Which is why the Poker Players Alliance has warned Congress that if it doesn’t act to bring in online poker on a federal level — NOW. Really, right now, it will lose the opportunity.  Now from the perspective of a poker player, national online poker would be better because it would make online poker available to more people and focus less on smaller state casinos.  But to the states, legislation by individual states is preferable because it means that each state can collect revenue from online poker rooms operating in their boundaries.

From congresses point of view, hmm, I don’t know what their point of view is. Perhaps it’s that if they leave it up to the individual states, they don’t have to go on the record for having an opinion. But really, the federal budget could use the money that online poker would bring it.  Come on congress, show ‘em or fold ‘em.

For the last year, online gambling news has all been about the UIGEA or Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act. But here’s the trick. The UIGEA only calls for the enforcement of existing laws against internet gambling. Everyone admits that the UIGEA is poorly written and doesn’t clearly define what illegal internet gambling looks like. So, what made everyone consider online gambling illegal? Well, that was the Wire Act of 1961.

Now, here’s where we run into a history problem. Back in 1961 there was no online gambling and the internet as we know it today didn’t exist. So how did the wise folks in 1961 write a law to make something they didn’t know existed illegal?  Well, they didn’t. The Wire Act was about sports betting and placing bets by wiring money. The Wire Act was just interpreted to apply to online gambling. But when the UIGEA got around to telling the DOJ that essentially they had to enforce the Wire Act by applying it to online gambling, the DOJ decided to take another look at the act. Now, I’m not a lawyer, but I assume the Department of Justice probably has a few on hand. And what those lawyers decided was that the Wire Act only applies to sports betting. So, you can’t place online sports bets. Poker and online casino games are up for grabs.

What does this mean for gamblers? Well, right now it means that there is no specific federal law against online gambling. Now, that doesn’t automatically make it legal, but it does open the door to the states to pass their own online gambling laws without violating federal law. Nevada already has online poker plans in motion. California has stated that it is looking at putting its lottery online. And we’re barely out of the holiday season. This is going to be an interesting year.

Really, as gamblers we sometimes need to back up and ask ourselves - what’s the best game to play with the amount of money I have available?  Because that answer can be different than the answer you might determine if you just looked at odds. Odds wise, I’d go with blackjack.  If I have $50 in my pocket, I’m heading to video poker. If I have $20 in my pocket, I’ll look for either a nickel video poker machine or a penny slot machine.

Let’s take a look at it this way. Say you’re at a casino and you only have $5 left to play. But you’re with a group of friends who just aren’t ready to leave yet. So, you head to a blackjack table because the odds are best there. True, but the odds are measured over time, not for one hand. You’ll need that whole $5 to play one hand and if you lose, you get to wander the casino waiting for your friends to finish playing.  Or you could head to the penny slot machines. Yeah, these have some of the worst odds in the casino, but have you ever played one? Look, you’ve got $5 and you’re likely to lose it all no matter what you do. But you can play penny slots for ages on $5. Sometimes you’ll even win some money.

Sometimes you don’t figure your bankroll out based on the game, but the game based on the bankroll.

It seems a very similar dispute has been playing out in South Africa. The online casino Piggs Peak had its servers in Swaziland, a small country almost entirely surrounded by South Africa, so Piggs Peak claimed that it did not fall under the jurisdiction of the South African National Gaming Board, which has outlawed online casinos in the country. But recently a South African judge ruled that the online casino operated where the player was located, not where the servers were located.  Now, this ruling doesn’t apply to the US, but one can hardly expect a different ruling should it be called into question in the US.

Ironically, much like the US, South Africa doesn’t outlaw gambling altogether. In fact, it has some world class land based casinos that offer everything from family vacations with theme parks to gambling and safari excursions.  South Africa wants the tourist money those casinos bring in, but not the local gambling that online casinos allow.  Sound familiar?

So, what’s going on? First, let’s take a look at what casino software is. Casinos don’t all run out and develop their own software to run the games they have. That would take more time and effort than they really need to use. Think of it this way - casinos in Las Vegas don’t manufacture their own slot machines. They buy them from slots manufacturers. And online casinos set up partnerships with game developers to run their software platform. Platforms like Playtech, Realtime Gaming and Microgaming are considered top of the line. The casino that use them are usually on everyone’s top casino list.

BLR Technologies also makes online casino software but it’s used by a small group of casinos - World Wide Wager, Legend Sports, and 5Dimes. But players who played on those casinos started complaining that they seemed to be losing more than they should. So? Sometimes people lose in gambling. But when people who are absolute wizards when it comes to things like odds and probability went in and ran their own tests, they found that the odds just weren’t coming out right. Now to see this, you don’t look at a game like slots. You take something like craps with a Pass/Don’t Pass bet. Something where the chance of winning vs losing is a known quantity that you can test against. Okay, not everyone may be familiar with craps. So, let’s say you toss a quarter in the air. The odds are 50/50 for heads vs tails. You could get a brief run of one or the other, but if you make 1000 tosses, you should come out really close to 50/50.  If you don’t that quarter may have been rigged. So when the craps bets are nowhere near what the expected outcome is based on pure math, that game might be rigged.

And it seems that the casino software developed by BLR Technologies is rigged. The software can detect a player’s bet and make it less likely for a large bet to win.  News is out that World Wide Wagering is dropping the company. Legend Sports says it doesn’t affect their sports betting and besides, they’ve invested in fixing the casino part, and 5Dimes has actually issued a refund to a player who complained.

My advice - don’t play on these casinos. Now, I’ve heard nothing wrong about Legends sports betting side of the business, but I still wouldn’t play video poker on their casino.  I’m not sure if these casinos knew they software was cheating or if they were using it for that reason, but I expect a casino to be more aware of what’s going on with their software than these seem to have been.  I don’t play with “maybe safe” casinos.

But the problem with consistent promotions is that they often lead to someone trying to figure out ways to turn the promotion to their advantage. This isn’t just for gambling promotions, but the more money involved, the more likely someone is to want to figure out a better way to win the money. And some players are claiming that’s what happened with the PokerStars 70 Billionth Hand Promotion.

Players have gone back and check the hand history of the winning table and have claimed that the overall history of the hands played shows that players at the table weren’t really focused on playing each hand but on playing as many hands as possible to give everyone at the table a better chance of hitting the 70^th billionth hand. And if they were, it seems to have worked. Of course, no one seems to be checking the hand history of the tables that didn’t win to see if they were playing the same way.

PokerStars has reviewed the issue and determined that the “fast folding” going on at the table wasn’t a violation of the rules of the promotion. But they will be looking into the way they run the billionth hand promotions going forward or else everyone on that site is going to be fast folding as they get nearer and nearer to those milestone hands.

But the news on the Cereus Network kicked into high gear right after the Black Friday Poker Shutdown when the poker rooms run by the network were the two that didn’t take steps to work with the United States Department of Justice to obtain approval to pay players back money in their accounts. This worried players, who wanted to know just why that was happening. And it turned out the worst suspicions were correct - Blanca Games, the company that owns the two poker rooms, wasn’t worried about negotiating to pay players back because it couldn’t pay players back. But it was easier to let the blame rest with the FBI for as long as people would buy it. Mostly no one did and the company struggled to deny rumors of bankruptcy while laying off support staff.

Well, now the news is out that Blanca Games will be liquidating their assets in order to try to raise enough money to pay out what they owe players. Perhaps what happened to Full Tilt poker has shown them that not paying out will ruin their reputation and cost them their license. That’s if they have any reputation left to ruin.

See, the governor doesn’t want people in his state to stop gambling. He simply wants them to gamble in his state. Which actually, should mean that its only Federal legalization of online gambling that would worry him because if each state legalizes gambling on its own, then each state could charge to tax and license online casinos that operate in that state.

Of course, there are some drawbacks to that plan, but mainly for gamblers. It could limit the number of places a gambler could visit to place bets or even to play slots free since I could see casinos not bothering to license in states with a low return on investment. While Federal licensing would result in a broader availability for online casino but still potentially give states the chance to opt out.

But what would happen if a state like Maryland opted out? I’ve been to Maryland and it’s not that big. I could easily see folks driving across state lines to hit a café and play at their favorite casino. Which is just another issue that would need to be tackled. But has anyone noticed that people are already gambling online? Because I think some of the politicians are missing the big point - legalizing online gambling really might not change much of anything about how we already play online.

And Maryland Governor, if people already play online and play the lottery, they’ll probably keep doing that.

Now, an introduction to the event for those of you who don’t follow the poker world. The World Series of Poker is one of the top rated poker tournaments in the world. It takes place in Las Vegas every summer and lasts for weeks with multiple events for players to enter. But the last three days or so are devoted to the Main Event. This is the big event where the world’s top players gather to see who is king of the hill. They fill the tables at the convention hall and players are eliminated over a series games until only nine remain. Then the Main Event takes a break. In November, those nine players, who’ve had plenty of time to rest and regain their playing strength, sit down and play poker to determine the winner. And every year in recent years, that final table has been a televised event.

This year the event will be shown “almost live.” Now, all this means is that there will be a 15 minute delay between the play and when viewers see what’s going on at the tables. The main reason for this “nearly live” format is that the announcers will be revealing the player’s hole cards as the announcers talk viewers through the play. The delay should ensure that no one knows the hole cards while the hand is live.

If you’ve never seen the top pros in the world play poker, you need to make time for the November Nine on November 6. Check Google for stations and schedules in your area.

Not that I can blame them. Here’s the think — Full Tilt owes about $300 million to players. The Alderney Gambling Control Commission isn’t going to let them resume operation until they can pay that back. So any investor coming in is going to lose $300 million right off the bat. And that’s before they even being getting the messed up poker room in order. Now, Groupe Bernard Taipe does have a sensible approach. If there were enough investors, that would offset the cost per investor and spread out the money crunch. There may be more investors out there. Hey, we know Full Tilt has hinted at them. And we all know that we can trust everything Full Tilt Poker says. Right?