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Lou Krieger's Poker Blog View profile

Negreanu Skewers CEREUS Network for Security Lapses

Date: Tue, Jun 1, 2010 Professional Internet Live Tournament

Kudos to Daniel Negreanu for continuing to address the problems with the online poker site that hosts UB and Absolute Poker, the CEREUS Network.

Negreanu is quoted on his blog as saying, “The Cereus Network, or UB/Absolute got hacked again! Just boggles my mind that anyone would want to support that company after what's happened, but man, you'd think they'd actually focus intently on their security since they'd be under a microscope. Apparently, from what I've heard, in order to crack their software all you needed to have was a Windows calculator! That's unreal.

“About 10 years ago when the company was created I walked away from them because of Russ Hamilton's involvement. He had a checkered past, and wasn't trust worthy at all. I wanted no part of it and walked away, never having done a deal with them ever.

“This company is just a bad apple in our poker community and I couldn't imagine supporting them in any way. I said this 10 years ago, and since then I've only been proven correct by the huge scandal, and then again recently when they were aware of the security hole, but chose to keep the site up and running. If you know your software can be easily hacked, isn't that the precise moment where you shut down for maintenance and fix the issue?

“There may be new ownership trying to ‘right the ship’ but how is anyone to know who's been let go from the company and who's still there from the days of the scandal?

“Feels like one of those fool me once shame on you, fool me twice same on me situations. I realize that there are loads of players who wear their patches and endorse the site, but I just haven't heard any of them explain to me how they justify that endorsement in light of what happened in the past, and then what's just happened recently? Are you really OK with how this recent issue was handled?”

Negreanu’s post was in response to a recent security flaw at CEREUS that potentially allowed hackers to gain control of a user’s account and view their hole cards in real time. Moreover, it took CEREUS over one week to deploy a permanent fix for the issue. What’s worse is that CEREUS continued operations during the lag, a time when a published security flaw still existent on the network. This left many players wondering why CEREUS didn’t close their network temporarily, until the problem was fixed.

An initial attempt by CEREUS to correct the problem was quickly found to be insufficient, resulting in a delay of several days before a proper fix was released.

CEREUS continued operations during the lag, a time when a published security flaw still existent on the network. This left many players wondering why CEREUS didn’t close their network temporarily, until the problem was fixed.

I’d like to see the three most prominent pros who endorse this site, Phil Hellmuth, Annie Duke, and Mark Seif, to speak out on this issue. It’s about time, don’t you think?

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Bill Would Legalize Online Poker in California

Date: Tue, Jun 1, 2010 Professional Internet Live Tournament

Legislation introduced by California State Senator Sen. Rod Wright, who heads the committee that oversees gambling, would make California the first state in the country to legalize online poker and generate billions in revenue for the state’s financially-strapped treasury.

Under Wright's Senate Bill 1485 the state Department of Justice would award five-year contracts to as many as three California-based operators to run legal online poker websites, with the operators having to meet a variety of legal, technical and financial requirements.

SB 1485 has been designated as an urgency measure and would take effect immediately upon legislative passage and signature by the Governor. A non-urgency measure would take effect January 1, 2011. This bill’s urgency status stems from California’s budget deficit, projected to hit $19 billion by the end of the fiscal year.

At least 20 percent of the revenue under SB 1485 would go to the state, though Wright said it could take up to two or three years to get an online poker system up and running—and possibly longer if legal challenges have to be overcome.

Estimates show that Californians bet as much as $300 million annually. This activity is not currently taxed and Wright's bill would make it a crime for Californians to play at sites that are not based in-state.

SB 1485 will appear today, which by coincidence or design—take your pick—is the day that final UIGEA regulations compelling banks, credit card companies and other financial institutions to “prevent payments to businesses in connection with unlawful Internet gambling” take effect.

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Billions in Revenue and Thousands of New Jobs from Internet Gambling Regulation

Date: Wed, May 19, 2010 Professional Internet Live Tournament

Reps. Barney Frank (D-MA) and Jim McDermott (D-WA) [pictured right] testified today before the House Committee on Ways and Means on the ability to effectively regulate online gambling in order to protect consumers, collect tens of billions in new government revenue, and create tens of thousands of new jobs in the US.

The primary focus of today’s hearing was Rep. McDermott’s Internet Gambling Regulation and Tax Enforcement Act of 2010 (H.R. 4976), which would generate as much as $72 billion in new revenue over ten years for federal and state governments. Today’s hearing also sets the stage for continued movement on companion pieces of pending legislation introduced by Reps. Frank and McDermott that would regulate the industry and ensure applicable taxes and license fees are collected.

“Today’s witnesses clearly articulated why Congress should give fair consideration to regulating online gambling activity as a way to protect Americans, stimulate the economy by creating tens of thousands of new jobs and profit from the collection of tens of billions of otherwise lost revenue,” said Michael Waxman, spokesperson for the Safe and Secure Internet Gambling Initiative. “Upon hearing today’s testimony and acknowledgment that current attempts to prohibit online gambling have failed, it simply makes sense for Congress to address this issue and take control of the thriving underground marketplace.

“With our national unemployment rate at more than 10 percent and all but six states anticipating budget shortfalls for the 2011 fiscal year, this legislation is a win-win,” said Waxman. “It’s not every day that the opportunity to generate billions of dollars and creates tens of thousands of jobs comes along. Congress should seize the opportunity that this legislation presents and move forward in regulating Internet gambling.”

Chairman Barney Frank’s (D-MA) Internet Gambling Regulation, Consumer Protection and Enforcement Act of 2009 (H.R. 2267), a companion to Rep. McDermott’s legislation, sets forth how operators would receive licenses to accept wagers from individuals in the U.S. Among the conditions for licensure, the legislation mandates licensed operators to adopt a range of substantial consumer protections, including safeguards to protect the young and the vulnerable.

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Mike Caro Live Radio Interview Thursday Night

Date: Tue, May 18, 2010 Professional Internet Live Tournament

Mike Caro, a.k.a. “the Mad Genius,” one of poker’s most colorful and innovative characters will be my guest this Thursday on Keep Flopping Aces, which airs at 6 p.m. Pacific Time (9 p.m. ET) on www.roundersradio.com.

Caro, who first came to prominence playing draw poker in Gardena in the 1970s, wrote the section on draw poker for Doyle Brunson’s original Super/System. Later he published his pioneering and influential work, the Book of Tells. Caro is also famous for his seminars, numerous other books, and his efforts to keep poker scrupulous and honest throughout his long career.

Mike and I will discuss his brand new website, his plans for the future, the impending WSOP, and anything else that comes to mind. Phone lines will be open at Rounder’s Radio during the entire, hour-long show, and listeners can call in from the US on 810.496.3428, from Canada on 519.913.2250, and from the UK at 0207.993.6143. If you’re listening live online, you can also ask questions via the chat window feature that’s available during the show. If you can’t make it Thursday night, the show will also be available for on-demand listening as a podcast early next week.

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Restaurant Freebies ... An Ongoing Saga Continues

Date: Tue, May 18, 2010 Professional Internet Live Tournament

I've been bemoaning the fact that most restaurants stopped giving out freebies for completing a customer service survey, and instead enter you in a monthly drawing. Since neither I, nor anyone else I know has ever won a monthly restaurant drawing, I decided to track how long it takes until I get lucky.

So far, no winning tickets for restaurant monthly drawings. This week I completed surveys for Lowe's (yes, I know it's not a restaurant but a $2,500 home improvement gift card would be a nice win nevertheless), Panera, Sizzler, and Radio Shack, which I ducked into to buy a phone line splitter. When I paid, my receipt showed I would be entered into a drawing for a $1,000 drawing. In addition, by completing the survey I got a coupon good for $10 off my next purchase of $40, so that's a good deal too.

I'm still looking to win my first monthly drawing, and I'll let you know when I do. No luck so far...

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PPA Asks for Poker's Exemption from UIGEA

Date: Tue, May 18, 2010 Professional Internet Live Tournament

The Poker Players Alliance (PPA) submitted an eleventh-hour petition to the US Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve Board, asking that they clarify the provisions of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) and its implications for online poker. With a June 1 UIGEA implementation date looming on the near horizon, this might be the only available option to remove poker from UIGEA’s clutches for the immediate future.

The PPA specifically requested that they clarify the phrase “unlawful Internet gambling,” to specify that it does not include peer-to-peer games such as poker. The petition, addressed to Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the Federal Reserve and Timothy Geithner, Secretary of the Treasury, included a cover letter signed by 22 members of Congress.

The petition included this language: “There is settled federal law that Internet sports betting placed by individuals in the US violates the Wire Act. There also seems to be some consensus that accepting bets on house banked-games of chance violates state law. We believe the best way to clarify the regulation is to have the regulation apply only to those two forms of gambling, about which there is some consensus, and to exempt from the scope of the regulation peer-to-peer and pari-mutuel wagering.”

Poker appears to have adopted the strategy of separating itself from sport betting and other forms of online gaming that are neither peer-to-peer or specifically covered by other laws, such as the Wire Act.

Executive Director of the Poker Players Alliance John Pappas (pictured right) was quoted as saying, “We are still strongly supporting legislative efforts to license and regulate online poker … but believe our petition is the best bet to address the short-term issues facing online poker.”

That sound you hear is sports betting and online table games being kicked under the bus, but then again, politics is a contact sport—and it can be brutal.

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Massachusetts Man Arrested Under UIGEA

Date: Sun, May 9, 2010 Professional Internet Live Tournament

When 36-year-old Massachusetts resident Todd Lyons was arrested Thursday night he became one of the first charged under the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) that was signed into law by President George W. Bush in 2006. A 36-count indictment alleges that Lyons collected more than $22 million as an agent for Sports Offshore, an Internet gambling site licensed in the Caribbean nation of Antigua.

According to prosecutors, the illegal activity allegedly took place from 1997 until his arrest, and that Sports Offshore’s operation was actually based in the United States, despite the fact that they used an Internet site and toll-free telephone number registered in Antigua.

Lyons faces multiple charges, including racketeering, money laundering, and operating an illegal gambling business. Although Lyons was released on a $200,000 bond, he faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison on each of the most serious charges. He is due back in court on June 21. His attorney declined to comment.

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Nolan Dalla to Discuss 2010 WSOP on My Radio Show

Date: Thu, May 6, 2010 Professional Internet Live Tournament

Nolan Dalla will be my guest May 13 on Keep Flopping Aces, my Internet radio show that can heard live every Thursday at 6 p.m. PT (9 p.m. ET) on www.roundersradio.com. Nolan and I will spend an hour discussing this year’s World Series of Poker—the first WSOP in the post Jeffrey Pollack era—and what that will mean for players and the events. We’ll also spend some time speculating on what might happen if the Rio is sold, as is rumored, and where the WSOP might be played in subsequent years.

But more than anything else, we want to make this a show full of information and news-you-can-use for any player headed out to Las Vegas at the end of the month for the 2010 WSOP.

Call in lines will be open during the entire duration of the show, so if you have a call for Nolan tune in next week and call us at any of these numbers: US 810.496.3428; Canada 519.913.2250; UK 0207.993.6143. Listeners can also ask questions via a chat window that can be accessed at the www.roundersradio.com site during the show. If you can’t listen live, the show can be downloaded for on-demand listening as a podcast a few days following the live broadcast.

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We're Gonna be Moving...

Date: Thu, May 6, 2010 Professional Internet Live Tournament

We’re gonna be moving soon. As many of you know, I’ve been writing for Pokerology.com for a few months now, and Tim Ryerson, who runs the site, and I decided it would be beneficial to both of us if my blog were more closely integrated with the Pokerology site.

Not only that, but in the process, my blog will become seamlessly integrated with my website, which can be found at www.loukrieger.com. So in the future, readers of the blog and visitors to my website can go back and forth with little if any effort, and have access to a lot more material in the process.

The move won’t happen for a while—maybe a month or more—but I thought I’d tease it out there now, so you can watch for the “we’ve moved” notice that will eventually appear at this site.

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When it Comes to Politics, It's Follow the Money--Always

Date: Thu, May 6, 2010 Professional Internet Live Tournament

Although Barney Frank’s (D-MA) pending legislation to repeal the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) won’t be acted on until way after the June 1, 2010 date for implementing its regulations, it’s always worth following the money to see who is lobbying for, and contributing to his bill’s passage.

During the first quarter of 2010, Harrah’s Entertainment spent the most money, $1.22 million. They are followed by the Poker Players Alliance, the online poker advocacy group, which spent $785,000.

Online poker companies PokerStars and Betfair US were also big contributors. There’s no surprise here, and the online firms have been major supporters of the Poker Players Alliance since day one.

While the major Las Vegas casinos seem to be coming around in support of online gaming—and that has been a nice surprise—it’s not a totally done deal yet, particularly where Native American casinos are concerned. According to Mark Macarro, chairman of the Pechanga tribe, operator of a major California casino, "Most tribes are on the fence with this thing, including my tribe."

The journey toward legalized online gambling in the United States is still a work in progress, and one that appears to be getting longer with each passing day.

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The (Yawn) Dwan Challenge Cranks Up Again

Date: Mon, May 3, 2010 Professional Internet Live Tournament

Tom Dwan and Patrik Antonius (pictured together, left) have cranked it up again, and after a six week hiatus, they seem to be back on track and may yet complete the “Dwan Challenge.” When Tom Dwan first offered the world an opportunity to play him heads-up, online, at multiple tables, with the challenger paying Dwan $500,000 if he lost—but receiving $1.5 million if he won—along with whatever was won or lost across the tables, the world was enthralled by these seemingly over the top stakes.

But in that intervening time, even higher stakes games have been played online. The “nosebleed” games at Full Tilt, in which as much as $4 million has been won and lost in a single session appear to have made the Dwan challenge seem, well … pedestrian by comparison, never mind the fact that the 50,000-hand match between Dwan and Patrik Antonius has dragged on so long that it’s lost momentum and most of the railbirds have lost interest.

Antonius took Dwan for $340,437 in the most recent five hour session, which comprised 1,184 hands.

Accrording to MarketPulse, here’s what the Dwan Challenge stats look like right now:

* Total amount wagered in the Challenge to date: $313,193,943
* Dwan lead to date: $ 1,468,655
* Antonius win in latest session: $ 46,437
* Total number of hands played to date: 37,366
* Total hours played in the Challenge to date: 123
* Percentage of Challenge now completed: 75

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Daniel Tzvetkoff to Languish in Jail Until His Trial

Date: Mon, May 3, 2010 Professional Internet Live Tournament

Daniel Tzvetkoff, an Australian national, was arrested in Las Vegas in April and charged with processing online gambling payments, which is illegal under federal law. Although he was granted bail in a Las Vegas federal court ruling, a New York Judge overturned it. Now Tzvetkoff, who is deemed a “flight risk,” will languish in jail until his trial—which could a year away, or even longer.

His attorney claims that denying him bail “…is inconceivable,” though the judge believes that with access to millions of dollars, Tzvetkoff could easily flee to avoid prosecution.

The Indictment charges Tzvetkoff with four counts, including bank fraud, money laundering, and conspiracy to operate and finance an illegal gambling business and to process electronic funds transfers in violation of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006. If convicted of all counts, he faces a maximum sentence of 75 years in prison.

According to the Feds, Tzvetkoff began processing gambling transactions in the United States through the Automated Clearing House system (“ACH system”) which allows money to be electronically transferred from a gambler’s U.S. checking account to an internet gambling company simply by the gambler going to the internet gambling company’s website and entering his bank account information.

More than $543 million in ACH transactions was processed between February 2008 and March 2009. Tzvetkoff also invested approximately $27 million from these ACH transactions into an online “payday loan” company that offered consumers high-interest, short term loans that typically carried an annualized interest rate of more than 500 percent.

Tzvetkoff and his co-conspirators induced US banks to provide ACH services to internet gambling companies by disguising the transactions so that they would not appear to be gambling

related. They accomplished this be creating dozens of shell companies with names unrelated to gambling—complete with phony web sites that made the companies seem legitimate—and represented to banks that the ACH transactions were on behalf of these companies.

In March 2009, Tzvetkoff stopped processing internet gambling transactions after leading internet gambling websites accused him of stealing approximately $100 million from them.

Although poker players remain free from prosecution under gambling laws, it’s a different landscape for those operating gambling concerns or moving money from site to site when it’s gambling related.

While otherwise dangerous criminals are regularly granted bail, keeping Tzvetkoff in the can until a trial that may not happen for a year seems excessive to me. If the Feds have a strong case, they should make his bail high enough so that he’s faced with the conundrum of coming back to the US to stand trial, or choosing to flee, in which case that high bail simply becomes a “fine” or “penalty” for an offense that doesn’t put the general public in danger or jeopardy, and is therefore one for which bail ought to be granted.

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Rio is up for sale; WSOP may move if a sale is completed

Date: Thu, Apr 29, 2010 Professional Internet Live Tournament

Business Week recently reported that the Rio may be sold—at least it’s being shopped around—and for $500 million give or take a few mil, it can be yours.

When they gathered up Planet Hollywood, Harrah’s gained a mega-resort that has the benefit of being on the Strip, unlike the Rio, which is probably superfluous to their corporate mix of properties.

Smart money is on the WSOP moving to Planet Hollywood once the Rio is sold. Of Harrah’s properties in Vegas, which include Bally’s, Bill’s, Caesar’s, Flamingo, Harrah’s, the Imperial Palace, and Paris, only Planet Hollywood and Caesar’s are large enough to host the WSOP, and Planet Hollywood has a younger, hipper demographic and perhaps more availability during the summer months.

The 2010 WSOP will still be at the Rio, but beyond that, things are up for grabs.

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Restaurant Freebies ... An Ongoing Saga

Date: Thu, Apr 22, 2010 Professional Internet Live Tournament

I've been bemoaning the fact that most restaurants stopped giving out freebies for completing a customer serive survey, and instead enter you in a monthly drawing. Since neither I, nor anyone else I know has ever won a monthly restrurant drawing, I decided to track how long it takes until I get lucky.

Yesterday, however, was throwback day, because we visited the Elephant Bar in Palm Desert--they have other stores too, though they are all in Southern California. They give you a free chicken lettuce wrap on your next visit if you purchase two entrees and complete an online survey.

I was happy to find that they have not succumbed to the unfortunate trend of offering diners a free entry into a monthly lottery. I much prefer the freebie, and I'm looking forward to a lettuce wrap on my next visit.

Score one for the E-Bar. Well done, guys!

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