A Good Cause

This is from our good friend Ken of Kustom Kowboys. Please support this

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Calling all Poker players and Friends, be All in for Benjo this August 12!

Event: All in for Benjo, A Benefit Texas Hold-'Em Poker Tournament
Venue: Airport Casino Filipino, Paranaque
Reg: 12:00 nn
1st Deal: 1:30 pm
Buy In: Php 2,000

Get the chance to win one of these prizes:
- your very own customized poker table from Kustom Kowboys worth
P35K( www.kustomkowboys.com)
- an overnight stay at Seawind Boracay
- 20K item from Technomarine
and many more!

About us:
We are a voluntary independent group supporting a series of events
raising funds for our friend Benjo Marquez, who is only 25 and was
recently diagnosed with stage 3 Hodgkin's lymphoma (cancer of the
lymph nodes).

Benjo and his family are in great need of financial support. Benjo has
made DJing a career and depends greatly on the income he receives from
it, as their family has not been as financially stable since their
father passed away. Needless to say, they need all
the help they can get, especially since he has started chemotherapy
sessions. He will need extensive medical attention.

For tickets and reservations:

Celine : 0918-907-2156
Rose : 0918-934-4655
Sookie : 0917-529-8837
Tricia : 0917-534-6059
Kai : 0917-555-5567

A Few Items

Just got back from the Asian Casino Executives 2006 Summit in Singapore. Spent two days pretending to be a casino executive. Only the Asian part was accurate :). It was a very interesting trip, will write up a synopsis a couple of posts from now.

Looks like Maverick has moved his blog to a new URL. Check it out..

PBT's ramping up their work with ABS-CBN for the World Poker Tour Philippines. First satellite tourney to be held at ACF this Sat., July 29.

Just gonna get caught up on some stuff and start posting again...

Peace

My attempts at personal clarity on the SportingBet situation

As you may have read in my post below, I opened my email yesterday to find a raft of messages talking about the effect of David Carruthers' (SportingBet) arrest in Texas. The focal point for me, of course, was the postponement of the Bodog.com marketing conference which I was slated to attend. The email sent by bodog stated that a number of planned attendees expressed concern about the US environment, and presumably chose not to set foot on US soil till the whole thing cleared up.

I've also read the comments posted by readers to my last article, and noted that there's some concern over online poker.

Just thought that I'd like to try to clear up a couple things. Yes, there does seem to be a concerted US DOJ move to detain and prosecute operators of offshore gaming sites. Yes, Washington State in the US has made it a felony to play online poker (or wager online, period). An anti-online gambling Act has passed US Congress, but will need to get past the Sentate (Not yet law). An article I read yesterday stated that the DOJ is planning to get aggressive and seek extradition even for gaming executives who are foreign nationals. Sounds scary, doesn't it.

Well, not really, if you look more deeply into it. The only law the US can truly use to go after foreign nationals and offshore companies is the 1961 Wire Act, which prohibits the use of telephone lines to receive wagers from US players. I believe the language of the law is too vague to specifically encompass the Internet, as it would have been damn hard to anticipate the Internet gaming industry in 1961. Note that Carruthers is the CEO of a sportsbook, and it's alleged that SportingBet did take wagers over the telephone. Note also that the Marketing Conference I was to attend was sponsored by Bodog.com, a sportsbook. Many sportsbook executives were to attend. Poker, while now a major part of most online sportsbook's businesses (such as bodog), cannot be immediately caught in the current 1961 Wire Act net; imagine dialing a 1-800-number and saying "raise".

The Wire Act has already been used to indict offshore operators; there are a number of "fugitive" sportsbook CEO's living it up in the Caribbean, unable to return to the US.

So don't worry just yet about online poker.

The time all this will hit home is if the most recent anti-gambling bill makes it to the White House. I'd wager (haha) that Bush won't veto this bill; it fits nicely with the whole Republican schtick - morality (gambling), homeland security (money laundering).

Jaz commented below on this possibly opening up a whole new wave of activity in Asia. She's damn right. If the US does make it difficult to sell to its juicy market, the Asian market's the only real alternative.

Expect it...

Darned FBI...

...Or...oops got thwarted again...I was scheduled to leave for Vegas on the 23rd to attend the Bodog.com Marketing Conference. I was ready to roll, catch up on what's new in the world of online gaming, hang out with some friends, and take in some WSOP action while I was at it.

But the FBI got in the way of my trip. A few days ago, David Carruthers, SportingBet's CEO and a British national, was arrested and detained in Texas on racketeering and conspiracy charges stemming from the fact that his offshore operation is accepting wagers from US citizens living in the US. The US is now threating to extradite non-American gaming company executives.

This has sent ripples through the entire industry. All the publicly traded companies have lost value on their respective exchanges, and SportingBet suspended trading. I woke up this morning to an email from bodog.com stating that due to the current situation, the conference was to be postponed. Got a text message soon after from my travel agent saying that the company sponsoring my trip had asked for a cancellation of all my group's flights and hotel bookings.

Damn

Oh well, staying home's better than getting arrested at the airport, I guess. I don't look good in an orange jumpsuit; just doesn't suit my complexion.

See y'all Saturday at the ACF5K :)

ACF5K this Saturday

For those of you who've been to the Airport Casino lately, you may have seen the Tourney Board at the Poker Room showing the ACF5K scheduled for July 29th. This is incorrect; this month's 5K will be played this Saturday, July 22. Reg at noon and game on at 2pm.

Sructure will be the same as always (posted previously on this blog), and ACF is once again giving away a champ's bracelet to complement the cash.

Come out and play on Saturday, let's pump a big pot ;).

wallets and tiles...

Been hectic the last few days, though none of it at the felt - live, or virtual. Spending lots of time with visiting family, and doing some real work on my consulting gigs with two very exciting projects.

The first project is the finalization of our deal with Click2Pay to make it real easy for Asia-based people to fund an ewallet account with Asian payment solutions as well as easy cash-out solutions. If you've tried to use an ewallet to play online from Asia in the past, you're probably aware of how much of a pain this can be. We've done the deal. Contact me if you're interested in getting an account.

Project number 2 (these are in no particular order) is the most exciting thing i've personally seen in a long, long time. I'm working with a company called Gameplay Asia to commercialize and roll out the very best online Mahjong software out there. Check out Mahjong88. You'll also be able to use your Click2Pay account to play Mahjong when they go live for real money. Nice to see world class software coming out the Philippines.

Just trying to get caught up on things now. Looks like the PBT boys have a good cause to support this Saturday. They're running a tourney benefitting the Nova Foundation for the Differently Abled. Details at Deal a Helping Hand. See you all there.

We're gonna be running the ACF5K on July 22, the Saturday after next. Same time, same channel, same structures, same fat pots to play for...

Congrats to Isaac...

Apologies for the long delay in posts...I've been happily hosting my mom and niece, who came in from Canada a week ago. Haven't seen either of them for a couple of years, so I'm grabbing as much time as I can with them.

On poker: Isaac Galazan, "The General", friend of local poker and winner of last year's WSOP short handed NLHE event, has started things off right and moneyed in 29th at the WSOP's $1500 Pot Limit Holdem event, cashing for more than 7K. Nice job. We're hopin you take another bracelet down this year.