anyway, a bit of bad news here. According to Gaming Alerts, Playboy Poker has notified its users that it will be shutting down.

I don't know what is more surprising to me. The fact that Playboy couldn't make this work, or the fact that Playboy actually had a poker site and I didn't even know.

Thinking back, I guess I do vaguely remember the news that Playboy was opening a poker room, but they have been so irrelevant for so long that I just forgot about them.

This latest news marks the third time Playboy has unsuccessfully waded into the gambling business.

A few decades ago, I believe they tried to open a chain of land-based Playboy Casinos, which never found a market.

Then they tried to open an online casino in the late 90's, but got scared away by Senator Kyl's war against online gambling.

And now this.

Poor Playboy. The last decade has seen Playboy go from being a dominant publisher with bags of money, to an also-ran brand with a diminishing subscriber base that may-or-may-not be boosted by the humiliating "Girls Next Door" TV show.

I would say that this news pretty much marks the end of Playboy as a quality brand.

The Internet is a bitch.