Las Vegas and the Virtual World Collide

By the time this issue of Card Player hits casinos and card rooms across Europe, the World Series of Poker main event will be in full swing.
At the time of writing, with just over one-third of events completed, European players have been more than holding their own with seven bracelets including one for Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier and three for the Brits.
It’s shaping up to be a vintage year for Euro poker players but a mixed one for U.S. players and, indeed, the U.S. industry.
With online poker currently off the agenda in the land of the free, all eyes were turning to the WSOP to see what the effect would be.
Reports from the Rio Hotel and Casino, where the event is held, say advertising around the event is very muted compared to previous years but numbers have been on the up.
By the end of the second week, cash game action was up 12 percent according to WSOP officials and most tournaments posted increased participation too.
Whether this is directly attributable to the “Black Friday” (the day of the Department of Justice indictments in the U.S.) effect of the absence of online poker is impossible to say with certainty but one poker player in Vegas told your humble editor that, “There’s a lot of guys out here taking a swing at it. They used to be able to make a living online with rakeback and the like but they’re being found out here very quickly.”
Indeed the absence, so far at least, of big online names crushing it in Vegas is obvious.
The absence also of one name in particular got the Series off to a controversial start as Phil Ivey, one time darling of the poker world and Full Tilt pro, announced he’d be staying away from the Series and, to boot, was suing his former sponsor.
In a bizarre and unprecedented episode of public laundry washing Ivey and Full Tilt got into a bitter argument in the full glare of the world’s poker players who stood agog at the latest twist in the Black Friday tale.
Whatever about poker being a game of drama and suspense the events surrounding the industry of the last few months in the U.S have matched it every step of the way.
Despite the seemingly perilous state of affairs for online poker in the U.S. there are some encouraging signs that legislation regulating the industry and putting it on a strong legal footing is not far away.
Nevada-based gaming giant International Game Technology’s recent purchase of Sweden’s Entraction poker network, the Nevada state assembly passing an online poker bill, and moves afoot at federal level for another push at national legislation mean all is not lost.
U.S. lawmakers can’t uninvent online poker and prohibition is a dangerous road to go down as history tells us. ♠