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WPT Lawsuit Causing A Rift In The Poker World
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Author: Marc Weinberg
September 1 - August may well go down as the most scandalous month to date for professional poker (excluding that time Amarillo Slim diddled a child): the WSOP Main Event winner is being sued, the guy who finished 6th is under investigation by the police for being at the heart of an illegal gambling ring, and seven professional poker players are suing the WPT in an act that looks a lot like biting the hand that feeds, or at least used to feed them.
We have covered that last story previously in our poker news section, but of more interest is the reaction of other top poker players who did not form part of the magnificent seven, particularly Daniel Negreanu.
In his latest entertaining blog Daniel admits that he is down $600,000 betting on the golf course, and he also launches a scathing attack on the seven players that will reverberate throughout the poker tour.
I like to use a simple rule of thumb whenever a poker player discusses what he won or lost gambling: Whatever a poker player claims to have won should be halved, and whatever he claims to have lost should be doubled.
So, Daniel is probably down $1.2 million from golf, still a lot less than the rumor currently circulating, which is that he is stuck $10 million.
Daniel will also receive few invitations in the future to dinner at Andy Bloch's house, after accusing him of being a hysteric and using his outbursts at the recent WSOP as an analogy for the lawsuit that he and six others filed against the World Poker Tour. Negreanu takes issue with the fact that more poker pros were not consulted (perhaps he is miffed because they left him out?) and that the seven jumped off the deep end and overreacted.
Fighting with the WPT is not good for poker's image, and in-fighting amongst the poker pros is even worse. All of these players have a lot invested in the business of poker, beyond playing the game: they all have stakes in online poker rooms, or lucrative endorsment deals with online poker sites, and their names definitely have intrinsic value.
Poker is very different to other games/sports in that the players are also owners in the sense that they have vested interests in sites like UltimateBet, Full Tilt Poker, and PokerStars. These sites compete with one another and of course they also compete with WPTSE.
I don't know how that lawsuit will turn out, but it still pales next to the one that Jamie Gold is facing, at least for pure drama and potential stupidity. Surely Gold, who says a lot of things but rarely means any of them, did not promise to split his winnings with a guy he has only known for a month? On the other hand, it seems clear that he promised Leyser something for his efforts. My bet is that a quiet out-of-court settlement in the region of a few hundred grand will make this one go away.
Richard Lee, who finished 6th in the Main Event and won $2.8 million appears unlikely to spend any of it in the near future, as the police feel he was the heart and soul of an illegal online gambling operation. It's bad publicity for poker, but then again is there such a thing? It won't stop millions of us from playing the game that's for sure, and it does make for interesting water-cooler chats.
Related Poker Articles And News Items:
> USA Friendly Online Poker Rooms
> USA Online Gambling Policy Vs WTO Treaties
> Americans Will Be Banned From Playing At Party Poker
> World Championship Of Online Poker Off To A Flyer
> Is Poker A Game Of Skill Or A Game Of Chance
> No-Limit Holdem Cash Game Tactics
> 2006 WSOP Player Of The Year Joins Full Tilt
> 2006 WSOP Final Table Is Set To Go
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