Poker Blog and Poker Gossip

Earlier this year Representative Jim McDermott had introduced the bill Internet Gambling Regulation and Tax Enforcement Act of 2010, listed as HR 4976. The bill proposes to tax online gambling in order to generate revenue needed by the state. The bill came up for hearing on May 19. There was no vote. The bill did not move forward to the next stage. In short the hearing was a total waste of time. Everyone simply repeated what they have been saying the last two years. The movement for regulated online gambling remains on life support waiting for someone to turn off the switch.

McDermott said that Internet gambling being illegal is making no difference to American poker players. They are simply gambling at offshore online poker rooms. Legalization, regulation and taxation of online poker will bring the revenue to American coffers. He pointed out that the federal authorities, the states and even the tribes would benefit from this. Barney Frank said that he would bring his bill, HR 2267, before the House Financial Services Committee in July. So many dates have been given and then postponed for this bill that it is doubtful if anyone takes it seriously. In any event the UIGEA regulations come into force on June 1 and Frank’s statement is a bit like trying to shut the door after the horse has bolted. The only minuscule achievement of the hearing was that staunch online gambling opponent, Oregon Republican Representative, Earl Blumenauer, became the 70th co-sponsor of Frank’s bill.

Californian Republican Representative Wally Herger and Virginia Republican Representative Bob Goodlatte made the usual noises against McDermott’s bill. In times of economic crises the Congress has more urgent matters to attend to was their view. They completely ignored the fact that taxing online gambling could at least in part alleviate the economic problem. However, the cruelest cut of all came from Democratic Representative Shelley Berkley from Nevada. Though she recently announced support for the legalization of online gambling, she opposed taxing the revenue generated from it. Without the carrot of tax revenues legalization of online gambling can never become a reality.

On April 7, 2010 France passed an historic bill legalizing and
regulating online gambling, and that included poker.  At the time of the
bill passing people were very excited, as the legalization and taxation
of online poker would put online casino’s into a position of “legal,”
and on the same level as brick and mortar casinos in France.  French
residents were optimistic that the new law would diversify a largely
state run monopoly and give the French consumer more choice in where
they spend their money, while not worrying that what they were doing was
“illegal.”

Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be how it all
turned out.  As of May 13th 2010 the new law has seen it’s first two
casualties.  As of May 13, both Betfair and Sportingbet (owners of
Paradise Poker) have pulled out of the French market sighting an
insurmountable tax burden and stiff state-run competition. Tim Phillips
(European Public Affairs Director @ Betfair) was quoted as saying  “We
are looking very hard at the French market and how we might operate
within the new licensed regime. Though it’s not impossible for a
newcomer to create a commercially viable business, most projections show
it will be very difficult to do so, given the proposed restrictions
imposed on licence holders.  French legislation will certainly benefit
the incumbent players and the ultimate loser will be the French
consumer. The new law does not adequately open the former monopoly’s
market to true competition from other operators. We hope that the
review, scheduled 18 months from now, will amend the law to address
these flaws.”

Currently in France the application process is
beginning without the full law being decided upon yet, but this much is
known: The industry will be brought in line with live casinos and horse
racing. Taxes will be levied on any licensed regulator so that two
percent of each poker bet and 7.5 percent of each sports or horse racing
bet will go directly to the French government. However, a portion of
those monies will be dedicated to gambling addiction programs.  No word
yet on the cost of the license, but typically these licenses cost a lot
of money up front, and then yearly to maintain. The bill also includes
provisions to address the issue of underage gambling and rooting out
criminal activities.

So, it seems to me that the holy grail of
American Online poker players may be a false hope. After France
legalized the practice, a whole slew of new problems arose.  Maybe
keeping it as a “don’t ask, don’t tell” operation is preferable to
shining a light on an imperfect industry.

I wrote recently about how with the introduction of the Ipad poker
clients for Iphones/Ipads is something that is inevitable.  Weather it’s
a major online poker room (like full tilt, Party or Pokerstars) or a
3rd party who develops the app and put it on there via jailbreak or
whatever still remains to be seen. 

It seems i misspoke.  I ignored the fact that the Iphone isn’t the only smart-phone out there. 
There are many different developers, with different major brands (LG,
Droid, Samsung Blackberry) and most of them each have their own app
store.  So, in ignoring that fact and focusing on the Iphones closed off
software store, i missed a whole market.  A market Casino-Online.com is
looking to corner, and i actually can’t believe it’s taken this long.

Casino-Online.com is not new in the mobile app business, and has been providing gambling
centric content for the market since the company’s early days. 
Currently their main focus is providing content instead of game play,
but that is changing rapidly.  Currently in the UK there are a lot of
online casino games already ready for smartphone use (note, “smartphone”
is not iphone..), and in the US Bodog poker is listed as a “mobile
casino” that is ready, but when i followed the link from Casino-Online
it just took me to the Bodog sign up page.  It could be because i’m in
Canada though.  Here is the Link (it also lists the links from the UK if you’re interested) (also, we are not affiliated wtih Casino-Online.com)

Casino-Online.com’s chief editor Jennifer Lefrack said ” Casino-online.com continues to innovate by not only following the market trends, but actually creating them. Our customers
are tech savvy and because they have 24/7 access on their smartphone, we
need to make sure we provide them instant, easily accessible
information.” 

So it seems that while Iphone may be lagging (purposefully?)
in the online casino bid, the major players are making moves to fix
that.  I know that if the Android app store is offering Full Tilt poker,
or a viable way to connect to Full Tilt, my next Phone will be an
Android capable phone.  Watch out Iphone, or get with the program!

I have stayed away from this topic for the last little while (except for Monday…this post was actually written for last Wednesday, but i didn’t publish it…but it’s still relevant..), assuming
that it would be dominating the news as the deadline to UIGEA compliance
is June 1st.  I figured that a bunch of states and even the Federal
Government would be well on their way to passing a law to abandon the
whole ill thought out idea.  But alas, that is not the case.  In fact
the Federal Government in the USA has been dragging it’s heels (or, you
know..been busy passing health care and financial reform, cleaning up
toxic oil spills etc..) and because of that there has been no movement
one way or the other.

The last scheduled hearing on UIGEA was on
April 16th, and it got canceled due to a conflict for Chairman Barney
Frank (D-MA).  Chairman Frank has been one of the only outspoken voices
regaling the benefits of online poker.  He is also the man responsible
for Bill HR 2267 or Internet Gambling Regulation, Consumer Protection
and Enforcement Act.  Since the Bill’s inception it has gathered 68
co-sponsors.  HR 2267 would establish a full licensing framework for
Internet gambling, and regulate the customer base from the USA.  As of
yet, no makeup hearing has been scheduled; however there is a meeting of
the House Financial Services Committee on Thursday, May 6th, so there
may be a stay of execution after all.

What will a post June
1st Landscape Look Like?
Will it really affect the everyday
casual player?  No one is really sure.  Because of the vague nature of
the UIGEA, it’s specific statement that it outlaws “unlawful internet
gambling transactions” and it’s deferral to a “tangled web of state and
Federal laws” to govern what exactly “unlawful Internet gambling
transactions” are, most people believe that it’s a whole lot of build up
for nothing.  There is in fact, a push to make June 1st break the
record for most online poker players (during a weekday).  The thread can
be found on twoplustwo. Here is a quote from the post’s author,
“UGotStacked”:

 “We can do this by playing on our preferred
poker site that day – preferably one of the top two – Stars or Full Tilt
– so we can take a stand and possibly break the single day
record of players (for a weekday) of online poker – on the day that it
will be ‘supposedly outlawed’ in the U.S.”

So, it’s
either a whole lot of hot air, and nothing of any note will happen on
June 1st.  Or, there are going to be a lot of shocked and disappointed
online Poker Players trying to figure out how to get money on, or off
their coveted online accounts.

When the Safe Ports Act was signed into law on October 13th 2006, the
Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) also came into
existence as a provision of that law.  Consequently, a lot of major
players in the on line casino business shuttered their US operations in
anticipation of required complacency with that law.  Since then, very
little has come of UIGEA and the two biggest on line poker / gambling
locations on the net, Full Tilt and PokerStars have set records on a
regular basis with apparently little push back from US law enforcement.

Well, it seems that PartyGaming is getting set to relaunch their US operations.  Why
now?  Why after 4 years of staying away from the American market do they
want to come back?  When they pulled out of the US market, they were
the world leaders in on line gambling.  It seems that they assumed that
if they pulled out, others would follow and the US would be a veritable
wasteland for on line poker.  This bet failed, and they lost huge market
share.  Now, PartyGaming CEO Jim Ryan is quoted as saying “We are
seeing increased momentum towards regulating on line poker” …” it’s
possible that it could happen this year and we’re prepared if it does.”

But, with the House Financial Services Committee postponing their last
scheduled meeting regarding Chairman Barney Frank’s Bill’s, and no new
date set before the June 1st deadline of UIGEA coming into effect is
this a realistic stance?  Even if it is, it’s been 4 long years since
Americans could play PartyPoker, how much of Full Tilt’s and PokerStar’s
market share is a realistic goal for PartyGaming?  I guess until June
1st, we’ll have to continue waiting and see.

Long has been the debate over poker bots; what they mean, their benefits
and drawbacks and weather or not they’re cheating.  Of course, if you
were to take a look at any of the TOS of any major poker site, it’s
written plain as day that they are strictly not allowed, and that if you
are found using one your “winnings” would be confiscated immediately
and i’m sure a ban of some kind would be imposed.  That not
withstanding, they are a very real threat to the on line player.  If you
play on line poker, you have likely played against at least one, and
probably many poker bots.  There are even allegations out there that
some of the “big” poker rooms use bots to fill their tables during
“slow” times.

A few months back, during a regular home game, my
friends and i were discussing if we would use a poker bot were it
delivered to us and set up on our machine.  One guys view was that it
was “an easy way to make money.”  Another thought it was a low risk
thing to do, and to only set it up on one table while you were multi
tabling; strictly to see “how it did” compared to a real live player.

Well,
i stumbled upon an “Academic” poker bot.  This is a bot that was
created by the owner of Robotpoker.org (i didn’t catch his name..).
What does having an “Academic” Pokerbot mean?  Well, here is a quote
from his website…

PokerPirate successfully beat single
table, no limit, Texas Hold’em tournaments. These are better known as
sit-and-go’s. PokerPirate played the $5 tournaments on Royal Vegas Poker
(RVP). After recouping my losses from the development process, I
decided to turn the bot off. I am now releasing the source code and
using it as a case study in artificial intelligence and software
engineering.

So, this guy (and i’m not trying to vilify him
here, i think what he’s done is pretty awesome) has developed a bot that
has successfully BEATEN poker games at the low level.  People take
years to master the skills necessary to accomplish this feat, and most
of them aren’t very consistent.  If you want to read more about
PokerPirate, head on over to his blog. (full disclosure: i don’t know
him, have no affiliation to him, have never talked to him..i just think
that what he’s created is pretty cool) Right now he’s soliciting info on
what people want to hear about, so check it out and vote for what
you’re interested in.

Now, on to my real question.  Here is a
poker bot, and with a little googling, and ninja computer skills, you
could download and run it fairly easily.  Easy source of income? Social
Experiment? Would you install and use it, if you were 99% sure that no
one would know, and you could make $50 bucks a day leaving it on?

Here
is the download link.