Winners and Losers on Valentine’s Day

Topics: Epic Poker League, Online Poker, Winners and Losers

It’s Valentine’s Day today, and in case you forgot the fact that you were single or that you forgot to give something to your significant other, consider the reminder from Winners & Losers a gift – of love! Poker is, by its nature, a solitary sport, but there are certainly entities out there that you wouldn’t particularly mind going out with for Valentine’s. Whether they are constantly generous to you, willing to listen, or willing to go out to new places and try different things, there is something out there for everyone, even in the poker world.

For every dream of cupid’s arrow hitting its target, however, there is a nightmare of the thug in the next cell with his shiv. Let’s look this week at who wants to be our Valentine … and who seems to be lurking menacingly in the alley.

Be My Valentine

PokerStars – PokerStars in particular seems to be looking better and better with each step. From being the only Black Friday site to actually pay their players back, to the site willing to actually listen to concerns players have about their primary income streams, Stars seems to have it all. That said, there is more room for PokerStars to grow, and this week they launched Pokerstars.eu in an effort to get players that were worried about the taxes in their own home countries. The online juggernaut also continues to do battle with the Department of Justice over their charges, but have been given additional time to respond to the Amended Complaint filed in federal court last year. While Stars is accused of the same things as the other sites involved in the Black Friday case, the poker world does seem to want to continue to pull for them. 

US Senate Indian Affairs Committee – While both sides of the US Congress have been looking at the idea of internet gambling, it’s the Senate that seems to be doing more of the lifting as of late, with another meeting in the Indian Affairs Committee regarding how tribes fit in an online gambling world. The tone was mostly positive, with tribal representatives noting that internet poker specifically would not be a big problem, as it accounts for very little of their overall earnings. The question of how the legislation would be drawn up did come up, however, with witnesses at the hearing testifying they are worried about a power grab from interests in Nevada and New Jersey, as well as a state-level push that could marginalize smaller tribes. This last point in particular is an often-heard issue in the California debate for legalized online poker, but it certainly isn’t the only case. Still, with Congress listening to poker players more and more these days, they are trying to steal our hearts…and our votes. Probably mostly our votes.

Epic Poker – Well I was obviously going to choose this just because. The final $20,000 event will happen in the Spring and when it does, it hopes to bring a successful close to the first season.

Maybe next time…or Never…

Full Tilt Poker – FTP is just more proof that you can find someone that looks very attractive on the outside, but once you find out a little more about them, you tend to want to back away slowly. The news coming from the site is almost never good, with the notable exception of signs that the deal is moving ever so slightly forward. Well, we have a few more details regarding the latest stumbling block, the money the pros owe the site, and it doesn’t look good. The 19 pros in question owe $16.5 million to the site, and Laurent Tapie has confirmed that this is a major issue that they would like to see addressed before GBT signs off on any deal. The reason is that they do not want to try to sue poker players for the money, knowing full well it might be difficult to procure if the player is, for instance, broke in a couple years. While this isn’t any newer than last week’s news, it bears repeating, you just can’t judge a book by its cover.

Washington DC Councilmembers – Councilmembers in Washington DC voted 10-2 to revoke the online gambling statute they passed in 2010. This, by itself, is enough bad news, though some proponents of the legislation vowed to bring it back to the table. What makes these people the kind you don’t want to invite to your Valentine’s Day dinner is the fact they might not read anything you say. One of the councilmembers essentially stated that he didn’t realize he was voting on an internet gambling bill at the time, and that was the reason for voting to repeal it later. This leads to the obviously uncomfortable follow-up: If you don’t read the things you vote on, why should people reelect you?

Department of Justice – If your sweetheart promises you a special Valentine’s dinner, and then scorches the roast at 550 degrees for 8 hours, slamming down the charred remains on your plate, do you say, at least, “Thanks for the thought, honey”? The DOJ’s Wire Act memo was written about the same time the DOJ’s New York office filed the amended civil complaint and decried Full Tilt Poker as a “global Ponzi scheme.” Instead of looking a Black Widow spider-type girlfriend (“she mates and then she kills”), the government held the memo until late December, releasing it as either an early Christmas present or in anticipation that no one would notice it.

In all seriousness, the DOJ’s recent Wire Act memo riled up a couple of the defendants in the Black Friday case, who now seek to use it as a way to declare their innocence in many of the illegal gambling charges. The court ruled everything would still go to trial, in which case we may get to find out just exactly what the DOJ thinks constitutes illegal gambling if the Wire Act only applies to sports betting.

[Author’s Note: My editor made me do this theme. Honest.]