If online poker is immune to US prosecution, how come none of its players will go there?

Jeremy Warner's Outlook - The World Series of Poker reaches a crescendo in Las Vegas next week, an event which would normally attract the masters of the virtual game, keen to market their wares, alongside their physical counterparts. This year, the online mob will be noticeably absent. Post the arrest of David Carruthers, chief executive of BetonSports, on charges of running an illegal gambling operation, flights and hotel bookings have been cancelled wholesale. Until the legal position of online betting becomes clearer, few will be prepared to risk their liberty by setting foot on American soil.

Announcing a near 50 per cent rise in second-quarter revenues yesterday, Mitch Garber, chief executive of PartyGaming, insisted that he was wholly unconcerned about the implications for PartyGaming of his rival's indictment. The BetonSports fracas was all about taking telephone bets on sports events, which is unambiguously illegal in the US, he insisted. The position of online poker and casinos is at worse a grey area and on some interpretations overtly legal. So will Mr Garber be jetting off to Las Vegas next week? Er ... as it happens it is his wife's 40th birthday and some things are sacrosanct.

American regulators do, it is true, have a bigger objection to sports betting than cards and casinos. This is because of a history of match-fixing scandals which in the past has brought many sports into disrepute. Yet there is a deeper mistrust of gambling which goes back to the puritan roots of the early settlers. I doubt very much the US Justice Department is going to stop at sports betting, and I suspect Mr Garber knows it too. That's why he's so keen to emphasise the company's expansion plans outside the US. Unfortunately, he's got some way to go in hedging his exposure. America still accounts for three-quarters of PartyGaming's revenues.

The Independent - 2006-07-24 16:54:41