A good poker player knows that they are going to fold a large percentage of the hands they’re dealt. But this means that an average game has a lot of downtime for a player while they wait for the rest of the table to play the hand through before they can be dealt into a new game. But real world poker has been played like this since it began because, well, other than jumping up and running around looking for another table, there wasn’t much anyone could do about it. But web technology is different and Full Tilt was the first poker room to come up with the idea of developing a system that would spot players who’d just folded a hand and sit them at a new table for a new deal.  Of course once everyone saw that, they wanted it. But there are little things like copyright and patent laws that can make taking advantage of another site’s ideas a bit tricky. In fact there were hints about other sites looking into Rush Poker and rumors of “well, we’ll sue” to respond to those.

But now PokerStars has announced a new product called Zoom Poker that looks a lot like Rush Poker. Which is good for players on PokerStars. But it has me thinking about something else. There’s also a rumor out there that PokerStars is looking into acquiring Full Tilt Poker. When I heard about the rumor, I wondered what good it could possibly do PokerStars to acquire a failed online poker room with a massive debt that needs to be paid off. But Zoom Poker could be the answer to that. If PokerStars acquires Full Tilt, the site that still technically owns Rush Poker, then they acquire the Rush Poker system too and can eliminate any chances of a law suit over Zoom Poker because they won’t sue themselves. Zoom Poker just might be good enough to make the move worthwhile.

First, the support positions stress language abilities and are aimed at German, Russian, Italian, Spanish and a few other languages. This just demonstrates that whatever is happening, the focus is Europe, not the US. So, US players, don’t start expecting to get money back yet. Did you know the US government has a Tumblr? Seriously, you can ask questions about Full Tilt on it here:  http://blog.usa.gov/ Next, I’m looking at temporary support positions with a possibility of full time. Whatever Full Tilt does, the first step it will have to take is making good on money it owes players to an extent that shows it’s a viable option again. If the poker rooms opens back up, it’s going to be swamped with requests to cash out money owed. So, they potentially will need to start with significantly more support people than they would need to keep long term.  That’s what this looks like. Also, temporary contract positions tell me they aren’t really sure how successful a relaunch will be.

And of course, there’s that definite European focus for customer support. Now, there is no expectation of Full Tilt opening up again for players in the US. However, the company still owes about $300 million to US players, which is a significant amount of money. We haven’t seen any news come out from Full Tilt that makes us believe that pay that money back is a priority for the company. But not paying it back is going to impact their reputation.  In poker, you have to pay what you owe.

The big news that’s even made its way out of the online poker world is the seizure of Bodog.com by US authorities.  Now, in the poker world this wasn’t even much of a hiccup because Bodog had moved to Bodog.uk months ago and US players were being redirected to the new Bovada.lv poker site, neither of which were seized. The big news was that the seizing of Bodog.com led to a statement by US authorities that if a domain ends in .com, .org, .net or a few others, it’s fair game for US courts to seize. It seems that the businesses that oversee those domains are located in the US, so the US says they have jurisdiction over the domains as a whole.  This has led to questions and protests from companies no associated with online gambling and online poker in any way.  Guess what happens in gambling doesn’t always stay in gambling.

In happier news, Bwin.party is filing for an online poker license in Nevada. I’m sure it’ll be granted. Nevada would like to be the hub for online poker and online gambling. So would New Jersey.  But right now it looks like Congress won’t be addressing the issue until at least 2013.  Meanwhile states are taking full advantage of the gap to set up their own online poker systems.  I wonder if Bwin.party could apply everywhere and create something that resembles a real online poker network. It would make them extremely popular.

Oh, and it looks like Zynga will be moving into the real money gambling world.  I’m being told it’s a great investment for stocks, but I’m not sure I’ve forgiven them for Farmville yet.

So, what’s the benefit of online poker if you have to drive to a casino? Well, while the ideal would be to be able to play at home, this intranet will allow players from different states to sit down at the same virtual table and play against one another. So, if your local tribal casino never seems to be able to guarantee enough players in the casino for you to enjoy your favorite poker game, the online poker room would allow you to play against players in another casino, another state, as long as they are in the network.

The online network will also offer casino games.  Now, I find it a bit odd to play online casino games while at the casino, but there can be an advantage there.  Perhaps your favorite slot machine is occupied or you can’t find an open table for blackjack, this arrangement would let you play a number of games online.  But that’s not why most casinos want to offer online gambling actually within the casino. They want you to be able to continue playing when you leave the casino. With online gambling and mobile gambling you can play when you’re relaxing by the pool or when you’re in your room.  Or at dinner, though it might be polite to pay attention to your companion in some of these locations.  But for a resort casino (one with a hotel and accommodations) online and mobile gambling mean their customers never have to be disconnected from the casino experience.

Since this intranet casino operates within existing casinos, it is able to operate within the established laws of the states where the casinos are.  With the change in the Department of Justice’s view on the Wire Act of 1961, the Atlantis Group felt it was free to offer this expansion in online gambling without violating any federal laws.  I suspect we’ll see more and more casinos looking toward this type of solution as we move forward in the year. After all, if your competition lets player gamble in their rooms or by the pool, you want to offer the same service.

For poker players, while this is a great option for those living near one of the tribal casinos, it’s not the ideal solution. The Poker Players Alliance plans to continue pushing for federally regulated online poker that would allow some of the top online poker rooms to operate within the country, but news out of Washington DC suggests that such an effort won’t be considered by Congress until 2013 or later. Meanwhile states and gaming networks are stepping up to fill in the gaps.

Zynga is a popular poker room on the social media site Facebook and it lets players pit their Texas Hold’em skills against one another for Zynga coins. Each player receives a certain number of coins each day but after that they have to either win coins or buy them if they want to keep playing. Yes, buy. Purchase. With a credit card.

See, Zynga makes money 2 ways  – advertising and players who purchase coins to play on. For this reason they want to make the features that attract the high money players the most prominent features.  And if reports are true, there is a small percentage of players spending up to $10,000 on Zynga poker. Oh, sure, Isildur1 can trash that in one hand. But remember this – on Zynga those players aren’t actually winning real money back.  They buy coins to play with and then, umm, play some more. I’ve been told there is a sort of “blackmarket” on ebay for Zynga coins, so potentially a good player could win lots of coins and sell them. But if you’re that good, why not play over at Bovada poker? Or any real money poker room.

Zynga isn’t spying to win money from players in the poker sense of the word. They spy to see what the folks who give them money like as far as features and make sure those features are easily available. But anyone who plays at a real money card room might worry about this if Zynga really does pursue a real money poker option.

But now another state has jumped into the online poker debate. Or perhaps I should say back into. It’s the one state I really didn’t expect to see resurface with an online poker bid – Hawaii.  Now, let me put this in perspective – gambling is so forbidden in Hawaii that cruise ships touring the islands don’t have onboard casinos. I know this because I’ve been on a ship that moved from Hawaii to the Mediterranean and they had to take out staterooms to add a small casino. Hawaii doesn’t even have a lottery. They’ve been making money for decades off of tourism.

But tourism is hurting everywhere. But with the change in the federal view of online gambling (meaning at this point, the feds aren’t sure how to view online gambling), Hawaii is introducing bills to establish a state lottery, establish  an online gambling platform and even to establish casinos in the state. 

Will these bills succeed?  Well, while the feds view on gambling has gone from “no” to “we don’t know” I’m not sure the view of the people of Hawaii has changed. It’s a big leap to go from “not even on cruise ships” to “sure, plop a casino down right here.”

Oh, there are still talks going on between Full Tilt Poker,  Groupe Bernard Taipe and the US Department of Justice. But really players shouldn’t expect anything in the near future from those talks. US players may eventually get something back from their Full Tilt accounts. Or they may not. Over all, Full Tilt looks like a bad bet and I’m not even sure that the name can regain its brand popularity at this point.

But everything isn’t dismal on the US poker scene. Americas Cardroom, formerly Doyle’s Room, kicked off 2012 with a record number of players on the site, perhaps courtesy of that DOJ reversal of their opinion on the Wire Act. Stating that the 1961 act only applies to sports seems to have revitalized the US poker scene. Nevada will soon offer online poker and even New York is looking at their options. American players are back in the game.

Online poker has been a sticking point for many since it first came on the scene. It changed the way players played poker. When it became popular, it changed the way the world played poker. But it also took a lot of control away from the existing places of power. So the UIGEA was introduced which basically said that where financial transactions were involved in illegal online gambling, the laws had to be enforced. Yes, I’m simplifying, but it helps understand what just happened to gambling laws. The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act that’s been causing a ruckus this year didn’t make online gambling or online poker illegal. It just said laws had to be enforced where it was illegal.

So, what made online gambling and online poker illegal? That would be the Wire Act of 1961. Notice anything about the date? Well, if you were around in 1961, you might remember that there wasn’t an internet back then. So there was no online poker. Seems a bit odd that they’d bother passing an act to make something they never knew would exist illegal. Personally, I’m working on an act to protect the rings of Saturn from illegal harvesting by space tourists.  You know it’s gonna happen one day.

Well, back in 1961 they did have sports. And the ability to wire money. The Wire Act was meant to prevent people from cheating while betting on the outcome of sports games. For some reason, it was just assumed that it could also apply to poker and online casinos. But just before Christmas, the DOJ decided that wasn’t the case.

So, what does this mean? Well, it seems there isn’t a federal law against online poker. This supposed federal law has been what held some states back from legalizing online poker in their borders. They haven’t been sure if they can. Even Nevada passed an online poker bill that required legalized federal poker before they could act. Guess what – they can act! 

I’ll be keeping a close eye on the news to see what changes come about, but the future looks better than it did before I went on vacation!

Bodog Poker is a well known online poker brand and it still exists. It’s just that the folks at Bodog agreed to leave the US poker market as part of their agreement with the UK Gambling Commission. But this wasn’t a sudden forced leave like Full Tilt and PokerStars suffered, so Bodog had plenty of time to ensure a safe move for players. Which it did do. See, Bodog’s license with the Morris Mohawk Gambling Group was going to end on December 31^st of this year, so they told MMGG that they wouldn’t be renewing. MMGG thought about this and said “hey, it gives us the perfect chance to launch our own brand.” Which they did. That brand is Bovada and includes an online poker room, casino, sports betting and horses. 

Now, players at Bodog were told that they would be able to move their accounts over to Bovada but most of us thought that would happen on December 31^st.  But Bovada was ready early and the accounts moved early. Which means if like me, you were still waiting to make up your mind about switching, you found yourself automatically migrated to Bovada. Okay, it’s really not all that much of a problem. It just caught me by surprise and made me wonder of that’s what Bovada planned all along.

But there’s something else going on at Bodog that may have helped prompt Bovada’s early move. Bodog introduced new software that made all of their tables anonymous tables. When I first read about the anonymous tables I thought they were introducing an anonymous option, which has been done before. But nope, everyone is now anonymous at Bodog and lots of people are screaming. Traffic on the site has dropped by nearly 10 percent which could be a combination of the anonymous tables and perhaps US players pulling back because we were going to have to leave anyway.  But I wonder if seeing this drop prompted Bovada to act early because now players who might have been tempted to leave Bodog over the anonymous tables can simply play at Bovada.  Except, the joke is on us since Bovada is using the same software and same anonymous tables as Bodog.

Recent develop number 2 – PokerStars is attempting to set another world record. This one for the largest online poker tournament. The record setting attempt will take place on December 4^th as the site tries to beat the current record of 149,196 players which was set by, oh, PokerStars. Except that record was set when US players could play on the site. Good luck PokerStars! And we hope you can someday come back to us.

And speaking of online poker rooms that aren’t available in the US, it looks like Full Tilt may have a deal the French Groupe Bernard Tapie, and player could conceivably get some money back. So far, no news on anyone getting their money back. And to make Full Tilt even less happy, another poker room, Istadeal, is challenging their attempt to patent Rush Poker and rolling out its own version. Probably under a different name because I’m sure Full Tilt trademarked the term Rush Poker, but trademarking is a lot easier than getting a patent.

Oh, further news on where Americans can’t play poker. Bodog is leaving the US at the end of the month. Now, fortunately this isn’t a forced move with FBI muscle behind it. They’re leaving to keep the UK Gambling Commission happy with them. So US players are able to withdraw their funds or to move them to the new Morris Mohawk Gambling brand that will replace Bodog in the US.