AimlesslyChasingAmy

Don’t pay heed to temptation, for his hands are so cold
You gotta help me keep the devil way down in the hole
Tom Waits

I got back from Tunica on Thursday, but it took me until yesterday to catch up with HBO’s The Wire and Showtime’s Weeds.  I don’t watch much television, but I am totally hooked on those shows; great writing.  And they were a good diversion from my dissertation, Harrah’s, and the gaming act: my triple crown of obsession.

On the Harrah’s front, there’s been some news; but not what I expected.  I had been told that Harrah’s would be releasing the results of their investigation into the 2+million extra chips introduced into the Championship Event last week.  I had been told that they would be acknowledging that the chips were, in fact, introduced during the $5K color-up as Tim Lavalli and I had surmised.  After reviewing the security tapes, Harrah’s was able to identify two players that received approximately 1 million extra chips each during the color-up and they were going to release their names.  But the week came and went.  If Harrah’s wanted to out this, last week would have been the perfect time with most of the poker world focused on the gaming act.  They truly can’t be thinking of letting this slide.(?)

Harrah’s did have some news on another front.  Last Monday, Harrah’s acknowledged that two private equity firms had made a $15 billion bid for the company.  The bid represented a 22% increase over where the stock was trading on the previous Friday.  It seems that some people tried to parlay on early information. Call option trading volume for the underlying stock was running as high as six times the normal volume for the previous three days before Harrah’s announcement.  The bond market saw a similar trend for Harrah’s five-year credit-swap.  So far there is no comment from regulatory agencies relative to investigations of insider trading - but I’d bet money (not online of course) that they are underway.

I find myself agreeing with Gary Carson again.  If that means I’m getting jaded and cynical in my old age, let the good times roll.  I’m referring to the rgp thread on the Poker Players Alliance Action Plan.  It’s not that I have anything against their plan; demonstrating that poker is a game of skill and therefore does not meet the requisite definition of “bet and wager” in the pending law.  It’s probably their only recourse and I wish us all luck (no…no…skill) on that.

But there’s a real long-term structural problem that will always be there to thwart online poker unless it’s addressed.  Where’s the public good?  Online companies don’t contribute one cent to the US tax base.  They don’t directly provide jobs in the US.  The companies themselves have not formed any association that regulates the industry in any meaningful way.  And I guess it would be hard to argue that online players represent the most productive sector of the economy, although I resemble that remark.  Hey, I’m not trying to piss on anyone’s self-righteous parade, but this industry hasn’t anted up much that would inspire Congress to take a bullet for them. 

I agree that this is a privacy issue.  But frankly there have been some egregious breaches on that front.  I’m not sure this even makes the top five.  I hope that privacy on all fronts gains its lost footing in the US.  I agree that poker is more a game of skill and therefore technically should not meet the requisite definition of the pending law.  And I want to play online poker.  I like online poker.  I live in Texas where there are no legal cardrooms, after all.  But every B&M casino has had to go through the “public good” argument in their resident communities.  They have had to cough up tax bucks and add jobs to the local economy, hoping that would be enough to outweigh some of gamings more well-known downsides.  I’m not claiming that the online companies haven’t done some great citizen-like things; Katrina and other charaties would tell me differently.  But I think if we want online poker to become a fixture in the US, the companies have to figure out how to become a contributing fixture in the US.