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Poker News Round-up: Week #36The UIGEA has been very much in the news this week, although quite where poker players stand regarding this legislation is far from being any clearer. Whilst the effects of the UIGEA have been very noticeable within the poker industry, it is not actually until December when it takes full effect and financial institutions can be penalized for facilitating illegal internet gambling as set out in the UIGEA. Consequently numerous banks in America sent out letters to customers this week quoting UIGEA legislation and advising that they would refuse to process transactions derived from internet betting. The trouble faced by Neteller and other payment processors in the past have caused players significant problems getting money on and off poker sites, but now there is an extra level of complication in that they also need to find a way to get any cash outs back into their bank accounts without alerting the banks to the money’s origin. Quite how much of a problem this will be remains to be seen, but hopefully for those Americans still playing online poker it will be a case of where there is a will there is a way. Many casual players were driven away when the UIGEA was first introduced but if those who remain have been resourceful enough to find a way to stick around up until now, then it’s likely that they will have quickly set about working on ways to render this latest imposition as ineffective as possible. With that said, events in a Philadelphia court later on in the week may actually end up making such scheming unnecessary. That may be a pretty optimistic interpretation of what actually happened at the third circuit court of appeals, but it was certainly an interesting conclusion to the case. A group called iMEGA (Interactive Media Entertainment And Gaming Association) has long maintained that the UIGEA is both vague and unconstitutional, and had taken their case to the appeals court in an attempt to have the Act revoked. Whilst their case was rejected iMEGA chairman Joe Brennan was quick to put a positive emphasis on the ruling of how the UIGEA should be applied. “They seem to be saying that if the state where the bet is placed says internet gambling is illegal then processing that payment is illegal – meaning that it is not illegal if the state doesn’t have a law saying internet gambling is illegal” he said. Therefore it would seem that rather than being a federal issue individual states would effectively have the option to opt in or out of the enforcement of the act. If that is the case then we would surely see some states taking up the option to regulate and tax online poker, and according to Brennan current state laws would allow for 44 out of 50 states to take up that option. It may just be that he is looking to put a positive spin on iMEGA’s defeat in court, but if what he is saying is at all accurate it has exciting implications. Unless you happen to live in Washington, Illinois, Indiana, Montana, Oregon or South Dakota in which case life still sucks. And finally an update on the situation with Pitbull Poker, who were accused recently of having superusers operating on the site. Initial efforts to rebuff all accusations on the internet were none too successful as pretty much every tale they told was systematically picked apart by forum members, and now the official Pitbull representative has declared that the company is no longer prepared to discuss the matter publically. According to the manager of a poker news website which formerly promoted Pitbull Poker (but has since pulled all adverts for the site) all requests for an official comment or an interview from Pitbull have gone unanswered. Another website was originally told that they would be granted an interview but that was canceled at short notice when it was claimed that the Pitbull representative had gone on holiday. Rather embarrassingly for them soon afterwards that same representative was lured into stating in an online messaging conversation that he was not on holiday at all by someone wanting to act as a whistle blower who subsequently passed on a transcript of that conversation to those investigating the Pitbull Poker story. Just about nothing Pitbull has said in its defense has stood up under the close scrutiny they should have been expecting it to receive, and furthermore the hand histories which would have been core to either proving or disproving the existence of superusers have still not been produced (unlike most sites users can not save hand histories to their own hard drive on Pitbull.) All in all the future’s not looking too rosy for them right now, and in recent days several of the few remaining customers have been reporting that their cash out requests have not been processed for a considerable amount of time. Unlike Absolute Poker and Ultimatebet there is no evidence that this operation has ever been licensed to any gaming authority, so there is no recourse for players to turn to and if Pitbull wanted to shut up shop and disappear with what little money is left as player balances it would be very hard for anyone to do anything about it.  Team Europe captain Annette Obrestad This week has been a quiet one on the tournament scene but the action is pretty frantic for the rest of the month with no less than three WPT events, EPT Barcelona, GUKPT Cardiff, the English Poker Open at Dusk Till Dawn, Coral’s British Poker Masters in Liverpool and of course the World Series Of Poker Europe. This year’s series will also feature the Caesar’s Cup – a team tournament between Europe and North America which will feature four player matches in which one player will take control pre flop and their team mate will play post flop. Sounds like it could be interesting plus at some point Tom Dwan will be taking on Sammy George in the first of his live challenges, so it’s going to be an action packed few weeks ahead.
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