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European Union and United States Reach Trade Agreement to Continue Ban of Online Gaming


[Content Disclosure: 100% Poker, 14% Fascism, 9% Stupidity]

The hope of many US poker players was that the huge compensation over the WTO trade ruling would force the Federal government to back off on the UIGEA. Well quietly today the EU and the US have agreed on a trade deal that will allow the United States to continue to block European gaming sites from soliciting customers using US based computers.

The European Union has accepted a compensation package the U.S. has offered, in response to its withdrawal from World Trade Organization (WTO) agreements on gambling and betting services. "A bilateral agreement was signed in Geneva, which provides EU service suppliers with new trade opportunities in the U.S. postal and courier, research and development, storage and warehouse sectors," the Commission said. "The U.S. also made concessions in the testing and analysis services sector."

The WTO ruled in 2005 that the U.S. gambling ban -- which exempts certain domestic services, for online horse-racing -- effectively discriminates against foreign companies seeking to offer similar services in the U.S. market.

The European Union said it will also "continue to press for non discriminatory treatment in U.S. internet gambling legislation."

Meanwhile, a WTO decision on what sanctions the island nation of Antigua and Barbuda may impose on the U.S., over its refusal to allow U.S. citizens to gamble at foreign online casinos, has been delayed, Reuters reports.

Antigua has asked the WTO for permission to impose $3.44 billion in annual trade sanctions, while the U.S. says the country should be entitled to $500,000 in damages.
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The Sun'll Come Out Tomorrow

[Content Disclosure: Morose Material 3%; Travel Plans 4%; Current Visitations 8%; Moderate Poker References 12%; Life, The Universe and Everything .065%+/-]

There actually is a winter here in Las Vegas. We haven't seen 70 in over a week, this after 108 straight days this summer of 100+. The nights are almost too cold for the hottub but then I remember the tub on Sunset Road in the snow and I feel much better about dipping my toes and other parts into the warm liquid.

Amy is in town and we are working on several projects including, of course, our current book with Mike Matusow. We have met with our New York agent (doesn't NYA just sound good!) and we will be hanging out at Bellagio the next several days to pick up interviews with other players who play prominent roles in portions of Mike's story. We (that would be Amy and I) also have to formulate our "Big Push" plan to finish the text, as it appears our proposal will be seeing the light of several big publishing houses in early January.

So this little laptop and I are becoming even better friends.

I am going to write through holiday #1 and then make the trek north to Mt Shasta (actually Weed, California) for the turning of the calendar day. I haven't been to the Great North of California in several years and I miss the Sloth of Shasta. Back in the desert early in the year and back to the challenge of becoming an author on paper rather than just an editor of the ether.


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San Francisco & Cyberspace

[Content Disclosure: my work 37%; my travels 22%; me 43%; poker 9%]

I have returned to the Nevada desert from a week+ in San Francisco with my friends. Now that I am back I can begin anticipating my trip to Mt. Shasta for New Year's Eve. In the meantime, there is much work to be done in Cyberspace and on "The Book".

Just as an update for those who really want poker content, I can be found in several and/or many iterations on:

Poker Blog, Online Poker-Beginner's Poker Blog, Chili Poker and even moderating a brand new All Poker Forum.

The book with Mike Matusow is now with our New York publishing agent and we should hear something before the end of some year.

On a personal note: I am now married and have three darling children. And yes I still have those acid flashbacks but I am feeling much better now.
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Gobble

[Content Disclosure: 12% Poker Related; 44% Holiday Wishes; 35% Travel; 23% Good News]

Happy Turkey Day to everyone who celebrates such and Happy Day to everyone else. I am in San Francisco this week and heading up to Matthew's in Sonoma for today's gathering. Tomorrow we will do it all over again in the City at Mira's. I am spending the full week here and heading back to 'Pokerland in the Desert' on Monday.

Amy and I have worked out the latest legal issues with our current project and expect to have good news or better to announce before the end of the year. In the meantime, work continues apace on the book project.

Hope all is well in your world, if not, consider a different world; possibilities abound past, present and future.
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Antigua Insanity


[Content Disclosure: Poker 83%, Politics 72%, Insanity 12.4%, Fundamentalism 11%, Gross Stupidity 101%]

For those who are not poker fans: You really need to read this.
For those who are poker fanatics: Ditto!
For those who pay taxes to the US Treasury: You really gotta read this!!!

1. In October 2006, the US government pasted the Unlawful Internet Gaming Enforcement Act.
2. The UIGEA is not yet being enforced because of the vagueness of the language in the bill.
3. By other means (arrests and intimidation) the US government has closed it's online gaming market to most foreign companies.
4. Antigua sued under provisions of the World Trade Organization and won repeatedly.
4a. Antigua is now attempting to collect on a $3.4 Billion judgment against the US.
5. Thirty-five countries -- including the 27 members of the EU -- have joined Antigua and Barbuda's complaint to the WTO. Current estimates are that these claims could conservatively amount to over $100 Billion in additional trade penalties.

Here it comes, get ready:

The United States government is negotiating away trade concessions and tariffs in the Hundreds of Billions of Dollars, in order to maintain the online gaming restrictions. The negotiations are underway and changing the law to allow regulated and taxed online gaming is NOT on the table.

And here you thought the right wing was only trying to control who you marry and what you read and how you educate your children. Nope! They also are going to have you paying more for foreign products and have US products be less competitive both at home and overseas, so they can stop the evil of internet poker. Oh, by the way, it is OK to use the internet to bet on horse racing and state lotteries; those gambling options were exempted from the legislation. They had higher paid lobbyists.
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Random Blog Notes


[Content Disclosure: 12% poker, 19% life, 67% more promises]






I know this blog is read by an unusually mixed demographic. While my poker friends still make up the majority readership, they know my primary writing on poker has shifted to PokerBlog, OnlinePoker and ChiliPoker. The change in title of this blog this week signals a more integrated direction to my writing here. Yes, there will be some poker but the other aspects of a fuller life I have been hinting at here for several months are about to (re)emerge.

For my new and amateur blog readers--some cyber stats. that should enlighten most readers.
  • there are over 70 million weblogs
  • About 120,000 new blogs are created each day
  • 1.5 million blog posts per day
  • Japanese the #1 blogging language at 37%
  • English second at 33%
  • Chinese third at 8%
  • Italian fourth at 3%
  • Farsi a newcomer in the top 10 at 1%
  • English the most even in postings around-the-clock; Spanish is second
  • Japanese and Chinese have big spikes during normal work hours geographically
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Poker In & Poker Out

[Content Disclosure: Poker 100%; online poker 50%; live poker 25%; dead poker 25%]


Doyle's Room has reopened its doors to the US poker playing public. At the same time, the Las Vegas Hilton has closed its poker room. Are either of these really signs of anything like a tread in poker?

As for Doyles's Room, it's very interesting that an online provider who had left the US market is coming back. If you remember when Doyle closed his room there was speculation about pressure from the US Justice Department and threats of arrest and jail time. But too many online rooms continue to make money from the US market and Texas Dolly and his management team just decided that the profits far outweighed any potential legal issues with the United States of Prohibition.







On the other hand, the closing of the Hilton poker room in Las Vegas sends a couple of messages:
-there are just too many rooms in Las Vegas for the player demand;
-off-the-strip rooms have too big a hurdle to lure players in;
-even in the poker boom, marketing efforts for poker are necessary;
-it ain't the whales or the poker rooms that make casinos profitable, it's the slot machines.

Will there be more poker rooms closing in Las Vegas--yes. We hear rumors every week about which one is going dark next. Particularly as properties go through major remodels (Tropicana, Luxor, Plaza...) sometimes it's easy to just disappear a room during a major renovation. Also there is just the matter of very unprofitable space (Tropicana, Plaza, Hooter's, Fitzgerald's, Silverton, Circus Circus); casinos do not like dead space anywhere and a poker room requires a fair amount of staffing.

On the other issue, will more online poker sites reenter the US market? Well the only one actually prevented from doing so would be Party Poker. Party is a public company and that makes its liability so high that they could not even consider thumbing their corporate nose at the US law. Now whether other sites will watch Doyle's Room or not..... that is an interesting question. But one thing is for sure, if you are out of the US market in 2007, you are giving up the biggest online poker profit market in the world.
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