March 2008 US Archives
Please refer to the US poker updates homepage for current events.
March 28
4:19pm – Oh the irony of the US Government. This just reported by Attorney General Mukasey. They try to stop online gambling because it is used to fund “terrorism” and in return Antigua is given by the US millions to do exactly that, piracy because of WTO gaming issues.
U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey warned Friday that the huge profits generated from piracy and counterfeiting are increasingly flowing into the coffers of terrorist groups. Terror groups are taking their cues from organized crime and increasingly funding their operations from counterfeiting and piracy, he said. Mukasey said his department is devoting more resources to prosecuting intellectual property crimes
March 28
10:18am – Really nothing all that new happened this week with online gaming. Some more news came out about Antigua and Costa Rica with the WTO issues.
March 22
1:22pm – Here are the past few days weekly recap. Microgaming issued a press release concerning the Tusk liquidation of some of the US accepted poker skins using their platform and how players will get their money back. J. Todd also says in his video that Income Access (which uses the Microgaming Platforms) will be taking over all of these skins. Its about time they said something. The bill to make online gambling a felony in Massachusetts was effectively killed for this session as was announced yesterday. Swedish gambling ads are once again running in this territory by offshore gambling sites without advertisers being prosecuted issued down by a department of Sweden’s Prosecution Authority.
March 17
8:23pm – I had a small error on the US poker sites section about Sportsbook Poker. They were listed as completely US accepted but they don’t accept players from Missouri. Playersonly Poker was also added as they are part of their network. Thanks to the reader for sending that in.
8:58am – A fellow member at PAP, Kyle, pointed out this great video interview by the Director of the Division of Addiction at the Harvard School of Medicine (thats a mouthful). I think that title shows he’s got some credentials to speak about online gambling addiction and about whether what our opponents say about online gambling addiction becoming a problem if regulated is true or not. The video is below and because it’s so good I’m going to add it to the video section of this page. Its only 2 minutes long but he basically says surveys say people want to have the right to gamble online. He also talks about how they just published the first study about increased accesibility to internet gambling NOT supporting more addiction and also referred to the old study that gambling addiction has since decreased.
8:24am – I kind of forgot to mention this one a few days ago but the Poker Players Alliance announced 50 “State Directors” some which consist of active forum members at the PPA in efforts to grow their grassroots campaigns. There were over 1000 people who volunteered out of the 50 chosen. Here is a link (removed) to the PPA forum thread of a few of them introducing themselves.
March 15
7:05am – Ok so the poker site traffic report is done. I decided to replace the “Important Upcoming Dates” section with this “Past Poker Site Traffic” section. There just weren’t enough upcoming dates to keep track of anymore and I think looking at how these sites are growing etc is more important right now, for the future at least. As you can see the chart is now posted and I will continue to update it there. It’s amazing to see how these sites have grown. Pokerstars has doubled their traffic since the UIGEA while Full Tilt has almost tripled their traffic, even though they are still way behind Pokerstars. More amazing is the growth of Everest Poker (non US accepted) who has doubled their traffic since the UIGEA and announced this week a 116% increase in revenues since the UIGEA. Party Poker stats continue to remain idle.
5:41am – J. Todd does a really good job on this weeks Perspectives Weekly video. I think it’s one of his better ones in clearing up a few things including the iMEGA decision last week and the EU/US investigation into the UIGEA…again. The only thing he didn’t mention in the video, which I also forgot to mention this week was the resignation of NY’s Eliot Spitzer who was a strong opponent for online gambling.
I’ll be working on an updated version of “poker traffic stats” for the last year and a half in chart form that shows the growth/decline of the major sites since the passage of the UIGEA, indicating important dates. Its somewhat of a player traffic timeline if you haven’t seen it before. It should be updated in a few hours and I’ll post it here.
March 11
7:47am – When all was said and done Neteller finally released their losses for 2007 because of the US gambling law. They ended up reporting a $185 million dollar loss in 2007. In 2006 when Neteller was still in the US market they recorded a profit of $107 million, a difference of $292 million 
. Neteller says they are showing continued growth in 2008 now that the US situation is behind them. It looks like they’re trying to squeeze their customers even more this year after they introduced quite a substantial increase in fees to use their service, effective April 1, 08.
7:10am – MSNBC posted an article yesterday about even more WTO issues with the United States and the European Union. It seems as if the EU is seeking a second case against the US and their discriminatory practices towards online gambling at the World Trade Organization level. To be honest I thought this was already wrapped up and sealed in a secret container somewhere regarding compensations that the EU received. What’s ironic about the whole thing is the European Union can’t even get their own states to operate without monopolistic behaviour. Meanwhile Costa Rica is said to have signed a deal with the United States settling their WTO dispute. The compensations look to be exactly the same as the original deal with the EU/US, ie: opening warehousing, courier and postal services etc.
March 8
1:17am – Here is a brief recap of the past few days. Players who have money trapped in Microgaming/Tusk skins whose licenses were revoked have yet to receive an answer as to the whereabouts of their funds. Barney Frank announced his Internet Gaming Regulation and Enforcement Act (HR 2046) will go to a committe hearing this spring, most likely April. This seems to complement the fact that McDermott just came out with his revised Online Gambling Tax bill this week. On March 11th New York Senators will vote on legislation S.66 which will force ISP’s to block gambling sites. For more on this read the twoplustwo thread.
March 6
4:12pm – Judge Cooper has ruled on the iMEGA vs DOJ case today. I have yet to read the 29 page pdf ruling linked on that page so I can’t really comment on it yet. So far iMEGA is calling this a win but the lawyers and smart minds over at twoplustwo say otherwise in this the twoplustwo legislation forum.
9:26am – After Mitch Garber announced yesterday he would be leaving Partygaming as the CEO he came out with this statement about the US situation during an analyst statement this morning.
“The ongoing discussions with the US Department of Justice are neither positive nor negative and there is no time frame in which we can expect to see regulation of the internet gambling market in the US. It could be five years, or it could be 10 years. However, they are moving ahead constructively and we believe that by being compliant (with US law), we will be one the most attractive companies out there, whether as a buyer or a seller.”
March 4
7:59am – Both Battlefield Poker and Rednines (and other Tusk sites) have yet to release statements as to what happened to the sudden disappearance of players balances. Both sites are active at twoplustwo and basically waiting for an official statement from either Microgaming or Tusk about what is going on. Sounds like the poker rooms are in the dark on this one. For all those with money tied up, I hope you get it back and I’ll keep you updated when a press release does come out.
March 3
7:18am – I was also thinking about this California State study to possibly legalize online gambling in CA this morning. If I’m not wrong, it would seem that this would lead to bigger issues like the WTO sanctions which would keep it from ever getting passed. If one day the bill went through and poker was legalized in CA, all the countries who currently have their hands out because of the UIGEA would again go to arbitration for more money. Not that Mendel and Antigua aren’t already currently in arbitration over non-horseracing revenues but it would seem logical that a CA legalization of online poker would make things even more complicated than they already are, with more money being handed out….not that I wouldn’t like to see it legal in Cali.
7:17am – Wow, I think this is the first time I’ve made a post at normal people morning hours. It feels kind of weird. The European Commission is now making efforts towards the Netherlands and Greece and their anti-gambling laws similar to the UIGEA, in actuality it’s just monopolies they’re running. The EU formally announced proceedings to see that the Dutch and Greek people will be allowed to play at non-state run sites. Like the UIGEA in the US, it’s not all that effective in the Netherlands anyways with most big gaming sites targeting the Dutch. The Netherlands has a population of ~16 million people with an estimated 400,000 that actively play online.
