Casino guide

Positive news from the state of Florida is that Governor Charles Grist has signed off on a bill passed by the state legislature in May this year which authorised a detailed study of the possible impact of internet poker on an intrastate basis.

A positive report would provide powerful leverage for the many politicians who see the regulation and licensing of online poker in the state as a strong possibility, placating poker players and providing additional tax revenues.

The bill’s objective is to consider what measures may be required to protect state residents from gambling offered by offshore Internet poker sites, measures to protect the vulnerable and underaged and what impact legalised intrastate poker might have on the state’s existing terrestrial poker venues.

It provides for the results of the study to be ready for consideration by the state Senate as early as December 2009.

There could also be synergy with similar moves to legalise intrastate Internet poker in the state of California. Two closely related lobbying organisations, American Poker Ventures and the Poker Voters of America have been involved in lobbying for change and have drafted the content of Bill HB225 that deals with the study in Florida.

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The Copenhagen Post newspaper in Denmark reports that the state gambling monopoly Danske Spil is to head a new organisation aimed at curbing corruption in European football. The newly-created monitoring body will seek to prevent match fixing by referees and players.

Titled the European Lotteries Monitoring System (ELMS), the new organisation is a co-operation with European football’s governing body UEFA and will officially begin operations in August. Among the tournaments to be monitored by ELMS are the Champions League, the European Cup and all European national team matches.

Jens Nielsen, head of Danske Spil’s sports betting division, said the agency won the contract to head the body because it has been the leading organisation assisting a UEFA-European Lotteries co-operation on fighting corruption since 2005.

Nielsen said the number of referee bribes and instances of players being paid to help their team lose has been increasing since 2000, with match fixing reportedly occurring most often in a tournament’s early rounds.

‘It usually occurs when there are a lot of teams from smaller countries, and in games where teams from Eastern Europe or the Balkans are involved,’ said Nielsen.

A special group within Danske Spil will be assigned solely to monitor signs of corruption, gathering and reviewing reports from European gaming organisations that detail unusual betting patterns.

It is not known whether Danske Spil will inspan the information and assistance which advanced technology betting exchange Betfair could provide.

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The court battle between the Israeli Poker Federation and the police continued before Justice Edmond Levy in Tel Aviv Monday. Despite having signed off on applications to hold poker tournaments in previous years, the police have this year decided that the game is prohibited and refused to sign a permit.

That left the IPF in a quandary and under pressure, with the tournament due to start next Sunday, and it appealed to the courts for guidance.

However, the Jerusalem Post reports that such a decision has not yet been handed down, although the judge has opined that there are exceptions to the rules.

According to the Penal Law, there is an “exception” article which allows betting, lottery and “forbidden games” to be played on condition that they meet three criteria included in Article 230. These criteria are that:

* the game be restricted to a specific circle of people,

* that it not go beyond amusement or entertainment, and

* that it not be held in venue where forbidden games were played.

IPF lawyers have contested the police’s “prohibited game” classification as well, raising the contentious skill vs. chance argument. The Penal Law defines a “prohibited game” as one in which “a person may win money, valuable consideration or a benefit according to the results of the game, those results depending more on chance than on understanding or ability.”

However, IPF legal representatives pointed out, “….the game is substantially different from gambling games such as bingo, whose results are determined solely by luck. In Texas Hold’em as played by Israel Poker Federation rules, the player who demonstrates expertise, knowledge, understanding, skill, integration, timing and strategic thinking will win.”

The federation denies that poker is primarily a game of luck and filed, along with the petition, an opinion by Prof. Ehud Lehrer, head of the statistics department at Tel Aviv University, who supported that contention.

The tournament does not involve gambling; anyone wishing to participate pays an entrance fee of NIS 1 350. Seventy-five percent of the fee is set aside for prize money, and no other money changes hands during the tournament. The format is a round-robin tournament, with the player winning the most games coming in first and receiving 20 percent of the prize money. The rest is shared by the next 59 players to finish.

It looks as if the IPF will be leaning heavily on the judicial opinion that there is nothing stopping it from holding the tournament as long as it sticks to the conditions outlined in the exceptions, and that it does not need a police permit to do so.

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The chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, Democrat Congressman Barney Frank, said this week that the recent seizure of millions of dollars in online poker payments only strengthens his hand because it reminds voters and politicians how sweeping - and potentially unclear - the existing law is.

Speaking to the Washington DC publication Politico, Franks said the action by the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York in which $34 million in processor accounts - payments to an estimated 27 000 US poker players - could be helpful in getting his HR2267 bill passed, legalising and regulating online gambling in the United States.

Politico reports that even online gambling’s chief opponent, the Republican Representative from Alabama, Spencer Bachus, believes Frank is holding much better cards in the current Congress than he had in the last one.

The publication quotes Bachus as saying: “It’s going to be an uphill battle to stop it this time. We caught them off guard last time. This time, they won’t be off guard.”

Frank introduced legislation last month that would create a licensing and regulatory framework that would allow Americans to play poker and place other bets on government-approved websites - a move that has the potential to generate billions of dollars in much-needed revenues for individual states or the federal government.

Politico goes into some detail on the machinations of Arizona Republican Senator Jon Kyl and the then Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist - a Tennessee Republican - in getting the ban on Internet gambling financial transactions through Congress back in 2006.

The duo managed this by choosing a late night session on the cusp of a congressional recess, ramming the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act through attached to a totally unrelated but “must pass” port security bill. Before that there was a long history of political manouevring by those for and against online gambling in trying to ban the pastime - or prevent it being banned.

Ever since the UIGEA passed into law, costing overseas online gambling companies billions in lost business and stock declines, the controversial act and its difficult enforcement has been the subject of political action and public debate.

Politico comments that online gambling has been good for Washington lobbyists, with many millions paid to lobbying firms, and to campaign funds, by both sides.

The publication also points to the National Football League, which helped turn key Democrats against Frank’s bill last year to give the chairman a surprise defeat in a vote on his own panel. But now Spencer Bachus and other supporters of the online gambling ban fear the league may be working with Frank on a compromise that would uphold laws against sports betting whilst liberalising other forms of online gambling.

The recent bank seizures by the New York authorities are the latest developments in the long-running online gambling legalisation saga.

“The….seizures, which targeted accounts managed by two companies that process payments for online poker sites such as Poker Stars and Full Tilt Poker thrust the issue back into the news and renewed old questions about the clarity of the existing law,” reports Politico, revealing that Frank described the move as “a terrible idea” last week.

Nevada Republican Representative Shelley Berkely seems to agree with the Financial Services Committee chairman; her staff is drafting a formal response to the administration, arguing that the seizure “shows the inappropriate excess of government power.”

“People have a right to play poker in their homes,” Shelley contends, “and the federal government doesn’t have a right to enforce against that.”

A spokesman for the Financial Services Committee told Politico that the panel needs to hold a hearing on the chairman’s bill before lawmakers would ever consider formal legislation. And the committee has its hands full this summer rewriting the regulatory infrastructure for the country’s huge financial services industry.

“But Frank likes his odds coming out of the flop,” Politico reports, quoting the politician as saying: “We’ll get it done.”

Since the appearance of the Politico article four more co-sponsors have signed on for Congressman Frank’s legislation. The latest signings include California Representative Michael M. Honda; Representative Ed Perimutter from Colorado; Texas Representative Ciro D. Rodriguez and New Jersey Representative Robert E. Andrews.

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