Pondering poker's predicament

Is poker a game of chance or skill? Is it a game or a sport? The arguments will continue, but the ripple effects of the FBI's April 15 crackdown against PokerStars, FullTilt Poker and Absolute Poker have hit sports broadcasting. Disney-owned ESPN, which has a stake in Canada's TSN, has cancelled poker advertising and programming.

The 2011 Canadian Gaming Summit was held April 18-20 at the Vancouver Convention Centre as the global gambling industry reeled from what poker people have called "Black Friday".

Among the speakers at an April 20 seminar on regulation was Lawrence Walters, an Orlando, Fla., lawyer who specializes in gambling, intellectual property and constitutional issues. Here's what he had to say:

“What you have is an attempt to hold a foreign resident and operation that is legal and licenced in its host jurisdiction responsible for violating a New York misdemeanor statute that makes no reference to online poker. The feds have their work cut out for them in this case for sure.

“We believe that the thrust of the government's case here is really the fraud allegations, the bank fraud, the money laundering. These gambling indictment counts, one to seven in the indictment, were thrown in so that the government could obtain a plea to those counts and then wave around that guilty plea and say ‘see, they're guilty of illegal gambling and the (Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act) applies’. What they'll say in the backroom is ‘we've got you on the bank fraud, you're lying to these banks and we can prove it. We don't really care about that, we want you to plead guilty to the gambling offences and we can establish a bad precedent for the rest of the industry’.

“Department of Justice has been known to do this in other instances where they'll come up with regulatory offences or tax evasion and then obtain a plea to some sort of more politically charged offence.

“This is going to be one of the first cases, if it goes to trial, that will address head on whether or not the UIGEA applies to anything other than sports betting activity. Given the amount of money involved and the foreign residence of the defendants, it's going to be a precedent setting case.

“If history is any guide, the likelihood of a decision on the merits is pretty slim. In general criminal cases are resolved by way of a plea as opposed to a trial 98 percent of the time, if that wasn't the case the system would collapse. It's designed that way.

“DOJ prosecutors are ruthless in their attempts to get pleas, they will threaten families, children, and take all of your property and basically make it so that it would be financially and morally impossible to fight these cases on the merits. There have been people that have done it, they've toughed it out and won. But the likelihood is that this case will be resolved by some kind of deal.”