Sweet Home – James Ashcraft says he plans to hold his first Texas Hold ‘Em tournament at his bar, Chewy’s Sports Pub and Grub, sometime at the end of the summer.

First he has to get a license, but that’s no problem after the City Council Tuesday approved a social gaming ordinance that allows Texas Hold ‘Em poker tournaments inside city limits.

Five council members and Mayor Craig Fentiman voted in favor of the ordinance. Councilor Rich Rowley voted voted no.

Rowley said in a city that already struggles with a history of economic depression, Rowley said the city should err on the side of family values and quality of living.

“Gambling is an addictive behavior,” Rowley said after the meeting. “We’re providing a venue for someone to be able to do that.”

The decision whether to legalize tournaments stirred debate since Ashcraft asked the city for permission to host them in February.

Under the ordinance, hosts, venue owners and their families may not benefit from the games.

City Attorney Robert Snyder said the city will strictly enforce the new five-page ordinance.

“There are real consequences,” he said. “There is no guarantee we won’t come down like bricks.”

Ashcraft said he holds private tournaments in town, which was already allowed by city code.

That also goes for charity events, like school fundraisers.

He already bought equipment to play Texas Hold ‘Em tournaments before earlier this year before someone told him it wasn’t allowed.

“I’m gonna go by the book,” he said.

GENERAL BILL   by General Government Appropriations and Finance and Tax and Regulated Industries and Geller and Fasano

Cardrooms [EPCC]: (THIS BILL COMBINES CS/CS/S752 & CS/S1192) defines term “tournament”; revises license fees; revises hours of operation; authorizes award of certain prizes; revises betting limits; authorizes tournaments; provides tournament requirements; authorizes additional positions. Amends 849.086.

Effective Date: 07/01/2007

Last Event: 06/13/07 Became Law without Governor’s Signature; Chapter No. 2007-130 on Wednesday, June 13, 2007 6:28 PM

Bill Links:
Text | Track | News

Wayne Root doesn’t drink, smoke, take drugs or play poker on the Internet.

(I know, I know. Sounds like a typical Saturday night for some Las Vegans.)

Root will, he says, “defend to the death” your right to engage in any of those activities.

After making his name – and fortune – as a TV sports prognosticator,
selling advice to football gamblers on which way to bet against the
point spread, Root is mounting a run for president in 2008 on the
Libertarian ticket with individual freedom at the heart of his campaign
message.

Already Root is a betting favorite to not only win the Libertarian
presidential nomination but also attract the most votes of any
Libertarian candidate ever, according to – who else? – offshore
oddsmakers. (Betting on politics is not permitted in Nevada.)

“I want Wayne Root to become the new face of the Libertarian Party,”
Root said at his home in the Anthem section of Henderson. “The
Libertarian Party has always had good ideas, but it needs someone who’s
a great communicator, someone who can raise money, someone who is a
salesman. That’s where I come in.”

Until last year Root was a stalwart Republican. He even wrote a book
called “Millionaire Republican” and named his youngest child in honor
of Ronald Reagan.

Root became disenchanted with the GOP in recent years, however, and
gravitated toward the Libertarian Party, with its fiscally
conservative, socially liberal message that suited him as a gambler and
as a businessman.

“If there’s a gun to my head and I have to make a choice between the
Republican and Democratic parties, I’d choose the Republican Party,”
Root said. “But the sad truth is that the main thing both parties are
interested in is gaining power for themselves and staying in power. The
only way that both parties know how to do that is to continually
increase the size of government.”

The turning point for Root came last year, he said, when Republican
leaders in Congress successfully pushed for the passage of the Unlawful
Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, which aims to crack down on online
gambling by Americans by restricting financial transactions linked to
Internet gaming sites.

“The gambling bill was the last straw,” Root said. “I’ve been a
Republican my whole life, but I thought that bill was the antithesis of
what the Republican Party should stand for – keeping the government out
of the private lives of American citizens.”

The new law drew the ire of Americans who bet sports and play poker or casino-type gambling games online.

Root figures at least 10 million people in the United States play Internet poker, and he hopes to tap them as his base.

Although Root has had some discussions with 2004 World Series of
Poker champion Greg Raymer about Raymer possibly serving as a running
mate, he doesn’t want to foster the impression that he’s pushing for an
all-gambling, all-the-time ticket.

“People might think it’s funny if two gamblers are running,” Root
said. “But online gambling is not the big issue. What it represents is
the big issue: freedom.”

In courting online poker players, Root says he wants to align his
campaign with the Poker Players Alliance, a nonprofit political
organization that has signed former Sen. Al D’Amato as its chairman.

“My No. 1 wish would be for all forms of online gambling to be
legal, the way it is in England,” Root said. “But if we can’t get that
right away, I’d be willing to settle for a ‘carve-out’ for poker as a
game of skill.”

Because he’s best-known to sports bettors as a meticulously coiffed
talking head with an expensive suit hyping the latest “game of the
week” on cable TV, and outside the gambling world mostly as a “Las
Vegas oddsmaker,” with all the baggage that phrase carries, Root knows
his presidential candidacy will raise some questions.

Starting with, is Wayne Root serious?

“I’m very serious, although I realize the odds of any third-party
candidate winning the presidential election in 2008 are very slim,”
Root said. “But if I can make some noise as a third-party candidate,
maybe those odds can get a lot better in 2012, 2016 or even 2020.”

Root, influenced by Barry Goldwater and his book, “The Conscience of
a Conservative,” hopes to revive Goldwater’s conservative ideas.

“I believe Goldwater had the single greatest message in politics,
but unfortunately it got lost,” Root said. “Part of that was because
the TV age didn’t suit Goldwater well. He looked like everyone’s stern
grandfather.

“Without a great messenger, the message gets lost.”

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POKER PLAYERS ALLIANCE STRONGLY SUPPORTS WEXLER INTRODUCTION OF ‘SKILL GAME’ LEGISLATION

Plan Would Provide Rightful Protections to Online Poker Under the Law Read the rest of this entry »

WASHINGTON, June 6 (Reuters) – A Florida congressman is expected to introduce legislation on Thursday exempting poker and some other games from the Internet gambling ban passed by Congress last year, the lawmaker’s aide said on Wednesday.

The bill planned by Democratic Rep. Robert Wexler would carve out “skill games” such as online poker, bridge, chess and mahjong from the online gambling prohibition that President George W. Bush signed into law in October.

“It allows Americans to play poker online as they should have every right to do,” a Wexler spokesman, Josh Rogin said on Wednesday.

The online gambling ban passed last year made it illegal for banks and credit card companies to make payments to online gambling sites.

Wexler’s bill will be unveiled the day before the House Financial Services Committee is scheduled to hold a hearing on the subject at the behest of Rep. Barney Frank, the committee chairman and an outspoken critic of the online gambling ban.

The subject of Friday’s hearing will be legislation Frank introduced that would more broadly roll back the online gambling ban. Rogin said Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat, is also supportive of Wexler’s bill.

Scheduled to tesify at Friday’s hearing are the heads of several online payment processors.

Wexler is a member of the financial services panel, as well as the House Judiciary Committee.

Rogin said skill games should be treated differently from games of pure chance. “You win and lose based on your ability,” he said. “It’s a deserving distinction.”

Frank has conceded he does not yet have enough support in Congress to rescind the online gambling ban. The ban won majorities among both Republicans and Democrats and opponents of online gambling have vowed to fight efforts to rescind it.

The ban also irked some in the European Union, which is home to some online gambling companies that were forced to withdraw from the United States. It has been closely monitored by investors in some British-based gaming companies, such as Partygaming Plc and 888 Holdings Plc.

In a crackdown on Internet gambling, U.S. prosecutors arrested BETonSPORTS’ then- chief executive in July and its founder last month. Two founders of payments processor NETeller Plc were arrested in January.

LAS VEGAS — In 2003, Tennessee accountant Chris (no nickname needed) Moneymaker won the Main Event at the World Series of Poker after earning his $10,000 seat in an online tournament. Poker’s biggest, richest showdown has been dealing out wild-card winners ever since.

Last summer, former Hollywood agent Jamie Gold won the Main Event in his first try. Past champions including Doyle Brunson, Johnny Chan and Phil Hellmuth went out the first day.

“You can’t, no matter how badly you wanted to, ever play in a regulation NBA game … unless you were a member of that team. You couldn’t buy your way onto an NFL playing field,” said Jeffrey Pollack, commissioner of the tournament run by Harrah’s Entertainment. “But at the World Series of Poker, anyone can enter, anyone can win.”

Action starts Friday at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino with 55 events over 47 days, capped by the 12-day Texas Hold’em Main Event. That’s up from 46 events last year.

When Moneymaker won, ESPN’s tape-delayed coverage totaled seven hours. Now the network is doing 32 hours for the third year in a row. It will air the final table live on pay-per-view for the second year.

Moneymaker’s victory in a field of 839 players earned him $2.5 million. Last year’s Main Event set records with 8,773 entries and a top prize of $12 million.

Whether that growth continues remains to be seen after a wild card dealt last year.

A federal law adopted last fall prohibits banks and credit-card companies from making U.S. customer payments to online sites for any type of gambling that is illegal under U.S. law. The WSOP says it won’t accept third-party registrations, such as Moneymaker’s in 2003, from online sites doing business with U.S. residents.

The impact could be significant. Pollack declines to speculate on what the turnout may be. However the online hand plays out, he says the tournament still has its tradition and everyman appeal.

“The World Series of Poker started in 1970 and grew tremendously before the Internet was ever made available to the general public … we’re here to stay,” Pollack said. “That said, ratings will come and go, attendance will come and go, but that’s true for NASCAR, the NBA, the NHL, Major League Baseball and any other global sports property. That’s part of the price you pay for being on the big stage, and we accept it.”

Online sites adapt to law

The law passed last October, the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, may not be the final word.

In April, U.S. Rep Barney Frank, D-Mass., introduced a bill to allow federally licensed online companies to accept wagers. According to a news release, his bill has “protections against underage gambling, compulsive gambling, money laundering and fraud.”

Meanwhile, online sites are improvising.

PokerStars.com, which paid Moneymaker’s way in 2003, is offering to deposit $10,000 (plus $1,000 for travel) into the Poker Stars account of any winner of its satellite tournaments so they can register themselves for the Main Event if they choose.

Poker Stars says it sent about 1,600 satellite winners to the Main Event last year, including about 1,000 U.S. players. That was about 18% of the field. Poker Stars, based on the Isle of Man, isn’t speculating how many it will send this year.

“This is the first year we’re kind of letting go of the reins, per Harrah’s instructions, and letting players buy themselves in. We hope to get a good number, but we can’t say for certain,” said Susan Lindner of Lotus Public Relations, a New York firm representing Poker Stars.

Online poker offered beginners a less intimidating venue than casino play, according to poker pro Robert Williamson III.

“You could sit in your underwear at home, crawl out of bed and play a few hands at night and in the morning,” Williamson said.

He says the new law “definitely hurt poker in the first few months.” But, he added, “People are going to find a way to play, whether it’s in brick-and-mortar casinos or whether it’s online.”

The full specifics of the new regulations aren’t due until this summer. In the meantime, there are gray areas, and some U.S. residents still play online, says John Pappas, vice president of government affairs for the Poker Players Alliance, a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group.

“There are certainly not as many as before, but there still are companies out there offering poker services,” Pappas said.

He’d prefer legalization: “What we don’t want to see is an underground system developing, because companies that want to be good actors are forced out.”

Norman Chad, in his fifth year as ESPN’s commentator for the World Series, says poker’s staying power on TV has been sustained by interest and advertising revenue generated by gaming sites.

“I don’t know how it will play out with Congress or legally, but no matter how it plays out, people are still going to play on the Internet in the long run,” Chad said. “So as long as that occurs … I think it helps the little poker boomlet on television survive.”

Cameras help build drama

Poker shows of all sorts compete for viewers. They include National Heads-Up Poker and Poker After Dark on NBC and the World Poker Tour and the Professional Poker Tour on the Travel Channel.

Amid that saturation, ESPN’s 32 hours of World Series programming last year averaged a 1.0 rating (962,000 households). For the Main Event, it drew a 1.3 rating (1,238,000 households).

That’s no threat to the NFL, but the World Series has come far from its early years in the 1970s, when it wasn’t even aired.

Now cameras catch everything, including hidden hole cards. This year, for the first time, it all will be televised in high definition. And the tape delay enables ESPN to cut the poker drudgery and highlight made-for-TV moments when the chips are piled high.

“Poker is essentially the best reality show on television because the other reality shows aren’t anywhere close to reality,” Chad said. “Most people aren’t living on a desert island or eating spiders.”

Many play poker, and the relatively recent addition of the hole-card camera gives viewers a look at the game even the players at the table don’t have.

In the Texas Hold’em Main Event, each player is dealt two hole cards face down. Three more cards are turned face up on the table — the flop. Then comes a fourth face-up card — the turn. Then a fifth — the river. Each player can use his two cards and the five on the table to produce the best five-card hand.

Cameras built into the tables reveal the hole cards to viewers, which is no problem with a tape-delayed telecast (they’re not shown on the live pay-per-view).

“I don’t think there’s anything remotely equivalent as far as its importance to the telecast,” Chad said. “Football on television is 50 times better (now) that you have replay. … The hole-card cam is even more important to poker on television.”

ESPN first used the hole-card camera in 2002.

“If you’re watching ESPN Classic poker from the ’70s and the ’80s, there weren’t any hole cards (hole-card cameras). It was a very different show to watch,” said Jamie Horowitz, ESPN’s senior producer for the World Series.

But Horowitz says the appeal goes beyond the sneak peek. He says the game itself offers an inside look at personalities and the game: “What makes poker particularly good for TV is there’s a narrative within every hand. Every time you’re going around the table, there’s some sort of drama.”

Hopes brought to final tables

For Brunson, a 31-year WSOP veteran, there’s no drama like the first day of the Main Event.

Last year, the mass of everything poker made Brunson think of legendary director John Ford’s The Long Gray Line, a story about West Point instructor Marty Maher (played by Tyrone Power).

The movie reminded Brunson of poker’s long, gray line — the old-timers who built the World Series — and he was moved to tears.

“They are all dead and gone, but their memory isn’t lost in the sea of poker tables for me,” Brunson said. “To see how far poker has come, it’s amazing. And every time I think this thing can’t get any better, it gets better. All those old-timers I used to play poker with would love it.”

So what if the final table at the Main Event again doesn’t include familiar names such as Brunson?

“It doesn’t matter, because if we do our jobs correctly, producing the show, Chris Moneymaker is never just the name of a guy that shows up at the final table. You know about how he qualified for $39 online,” Horowitz said. “When Greg Raymer shows up the next year, he’s not just a name. He’s a patent attorney with a dream. When Joseph Hachem shows up the year after, he’s a guy carrying the hopes of Australia with him.”

Who will it be this time?

***

Contributing: Steve DiMeglio

The tiny Caribbean nation of Antigua and Barbuda sought to enlist other countries Tuesday in targeting the U.S. over Washington’s failure to comply with a WTO ruling that its Internet gambling restrictions were illegal.

The tiny Caribbean nation of Antigua and Barbuda seeks compensation from the U.S. over its illegal restrictions on Internet gambling sites based overseas and on Tuesday asked other countries to join in as it targets Washington over its failure to comply with global trade rules.

Antigua, the smallest country to successfully litigate a case in the World Trade Organization’s 12-year-history, also threatened to target American trademarks, copyrights and telecommunications companies after the WTO on Tuesday formally adopted a landmark decision reached in March that the United States’ restrictions on online gambling were illegal.

“Not only do we think that members should press claims for compensatory adjustments as a matter of economic self-interest, but we also believe it is important that the process is made as difficult as possible for the United States,” Ambassador John Ashe of Antigua told the WTO’s dispute settlement body.

The gambling dispute is threatening to become one of the most complicated the WTO has ever handled and could soon spark a series of compensation negotiations between the United States and other trading powers such as the European Union.

After losing the case, the U.S. announced that it would take an unprecedented legal step to change the international commitments it made as part of the 1994 GATS treaty regulating the trade in services among the 150 members of the WTO. As a result, the U.S. declined to challenge Tuesday’s adoption of the Internet gambling ruling, because it says that its legal maneuver effectively ends the case.

Juan Millan, a U.S. trade lawyer, told the Geneva-based trade body that the procedure – which no government had previously used to avoid a WTO ruling – was invoked “in order to bring the United States into compliance and to resolve this dispute permanently.”

“This modification will ensure … the original U.S. intent of excluding gambling from the scope of U.S. commitments,” he said.

The U.S. argues that it is also exempt from negotiating compensation to governments – as required in the GATS clause allowing countries to rewrite their services commitments – because Internet gambling was never explicitly mentioned in the negotiations of the early 1990s.

The March ruling upheld the U.S. right to prevent offshore betting as a means of protecting public order and public morals. But it said it was illegal to target online gambling, without equally applying the rules to American operators offering remote betting on horse and dog racing.

The former British colony in the Caribbean had been promoting electronic commerce as a way to end the country’s reliance on tourism, which was hurt by a series of hurricanes in the late 1990s. There are 32 licensed online casinos in Antigua, employing 1,000 people and generating a yearly revenue of about $130 million. Seven years ago, its casinos had an annual income closer to $1 billion.

The EU has stressed at every stage in the four-year dispute that it would act in support of its interests – a reference to the British-based companies that lost millions because of the U.S. restrictions. Officials in Brussels said, however, they had yet to notify Washington whether they would submit a compensation claim.