Poker Pros Are Worried, Should You Be?

[Brandon]

Originally Posted by Beanie

this thread has one major flaw in it. I defy anyone to figure out what is going on at Absolute/UB. I don't think that your statement of what is obvious is indeed obvious. Bodog essentially did the same thing with Jamie Gold.

If I was a guessing man I would guess that this was a dollars and sense decision. The can't make dollars so it doesn't make sense.

Exactly, these players did not drop out, they were dropped. From the people I have talked to almost NO ONE is spending money in 2007 in America. Wait and see how bland WSOP is compared to last year. Its just not a smart move to spend that much in America right now. I am interested to see what FT does considering they have the biggest balls ever

And Jaime Gold was dropped because he is not a good player, was going through a lawsuit, and will be forgotten after the 2007 WSOP.

[Jeremy]

The Lifestyles show at the WSOP will not have any .net or .com poker sites. Likewise the pros will not be able to promote .com or .net poker sites on their clothing if I understand correctly. Of course they can probably still have logo's, but I'm not sure.

I agree with Beanie. Endorsing these guys may have made sense in the past when you could leverage their name and face all over the place in the U.S. But with next to nothing being spent on U.S. media buys, what's the point anymore. Just to have them on your homepage? How much is that worth anymore?

It would make more sense to endorse guys like Antonius or Luske and promote in Eastern Europe. Many people don't realize, but the BIG pro's in the U.S. don't get as much respect across the pond as they do here in America.

[adioking]

Okay, so my original statement wasn't quite right, but it sure as hell got some action didn't it?

After thinking about it and discussing it with others, I agree that it's a dollars and cents issue. So, the right question would have been to ask more about the financial situation of UB and AP.

[stocktrader]

<< the DOJ tried to do CasinoCity.com - which is a huge network - this was a few years ago. CasinoCity did fight back and the DOJ backed down completly. DOJ didnt want to pursue it in court, like alot of the stuff they have done recently because they dont want to Lose a case and set a precedent.>>

Actually, that is not what happened at all. The DOJ did not make the first move by attacking CasinoCity. CasinoCity made the first move by attacking the DOJ and basically filing a pre-emptive discrimination-like lawsuit against the DOJ because of the DOJ's attitude about online gambling. Because online gambling is technically legal it would be harassment for the DOJ to keep people from gambling online. The judge dismissed CasinoCity's argument on the grounds that Casinocity specifically hadn't been hurt by the DOJ and therefore had no reason to sue, which was correct.

The legal grey legal area regarding online gambling benefits affiliates (no Vegas competition, other webmaster afraid to get into a grey area) but it also benefits the DOJ. The DOJ knows that if they were to force a poker affiliate to shut down we would bring it to court and could actually win (based on the fact there is no law banning online gambling and also on the WTO ruling). So the DOJ picks on the people they know won't fight back - like Yahoo/Google and print magazines. Google already shits piles of cash and could care less about the gambling PPC revenue they are losing so they won't fight back even though they know they are legally correct because Google won't spend money to fight the government over gambling. If online gambling were explicitly illegal though CasinoCity (and all of us for that matter) would have a legitimate case to bring against the US government but since there is technically no law prohibiting it they don't have a case and also can't sue the DOJ for harassing a 3rd party.