The Judges’ Game

It was almost a year ago that a federal district court judge gave the “poker is a skill game” crowd a rare piece of good news by tossing out the conviction of someone for illegal gambling specifically because the game involved was poker and in the judge’s view poker “is not predominantly a game of chance.”

The judge was U.S. federal judge Jack B. Weinstein of the Eastern District of New York and the case concerned a defendant named Lawrence DiCristina who had been accused of running an illegal gambling club out of a Staten Island warehouse. DiCristina had been convicted a month earlier for violating the Illegal Gambling Business Act (IGBA), but Weinstein’s ruling overturned the conviction while offering copious argument for poker’s skill component.

The 120-page ruling was notable for a few reasons, one being the fact that it represented a first instance in a federal court of poker being distinguished as a skill game and thus different from certain other types of gambling. Within the ruling appeared discussion from economists arguing both sides of the skill-vs.-luck debate, with the Poker Players Alliance being involved as well as a supplier of briefs and testimony, playing “a central role in the case” (as they later pointed out in their press release).

For nearly 12 months the case has been brought up repeatedly by the PPA and others who champion the cause of poker being a skill game and thus to be regarded differently from a legal standpoint than other types of gambling. Put together with that Department of Justice memo from late 2011 specifying that the Wire Act only covered sports betting, the DiCristina ruling has sometimes been alluded to amid forecasts for a possibly rosy future for online poker.

Shortly after we learned of Weinstein’s ruling, our friend Grange95 wrote a thoughtful response over on his crAAKKer blog in which he considered its importance as far as precedents were concerned while also speculating about the likelihood of the ruling surviving appeal. He allowed there was a slim possibility it could be upheld, although ultimately had to conclude it probably would not. “If I were a betting man,” wrote Grange95, “I would wager that the decision is ultimately reversed on appeal” he decided.

Last week came the news that in fact the appellate court had overturned the ruling, with the three-judge panel reading the IGBA as unambiguously covering the type of activity DiCristina engaged in with his underground poker games.

Reading through the 23-page decision reversing the earlier ruling, the three judges point out how the IGBA “clearly outlines the activity that it proscribes,” listing its “three elements: (1) the gambling business violates the law of the state in which the business is conducted; (2) the business involves five or more persons who conduct, finance, manage, supervise, direct, or own all or part of such business; and (3) the business has been or remains in substantially continuous operation for a period in excess of thirty days or has a gross revenue of $2,000 in any single day.”

That the latter two elements were illustrated by DiCristina’s operation were undisputed facts of his case, as the games involved enough people, had gone on long enough, and were of high enough stakes to satisfy each of those. Meanwhile, the first element of the IGBA points back to each state’s definition of illegal gambling, something the IGBA expressly avoids defining itself.

From what I can tell, the judges weren’t too swayed by the idea put forth in the Weinstein ruling that poker -- or Texas hold’em in particular -- wasn’t to be considered gambling under New York state law, spending some space during the first half of the reversal to point to precedents suggesting otherwise. Ultimately, though, the judges pointed out the whole “skill-vs.-luck” issue was moot here, or “inapposite to this appeal” (to use their phrase).

While making their case, the judges jump on that part of the Weinstein ruling that tried to say “Only ‘Games of Chance’ are Gambling Under IGBA.” The earlier ruling acknowledged that the “IGBA does not provide explicit criteria for what constitutes gambling,” then decided to do a little reading between the lines to say the various acts that are listed by the IGBA as examples of operating an “illegal gambling business” are unified into a “cohesive group” as “all of the enumerated games are ‘house-banked’ and that chance predominates over skill of the players in determining the outcome.”

Incidentally those acts listed by the IGBA come in a subsection stating that “‘gambling’ includes but is not limited to pool-selling, bookmaking, maintaining slot machines, roulette wheels or dice tables, and conducting lotteries, policy, bolita, or numbers games, or selling chances therein.”

The earlier ruling goes on to argue that all of those examples refer to chance-based games. (“Bolita,” by the way, is Spanish for “little ball” and refers to a kind of lottery once popular in Cuba and which was played illegally in Florida during the early-to-mid 20th century.) Coming after the lengthy argument that poker is not a chance-based game, it is concluded that the IGBA doesn’t apply to poker and thus DiCristina can’t be charged with violating the IGBA if poker was the game on offer in his warehouse (“Poker is Not Gambling Under IGBA”).

But the appellate judges see this whole argument as irrelevant, and for a few reasons. For one, it stubbornly tries to make the IGBA define what gambling is when the IGBA expressly leaves that to the states to decide. It doesn’t matter if poker is gambling or not under the IGBA, the judges point out, because the IGBA leaves that up to the states.

Secondly, that collection of gambling-related acts isn’t meant to be comprehensive, only offering a sampling of gambling-related activities that “includes but is not limited to” those appearing on the list.

Furthermore (say the three-judge panel), the list enumerates “acts of running a gambling business,” not acts of gambling. Look back at the list -- it isn’t a list of games, but of examples of running games. “Had Congress intended to limit the reach of the IGBA to businesses operating games of chance,” explain the judges, “it could have done so by inserting that language in subsection.”

Thus did the judges conclude “we do not need to decide whether poker -- or any other type of gambling -- is sufficiently like the enumerated games to fall within the IGBA. Rather, the gambling activity must only be prohibited by state law and meet the additional criteria set forth in the IGBA.”

Grange95 pointed out a year ago that even if the DiCristina decision were reversed on appeal -- as has now happened -- “the portion of the decision analyzing the ‘skill game’ argument would potentially still have precedential value.” In other words, future lawyers could still bring it up and point out that the case in which the argument appeared was “reversed on other grounds,” although he points out, too, that in many states the whole skill-vs.-luck issue in poker has been made irrelevant with poker’s grouping with other forms of gambling already having been decided.

Unlike Grange95 I’m no lawyer, and thus I necessarily feel a little at sea sometimes when trying to parse out meaning from court documents such as these. But I think I understand how this appellate court reversal of the DiCristina case highlights how little the “skill game” argument for poker matters, legally speaking. Right now, anyway.

Meanwhile, the apparent ease with which Weinstein’s ruling was reversed sure makes what the judges are doing seem like a “skill game.” I mean despite a year’s worth of happy references to Weinstein’s ruling, was there ever really much chance of DiCristina getting lucky here?

The Human Element

Big fun around here over the last few days watching the first couple of rounds of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament play out. The weekend in particular presented a number of nail-biters that made for consistently exciting viewing, even if my beloved UNC Tarheels folded (so to speak) under the pressure during the second half versus Kansas yesterday to end their season.

Like many of you, I am, of course, busily studying my bracket, drawing circles around the correct picks and crosses through the one’s I’ve missed as each game concludes. Out of sheer stubbornness I picked UNC over Kansas yesterday, and with similar, irrational motivation I also picked Creighton over Duke. (Two crosses there.)

Was kind of a mediocre showing overall for me as I only ended up getting eight of the Sweet Sixteen correct, but hope remains as seven of my Elite Eight are still alive as are all four of my Final Four picks. After what happened last year when I found myself in a similar spot, I am necessarily full of optimism.

I probably wouldn’t be so cheery, though, if not for a couple of lucky breaks yesterday. I’m referring specifically to the Ohio-State-Iowa State game and the Miami-Illinois game, both of which came down to the wire. And, as it happened, both of which featured somewhat controversial referees’ calls near the end that did factor into the results.

I happen to have picked Miami to beat Ohio State in the finals in my bracket -- an outcome that today seems somewhat unlikely -- so obviously I wasn’t displeased to see both teams survive their scares yesterday to advance, if only to allow me a few more days of believing I still have a chance in the pool. Perhaps, then, I’m a little biased in my response to what I’m referring to as those “controversial” calls from yesterday, but even so, I think way too much has already been made of both of them.

Michael, author of the crAAKKer blog (a.k.a. Grange95), actually wrote a post yesterday afternoon -- “Don’t Kill the Refs” -- about the earlier one occurring in the Ohio State-Iowa State game. It was one of those charge-block calls that went Ohio State’s way, negating an Iowa State basket and most certainly helping keep the door open for the Buckeyes eventually to prevail.

Michael makes the point that it’s a mistake to promote a single referee’s call to such a level of significance that it utterly eclipses the other hundreds of plays that happen in a game. In truth, while super slo-mo replays seemed to provide evidence supporting the arguments of those who believed the call was incorrect, in real time it was much less obvious which way the call should have went.

Later in the evening there was a more obvious mistake made near the end of the Miami-Illinois game. With less than a minute to go, Illinois had the ball down by 2 and after missing a shot it appeared as though the ball went off a Miami player out of bounds under the Illinois basket. But the refs said it had gone off the Illinois player and awarded the ball to Miami, who then hit their free throws and hung on to win 63-59.

In this case the call was more obviously incorrect -- even in real time it looked like the refs missed it -- and perhaps more directly affected the outcome of the game than happened with the OSU-ISU charge-block call (after which several more game-determining plays occurred). Even so, Michael’s point about it being wrong to assign too much significance to a single call still holds here. The missed call was most certainly part of the story of the game, but so was Illinois guard D.J. Richardson’s 1-for-11 shooting night and Rion Brown scoring 21 off the Miami bench and many other factors that affected the outcome.

I liked the response of Illinois head coach John Groce afterwards, who when asked in the post-game presser about the call had this to say:

“You saw the same video that I did. Those guys did a good job though. They did. It’s a hard game to officiate, it’s both teams [being] physical, both teams desiring the same thing. 50/50 calls are hard sometimes. That’s how he saw the play in life speed, and certainly respect him and respect the call that he made.”

The fact is, there’s a human element when it comes to sports and games that I think is becoming less and less appreciated as time goes on. There are several possible causes for this trend, with advances in technology and an increasingly litigious society springing to mind as two of the more obvious ones.

I was complaining a little about this trend last fall when posting about that infamous, botched call at the end of the Packers-Seahawks game -- you remember, the game that ended with that “Fail Mary” play in which we might reasonably say a referee’s decision really did determine the outcome of a game. I mentioned in that post how while watching NFL games I’d begun “to temper all responses to plays, delaying my reaction as I waited to see whether or not what I had just seen would be called back, or a ruling would be revised, or a challenge would be upheld, and so on.”

That hesitant feeling was amplified by during those first three weeks of the NFL season when the replacement refs were making lots of mistakes and also (not coincidentally) overturning an inordinate number of calls. But even when the refs are doing a reasonably fine job, I think most of us experience sports much differently today than was the case prior to the introduction of instant replay and all of the other mechanisms by which plays made by players (and calls made by referees and umpires) can get reinterpreted afterwards.

To make a poker connection (here on my poker blog), I’m reminded of that hand near the end of the WPT Bay 101 Shooting Star earlier this month in which Paul Volpe was eliminated in third place.

Prior to the hand, the dealer made a mistake and moved the button two spots rather than one, putting Volpe in the small blind rather than the big blind where he was dealt with which he open-pushed all in. His opponent, Kai Chang, called from the big blind with , and Chang won the hand. If the button had been placed correctly, Volpe would’ve been dealt Chang’s hand, the third player (Joe Nguyen) would’ve been dealt Volpe’s hand, and thus the outcome might have been different.

Again, there were thousands of actions leading up to this hand that affected how the tournament had gone and would potentially go, but some wanted to highlight the dealer’s mistake as having a kind of ultimate significance here.

Allen “Chainsaw” Kessler even started another one of his many Two Plus Two threads to discuss the hand -- “Wow paul volpe eliminated on misdeal at Bay 101” -- his alarmist title suggesting that Volpe somehow was the victim of unfairness and/or was not to blame for his elimination. That is to say, that Volpe was knocked out not because of anything he did, but because of what might be regarded as the equivalent of a ref’s bad call.

Posters responding to Kessler’s original post pointed out (1) the players didn’t speak up (and in fact, Volpe got to skip his big blind because of the mistake), and (2) in live poker, dealers make mistakes sometimes (“just another form of variance,” said one). And Volpe himself -- perhaps sounding a little like the magnanimous Illinois coach -- tweeted afterwards that while it was indeed a mistake, “im over it tho!!!woot.”

Sports bettors mostly understand how the referees -- being human -- introduce a “form of variance” that has something to do with how games will go. The more rational among them accept that as “part of the game.” And I think those of us who fill out NCAA brackets and thus find ourselves on the edge of our seats cheering or crying at a ref’s endgame call mostly accept that fact, too.

That said, if the refs knock out Miami or Ohio State before the finals, I’m gonna be pissed!

Palmetto Poker: The South Carolina Ruling (Recommended Reads)

Once upon a time I used to post fairly regularly here about various federal bills and state-level cases and/or debates about poker’s legality, especially the online variety.

In fact, whenever I’m asked about how I started the blog and the early days (in the spring of 2006), I usually mention how it began as a simple outlet to discuss my own low-limit adventures online, then when the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 was signed into law a few months later (in October), I found myself writing about all sorts of other things happening in the poker world.

In some ways, that development probably helped ensure the blog would become less inward-looking and more interesting than if I had simply stuck with talking about hands and uncertainly mimicking other, more able writers of strategy and theory. The whole UIGEA mess and other, subsequent legal machinations would continue for years thereafter, and I was sufficiently energized by the whole situation to keep writing about every new bill or development.

But as I’ve mentioned here before more than once, I never felt all that equipped to analyze what was happening. I’m a decent reader, I think, even of sometimes opaque legal documents. And so I thought it was somewhat useful at least to summarize what I thought was happening, if only to help with my own understanding. But even there I was never wholly confident.

Thus one day when I was asked by a site to be the “legal correspondent” who’d report on such things, I had to decline. I knew I could fake it to some extent, but I also knew I wasn’t really the best person to do such reporting. And on top of that, by then (a couple of years ago) I’d gotten a little fatigued by the whole situation, which seemed to involve a lot of variation on a tired theme -- namely, nothing was getting passed, arguments were never conclusive, and those debating legislation or ruling on cases themselves often seemed only partially to understand the first thing about what they were discussing.

Not to mention it was the same friggin’ story over and over and over again. It was like reporting on the same exact hands repeatedly, only with different players. Except there was never any final all-in or resolution to come.

So I mostly stopped writing about that stuff. Sometimes I’m tempted, though, such as last week when the South Carolina Supreme Court came down with an interesting, conflicted ruling regarding the legality of home games. But now I’m more apt just to read others’ summaries and analyses than to attempt my own, and I’ve just read some good ones I thought I’d recommend.

One comes from our lawyer friend Grange95 on his crAAKKer blog, who provides an excellent explanation of the unusual split ruling delivered by the five judges. In fact, the first part of the title of his post -- “Same Song, Different Verse” -- kind of evokes that idea I’m referring to that we’ve heard all of this before many times over. Although as his explanation shows, there were a couple of new twists involved here.

In this case, two of the judges ruled that a regular SC poker game with a low buy-in (just $20) but which saw the host take a rake to cover expenses and which advertised online in order to attract players was indeed illegal gambling according to a century-old statute. Meanwhile, two other judges dissented, while the fifth agreed with points made by both sides before ultimately concurring with the “plurality opinion” (i.e., the judges who found the games illegal).

After providing a nice, clear explanation of the ruling, Grange95 adds some analysis that also looks ahead to how this particular ruling may affect future developments. The fact that the whole “skill-vs.-luck” issue was mostly set aside in this case as irrelevant (by both sides) is intriguing, as is the way the ruling kind of throws things back to the SC legislature to try to craft a better, more up-to-date law regarding illegal gambling. I also find interesting the way all of the judges seem to have voiced a kind of “common sense” or pragmatic view of how the kind of game being spread in their case (with a rake, and soliciting players online) differed from “casual games” played between friends in a private residence (with no rake, and not advertising to attract players).

Grange95 thinks new legislation is a likely next move in South Carolina, and isn’t too optimistic about what may result from a modernized illegal gambling law (i.e., “Things Could Get Worse For Poker Players”). He also has some interesting things to say about the Poker Players Alliance and its relative impotence both in this case and generally speaking. So check out Grange95’s post for a full rundown of what happened in SC last week and what it may possibly mean going forward.

Rakewell, a.k.a. the Poker Grump, added some thoughts regarding the case as well that serve as a good follow-up after reading Grange95’s post. He sides with the dissenting view in the case, and offers some thoughtful criticisms of the majority’s argument and of the strange I-agree-with-the-dissenters-but-concur-with-the-plurality position of the judge who cast the swing vote.

Grange95 also recommends a PokerFuse article reporting on the case written by Haley Hintze which provides a good, short digest of the case and its implications.

There are other articles in the usual places regarding the SC case, but most just echo each other and none seem to offer anything close to the thoughtful summary/analysis provided in the above-mentioned posts. So if you’ve been hearing about this SC business and were looking to learn more, check out those posts.

A funny side note... when searching around for other reports and/or analyses on last week’s SC ruling, I quickly came upon an article from early 2009 on the same case reporting on the ruling that subsequently was appealed to the SC Supreme Court. It sounds like the defense then made a lot of the whole “skill-vs.-luck” issue and that the judge there even went so far as to acknowledge hold’em to be a game of skill while nonetheless issuing his guilty verdict.

Seems like a competent enough article, I guess. I wonder, though, if the author really knew what he was talking about.

Hellmuth and the WSOP

Last week I published a post just as the WSOP Europe Main Event final table had reached a break and only four players remained. As we all know, Phil Hellmuth ultimately emerged as the winner at that table, topping a field of 420 players to earn another gold bracelet to go along with the 12 he’s won at the WSOP in Las Vegas over the last two-plus decades.

After Hellmuth’s win, Grange95 wrote a post titled “Hellmuth & the Hobgoblin” reminding us all of the “Should a WSOPE bracelet count?” debate that started when the WSOP Europe began in 2007. He even pointed to an item I’d written for Betfair Poker almost exactly two years ago in which I brought up the debate.

Both Phil Laak and Gus Hansen had just won bracelets at the 2010 WSOPE (the last in London), and perhaps as a result there had been a revival of discussions over whether or not the bracelets won in Europe were as valuable or coveted as the ones won in Las Vegas. I’m guessing we’ll start hearing similar debates -- though perhaps pursued less energetically -- when the first World Series of Poker Asia-Pacific (“WSOP APAC”) kicks off in April 2013.

In that Betfair item I mentioned Matt Savage (who served as a tourney director for the WSOP in the past) suggesting the WSOPE bracelets were “like a real bracelet” and WSOP VP Ty Stewart firing back that yes, indeed, they were.

The piece also quotes none other than Phil Hellmuth having discussed the issue just a few days before on a podcast, The Hardcore Poker Show (the 9/27/10 episode). There Hellmuth maintained that a WSOPE bracelet was “not the same thing” as a bracelet won in Las Vegas, even going so far as to say that “everybody knows it's not really a bracelet.”

When Hellmuth made that pronouncement a number of people quickly responded by saying as soon as he won a WSOPE event he’d be changing his tune. Such seems to be the case, and Grange95 has some fun in his post pointing out the irony of the Poker Brat’s situation.

There was a lot more reaction to Hellmuth’s win last week, almost all of it coming in the form of praise for his accomplishment in Cannes and expressions of awe at his having added yet another big win to a storied career. The €1,022,376 first prize (equal to about $1.32 million) represents his second-biggest score ever, only exceeded by his prize for finishing fourth in the “Big One for One Drop” where he won about twice that ($2,645,333).

If we count those WSOPE bracelets (and I think we all are at this point), Hellmuth extends his record total to 13, now three ahead of Doyle Brunson and Johnny Chan. And, of course, he’s the only player to win both the WSOP Main Event and the WSOPE Main Event.

Among the reactions to Hellmuth’s victory came a few voices bringing up another idea some have been floating pretty much since Hellmuth parted ways with UltimateBet at the end of 2010. In fact, it’s an idea some were talking about even before Hellmuth had officially cut ties with UB when he’d begun turning up at events during those last couple of months no longer sporting UB gear, something I wrote about in November 2010 in a post titled “Signs of the Times: Hellmuth & UB.”

The idea I’m referring to is the possibility of Hellmuth signing with the WSOP itself as a sponsor. Speculation about such usually has been linked to further conjecture about the WSOP getting seriously involved with online poker, perhaps even in the U.S. (should legislation and other factors align properly).

Somewhat ahead of the curve, B.J. Nemeth briefly sketched out this scenario in a post back in November 2010. The announcement that Hellmuth was no longer to represent UB then came on December 30, 2010. Black Friday arrived a few months later, after which the whole discussion of site sponsorships quickly receded to the background.

Like I say, though, the thought of Hellmuth becoming some sort of spokesperson for the WSOP hasn’t gone away, as evidenced by a few people articulating it once again in the wake of his WSOP Europe Main Event win.

Of course, the whole idea of the WSOP ever wanting or needing a spokesperson might well be a bunch of applesauce. (Indeed, I’d be one to favor not having such a figure at all, at least not among active players.) But if we were going to speculate about the selection of a spokesperson, would Hellmuth be a candidate?

He’s won the most bracelets, he’s made the most final tables, and he has the most cashes. Whenever one goes to search players in the WSOP database, his name is the first listed, right at the tippy-top. He’s obviously one of only a handful of players non-poker people sometimes recognize as a “poker pro” (as currently understood). And he’s known not just stateside but around the world for his accomplishments at the poker table.

If it ever does come to pass that the WSOP is looking for someone to represent them as a kind of spokesperson, then, wouldn’t Hellmuth be a reasonable choice?

I say no way. A couple of reasons spring to mind.

For one, his long-term association with the UB/Cereus crowd, including continuing to promote the site and essentially turn a blind eye while insider cheating scandals rocked the poker community, should make him much less attractive as a potential spokesperson.

In that “Signs of the Times” post from a couple of years ago I noted how “the UB patch has become a unique symbol. It yields various interpretations, but for many it evokes certain, specific themes, including greed, fraud, self-interest, and other negative and/or detrimental associations for poker.” I also noted how Hellmuth’s long-time connection with UB meant that even if he were to stop wearing the logo he’d still always be linked to the site and all of the destructive influence it brought upon the poker community. He “always will be... UB.”

That said, some will argue that since Hellmuth hasn’t been linked to any of the cheating scandals directly, we shouldn’t hold his UB past against him. In other words, that we should overlook his overlooking the scandals.

Even so, the WSOP could do much, much better than to hire the world’s whiniest winner and poker’s poorest sport. (That photo up top of Hellmuth in the fetal position is from the 2010 WPT Bay 101 Shooting Stars event, taken just after his being eliminating in sixth.)

There’s not much need to catalogue all of the many examples of the Poker Brat’s being bratty, although for a few recent additions to the list check out Jen Newell’s “Table Talk” column (for Poker.co.uk) in which she describes some of Hellmuth’s bad behavior at the WSOPE final table.

“Congrats to the best tournament poker player that ever lived!! Phil Fking Hellmuth” tweeted Doyle Brunson (@TexDolly) a short while before the WSOPE Main Event concluded. Like others, I couldn’t help but react similarly to Hellmuth’s win and acknowledge a remarkable sequence of performances at the WSOP and now the WSOPE.

But as far as electing Hellmuth spokesperson for the WSOP/Harrah’s is concerned, I can think of hundreds of candidates for whom I’d rather vote.

Linking Out

For today’s post I thought I’d compile a few interesting poker-related reads (and one listen) from the last few days.

First off, Grange95 wrote an excellent post following last week’s ruling by a federal district court judge that poker was a game “predominated by skill rather than chance” and thus not in the judge’s view to be regarded as gambling as defined by the Illegal Gambling Business Act (IGBA)

Grange95’s post takes the form of outlining various consequences of the ruling, along the way summarizing its more salient points in a manner we non-lawyer types can follow. His conclusion? It is indeed a landmark ruling, and one that will play a role in future chapters of the “luck-vs.-skill” debate. However, its scope is limited and there still exist federal and state laws other than the IGBA with which poker’s proponents will have to contend.

Check out “United States v. Dicristina -- A Win for Poker Players (with an Asterisk)” for more.

The Forbes site provided yet another interesting poker-related piece yesterday, a feature describing the high-dollar home game (of sorts) hosted by the much-heralded, highly influential investor Warren Buffet.

In “Inside Warren Buffet’s Private Poker Game,” Randall Lane describes what is in fact an annual tournament hosted by Buffet in which a select group competes for a prize pool worth half a million dollars. Lane himself played in the tournament this past June along with a few high-profile folks, some of whom were bounties in the tourney.

The article mostly focuses on Lane’s own performance (he went out early), and in fact it sounds like Buffet isn’t really much of a poker aficionado (he’s more into bridge). Still, kind of an interesting look at poker being played by a different cast of characters than the ones we usually follow.

Jesse May (Shut Up and Deal) returns this week with another episode of his podcast, “The Poker Show.” It’s been about six weeks since May’s last show back in early July (near the end of the WSOP), making the appearance of a new one notable.

In episode 39 (dated August 27), May talks to a couple of hot German players, “Mad Marvin” Rettenmaier and Dominik Nitsche. Rettenmaier, of course, just comes off an unprecedented feat on the World Poker Tour, having won the last two main events at the Bellagio (the $25K World Championship that ended Season X) and in Cyprus (the kickoff to Season XI). Nitsche, meanwhile, is also having a good year, including winning a bracelet in Event No. 59 at the WSOP, a $1,000 no-limit hold’em event that I happened to help cover.

Both are interesting characters besides being great players, and of course May is always good with the questions, so if poker podcasts are your thing, the show is worth a listen. (EDIT [added 6/10/14]: Sorry, had to remove the link to the show per a request from bwinparty.)

Finally, I’ve recommended posts before by Phil Galfond on his personal blog, and he’s come up with another very good one that should probably interest anyone reading this blog. This time Galfond has written a thoughtful evaluation of one of his most celebrated opponents in the high-stakes online games, Viktor “Isildur1” Blom.

I had a chance this past summer to watch Blom play for most of Day 2 of the World Series of Poker Main Event, reporting on a number of his hands for PokerNews while gathering some thoughts of what it was like to watch the online superstar play live. I shared those impressions here in a post called “Blogging Blom,” although obviously what I saw and related was very limited, the imperfect impressions of an amateur watching the action from a few feet away.

In “Viktor Blom: The Man, The Myth, The Legend,” Galfond provides a more intimate look at both Blom the player and Blom the person. He assesses Blom’s talent (considerable, though with certain flaws), his character and personality (charming, fun-loving), and his prospects going forward (promising, though uncertain). Check it out.

On the PPA; or, Fight! Fight! Fight!

Was talking yesterday about the official completion of the agreement involving the U.S. Department of Justice, PokerStars, and Full Tilt Poker and some of the early post-agreement machinations that have resulted, one of which is the reemergence of that “FTPDoug” character who has come back into the online poker narrative in a different guise (“FTPMarkus”), apparently this time to be patterned more closely after his real self (Shyam Markus).

Among the other reactions to the completion of the agreement late last week was Poker Players Alliance Executive Director John Pappas writing a guest editorial about it for Forbes, the business magazine (and site) that has been reporting consistently about Black Friday and its aftermath over the last 16 months.

The PPA might be regarded as yet another “character” in this ongoing drama, kind of an eccentric one, really, who generally appears on stage moments after a meaningful plot development involving the story’s central players. Usually the appearance is marked by the repetition of certain slogans (“Poker is not a crime!”) and reaffirmations of the PPA’s commitment to fight for poker players’ “rights” (as the PPA understands them).

In the case of the Forbes op-ed, however, there appeared an extra bit of analysis regarding the agreement and what Pappas and the PPA believe it suggests regarding the DOJ’s stance on the future of online poker in the U.S.

Pappas highlights the fact that the agreement “very clearly left the door open” for PokerStars and FTP to return once the laws change and “the United States decides to license and regulate this great American pastime.” He is alluding to what the DOJ said in their press release accompanying the agreement, namely, that Stars “is prohibited from offering online poker in the U.S. for real money unless and until it is legal to do so under U.S. law.” (As would be a Stars-run FTP or any other site.)

For Pappas, this part of the agreement represents a “hidden gem” indicating the DOJ’s judgment about current laws and the need to license and regulate online poker in the U.S. “This sends an important message to Congress,” writes Pappas. “The Justice Department could have very easily banned PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker from the United States forever. Yet it chose not to. It chose to clearly recognize that online poker can and should be a viable industry in this country. Now the question is, will Congress listen?”

That Pappas is making a hopeful, almost delirious leap here should be obvious. The DOJ doesn’t say a thing about the need to legalize online poker or its prospects as a “viable industry” in the U.S. Rather the DOJ stays well within its charge to enforce current laws while also stating its intention to continue to do so in the future, correctly leaving the business of drawing up those laws to legislators.

A few days ago on the crAAKKer blog, Grange95 pointed out some of the problems with Pappas’ statement about the DOJ and the idea it is sending a “message” to lawmakers with the agreement. His post notes that Pappas misrepresents the DOJ’s position here, calling it “a stupid and unnecessary rhetorical gamble.”

Grange95 is right -- the DOJ isn’t saying what Congress should do going forward with regard to online poker. Even that much-heralded September 2011 memo (made public last December) in which the DOJ clarified its position regarding the Wire Act applying only to sports betting said nothing in particular about online poker. Nor did it address the UIGEA; in fact, it explicitly noted how the UIGEA was outside the scope of that particular opinion.

Now the opinion expressed in the memo certainly implies how the DOJ might choose to enforce the Wire Act vis-à-vis online poker going forward. Such an interpretation seems to be the impetus behind states’ moving ahead with legislation. But even there it wouldn’t be right to characterize the DOJ as somehow calling for the passing of new laws.

As the enforcer of the law, the DOJ does get to have opinions and make judgments about current laws and how to apply them. But it doesn’t get to make the laws. Nor should the choices it makes when enforcing laws be automatically understood as “messages” to legislators about those laws, or about the need for new, different laws. (Rather are such messages about laws more “clearly” delivered in courtrooms when they get challenged and rulings are made regarding them.)

Grange95 talks further about how the DOJ might not appreciate the PPA characterizing it as pro-online poker. Indeed, the title of his post -- “Did Pappas and the PPA Just Shoot Full Tilt Players in the Foot?” -- suggests the DOJ might even be affected somehow by the PPA in a way that could negatively affect U.S. players getting their FTP funds back. But he doesn’t really pursue that point too far in the post. (For a response addressing both that suggestion and another view of the PPA op-ed, see Chris Grove’s rejoinder “No, the PPA Did Not Just Shoot FTP Players in the Foot.”)

The PPA is a lobbying organization, fully immersed in the language of politics and campaigning. It isn’t that surprising, then, to see them spin the agreement in a way that makes it fit more neatly into its usual rallying cries.

Maybe I’m being affected by the fact that as we edge closer to the November elections we’re also being inundated by politicized language and argumentation, with just about every statement about anything getting spun into some sort of “platform” or statement of position or other form of campaigning. It is exhausting, though, constantly to be seeing others make this rhetorical move -- that is, to see everything as part of the “the fight” and thus try at every turn to turn all actions or statements into something positive for “our” side.

Makes me think of that PPA slogan “The Players Will Never Fold.” In poker, hands go by in which nothing particularly good happens for us. We can’t win every hand. We can’t even compete, sometimes. There are hands we have to fold. And then we sit and watch others’ fortunes being affected, with the outcome often having no special significance on our own.

Never folding is a losing strategy. There are times the best “Action Plan” (another favored PPA phrase) is not to act -- not always to “fight” -- but rather observe and assess. Then later we might act in an informed way, with purpose. And with a chance to win.

Talkin’ the DOJ Letter and Nevada (The State of Online Poker)

Hope everyone enjoyed the weekend festivities. I know I enjoyed seeing family and eating more than I should. Turkey sandwiches on the menu today.

Was enough to make us forget about that burst of poker news that happened last Friday. You remember, how in the afternoon a memorandum emanating from the U.S. Department of Justice momentarily grabbed the attention of the poker world thanks to its apparent connection to the legality of online poker in the U.S. Early reactions over Twitter and on certain sites made it sound at first as though after an especially rough year for online poker players we’d all been delivered some sort of nifty early Christmas gift by our otherwise Grinchy government.

Alas, the news turned out to be not as immediately significant as those early indications suggested. Sort of like reaching in your stocking, pulling out an intriguingly-shaped package, tearing it open and discovering you’d been given a box of dental floss.

That said, it might come in handy at some point. You know, like after you finally finish with the barely-used box of floss you got last year.

The memo -- an opinion regarding proposals made in New York and Illinois having to do with state lotteries -- is dated a little over three months ago (September 20), although it only became public on Friday. In fact, the timing of the memo becoming public is quite interesting and most certainly noteworthy (more on that below). It is signed by Virginia A. Seitz, Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division of the DoJ’s Office of Legal Counsel, and you can read it in full here.

The opinion shows Seitz -- and, by extension, the DoJ as a whole -- weighing in on a question regarding those two states selling lottery tickets online to residents who might not physically be within the state at the time of purchase. The opinion essentially says such sales are okay, thanks mainly to the fact that they do not violate the Interstate Wire Act of 1961.

In asking for the opinion, the states had argued that selling state lottery tickets in this manner (over the web, across state lines but to their own residents) shouldn’t violate the Wire Act since that federal law applies only to sports betting. The states also argued that the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 also allows for this sort of online gambling (i.e., lotteries).

The memo describes how in the past the DoJ’s Criminal Division had interpreted the Wire Act to cover other types of online gambling than just sports betting. Previously, the Criminal Division had taken the position that what the Wire Act prohibits “is not limited to sports wagering and can be applied to other forms of interstate gambling.” But Seitz also spells out how this particular way of reading the Wire Act “creates tension with [the] UIGEA, which appears to permit out-of-state routing of data associated with in-state lottery transactions.”

So there are a couple of different issues being discussed here. One is the DoJ’s prior view that the Wire Act applies not just to interstate online sports betting, but other kinds of interstate online gambling, too. The other is the UIGEA clarifying that it is permissible for states to sell lottery tickets online to its own residents, even if those sales involve transactions that could be said to cross state lines (i.e., could perhaps be called “interstate” transactions in a technical sense).

On the first issue, this new opinion says that the DoJ’s Criminal Division’s previous interpretation of the Wire Act was “incorrect” and that the law “prohibits only the transmission of communications related to bets or wagers on sporting events or contests.” The explanation of this differing view takes up the majority of the memo (Sections II and III, starting on page 3 and continuing to the end of the letter on page 13).

As far as the second issue is concerned -- i.e., the UIGEA’s allowance for states to sell lottery tickets online to its own residents (even if those transactions happen to cross state lines) and whether that presents some sort of conflict or “tension” with the Wire Act -- that is set aside by Seitz as not really relevant because of the way this new opinion interprets the Wire Act as not covering lotteries.

“In light of that conclusion,” writes Seitz, “we need not consider how to reconcile the Wire Act with UIGEA, because the Wire Act does not apply in this situation. Accordingly, we express no view about the proper interpretation or scope of UIGEA.”

And that is that. So what we have is a fairly notable revision of the DoJ’s earlier stance regarding the Wire Act. And while the letter ends with that note saying that no view is being expressed regarding the UIGEA, it does along the way quote a passage from the UIGEA emphasizing that individual states can pass their own laws to allow intrastate online gambling: “The UIGEA specifies that ‘unlawful Internet gambling’ does not include bets ‘initiated and received or otherwise made exclusively within a single State’... and expressly provides that ‘[t]he intermediate routing of electronic data shall not determine the location or locations in which a bet or wager is initiated, received, or otherwise made.’”

So what are we looking at here? Well, as Grange95 helpfully explains in his post “Why the DOJ’s Wire Act Opinion is No Big Deal for Online Poker,” the opinion regarding the Wire Act is significant insofar as “it removes one federal criminal statute from the weapons prosecutors can wield over online poker companies.”

This is the reason why the Poker Players Alliance quickly issued a press release last Friday in which it “applauded the ruling” represented by the DoJ’s memo. (Of course, the letter isn’t really a “ruling” but rather an “opinion,” though it is still significant for the DoJ to weigh in like this.) The PPA is excited because getting the Wire Act out of the way would certainly be helpful when it came to passing federal legislation to license and regulate online poker (à la Joe Barton’s H.R. 2366).

Also important here is the way the opinion quietly defers to states when it comes to legislating intrastate online gambling. This is what the UIGEA says, too, although any state that might have been interested in pursuing such legislation was understandably hesitant in the same way the New York and Illinois lottery folks were -- not wanting to get carried away with allowing online gambling in their state without having some sort of okay from the feds first.

In his post, Grange95 further describes what he sees the memo representing as far as individual states offering online gambling is concerned. As he points out, no state allows it just yet. But that could change. Which brings us back to the interesting timing of the memo being made public last Friday.

Recall how it was just one day before -- on Thursday -- that the Nevada Gaming Control Board approved regulations for intrastate poker. In fact, six companies have already filed applications for licenses to operate online poker sites (Bally’s Technology, Caesars Entertainment, Cantor Gaming, International Game Technology, Shuffle Master, and South Point). Check out this CardPlayer interview with a member of the NGCB for more particulars of the vote and its implications.

This approval comes about six months after the passage in May Assembly Bill No. 258 in Nevada, approved by Governor Brian Sandoval and made effective on June 10. That’s the law enacting provisions governing the licensing and operation of online poker in Nevada.

In allowing for the licensing and regulation of online poker in Nevada, A.B. 258 includes a couple of provisions designed to keep the state from appearing to step on the feds’ toes. Before any licenses can be issued, says the bill, one of two things must first occur: “(1) A federal law authorizing the specific type of interactive gaming for which the license was granted is enacted; or (2) The United States Department of Justice notifies the Board or Commission in writing that it is permissible under federal law to operate the specific type of interactive gaming for which the license was granted.”

It appears that the memo that we all learned about on Friday would be an example of that second provision. Thus is the timing of last week’s events all the more interesting. (Thanks to Scarlet Robinson for her help sorting through some of these connections.)

I’m not completely clear on the extent to which we’re looking at the possibility of not just intrastate online poker (e.g., in Nevada), but interstate online poker as well, e.g., via agreements between states that have individually legalized intrastate online poker to form agreements and start sharing player pools, but that’s certainly part of the discussion here. Grange95 talks about the possibility of multi-state consortiums a bit in his “Wire Act” post as well as in a second post “Online Poker Legalization Will Ultimately Be a State by State Fight”

My Dad just called me about an hour ago to say he saw something crawling across the bottom of the screen on CNN about online poker. Something about it being legal again, he said. I said, yeah, something is happening.

But it’s complicated. And it will take a while. A lot of behind the scenes politicking going on, and probably some state-vs.-state battles having already developed over the issue of online poker. And as far as our getting to play again goes, that is going to take some time, too. Indeed, for anything to get done, it’ll probably seem like pulling teeth.

Which reminds me, now that I’ve finished another turkey sandwich... I think I’ll go floss.

The Future... What Can We Bank On?

Wanted to add a quick addendum to yesterday’s post in which I meditated a bit over the “UIGEA Monster.” There I basically whimpered about the apparent failure to tame the beast by legislative means (thus far, anyway), then wondered aloud about whether the law would ultimately have to be challenged in the courts for it to be stopped.

Grange95 -- keeper of the excellent crAAKKer blog -- correctly chastised me for throwing the “unconstitutional” adjective around (with reference to the UIGEA), and I realized afterwards that my use of the word betrayed my layman’s status when it comes to discussing both the legislative and judicial processes. I also thought a little further about how it’s wrong to abandon hope with regard to further attempts by lawmakers to help us fight the sucker. Even if the prospects for such are bleak, the legislative approach probably does remain the most likely path to doing something about the UIEGA.

It’s such a frustrating law. The way the “final rule” instructs banks and financial institutions to comply leaves them enough wiggle room to allow quite a bit of freedom with regard to making judgments about what constitutes a prohibited transaction. If you look at the “Frequently Asked Questions” about UIGEA compliance that the American Banking Association has provided the banks, it’s clear that the likelihood of one actually being found in violation of the law appears pretty darned slim.

Nonetheless, they are most certainly blocking transactions. Depositing is growing increasingly problematic. And even withdrawing has become a less simple matter for some, despite the fact that (as those final regulations stated) “[u]nder the final rule, the term ‘restricted transaction’ would not include funds going to a gambler, and would only include funds going to an Internet gambling business.” Check out Joe Tall’s problems getting funds from Full Tilt Poker, and PokerGrump’s recent adventure with Bodog for examples.

(Incidentally, I did manage a successful cashout from PokerStars not long ago -- not necessarily a seamless transaction, though much smoother than what Tall and the Grump experienced.)

Yesterday F-Train offered some cogent commentary about where all of this might be headed as we watch the UIGEA continue to gather momentum, discussing both the “continuing deterioration of payment processing” (very likely) and the possibility that U.S.-facing sites could eventually abandon the U.S. market as too difficult to deal with (less likely, though possible).

Whether or not sites abandon the U.S., I’d imagine a certain percentage of U.S. players probably will remove themselves from the online game -- in some cases out of necessity, and in others because the hassles simply become too great to endure.

If they haven’t already, that is.