IMOP VI: Santa's 12ish—Section 3-D (The Jacket Dinner)

Note: The official IMOP trip report will be posted in randomly intermittent installments. Prior entries are: Part I and Part 2, and Section 3(A). The author of the report is our cruise director, Santa Claus, with occasional editing by yours truly. Enjoy!

The IMOP Jacket Dinner has had great influence in Hollywood.

Friday Night:

The highlight of the trip had arrived the annual—the Ugly Jacket Dinner. Grange and River Joe meet up for a pre-Ugly Jacket Dinner martini at Japonais in Mirage. They are standing at the crowded bar talking and River Joe gets tapped by a guy behind him who proceeds to rather brusquely ask if Joe would move, "because I'm trying to eat." In the very next sentence, the yahoo proceeds to say "Don’t get me wrong, I’m not that guy, I just don't like having someone so close"… fukkaw! Honestly, it might have been the smell of the jacket that offended him.

Samba was the venue for this year’s dinner, and we obnoxious our way into the place in full-on ugly regalia. We attract so much attention that we actually had a woman from another table ask us what we were doing, and then insist on being our judge for the worst three jackets. Despite strong entries from Barbie, River Joe (complete with light up glasses and electronic belt buckle) and Baby Los with his “Grandma’s Couch” entry, it is Sahara who pulls the longshot upset and walks away with the Ugly Jacket title. Rumor has it the judge felt sorry for him because he is so short, but this hasn’t been confirmed (actually overheard from the judge's table: "How about the short guy in the red jacket?").

Sahara models his championship Ugly Jacket entry,

with the aid of a pitcher of caipirinhas.

During the course of our outstanding meal of meat on swords and a cornucopia of caipirinhas by the pitcher, Barbie decides he needs a smoke and gets up to have one and play some blackjack. Immediately the prop bets start flying about how much he will win/lose during one cigarette. Sahara, River Joe and Bonnie get their wagers down and Barbie blows away the +$150 line with a $475 win in just under four minutes! At the conclusion of the meal, we attempt to get a redux of the infamous “meat tank” prop from a couple years prior by getting Bonnie to put a gigantic ball of fat in his jacket to bring out to eat during an all-in at a poker table. Sadly, Bonnie was either too drunk or not drunk enough to try to ingest a tennis ball-sized blob of fat, so no hilarity ensued.

The "fat ball" prop bet went unclaimed.

The dinner also was the scene of the single largest wagering sweat of the trip. Thanks to a false sense of confidence in Bonnie’s hot basketball betting streak, everyone was heavy on Notre Dame to beat Louisville. We toasted each other when they were up 12 at one point (and getting points), only to start swearing at our phones as watched the lead dwindle to nothing. The Golden Domers eventually choke, costing the Ironmen somewhere in the neighborhood of $4,000 combined. As they watch it come to a painful end at the Mirage sports book with several hundred other angry losers, Santa laments, “I haven’t seen this many people pissed off at Catholics since the last Mel Gibson outburst.” Time for a change of venue and a mojo-jumpstart, and we begin the walk to PHo for loose action. Fukkaw!

On the way, we make a refreshment pit stop at Grange’s favorite mojito/caipirinha stand outside Caesars, and Grange springs for a round of drinks to ward off scurvy. Baby Carlos decides he is going to sacrifice his jacket to Caesar. He drops it off, but it must have angered fair Caesar, because he makes Los step off a curb into a pothole, where he damn near breaks his ankle. The pain is searing, so he detours to the room to ice it. By Saturday night, it is bruised from heel to toe. Vegas is emotionally, and now physically dominating Baby Los.

We arrive at PHo and get seated at various tables. After losing $225 in the first hand, JeBeDIA gets in a groove with Bonnie at his table and makes a nice comeback. After a day where Bonnie drank 20 Goose & Juices, he starts the night on a Corona binge and never stops rolling. At one point, two drunk clubbers that they nicknamed Garth Brooks (cowboy hat and clothes) and Spiderwoman (fake boobs and a spiderweb tatoo on her shoulder) sit down and promptly begin textbook collusion (showing each other their hands, betting and raising others off hands, then checking it down, etc.) The dealer inexplicably lets this happen, but fortunately they are so bad, even collusion couldn't help them. Bonny felts Garth in one hand and gets verbally berated by Spiderwoman which sets of a table argument—you're awesome, dude, when your girlfriend has to do your trash talking.

Barbie had been playing for a while and decides it’s time to hit the rest of the Strip with Mr. Chow and Lucky. On his way by Santa’s table, a guy pipes up that he wants to buy Barbie’s ugly jacket. A short negotiation occurs and the guy pays Barbie $30 for the thing. However, in true Caribbean flea market style pushiness, Barbie insists on making it $35 and throwing in the tie he’s wearing. Guy does not want the tie but by then Barbie has removed both items and handed them over, now expecting the $35. The guy sheepishly hands over the money and Barbie gets an extra $5 for a tie which was wastebasket bound anyway.

Barbie scams a tourist at Planet Hollywood.

The three Ironmen hit the strip and use Lucky as their canary in a coalmine to find “hot” carnival tables and go on a massive run over the next couple hours. Between yells of “Ca-Caw!” and “ship it, bitch!”, the group won over $3,000 and tipped Lucky $130 for finding the hot tables. They even got so degenerate they pushed their luck and played baccarat at Harrah’s, despite having no idea how to play. "Ca-Caw!" for the profit!

Back at PHo, the last combatants were racking up their profits and heading out. Both groups seemingly walked around the casino twice trying to find the escalator to the taxi stand. Once Bonnie arrived back at the Venetian, he avoided a drunken repeat of last year where he couldn’t get his hotel room door open. He did, however, manage to wake his roommates again by flipping on every light in the room and jabbering away incoherently about his $1400+ victory, causing Colt to tweet: “Drunk Bonnie arrives to room @ 5:30am, says many words”.

Barbie (runner-up) and Sahara (champion) display

some sartorial splendor at Samba.

Grange (left) was shut out of the Ugly Jacket competition for

the first time ever, despite his classic pink Miami Vice brand jacket.

Colt (right) classed up his jacket with a baseball cap.

Baby Los (left) yucks it up prior to having his leg broken 

(well, ankle twisted). River Joe (center) with his glittery green felted 

tuxedo eyesore takes a competition bad beat with a distant third.

Lucky (right), just wanted meat on swords.

Stayed tuned, true believers! We still have Saturday and Sunday to cover!

IMOP VI: Santa's 12ish—Section 3(A)

Note: The official IMOP trip report will be posted in randomly intermittent installments. Parts I & II of the report can be found here and here. The author of the report is our cruise director, Santa Claus, with occasional editing by yours truly. Enjoy!

Friday:

Santa wakes up from his nap and catches up with Fat Jesus and JeBeDIA at the Venetian for an early morning session, the highlight of which was Fat Jesus coining the phrase "Poker Porn"—when you fold a hand either preflop (or worse, postflop) only to see your cards play out to be the nuts for a huge pot. Poker Porn—all the visual but no satisfaction.

Barbie came stumbling into the V a little while later loudly announcing “Good morning, bitches!” still not having slept but managing to roll a poker table pretty well at PHo. This was also about the time Barbie started his “Epic” table game streak. He started the “fourball” blackjack strategy at the Venetian, turning $50 into $870 in three minutes by essentially just letting his first bet ride four times before pulling back the entire stack.  It would prove to be a good thing he came up with this strategy because it made up for some seriously bad poker losses early on. After what amounted to being awake for about two and half days, Barbie finally decides to take a short nap before the 11:00 a.m. Mirage tourney.

River Joe gets to the Mirage early (since he had accidentally checked in and all) and actually plays 3/6 limit of all games; he ends up hitting a few sets and inside straights on his way to a tournament free roll as the rest of the Ironmen make their way in. Early on, River Joe lives up to his nickname and gets it all in with QQ against AA and hits his one-outer on the river for nice double up. Another fun moment occurs on the last hand before the 2nd break. Barbie is put to the decision of calling an all-in bet for roughly 40% of his chips. Foreigner is playing over sound system. A large man in wife beater and straw hat sitting at Barbie's table begins “bouncing” (jiggling?) to the music. Either way, the only part of him moving is his gut. As Barbie is contemplating the call, he sees the guy out of the corner of his eye. Barbie looks up and says to Colt, “I’m distracted” and nods towards the guy. Colt bust out with laughter and has to leave the table as guy continues his belly-dance oblivious to the distraction it is causing. Mirage again turns out to be good to the Ironmen, with three at the final table and Barbie and River Joe both cashing.

Mr. Chow had busted out early on and hopped in a cash game to bide the time. He is doing usual "a-hole maniac with a smile on his face" routine when Sahara joins him. A prime example of why it is best to avoid the Ironmen happens next. Chow straddles and 8 players call the $4. Chow bumps it up another $10 w AsJh and predictably gets five callers. Flop is Js Xs Xh and a nice Canadian who Chow had been chatting up bets $40. Sahara and Chow both call. Turn card is a third spade. Canadian bets $200, leaving $250 behind. Chow pops it to $400 and gets Sahara out. Canadian squirms, thinks, closes eyes, squirms some more, stands up, sits down, rolls over 6s4s and asks Chow, “Do you have the Ace of spades”. After the initial answer of “$200 more will tell you for sure," Mr. Chow rolls over the Ace of spades. Canadian then does the whole routine again before mucking the winner. Sahara tweets, “Mr. Chow has wrecked poker”. Very true.

Post-tourney, it was finally time for another new IMOP event we’ve been trying to pull off for a few years: The Third World Poker Tour. Our gang pretends like we are degenerate, but we always seem to wind up in the cushy confines of the high end poker rooms. Well, we put a temporary halt to the snobbery with this event. If you recall, we all gathered ‘round the Binion’s roulette wheel to let fate both pick our heads up (of sorts) IMOP opponent and the venue where each duo had to play. Rules were simple. Both participants go to the venue together, sit in a 1/2 NHEL game with $200, and play for 90 minutes. First one to bust out loses, otherwise the player with more money at the end of 90 minutes wins. IMOP points are awarded to the winner, with negative IMOP points for the loser. A few in the group were not excited about heading to such exotic locales as Riviera or Sahara, but the tweets were well worth it.

In the first match, Baby Los heads to Luxor with Bonnie but it doesn’t last long as Los plays nearly every hand and busts out in short order as they try to spend the absolute minimum time slumming it away from the Venetian. Bonnie gets in the cab line as Los trams back over toward Monte Carlo. Bonnie hears people yelling "taxicab confessions" as he gets in and he asks Rita-the-cabbie what that was and she proceeds to tell him she has worked for HBO for 14 years and he’s being filmed! Pansy that he is, he discloses nothing interesting, but does tell her his name is Barbie from Cedar Rapids. After the interview, she informs him that he has no shot at all at making it on TV. Kind of sad when our craziest competitor can't make the big time.

In another match, Lucky and Fat Jesus wind up heading to Excalibur, describing the competition as similar to “blowing goats”. After walking half way across Camelot they finally made it to the poker room and after 90 minutes and no seats nearly went medieval on the poker room staff. They finally get seated and see the table bully alternating between going all in or making huge over-bets pre-flop, so Lucky limps from under the gun with AK. Bully pushes all in for about 120 and it folds back around to Lucky who insta-callsl. Bully flips over 34o and manages to turn a 3. Lucky decides that AK stands for "A Kick in nards". However, he works his way up to about even and finds a way to outlast Fat Jesus in the painful heads up match.

Colt and Grange end up next door at Monte Carlo with nothing of note happening, except perhaps applying for their AARP cards and being accepted into the coffee klatch of the 90-somethings who thought they were “cute”. Colt does win the match, but gets disapproving glares from the regulars whenever he bets over $15.

Sahara and River Joe proceed to slum it to the north end for their Third World Poker Tour options of Circus Circus or Riviera. So, after a flyby at CC where they have one limit game going, they proceed over to the purgatory of Riviera. With no air conditioning and no money on the table, Joe took one for the team so they could get out of there, pushing with top pair, weak kicker into three other callers, and loses to top pair. better kicker. The whiny tweets from our resident blue blood, Sahara, were priceless. We may have to declare the Riviera the official venue for next year just to see if his head literally explodes. Highlight of the event was on the return trip, before making their way into the Venetian, the oppressed duo stops to gawk at the Express Runway Models who are having some sort of outdoor event. All they seem to remember are legs, legs, and more legs.

Santa and JeBeDIA head to the Stratosphere for their match, despite having the option to play one very last session at the actual Sahara before it shuts down permanently. (Note from Grange: “Raise a glass of Keystone and a stale cigarette to the grand old home of the kickoff tourney, sadly lacking in tortillas even today.”). Upon arriving at the Strat, they are pleasantly surprised at how (comparatively) nice the place turns out to be. A brand new game starts up and they get seated. On the very first hand Santa raises pre-flop to $17, gets a couple callers and bets $30 on a board of Jx 4x 6x. He gets min-raised by a very large meathead at the end of the table and snap calls. Turn is a 4x and he calls a $40 bet. River is another 6x and he then bets $100 on the river. Meathead asks, “Will you show if I fold” and Santa replies, “The rules of our competition require me to show my hand," and JeBeDIA audibly groans knowing that Santa has luckboxed the Grump into a full house. The guy eventually folds, and after tabling the Grump, Santa successfully tilts not only the muscle head, but also his buddy who was still waiting for chips. JeBeDIA is now significantly behind after one hand, but catches up on the second. He calls a button straddle from early position with Ace-Deuce (that crazy nit!), flops two pair, and check raises to $40, getting three callers. He bets $100 on the turn to chase draws and scoop the pot, so after two hands Santa and JeBeDIA are both up over $100 and have the two buddies at the end of the table gunning for the two "loose aggressive" guys. They end up felting muscle head's buddy at least three times between them, before he leaves the table down $800. Despite posting his best session of the trip, JeBeDIA still loses to Santa and they head back to the Strip.

Hard to believe, but there's still more to come!  Check back soon for the Jacket Dinner report (with pictures), as well as the Saturday and Sunday hijinks.

IMOP VI: Santa's 12ish—Part Deux, Duh

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What Is Bank Fraud? Inquiring Poker Minds Want to Know!

As debate continues to rage in the poker community about the legal issues raised by the recent DOJ indictments of the Big Three online poker sites (PokerStars, Full Tilt, and UltimateBet / Absolute Poker), it might be helpful to the poker community to have a general idea of what the serious "bank fraud" charges encompass.

A case with some interesting parallels to the Big Three indictment is United States v. Brown, 31 F.3d 484 (7th Cir. 1994). In Brown, the defendant was convicted of bank fraud and money laundering in connection with a scheme related to credit card processing (sound familiar?). Essentially, the scheme revolved around the fact that the Visa/Mastercard network of banks would either not accept credit card transactions from telemarketers (because of the increased risk of fraudulent charges) or would impose higher fees for such transactions. The defendant implemented a scheme where he recruited legitimate businesses with credit card processing accounts to front telemarketing credit card charges, thereby avoiding the banks' bans / limitations on those types of transactions. The defendant was eventually convicted of bank fraud and money laundering leading to his appeal.

On appeal, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals first noted that bank fraud "is also one of the predicate offenses specified under the money laundering statute, which prohibits the use in certain financial transactions of the proceeds of certain predicate offenses affecting interstate or foreign commerce". Thus, if the defendant were guilty of bank fraud, he also was guilty of money laundering based on the same set of financial transactions. Next, the court examined the requirements for sustaining a conviction for bank fraud. The court noted that "Section 1344 proscribes any scheme to defraud or obtain money or property from a financial institution by means of false and fraudulent pretenses, representations or promises." The court continued its analysis by stating:

“Whether a scheme to defraud exists is determined by examining ‘whether the scheme demonstrated a departure from fundamental honesty, moral uprightness, or fair play and candid dealings in the general life of the community. The bank fraud statute condemns schemes designed to deceive in order to obtain something of value.’ This broad definition suggests that each individual component of the scheme need not be specifically illegal, so long as the scheme as a whole constitutes fraudulent conduct.

There is ample support in the record for the jury’s conclusion that Brown and Clague agreed to defraud the banks. There is evidence that they knew that banks would not allow third-party processing because of its potential for increased risk. In addition, the defendants encouraged the recruitment of new merchants, they did not reveal their own activities to the banks and they encouraged other alleged participants not to reveal their activities to the banks. In short, neither appellant’s role was limited merely to buying or selling third-party processing services without accompanying fraudulent purposes. While the appellants argue that they did not know that their activities were illegal and that they consulted attorneys, their purported intent only to “bypass” Visa and Mastercard regulations indicates a departure from notions of fundamental honesty and forthright dealings as required under Hammen. Given the wealth of evidence against the appellants, it was perfectly reasonable for the jury to find that Brown and Clague had agreed to defraud the bank.

—United States v. Brown, 31 F.3d 484, 489 (7th Cir. 1994) (citations omitted).

Now many commentators (including my friend, the very astute Poker Grump) have indicated some unease or even outright disagreement with charging the Big Three poker sites with bank fraud. The allegations in the indictment against the Big Three include accusations that the poker sites conspired with various payment processors to intentionally miscode credit card transactions to disguise gambling transactions as ordinary commercial sales, to create fictitious non-gaming businesses to provide cover for gambling transactions, as well as efforts to bribe bank officers or even to outright purchase shares of small banks to process gambling transactions barred by the UIGEA. The allegations include accusations that the poker sites trained customer service representatives to cover up the fraudulent transactions when dealing with customers confused by their credit card statements reflecting transactions with fictitious companies.

In looking at the allegations raised in the Big Three indictment, the parallels to the Brown case are striking. In neither case is there any claim that any bank actually lost money. Rather, the fraud occurred because the deception of the defendants tricked the banks into processing payments they otherwise would have denied; the mere attempt to "bypass" federal banking regulations was sufficient deception to support bank fraud charges. Of course, it should be remembered that banks processing gambling transactions have a real risk of liability for violating federal law in the post-UIGEA world. In any event, the Brown case suggests that the Big Three have some significant exposure to bank fraud charges if the allegations of attempts to circumvent federal bank transaction restrictions are in fact true.

Now, it should be noted that the area of bank fraud and money laundering is subject to a great deal of case law, with different standards imposed depending upon the federal circuit where a defendant is tried. The mere existence of the Brown case is no guarantee that a federal court in New York (part of the Second Circuit) will apply the same legal analysis of the relevant statutes. Nonetheless, Brown is an interesting application of the bank fraud and money laundering statutes that is uncomfortably close enough to the Big Three's alleged misconduct that those charges should be regarded with a certain degree of gravity many poker commentators have thus far eschewed. Still, the Big Three's defense attorneys will certainly have a number of defenses to these charges.

Of course, as I like to say, "There's always a better place to get it in bad."

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ADDENDUM (23 April 2011):  Jacob Sullum, a regular writer on the excellent libertarian blog "Reason.com Hit & Run", linked to this post recently in his post, "Online Poker Update". Reason.com and the Hit & Run blog are must-reads for anyone who enjoys smart, informative, and accessible opinions on a variety of personal liberty topics.

The PPA Meets Or Exceeds Expectations

"You know, I have one simple request. And that is to have sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their heads! Now evidently my cycloptic colleague informs me that that cannot be done. Ah, would you remind me what I pay you people for, honestly? Throw me a bone here!"

—Dr. Evil (Mike Myers), in Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery

As the online poker community begins to sort through the rubble left by the DOJ's carpet bombing run last Friday, all eyes turned to the Poker Players Alliance (PPA) for its leadership during poker's darkest hour. The PPA responded with this inspirational message:



Let's gloss over the fact that the head of a supposed national advocacy group can't find a tie or a camera not previously used for Chat Roulette. While we're at it, let's pretend PPA Executive Director John Pappas' subsequent stumbling performance on national TV never happened. After all, nobody puts the "ROFL" in "professional" quite like John Pappas!

Instead of jeering at the messenger, let's laugh at the message. According to the PPA, the DOJ's action against Full Tilt, PokerStars, and UltimateBet/Absolute Poker (a/k/a "the Big Three") was "nothing less than a declaration of war against poker and the people who play it." Strange how the PPA failed to mention the crux of the DOJ's allegations—the Big Three engaged in money laundering and bank fraud. Although the PPA's misguided and overheated rhetoric deserves some skewering, I'll defer to Bill Rini who, as usual, nails the Triple Lindy.

The PPA's reaction to the recent online poker indictments demonstrates conclusively that the organization is worse than incompetent; it is actually detrimental to the cause of legalizing poker. This conclusion is really not all that shocking to me, as I've long been a critic of the PPA. But let's let the PPA's track record speak for itself.

The PPA has attempted to promote legalization of poker through litigation and legislation. On the litigation front, the PPA's strategy has been an unmitigated disaster. Cases in which the PPA played a prominent role have now resulted in appellate courts in Pennsylvania and Colorado rejecting the PPA's pet "poker as game of skill" argument, with the South Carolina supreme court almost certain to join the anti-poker fold in the near future. The Washington supreme court has rejected the PPA's dormant commerce clause argument, upholding the rights of states to regulate online gaming within their geographical boundaries. As I have discussed previously, the effect of those losses is not limited to those states:

By tilting at the litigation windmill, poker advocates have instead worsened the position of poker. There are now binding appellate court decisions in several states explicitly finding that poker is gambling. These rulings reinforce in the public mind—with the imprimatur of judicial decisions—that poker is gambling, while also removing any arguable ambiguity as to the legality of poker (and online poker) for players in those states.

Similarly, following the Rousso decision, I observed:

Because of the PPA's hubris in pursuing this appeal, the Rousso decision will now be available to be cited and relied upon by other courts when they are confronted with the issue of state regulation of online gambling. Much like the ill-conceived "poker is a game of skill and not gambling" line of litigation, the PPA has taken an area of law which was gray and ambiguous, and forced a state appellate court to clarify the law with a definitive decision adverse to the interests of online poker players.* The PPA's attorneys are from a well-respected national law firm, and clearly are not idiots. Absent any better explanation, the cynic in me wonders whether the PPA's litigation efforts are merely a stalking horse litigation strategy testing the legal waters for the PPA's puppetmasters at Full Tilt and PokerStars.

When the New York federal courts begin to consider the "poker as game of skill" arguments certain to be raised by the defendants in the current DOJ action, the courts will be able to draw on these PPA-initiated decisions in finding that poker is subject to regulation as gambling by state law. If the PPA were a basketball player, it would be scoring layups—on their opponents' basket.

But what about the legislative front? Surely the PPA has a serious role to play as the advocate for poker players in the coming battles over the legalization of online poker?

Not so fast. First off, the PPA's John Pappas has acknowledged that the PPA has little clout when swimming with the sharks like Caesars Entertainment, MGM Resorts, or the tribal gaming interests:

"It's not going to be 100 percent of what players want, though I don't know if any bill would be," Pappas said. "There's been a lot of compromise. We're dealing with a lot of powerful interests who don't necessarily have players' interests in mind. The PPA is one of the seats at the table, and we're fighting for every bit we can get."

—Matthew Kredell, "Reid Pushing for Legalized Online Poker By the End of Next Week", Poker News Daily (12/6/2010).

"Frankly, the proposed blackout period is absurd and the PPA opposes it. And we have fought–and continue to fight – tooth and nail against it. But it is a reality. There will likely be a blackout period of some length included in any legislation that is passed, whether it is in this Congress or future Congresses. Our opponents have been throwing their weight around to get a lengthy blackout period included and, unfortunately, I fear they are winning.

That being said, upon significant analysis, review and reflection, we believe that the long- term benefits of this bill to the poker community make the blackout period a bitter pill we have to swallow."

—PPA statement by John Pappas, reported by Brian Ralentide at Part-Time Poker.com (12/9/2010).

Now there's no shame in being the small fish in the big pond of Congressional lobbying. But the PPA's biggest problem is not its relative lack of financial and electoral clout. No, the PPA's Achilles' Heel is its utter lack of credibility because of its significant ties to the Big Three Poker sites. As I have previously discussed, the PPA's board of directors includes Howard Lederer, Chris "Jesus" Ferguson, and Greg Raymer, all closely tied to Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars. The PPA's go-to celebrity poker spokesperson is Annie Duke, until recently also a long-time spokesperson for UltimateBet.

Of course, Duke's connections to UltimateBet were problematic for the PPA even before the recent DOJ indictments. But the PPA's credibility issues have been compounded now that its primary sponsors—Full Tilt and PokerStars—have also been implicated in money laundering and bank fraud. As I have noted previously, the PPA is so tightly connected with the major online poker sites that the PPA can only be assumed to be more concerned with the agenda of its corporate masters than the concerns of its rank and file members:

[A] cynic might wonder if the PPA is merely used by Full Tilt and PokerStars to give a patina of populism to their lobbying efforts. A cynic might wonder if established sites like PokerStars and Full Tilt regard the PPA as a convenient fig leaf to cover their use of the PPA as a de facto lobbying arm, avoiding the legal complications of being foreign companies with significant lobbying restrictions. A cynic might wonder if the PPA is the political perfume used to cover the stench of lobbyists and campaign donations being funded by companies who currently flout U.S. gambling laws. Frankly, given the tenor of the PPA's litigation and lobbying efforts, a cynic might wonder if the PPA truly wants legalized online poker if it doesn't include a Get Out of Jail Free card for established online poker sites.

Color me cynical.

Given the DOJ's indictments of the Big Three, and the close—even radioactive—relationship between the Big Three and the PPA, one has to question whether the PPA can continue to lobby effectively on behalf of ordinary poker players. The PPA already lacked any notable weight in discussions of online poker legalization on Capitol Hill. Now that the Big Three have been indicted, what Representative or Senator will want to be associated with the PPA and its online poker masters / indictees?

In many ways, whether it's litigation or legislation, the PPA is the yahoo who keeps shooting himself in the foot. Is it too much to ask that the PPA put down its gun before it fires a lethal shot?