NYT -- Feds seize Paradise cash

[GrannyMae]

paradise will get this money back.

if they do not, then it is $3.2 mil gone in a company that can afford the loss. i'm sure they are not happy with this, but obviously this has been ongoing for months. point is that nothing has changed just because this was finally made public.

it does not change anything regarding the legality of the end user. it is a dispute between paradise and discovery and the us govt. it is perfectly normal in situations like this, and paradise is not the only one that gave money for commercials and has not received it back.

the us govt. seizes assets all the time and in 95% of the cases, it is returned to the rightful owner. only money from illegal drug sales, gun trading and other nasties like that never make it back to the owners. rest assure that stars and party pre-paid for ads that did not run, and that discovery turned that money over to DOJ as well. We are reading about this because paradise lawyers are trying to get their money back. this is what brought this info from the courtroom to the newsroom.

in june, the govt said to stop running the ads. in october paradise paid for ads because discovery was still accepting them. discovery is the scumbags here, not paradise. paradise was simply availing themselves of the offer for ad space that was still being sold even though discovery should have ceased their sales if they felt it was not legal. discovery has lawyers too and i can assure that they took the money because the lawyers said it was ok. paradise did their due dilligence and bought the ad space because this US company said "hi paradise, wanna buy some commercials? we know they may not air, and we will give you your money back if they don't, but we think you will be fine"..

enter ashcroft and his inability to separate true evil from constitutional protection, and we got one fuked up situation right now. when will this administration start concentrating on armoring humvee's faulty shells so less soldiers will die, and stop worrying about poker and pornography? is it the failures they are having with the war that make them concentrate on this st00pid domestic [censored] to cover up and draw attention away from the REAL problems like WTF are we doing in iraq?
(btw, an administration change in november will solve all of this bullshit. remember that if you are undecided poker player)

this seems to indicate that the gaming people feel they can win this (or at least work around it). changes will be made to try and beat the laws regarding commercials. the sites will win, or the sites will lose. it won't affect the legality of playing poker online. let's not mix the issues.

perhaps there won't be anymore gaming ads in the US, perhaps there will. even THAT is not relevant to this story. this story is about an overseas company trying to recoup money paid for commercials that never ran. there is no more to this, no less to it. as i said, it is also old news to the parties involved. only the fact that it is time to make the case for getting their money back is the reason this story was written.

don't get me wrong, i appreciate the reprint, and think the discussion is great. however, it is not like anything happened yesterday that made the state of online poker different. only the article was written, nothing else has changed.

[David]

How does Cardplayer Magazine get away with running poker site ads? 2+2? Are the feds only interested in TV ads?

[GrannyMae]

How does Cardplayer Magazine get away with running poker site ads? 2+2? Are the feds only interested in TV ads?

bigger targets = bigger exposure for their "crusade". all are just as vulnerable, but raiding the CP office in california is not newsworthy enough to make the NYT. i would imagine that the DOJ and the sites are looking for a precedent to be set here, and a $3.5 million seizure not only is worth fighting for from paradise's perspecitve, but i would speculate that the DOJ is also hoping smaller entities such as cardplayer will be intimidated into stopping accepting these ads. but remember, this is all about advertising. unless you live in nevada or jersey, there is nothing on the books in your state to make playing illegal.

edit: wanted to add that the laws written in these 2 states to specifically make playing illegal were developed because the casinos lobbied to make them happen. these laws were not placed for moral reasons, just business reasons. that fact alone makes even those laws shaky and unenforceable.

[cardcounter0]

I think Cardplayer Magazine, etc. "get away" with it because of a little thing called the 1st Admendment.

You can publish and advertise almost anything you want, as long as it doesn't involve child pornography or violent overthrow of the government.

Freedom of Speech allows one to talk and write about such nasties as internet gambling.

Sorry, but this action is a bunch of headline grandstanding by the Administration to impress some bluehair bluenoses.

When are they going to go after the local newspapers for printing the NFL point spreads in the Sports Secion?

[MicroBob]

i dont always agree with granny's views or approach...but in this case i pretty much agree almost 100% with her viewpoints of her last 2 posts.


although...i do think it changes things just a little bit.
the more publicity that is generated of the illegal aspect of online gaming, the more the public perception of it is tainted.

stories like Chris Moneymaker (and now our own Greg Raymer) counter that to a certain extent. people learn that these guys won their way there via a cheap online-satellite tourney and don't think twice about whether it's legal or not and think it's an amazing story.

this is what we want....we want people just falling in love with the success stories that have absolutely NO reference to the fact that it is in a legal grey-area.

so...contrarily imo....any publicity that references in the slightest the 'evilness' of online-gaming is not helpful in the long run.

to address another issue brought up....i too have wondered about the continuation of online-gaming ads on 2+2 and card-player but am also glad 2+2 hasn't just starterd yanking them left and right.
'm sure it has been brought up in discussion by our fearless leaders though.


on april 30, google and yahoo both stopped all ads for online-gaming sites.....presumably from pressure from the DOJ.


the paradise ads on discovery (this primarily involves WPT on Travel Channel...which i'm not sure was mentioned in the article) were for their 'real money' site back in the days when it was still okay to do this.

the currenty party ads are for their new 'learn to play poker for free' site.
the ads are for partypoker.NET which is play-money only.
obviously partypoker.COM is the real-money site.
so they are definately finding their own back-door way into keeping the ads legal and i applaud their creativity.


however...with this latest development, i can very easily see a scenario where CNBC (and fox-news which also has been airing the ads i've been told) may not want to run them anymore because they don't want to risk any potential problems.
even though they are 'technically' in the clear...i suspect they may stop running them.

similar to the fall-out of the janet-jackson peep-show that has several broadcasters tightening-up (including the cancellation of Howard Stern on some of his affiliates..etc etc).
it's related because it shows that most broadcast companies choose to err on the extreme side of caution on such issues.

so some of these broadcasters may choose to not quibble with technical and semantical issues of whether it's play-money or not...because everyone pretty much KNOWS that the intention is to try to draw people to their real-money site.

[Alobar]

[ QUOTE ]
however, it is not like anything happened yesterday that made the state of online poker different. only the article was written, nothing else has changed.



[/ QUOTE ]

while this is fundamentally true, I still see it as the begining of the end. Once there is no more advertising there is no new fish. No new fish = death to players like me who arn't good enough to beat other good players at limits high enough to make a living at. And how long is it before they make it near impossible to get money into a poker room? I'd hold out hope that the courts will throw this crap out and make it legal, which would be a huge boon for online poker. But I have almost as much faith in the U.S. Legal system as I do the U.S. government *sigh*

[GrannyMae]

I think Cardplayer Magazine, etc. "get away" with it because of a little thing called the 1st Admendment.

we appear to be on the same side here, but 1st amendment applies to free spech, not paid advertising.

you can say that you would like to see george bush dragged behind a humvee, but if you run an ad that offers a reward to someone who will do it, you are no longer covered by the constitution.

the first amendment does not protect tv commercials or magazine ads that promote off-shore gaming if the US A.G. has decided that this gaming is illegal.

[cardcounter0]

I think the act of offering a reward to drag George Bush behind a HumVee is illegal, not the advertising of it. Just like a couldn't put an AD for murder for hire. The solicitation itself is illegal.

Having a shoulder fired rocket launcher is illegal in the US, but I don't think it would be illegal to say "Come to beautiful XYZ and shoot shoulder fired rocket launchers".

Could a travel agency not be allowed to advertise gambling trips to England because sports betting is legal there, and the only place it is legal here is Nevada?

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

There is no federal jurisdiction over print and internet media as there is over broadcast media.

[GrannyMae]

this is true, but many times this jusrisdiction is exercised through state or superior courts. under the *pure* interpretation of this, one could never be prosecuted for obscenity and had the ruling upheld on the federal level. i'm not talking about child pornography here, where the act itself is illegal, just obscenity. there are other examples of how print media and internet content is not above this federal "loophole", but this is the easiest to understand. you are absolutely correct kurn that they would have to hurdle over 2 obstacles to successfully grind the presses to a halt. (UB-2 almost did that for cardplayer imo)

anyway, it is all about repression. we need to oust the repressors.