Poker Pros Are Worried, Should You Be?

[adioking]

A statement from UB and AP:

The businesses will no longer actively use Professional Poker Players to endorse either Dotcom brands in the US domestic market, but will continue to do so Internationally. However Leading Pros such as Mark Seif, Phil Hellmuth, Annie Duke and others continue to work for Absolute Poker and UltimateBet. The marketing decision on the Dotcom Brands in the US and does not in any way affect US players.

Now, the obvious reason for this is that the pros are concerned with showing their affiliate to "aiding and abetting" these rooms to bring US players in. If they are worried, should we be?

[AceHigh Pino]

Once Doyle and the Full Tilt Pros jump ship THEN I think we should have a reason to be worried. LOL

[Jeremy]

Now, the obvious reason for this is that the pros are concerned with showing their affiliate to "aiding and abetting" these rooms to bring US players in. If they are worried, should we be?

Hmmm..... either that or it came directly from the rooms, considering their U.S. marketing dollars being spent in 2007 are 10% what they were in 2006. Maybe Absolute and U.B. realized that it was negative EV and ROI to keep these guys on the payroll when they are not using them in all the T.V. and print ads like they used to be.

Could be either, just a thought. But my guess is a guy like Helmuth is not too concerned with having his name on UB. If other pro's start pulling away from Stars and FT, then I would be more concerned.

I would love to see what kind of case would be raised if an honest poker affiliate who runs a regular business and pays all his taxes were arrested. This would seem like an impossible case for any type of prosecution. They would be better going after the 100-200 NL players that don't keep records, gamble "illegally" online, and then don't pay any taxes.

[adioking]

Have they gone after any big sportsbetting AFFILIATES yet? That's where it will all begin...

[AceHigh Pino]

Gambling911 is a huge sportsbetting affiliate -- Id be curious on if they've gotten any warnings about their involvement with so many sportsbooks. I could only imagine they're also one of the industry's biggest affiliates. But then again I don't think they're based in the U.S. either...so maybe they won't really get touched anyways.

[PPP]

That Absolute statement still has a lot of people shaking their heads since it makes not a bit of sense. If AP takes US players, and Mark Seif promotes them in Nigeria, that would be exactly the same to the government as if he promoted them in the US. What they put out was almost childish. Imagine if some US terrorist on bin Laden's payroll said he was only involved blowing up stuff outside the US. They expect the government to say "Oh, that's okay then"?

Oh, and to say the least, the thread title is way wrong sine this was not the poker pros idea.

[PokerProp]

Most of the biggest sportsbook affiliates are in Costa Rica. Not just set up there but actually there rubbing shoulders with execs in the industry which is where they get so much news stories. Actually if it was public knowledge who owned what it would make for an interesting read. I know at least one very large sportsbook affiliate site where the owner of also owns 2 totally different sportsbooks you would never guess had the same backer or the "independent watchdog" owned both.
There is an affiliate group based in NY that is pretty big I've been wondering when they will have problems. They have all this legal notice stuff all over their site as disclaimers etc but every time their site goes down I always wonder if it will be the last time its up (good site i'd miss if it ever went away).

[Darko]

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.

[Brandon]

Lets not forget who the government went after with the whole napster ordeal, they went for the weak. The parents of 15 year olds, some 75 year old lady...

They will not make the mistake of going after someone who can defend themselves. Or who has the capital to get a good defense team. I think they will pick off a couple medium size affiliates. (if they ever turn to this which I do not think they will)

[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.