Casino Cleavage Continues
It seems that Penthouse Inc. is seeking a presence on the Las Vegas Strip.
For several years the Playboy brand has been on the Palms Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas. There is the Hugh Hefner suite, the Big Bunny logo on the side of the 1st Palms Tower and several other Hefner/Bunny/Playboy promotions and tie-ins. Now the "other men's magazine" Penthouse is looking to buy a casino/hotel in Vegas.
Penthouse Inc. is seeking an already operating casino on the famed Las Vegas Strip. The Palms is not actually on the Strip but about a mile west of the strip in a group of hotel-casinos with the Rio and the Gold Coast.
"We have no intention to rebrand the name of the hotel. We would like to see a Penthouse casino presence and a Penthouse pool presence."
There clearly is the intention to buy while the market is weak, the real question is what property or properties might be on the block. Statements would suggest that a major remodel of the casino and pool area to bring those pieces of the property into line with a Penthouse theme are part of the package.
One has to wonder if the properties known to be available (Riviera or Tropicana) are simply too old to be the type of situation that would interest Penthouse. In any case, it does appear that the move of Las Vegas back to a more adult theme and away from the "family orientation" of the 90's will continue. Imagine bringing your focused "A" game to the Penthouse Pet Poker Room. Can you hear the pocket rocket jokes already?
Poker Rumors
So what's the buzz floating around the poker world these days?
Clonie Gowen, who is suing Full Tilt poker and others for $40 million, was not just offered a settlement. She took $500,000 and still filed the lawsuit.
Two of the November Nine were booked for national televison appearances. One on the Tonight Show and the other on Ellen DeGeneres and they both turned down the offers.
The European Union Commission will act after the first of the year against one member nation to open its markets to online gaming.
The Tropicana poker room in Las Vegas will close down on November 30th.
The European Poker Tour will add several more venues for next season and will begin a "All Around Champion" points competition.
The WSOP Tournament of Champions will be back next year with an expanded qualification system, including WSOP Circuit Event winners and runners-up, the WSOP and WSOPE final table members and yes there will be "Sponsor's Picks", so Johnny, Doyle and Phil can play.
The black market for Attention Deficit Disorder medication on the poker circuit has come to the attention of at least one major narcotics investigation unit.
Dutch Banks and Government Squabble Over Poker
The Netherlands Bankers Association (NVB) have told Dutch Justice Minister Hirsch Ballin that the current legislative plan to ban online gambling by using Dutch financial institutions as internet police is simply impractical and, in fact, probably illegal.
The Justice Ministry immediately dismissed the sound advice of the NVB.
"Justice bases itself on Dutch law in fighting illegal internet gaming and there is no room for free choice on the side of the banks.”
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Don't you just love the phrase: "There is no room for free choice." Ain't democracy great!
The governmental spokesperson went even futher, by distancing the Netherlands from the ongoing European Union Commission actions on internet gaming, when he said:
"European law has no influence on this."
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The Ministry did, however, admit that this reaction from the NVB would delay any legislation currently under consideration.
“The comments made in the consultation phase, as well as other events which took place in the first half of 2008, have led me to further re-examine the Dutch system. I refer to the Senate’s rejection of the bill regulating online gambling, the EC’s Reasoned Opinion, and the questions referred for a preliminary ruling by the Administrative Law Division of the Council of State and the Supreme Court. I have come to the conclusion that the policy needs adaptation on a number of issues, not just to increase support therefore, but also to ensure consistency and coherence with European law.”
Sounds like another social moralist is finding it hard to legislate how a free individual conducts their private life.
Dutch officials might do well to observe the regulatory mess the United States has gotten itself into by trying to enforce social policy through its banking system. The U.S. legislation remains unenforceable a full two years after its passage.
Party Poker Premiere League III
The third edition of the PartyPoker.com Premier League will begin early round play today in London. This year's line-up of competitors will feature a bit of the old and a brand new bit of the new. The just announced final player is 11 time WSOP bracelet winner: Phil Hellmuth. The most interesting new face to the Premier League is brand new WSOP Champion: Peter Eastgate. The former "youngest ever" World Series of Poker Champ will face off against the new youthful titleholder and an impressive array of other runners, including:
Tom ‘Durrrr’ Dwan
JC Tran
Nenad Medic
David 'Devilfish' Ulliott
Tony G
Vicky Coren
Annette Obrestad
Roland de Wolfe
Andy Black
Juha Helppi
Early action at Party Bets has the newly crowned WSOP winner at the favorite to take down the event.
Action begins with a live draw for seats and flights at 10 AM local time, followed by seven days of exciting play. The format remains as in previous two league mathces: All 12 players will play six times in the preliminary stages. The leading four players will then progress to the final table with the next four battling it out in heads-up matches for the final two seats.
U.S. & E.U. Legislative Actions Against Poker
There was a lot of noise last week when the present United States Administration appeared to finally put some actual regulations behind the 2006 Unlawful Internet Gaming Enforcement Act. On further examination though it appears that nothing may have changed. For one thing, the "new" regulations still say nothing about what is and what is not "unlawful internet gaming". Those definitions seem to be left to either local jurisdictions or to the banks and financial institutions who must bear the brunt of the UIGEA.
Second, the new regulations are now in a comment period and will not be a compliance burden on financial institution until December 1, 2009. This leaves plenty of time for the new administration and a friendly Congress to kill the law, even on grounds of it being "overly vague" or a "regulatory burden on the financial institutions" involved. There is actually no need for any agency to actually address the issue of unlawful internet gaming.
It was and remains a poorly written piece of legislation, which in all likelihood is unenforceable on its face. It was a good scare tactic but it also mobilized the poker industry, which should have positive consequences for poker players in the long term.
The European Union, on the other hand, seems drawing ever closer to actually making some kind of decision on internet gaming policy. Unfortunately, in this case, it would seem that the individual nations involved in the EU dispute seem to be gaining support for local rather than EU control. While the public arguments are centered on moral and social customs about gambling within varying cultures; the truth is more like that some countries are making a huge amount of money via their private gambling fiefdoms and they don't want to share. Remember we are not talking about taxation or regulatory fees, like we are in the U.S. No, the European Union members are after the rake from gaming sites. In the EU, some countries want to be your book maker. Maybe we can replace volunteer armies with just those citizens who are behind on their gambling debts.
The EU position is that gaming is an industry just like wine and cheese and automobiles. The countries who have staked out a private gaming website do not want to relinquish their income stream, so they argue that gambling is a moral question. Right now in the EU, it appears that the decision making scale may be tipping to the side of moral greed and away from an open markets policy.
Poker is Confusing
I am a bit confused.
Now saying that is really not a shocker. I usually am either playing poker live or playing poker online or thinking about poker or drinking somewhere near a poker room. I don't really have a complicated life but lately I have been confused about, of all things, poker!
First, I read that numbers are down in card rooms in Las Vegas, down also in Monte Carlo and Macau... well down just about everywhere. It seems there is some world-wide financial crisis and that is affecting how many people are playing poker.
Well, this confuses me. But then again, I am confused when the poker rooms are empty on Christmas day, I mean you would think all my Jewish poker buddies would come by for a game?
So OK, Lenny is not the deepest thinker on the planet but tell me something. With all of the parts of the planet without internet access shouldn't the number of online players be growing just because there are new servers and new Wi-Fi coming online every day? And don't the local casinos pick up the slack when folks decide not to fly to the big gambling hot spots but instead drive to the small room down the road?
Then there are the tournaments. Sure tournament numbers are down at the same event compared to last year, but isn't that because there are more tournaments to choose from? They added new events to the European Poker Tour (EPT); there is a tournament next month in Mexico and the Asian Poker Tour has more stops. I can't even keep straight how many different poker tours have "Latin America" in their title. If the events are smaller but there are more events, doesn't that at least have the potential for there being more overall poker players?
Finally, my confusion was complete. When I discovered that the babe of all poker babes, the original model of poker babery, Ms. Cycalona Gowen has sued Full Tilt Poker for breach of contract. I was shocked but used this as an excuse to post yet another picture of Clonie. But what I really wonder is why, if she is out at FT and after them for $40 million dollars. Why is this site still active?
I was going to go and lie down to ponder all of this but instead I just put myself on a $2/$5 No Limit list, that should help with my poker confusion.
The New WSOP TV Format: Yay or Nay?
By now you’ve probably at the very least seen some highlights from last Tuesdays ESPN WSOP Final Table event. I was able to watch the whole thing from beginning to end in my cabin aboard the Norwegian Star during my WPT poker cruise that I was on all last week. From the opening moments to the end credits it was obvious that ESPN was trying to go for something very different here and take a chance at doing the impossible, making poker a spectator sport.
Personally, I didn’t really get a good vibe from the whole production. Having an auditorium full of screaming fans didn’t exactly seem appropriate when you realize that the only action any of these spectators are going to see (since they can’t see the player’s hole cards) are the poker players pushing in chips or folding their hand. Not very exciting in its own right, in fact it’s down right boring. Poker in its nature is a very laid back activity, played for the most part in silent card rooms with few distractions. It’s not quite as mentally taxing as say chess, but there are numerous comparisons between the two that you can draw, and try to imagine a chess match that was televised with the same amount of over-the-top voice over and hype that the WSOP Final Table was. It just doesn’t make for a good fit.
Part of the reason I don’t believe this idea will ever be used again is because the players themselves were almost painfully boring. Despite the WSOP’s best intentions, these guys were not the all-stars that we were made to believe they would become in the months leading up to the final table event, and much like any other pro sporting event, without having someone to root for, and without having a great personality to watch (like a Phil Hellmuth or Daniel Negraneau), it was hard to stay emotionally invested with the show.
You can’t blame the poker players either, they were placed in a impossible, emotionally charged situation that was light-years different from any previous final table experience they may have had, and many of the “November 9” were too busy sweating bullets and worried about looking dumb on TV instead of providing compelling table talk or showing any kind of emotion at all that was worth watching.
For me, the final nail in the coffin was when Peter Eastgate finally eliminated Ivan Demidov in heads up play. The 22yr Eastgate had just won $9 million in cash, became the youngest player to ever win the WSOP Main Event, and he didn’t even crack a smile. Imagine watching the Super Bowl and when the winning team’s kicker makes a last minute field goal to secure the victory, he just walks off the field without celebrating. It would quickly ruin millions of viewer’s experience of the event, and Peter Eastgate’s zombie-like expression served as a cherry on top of why poker just shouldn’t be treated like a UFC type sporting event.
We have yet to find out just how many viewers tuned in to watch the final table, but regardless of the numbers I highly doubt that the production which was months in the making lived up in ESPN’s eyes to all the hype and time and money they spent trying to turn poker into something it isn’t. Here’s hoping that for 2009 we can look forward to the return of classic poker television.
Poker Player Alert!
If you are either a U.S. poker player or a non-U.S. poker player who would like to play against the rich and fishy U.S. players again, then you need to take a minute to read this blog. I will keep it short and precise because there is something you need to do.
There is a lot of angry noise about the outgoing Bush administration passing a lot of regulations in their final days in office, including finally coming out with the rules for the 2006 Unlawful Internet Gaming Enforcement Act.
Well, first the facts, this happens every time a U.S. President leaves office. This is not unusual and there will literally be hundreds of new regulations put in place in the next two months. Just another dirty side of American politics.
However, the UIGEA is already law, what has been offered up, as of yesterday, are the first "proposed" implementation guidelines. But here is the important thing to know: These are proposed rules and are now open to public comment by anyone. All you have to do is take a minute or five and write that you are opposed.
To be sure the American financial industry is opposed and they will say so loudly and publicly. But you are against these rules too and you have the right to be heard and you don't need to be a U.S. citizen. Below are the means to forward your comments and an additional link to the Obama Transition Team to let them know of your concern.
Probably the easiest way to communicate your thoughts is via email to regs.comments@federalreserve.gov, be sure to include the docket number in the subject of your email, it is R-1298.
There are also two websites for offering your comments either the Federal Reserve or the Federal RuleMaking Portal. Just follow the instructions to "comment".
To copy the Obama people, use this link.
And finally, if you would actually like to read the proposed rules, here is the site.
World Poker Tour in Trouble
If you're like me, one of the first big things to come out of the poker boom that really got me hooked on poker 24/7 was the World Poker Tour (WPT) TV show. Whether it was the charm of commentators Mike Sexton and Vince Van Patton or the shows ability to turn no-name amateurs into instant celebrities, I still to this day make sure that every episode of the WPT makes it way to my DVR.
Unfortunately, the WPTE (World Poker Tour Enterprises), the parent company of the WPT, has not been having a great economic year.
Third-quarter revenue for the company is down 39% to $2.7 million, almost half that of last years $4.4 million. The company sites a decrease in domestic television license fees and lower domestic sponsorship fees as the reason.
The first casualty of the WPTE financial hardships will be the WTP-branded online gaming website, which is in the process of being shut down for good. To try and recover from their decline, WPTE President and CEO Steve Lipscomb has announced plans to expand their reach into the Chinese market, as well as produce a new poker TV show for the Fox Sports Network, which will include 13 one-hour episodes.
No word on how/if this is going to affect their main WPT TV show, so die hard fans like myself should keep their fingers crossed that one of the biggest shows that put TV poker on the map will continue to live to fight another day.
November Nine “Live”: Final Thoughts
At 10 PM on a Monday night in Las Vegas, two players got together to play some heads up poker. One was from Russia, the other from Denmark. All of the players with big followings of family, friends and fans had been knocked out the day before. This heads up match was going to take place in the 3,000 seat Penn & Teller theatre, which had been a good venue for the nine player final table but was potentially going to be a big empty hall for the late night heads up match.
As the up-close-to-the-stage bleachers were being seated with the remaining friends and family and the ESPN crew got their establishing shots and the Harrah's officials prepared for their last introductions of the very long 2008 World Series.... as all of that preparation went on up on the stage.... Down on media row, I stood there talking with Dr. Pauly, Brad Willis, Michael Craig and Jen Newell. It was about ten minutes before the scheduled start of the Final, no really, Final Table. We all stood there looking up into the vast balconies of the theatre and we shook our collective heads at the sight of the thousands of poker fans who had come out.
I don't know what this says about poker in general or whether the November Nine was a success or not. All I can say is that on a late Monday evening in November, with only two players remaining to play for the World Series of Poker main event championship. There were and are enough poker fans in Las Vegas to fill the theatre and categorically settle all the cynical over/under bets on the crowd size. I don't know how this will all play on ESPN tonight, but at the Rio last night, it was a pretty good show with a great audience.
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