California Online Poker May Get August Vote

onlinepokerreport.com - American Indians, Tracks, Card Rooms To Press For Online Poker Despite Pechanga Coalition

Aiming for August vote on poker bill

The San Manuel and Morongo Mission Indians, the Rincon and Pala Luiseño Indians and the United Auburn Indian Community are aligned with Amaya/PokerStars and card rooms in a strong effort to get an online poker bill out of the 2015 session.

The horse racing industry and its organized labor is moving on a similar but parallel track, with all the stakeholders hoping to overcome political opposition from the Pechanga and Agua Caliente group.

“This is the biggest coalition yet behind Internet poker,” said Robyn Black of Eclipse Government Affairs, a lobby for the racing industry.

“If we get consumer groups you’re going to see the coalition grow. If it isn’t a success in 2015 it will be a force in 2016.”

Read more here -->onlinepokerreport.com - American Indians, Tracks, Card Rooms To Press For Online Poker Despite Pechanga Coalition

Bad Actors - Not Just For Movies

If you have been following the push to get Online Poker legalized in California over the past year or so then you have probably heard something about a "bad actor" clause being added to the proposed legislation.  This language in various forms of the proposed legislation has been backed by several tribes including Pala.  The purpose is to ban certain "bad actors" from participating in California's Online Poker market in the event legislation is passed making online poker legal in California.

So who are the bad actors some tribes are trying to ban?  Well, it goes back to something dubbed "black friday" where 3 of the largest online poker operators at the time were indicted by the U.S. Government for violating the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA).  These companies are PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and Cereus (Absolute Poker/Ultimatebet).

The U.S. Government ended up dismissing the cases against PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker with prejudice and settling out of court.  I am not sure what the status of any suit against Cereus is.

What makes the bad actor clause curious to me is what was reported in a previous article titled:

BWIN.PARTY SLUMPS ON REVENUE WARNING; RYAN’S CALIFORNIA TIE-UP RAISES EYEBROWS.

July 10, 2013

X-BWIN.PARTY CEO JIM RYAN’S PALA INTERACTIVE JV RAISES EYEBROWS

Bwin.party shed some more legal baggage last December when former co-CEO Jim Ryan (pictured above) agreed to walk the plank rather than complicate Bwin.party’s pursuit of various US gaming licenses. While Ryan said at the time that he was looking forward to spending more time with his family in Canada, he has since resurfaced at the head of Pala Interactive, an online gambling joint venture with California’s Pala Band of Mission Indians. For the moment, the business is entirely speculative, as the Golden State struggles to reach consensus between legislators and stakeholders in order to make online gambling a legal reality.

PokerFuse reported that Pala interactive intended to offer both online poker and casino games in California, which is odd, since none of the state’s recent draft bills envisioned anything other than a poker-only system. Odder still is the fact that Ryan has found common cause with the Pala band, whose chairman Robert Smith has been very vocal about prohibiting so-called ‘bad actors’ from ever participating in a regulated online gambling system. In May, Smith signed his name in support of a draft bill that would bar any company, individual or software that accepted US customers not just post-UIGEA, but at any time, from California’s regulated online market.

Can Smith really be unaware that Ryan was once head of Excapsa, the parent company of Ultimate Bet, a poker outfit that continued to accept US customers right up until the US Department of Justice pulled the rug out on Black Friday? While Ryan had by then moved on to head up PartyGaming, public documents confirm that he was still calling the shots at Excapsa months after the UIGEA was signed into law in October 2006. What’s more, Ryan presided over Excapsa during UB’s infamous cheating scandal and the ensuing coverup, and Pala Interactive apparently intends to use the same Realtime Edge software that allowed Russ Hamilton and others to cheat other players out of millions of dollars (although the software’s ‘god mode’ has since been patched to prevent a recurrence).

Read More Here - BWIN.PARTY SLUMPS ON REVENUE WARNING; RYAN’S CALIFORNIA TIE-UP RAISES EYEBROWS

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So I guess who is a bad actor and who is not is really a matter of perspective and business deals.  To me it looks like some tribes are just trying to block potential competition from entering the State rather than truly looking to block bad actors.

Even more curious is why Robert Smith would push a bad actor clause which could risk Jim Ryan's participation in Pala Interactive.  Could Jim Ryan be dubbed a bad actor under the current proposed legislation given the fact that he was once involved with Excapsa?

Oh wait, probably not if you have a hand in proposing and crafting the legislation...

CALIFORNIA REVISES ONLINE GAMBLING BILL; BALLY GETS NEVADA ONLINE POKER NOD

Excerpt:

The bill also changed language regarding a licensee’s ability to partner with technology suppliers. The original clause barring any company that took wagers from US citizens after Dec. 31, 2006 has been amended to exclude only those companies that “knowingly and willfully” engaged in such nefarious antics. The reason for the change is, for the moment, unknown, but it’s been previously suggested by poker blogger Haley Hintze that the original selection of the Dec. 31 date – as opposed to the more logical October 13, 2006 date on which President George W. Bush signed the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) into law – was a way of bringing current Bwin.party co-CEO Jim Ryan in from the cold.

In 2006, Ryan was still at the helm of Excapsa, the parent company of online poker site Ultimate Bet. It’s not precisely clear when Ryan officially fled the Excapsa nest, but the last recorded public document on which Ryan’s name appears in connection with Excapsa was a Canadian court’s approval of the company entering liquidation on Dec. 22, 2006. Bwin.party signed a joint venture online poker deal last month with California’s United Auburn Indian Community, a deal that could have been in jeopardy if the UIGEA signing date was chosen as the ‘suitability’ cutoff. Guess there are some instances in which lobbyists really are worth every penny.

Read Full Article Here - CALIFORNIA REVISES ONLINE GAMBLING BILL; BALLY GETS NEVADA ONLINE POKER NOD


Will this bad actor clause fly?  To me it looks doubtful especially since PokerStars had recently signed deals with Morongo and LA Card Rooms.  Who ever spends the most money will likely win.  What they will win exactly I am not sure...especially since we are not even factoring the anti-online gambling billionaire Sheldon Adelson.

Self-Centered Poker Pros

Long article but here is an excerpt:

Self-Centered Poker Pros Tarnish the Game for Everyone

Law suits aside, it appears the Pala Indians in California still want Phil Ivey to be their brand ambassador for the launch of Pala Interactive if and when online poker is launched in the state. And in related news the Morongo Indians are trying to convince the state that PokerStars should not be banned as a bad actor and be allowed to partner with them for legal online California poker. How a company that paid over $714 million to the feds and was exonerated is a bad actor while Phil Ivey who admitted to cheating to get an advantage over the casino isn't a bad actor is beyond me. But that's a topic for a different article.

Read Full Article Here - Self-Centered Poker Pros Tarnish the Game for Everyone

In related news:

Edge sorting: Did Phil Ivey cheat, or just outwit casino?

The Politics of Online Gambling

The politics surrounding online gambling in the United States is getting a bit more interesting lately.  It's no secret big money gets legislation passed at the State level as well as at the Federal level.  Initially several tribes including Pala, Pechanga, Agua Caliente, United Auburn, Morongo, Rincon as well as many others began throwing money at State legislators in hopes of getting legislation passed that would legalize Online Poker.  There's been some in-fighting and disputes about what this legislation should look like.  But for the most part things keep moving forward.

Initially many tribes took a stance against online gambling or tried to carve out exceptions so that only tribes could have online gambling.  This tactic has seemed to have failed and so it's now become if you can't beat them join them.

Currently there are two pending bills each supported by rival factions to try to legalize online poker in California.  There seems to be some consensus that perhaps with enough time and money for the politicians the two bills could perhaps be merged if the rival factions can come to some agreements on key aspects of the bills.  Most still seems to think online poker in California is still at least 1 to 2 years away from becoming a reality.

In the meantime some States like New Jersey and Delaware have already legalized internet gambling leading some to speculate perhaps the Federal Government would also eventually legalize internet gambling.

And then something that may have been unexpected happened.  Senator Lindsay Graham of South Carolina introduced legislation that would essentially make internet gambling illegal.  Obviously this would derail efforts in California to make online poker legal.  Senator Diane Feinstein of California is a co-sponsor of this legislation.  This has ruffled the feathers of several Indian Tribes who have been throwing money at trying to make online poker legal.

So why this sudden interest from Lindsay Graham and Diane Feinstein in making online gambling illegal?  Turns out Las Vegas Sands owner and Billionaire Sheldon Adelson who hopes to buy the next Republican President urged Lindsay to introduce the bill.  Mr. Adelson is extremely concerned that internet gambling would cut into the profits of his brick and mortar casinos.

Feinstein is likely an opportunist in all this.  She can probably sense that by supporting a ban on internet gambling she will soon receive contributions from Indian Tribes in California hoping they can get her to change her mind.  On the other hand any time a billionaire wants something done it can be quite beneficial to one's political coffers to go along with it.  No doubt Lindsay Graham will benefit from introducing the ban.  For Feinstein it's a win-win.  She will either get money from Mr. Adelson or from the Indians Tribes and most likely from both.

Indian Tribes in California are now going up against Billionaire Sheldon Adelson.  Better open up those check books.  But don't fret just yet.  The bill would have to pass the Senate which is probably going to be difficult.  If it manages to get out of the Senate it would then have to pass the House and be signed by the President in order to become law.  This will take time.

It's turning into quite an interesting poker game with Sheldon Adelson now buying in and raising the ante.  The question now is if the forces that support online gambling have enough money to go up against the big boys.  Other big casino owners such as Steve Wynn also oppose online gambling.

Remember who tried to block Indian Gaming for a while?  Las Vegas.  What eventually happened?  Vegas backed ventures ended up building and investing in many Indian Casinos.  Who is trying to block online gambling now?  Las Vegas.