The 2013 Poker Year In Review: Part ThreeThe Not So Good News Of 2013 |
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The following is part three of a three-part series looking back at the 2013 year in poker. This excerpt will appear in the Jan. 8 issue of Card Player Magazine.
The Not So Good News Of 2013
Not everything came up roses for the poker world in 2013. Despite modest growth and continued interest in the game, the industry experienced its fair share of black eyes as well. Here is a look at the top five stories we’d like to forget about.
5. Texas Says No To Texas Hold’em
As disappointing as it was to see Michigan begin to stamp out charity poker rooms or Illinois stop gambling expansion yet again, the most disheartening domestic gambling news came from Texas, which failed to consider two separate bills that would have made poker legal both socially and in licensed gambling parlors such as bingo halls, pari-mutuel facilities, and the state’s lone tribal casino.
4. Albania Bans Offshore Online Poker Sites
This year, Mexico banned slot machines and the Australian Prime Minister promised to increase online gambling restrictions, but all of that pales in comparison to the country of Albania, which is going through its own version of Black Friday. The southeastern European country essentially clamped down a $965 million industry by banning online poker sites.
3. Vadim Trincher, Other High-Stakes Poker Players Indicted For Illegal Gambling
It wasn’t a great year for poker players in the court room. Las Vegas legend Archie Karas was arrested for cheating at blackjack in a southern California casino and former WSOP main event champion Greg Raymer went down in a prostitution sting, but those charges were nothing compared with the illegal gambling and money laundering charges brought against Vadim Trincher, Justin Smith, John Hanson, Abe Mosseri, Bill Edler, Peter Feldman, and others for running poker games in New York.
2. Runner, Runner Makes Poker Look Terrible
When a poker film starring Justin Timberlake and Ben Affleck was announced, it looked like a home run. Instead, Runner, Runner flopped and even worse, made poker look terrible in the process. Instead of showing that poker is an exciting game of skill, the writers of Rounders made Runner, Runner focus on the shadiness of offshore online poker sites. Movie rating site Rotten Tomatoes gave the movie a freshness rating of just 9 percent, making it one of the worst pictures of the year.
1. Sheldon Adelson Declares War Against Online Poker
The Venetian Hotel and Casino remains a top-notch gambling destination and the largest poker room in Las Vegas, but CEO Sheldon Adelson has effectively made himself poker’s public enemy no. 1 with his continued battle against online poker. The billionaire casino mogul has vowed to “spend whatever it takes” to stop the spread of online poker in the United States and even launched an anti-online poker coalition to fight the federal legalization of the game.
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