Black Friday and the aftermath: Online Poker Implications

[Dave 1961]

I'm just asking a question, the answer to which may or may not clarify the motive for posting that Jon MW alluded to. It's certainly nothing to do with my work.

Nope we are not buying a network. We have owned sites in the past and are now totally independent and will stay so.

We are aiming to provide more services to the players who want to visit tournaments and will therefore work with all on line sites including Stars for who we will be registering players for there EPT events. As I eluded to, I believe poker is changing and the meetings I have had so far in Vegas only points to even more changes in the near future. Our next U/K event is the Man United tournament in August and anyone wishing to meet up and see what we do is welcome to come along. Over the coming weeks I am sure that several companies involved in the industry will be announcing new initiatives with regards to poker on both a local and international level.

[marcro]

I'm just asking a question, the answer to which may or may not clarify the motive for posting that Jon MW alluded to. It's certainly nothing to do with my work.

As I eluded to, I believe poker is changing and the meetings I have had so far in Vegas only points to even more changes in the near future.

Can you expand on this?

[Dave 1961]

I'm just asking a question, the answer to which may or may not clarify the motive for posting that Jon MW alluded to. It's certainly nothing to do with my work.

As I eluded to, I believe poker is changing and the meetings I have had so far in Vegas only points to even more changes in the near future.

Can you expand on this?

As best as I can

There are several organisations gearing up for a state by state legalisation of poker in the US, though I am sure there are wildly different views on this, many executives expect that once the recent actions are moved to the next phase in the coming months that at least four states will follow Washington and legalise gaming under local taxation rules, which sites will get the licenses is still far from certain and the details will vary but the fact that these conversations are happening is a good sign. That and the fact that the NFL has withdrawn its objection now adds to the speed of the resolution.

The recent events have also re ignited several poker rooms interest in marketing in Europe to compete with those sites that previously held an unfair advantage. Many tours are gearing up for more players and there will be several new ones on the calender before the end of the year which will create a more poker driven rather than site driven activity. I think (not certain on this ) that there will be more grouped festivals were several competing sites tournaments will be in the same city within days of each other giving the players more value.

There is a general acceptance that several sites will fail and some larger organisations will merge paving the way to a more professional live circuit that could attract sponsors. Once the WSOP is over there will be an impetus to attract many of the US players to Europe and to do that the tours will need to lead the way for the sites, though nothing is certain the thinking is most certainly in that direction.


Dave

[marcro]

I'm just asking a question, the answer to which may or may not clarify the motive for posting that Jon MW alluded to. It's certainly nothing to do with my work.

As I eluded to, I believe poker is changing and the meetings I have had so far in Vegas only points to even more changes in the near future.

Can you expand on this?

As best as I can

There are several organisations gearing up for a state by state legalisation of poker in the US, though I am sure there are wildly different views on this, many executives expect that once the recent actions are moved to the next phase in the coming months that at least four states will follow Washington and legalise gaming under local taxation rules, which sites will get the licenses is still far from certain and the details will vary but the fact that these conversations are happening is a good sign. That and the fact that the NFL has withdrawn its objection now adds to the speed of the resolution.

The recent events have also re ignited several poker rooms interest in marketing in Europe to compete with those sites that previously held an unfair advantage. Many tours are gearing up for more players and there will be several new ones on the calender before the end of the year which will create a more poker driven rather than site driven activity. I think (not certain on this ) that there will be more grouped festivals were several competing sites tournaments will be in the same city within days of each other giving the players more value.

There is a general acceptance that several sites will fail and some larger organisations will merge paving the way to a more professional live circuit that could attract sponsors. Once the WSOP is over there will be an impetus to attract many of the US players to Europe and to do that the tours will need to lead the way for the sites, though nothing is certain the thinking is most certainly in that direction.


Dave

Thanks for the prompt reply - very interesting.

[tikay]

From a somewhat speculative source, http://www.subjectpoker.com/2011/06/cereus-owes-players-54m-has-only-5m-6m/

Subject: Poker’s Scott Bell has learned that Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet’s total outstanding debt to players is $53.7 million, but their cash on hand is only between $5 million and $6 million.

These numbers came from a reliable source inside of AP management and have been corroborated by a different person inside a different department in the company. Our source, who wishes to remain anonymous, told us that $24.2 million of this liability is to US players. He explained that this number had been artificially lowered by US players systematically moving money to non-US accounts in an attempt to get their money off of the site sooner. He said that such attempts would not be successful.

The $5 million to $6 million figure, which is not exact, takes into account about $3 million in severance pay to Cereus’s Costa Rican employees.1 It does not include money that was frozen when some of Cereus’s bank accounts were seized by the United States Department of Justice on April 15th.2

This news certainly does not bode well for players who have money on Cereus. Since Black Friday, non-US players have been able to slowly cash out funds, in amounts up to $2,000. However, anecdotal evidence provided by a thread on the Two Plus Two Poker Forums in which players have been discussing the two sites suggests that withdrawals for non-US players have slowed down.

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This story is based on the word of anonymous sources who did not provide us with ways to independently verify their claims. Though our principal source would certainly have intimate knowledge of such things, we are unable to guarantee that the information presented here is accurate. However, we believe this story is almost certainly true, and given its importance, we decided to publish it. Though we’ve known of this story for some time, we waited until we heard the information from another source before publishing.

[Moskvich]

Sounds pretty bad, though probably not surprisingly so.

Not sure I'd call it 'speculative' - looks like a pretty solidly produced piece of actual news, a rare commodity in the poker world. No real need for them to print the semi-disclaimer at the bottom.

[DaveShoelace]

I'm copying and pasting the line in bold, seems like a good default to have on everything I write from now on.

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This story is based on the word of anonymous sources who did not provide us with ways to independently verify their claims. Though our principal source would certainly have intimate knowledge of such things, we are unable to guarantee that the information presented here is accurate. However, we believe this story is almost certainly true, and given its importance, we decided to publish it. Though we’ve known of this story for some time, we waited until we heard the information from another source before publishing.

[tikay]

I'm copying and pasting the line in bold, seems like a good default to have on everything I write from now on.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This story is based on the word of anonymous sources who did not provide us with ways to independently verify their claims. Though our principal source would certainly have intimate knowledge of such things, we are unable to guarantee that the information presented here is accurate. However, we believe this story is almost certainly true, and given its importance, we decided to publish it. Though we’ve known of this story for some time, we waited until we heard the information from another source before publishing.

Lol, it is the ultimate get-out!

[DaveShoelace]

I'm copying and pasting the line in bold, seems like a good default to have on everything I write from now on.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This story is based on the word of anonymous sources who did not provide us with ways to independently verify their claims. Though our principal source would certainly have intimate knowledge of such things, we are unable to guarantee that the information presented here is accurate. However, we believe this story is almost certainly true, and given its importance, we decided to publish it. Though we’ve known of this story for some time, we waited until we heard the information from another source before publishing.

Lol, it is the ultimate get-out!

Rich could have saved himself a lot of trouble when anon won the deepstack the other week with this piece of legislative genius

[TightEnd]

I have saved the paragraph, don't you worry.

Probably cost them thousands to get a draft from rob and steal it LLC of Delaware, lawyers to the poker industry

[Moskvich]

I'm copying and pasting the line in bold, seems like a good default to have on everything I write from now on.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This story is based on the word of anonymous sources who did not provide us with ways to independently verify their claims. Though our principal source would certainly have intimate knowledge of such things, we are unable to guarantee that the information presented here is accurate. However, we believe this story is almost certainly true, and given its importance, we decided to publish it. Though we’ve known of this story for some time, we waited until we heard the information from another source before publishing.

Lol, it is the ultimate get-out!

Well not really - all they're really doing here is explicitly stating what most news sources assume to be taken for granted, which is that they can't be 100% sure that what their respectable sources tell them is in fact true.

There's no real need to say this - they've got two separate sources telling them the same thing, so they can attribute the content to them and that's that. Obviously no, it's not certain that it's true - there could be some weird reason why they're both telling the same lies - but it's good enough. I don't know why they printed the disclaimer really - it just draws attention to and unnecessarily exaggerates the element of doubt.

If you don't allow this sort of reporting then you don't get very much actual news. Is it better to just see reports of official statements put out by Tilt/UB etc? I don't think so... The poker industry's obviously an extremely opaque one. There are plenty of reasons for that, but one is that basically all the poker media is built around poker advertising and affiliate schemes, which rather dissuades critical or investigative journalism into these multi-million/billion dollar companies. Meanwhile Reuters/Bloomberg et al have no interest as they're private companies. So good on these guys for at least trying to plug the gap.

[Jon MW]

I'm copying and pasting the line in bold, seems like a good default to have on everything I write from now on.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This story is based on the word of anonymous sources who did not provide us with ways to independently verify their claims. Though our principal source would certainly have intimate knowledge of such things, we are unable to guarantee that the information presented here is accurate. However, we believe this story is almost certainly true, and given its importance, we decided to publish it. Though we’ve known of this story for some time, we waited until we heard the information from another source before publishing.

Lol, it is the ultimate get-out!

Well not really - all they're really doing here is explicitly stating what most news sources assume to be taken for granted, which is that they can't be 100% sure that what their respectable sources tell them is in fact true.

...

I think it's good journalism for the reason that they have explicitly stated the disclaimer - I think it makes a change to the shoddy work most 'proper' journalists do when they state as fact things which are only probably true - and do the same with things which 'might' be true as well as stories which are just completely made up speculative.

[Moskvich]

I'm copying and pasting the line in bold, seems like a good default to have on everything I write from now on.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This story is based on the word of anonymous sources who did not provide us with ways to independently verify their claims. Though our principal source would certainly have intimate knowledge of such things, we are unable to guarantee that the information presented here is accurate. However, we believe this story is almost certainly true, and given its importance, we decided to publish it. Though we’ve known of this story for some time, we waited until we heard the information from another source before publishing.

Lol, it is the ultimate get-out!

Well not really - all they're really doing here is explicitly stating what most news sources assume to be taken for granted, which is that they can't be 100% sure that what their respectable sources tell them is in fact true.

...

I think it's good journalism for the reason that they have explicitly stated the disclaimer - I think it makes a change to the shoddy work most 'proper' journalists do when they state as fact things which are only probably true - and do the same with things which 'might' be true as well as stories which are just completely made up speculative.

Well yes, I think that's also a fair stance. Actually I wasn't criticising their use of it really, more just saying that they didn't really need it. Maybe they preferred to use the disclaimer on a story that stated the subject matter as fact and then attributed to sources, rather than simply printing, "UB only has $5m, according to senior sources", when you wouldn't need a disclaimer as you're only stating specifically what the source said, and you know 100% that it is true that they said that.

[AlunB]

I think it's neither good nor bad journalism. It's something else entirely, and I don't mean that as a critcism. I think it's a good thing. It's a new approach to news reporting where everything is presented in a straight, transparent fashion rather than trying to find an 'angle' or guard your exclusives. It's more of an academic approach to news reporting.

[AlunB]

I'm copying and pasting the line in bold, seems like a good default to have on everything I write from now on.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This story is based on the word of anonymous sources who did not provide us with ways to independently verify their claims. Though our principal source would certainly have intimate knowledge of such things, we are unable to guarantee that the information presented here is accurate. However, we believe this story is almost certainly true, and given its importance, we decided to publish it. Though we’ve known of this story for some time, we waited until we heard the information from another source before publishing.

Lol, it is the ultimate get-out!

Well not really - all they're really doing here is explicitly stating what most news sources assume to be taken for granted, which is that they can't be 100% sure that what their respectable sources tell them is in fact true.

There's no real need to say this - they've got two separate sources telling them the same thing, so they can attribute the content to them and that's that. Obviously no, it's not certain that it's true - there could be some weird reason why they're both telling the same lies - but it's good enough. I don't know why they printed the disclaimer really - it just draws attention to and unnecessarily exaggerates the element of doubt.

If you don't allow this sort of reporting then you don't get very much actual news. Is it better to just see reports of official statements put out by Tilt/UB etc? I don't think so... The poker industry's obviously an extremely opaque one. There are plenty of reasons for that, but one is that basically all the poker media is built around poker advertising and affiliate schemes, which rather dissuades critical or investigative journalism into these multi-million/billion dollar companies. Meanwhile Reuters/Bloomberg et al have no interest as they're private companies. So good on these guys for at least trying to plug the gap.

When I was being taught news writing, there was a half joking saying that 'if two people say it, then it stands up'. I think what you're saying is spot on. They are simply taking established journalistic practice and making it more transparent. In the US they have already been forced to do this to an extent with sources as there were too many cases of people simply inventing quotes from made up 'sources'. You will usually read things like. 'This war was blah blah,' a senior staffer on the commission told this newspaper on the condition of anonymity.