News From Scandinavia

Having recently returned home from Las Vegas, I would like to share with you my thoughts on how the media reported from this year's World Series of Poker. CardPlayer.com had all rights to report live from all WSOP events, and other journalists were less than happy with that decision. From one point of view, this was good, but from another, it was bad.

Let me first provide some background.

Last year, only a small number of journalists covered the first weeks of the WSOP, and despite being competitors, they all worked happily together. Then, the final days arrived and the press area was suddenly invaded by lots of writers and photographers. I'm sure that many of them were legitimate, but lots of other people wanted only a picture of Doyle Brunson for their home pages. The press area was chaotic, and the number of media representatives precluded chip counts, for instance. This is the reason Harrah's chose to grant CardPlayer.com exclusive coverage rights this year.

Intentions were good, but problems soon arose. It's impossible to cover a field of 2,000 players a day, so, naturally, CardPlayer.com focused on a few celebrities and people with deep stacks. In previous years, if you wanted Scandinavian chip counts, you could visit Swedish sites, for British and Irish players, there was Gutshot.com, and so on. In other words, you could get quite a comprehensive picture of the event by combining different sources. That wasn't possible this year.
Scandinavians usually have no problems reading the coverage in English, but the WSOP is a multinational event with followers throughout the entire world. Looking at just the recent poker growth in Central Europe should make it obvious that reaching these big countries in their respective languages is in everybody's best interest, as people in Germany and France don't speak English as well as Scandinavians do.

The live coverage of the WSOP final table at CardPlayer.com was outstanding, but the days before that were not good at all – three or four hands and some knocked-out player an hour, this despite having more than one staff member per table! Not good at all.

I suggest to Card Player the following for next year: Collaborate with a number of select international reporters; choose a partner from Scandinavia, one from the British Isles, one who speaks French, and some Spanish site. The big picture will be so much greater than its parts. The different sites will focus on "their" respective players, and their coverage will be featured both at their own sites and at CardPlayer.com,where the coverage from all partners will form an overall picture.

That's a win-win situation, for all collaborators as well as for their readers.

I wish that WSOP coverage would change into the big family of reporters who cooperate during EPT events, where all news services happily work together toward a mutual goal: providing good and extensive information for their readers. For instance, information about interesting knockouts is freely shared, as well as exciting photographs.

The EPT is starting again as I write this. The only Scandinavian country with an event is Denmark (January 2007). Sweden and Finland both have big, well-managed casinos, and I know that the EPT wants to place an event in one of these two countries, but it has been turned down for legal and political reasons. Wouldn't an event aboard a Baltic Sea cruise ship (or in the Mediterranean) be an interesting alternative to the land-based events?

Setbacks in Norway

The Norwegian poker scene has suffered a severe blow after two club owners were fined €1,000 each (or 15 days in prison) for breaking the lottery and alcohol laws. This has led to a lot of clubs throughout Norway closing down after having been given reminders and threats of prosecution from the Norwegian lottery inspection authorities.

The organizers tried claiming that poker is a game of skill and that therefore the lottery laws are not applicable; in other words, the judgment is more important than it first might seem, since it's the principle that is tested. The court based its opinion on an investigation from Bergen University, which concluded that games requiring not only skill but also lots of luck should be defined as lotteries as soon as "large stakes" are involved, and that the lottery laws therefore automatically are applicable. Since only state lotteries are allowed organization permissions, there is no way poker clubs could arrange tournaments legally. Jurisdictions in Sweden and Finland have reached the same conclusion, that poker is a game of lottery and not of luck. In one way, this is good (as Swedes and Finns benefit taxwise from EU gaming laws), but then again, it is also bad (ban of poker clubs).

In conclusion, I'd like to congratulate Anders Henriksson and Mats Rahmn on their WSOP bracelets, and Erik Friberg on reaching the final table in the main event (giving Sweden a final-table player for the third year in a row).