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Maryann Guberman has been a writer and editor with many gaming publications, including Sports Form, Card Player, Poker World, Player's Panorama and Systems and Methods. She also has written and edited numerous books on gambling.

Dec 09, 2007

The Poker Year in Review

The biggest news in 2007 was, of course, the passage of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) in the United States. While most people reacted to this Act with surprise, disgust or fear, the immediate impact shocked America's online gaming community. Suddenly, they were unable to send or receive money through what had become safe transfer services. Companies such as Neteller and FirePay would no long do business with citizens of the United States and, in fact, Neteller held player funds for months because of additional problems.

Nobody seemed (or seems) to understand the bill exactly, which doesn't matter because it did what its sponsors wanted. It sucked the life out of the offshore gambling business, put the fear of government in the hearts and minds of many online players, and got some politicians elected Đ though not the ones who thought it would help their careers.

I don't know how online casinos fared after this confusing mess but I know the poker rooms, despite their optimistic press releases, did feel the pinch from losing U.S. players. While numerous rooms crowed that their action was not substantially impacted by this questionable act, my personal experience told me otherwise. In the rooms where I used to play (and for the eyes and ears of my government, I never earned any income), the action was down, down, down. It took months before some of the more popular rooms managed to get their tables full again while it took only weeks for others to fail completely.

Another bit of news that took the poker world by storm was the (finally) undisclosed settlement of monies ($12 million) won by Jamie Gold in the 2006 World Series of Poker Championship. After a judge ordered that the undistributed half of that cash be put into an interest-bearing account and indicated that Gold would likely have to give up the dough anyhow, everyone kissed and made up. (That's what they do in Hollywood, Gold's residence, isn't it?) That incident and some bad press about Gold's hand-revealing jabbering during the event could have been the real reason BoDog dumped him but since then Gold has been trying to shine up his halo by making many charitable contributions. (Don't know the man so I'm not judging, just kind of reporting on the year in review.)

Turning the spotlight back to online poker, newsgroups, chat rooms and forums buzzed (and still buzz) frantically over accusations, denials, and eventually agreements that one dishonest employee of one legitimate poker room cheated. Absolute Poker's rep took a big hit when one of its employees started looking at the hole cards of his opponents and managed to cheat his way into a substantial sum of money.

Switching back to land, 2007 also found Harrah's making a decision that smacks of jumping on the poker bandwagon. Presumably the World Series of Poker wasn't worldly enough for the gaming giant. They announced and presented (in September) a World Series of Poker Europe! While not much controversy arose over this decision or that the entry fees were double those of the same events in the U.S. (the old dollar really has fallen). No, the tournament winner evoked the most talk. It was a woman! Annette Obrestad, who began winning big at the age of 15, stomped through her competitors and earned a gold bracelet (and a ton of money) for winning the main event.

There were other stories in 2007, some rousing, some shocking, some sad, these are a few that will stick around for a while.

Let's hope what we get to remember of 2008 will all be positive.