Hi all,

I read an article in last week's Las Vegas Sun, from the conclusion to the Global Gaming Expo (G2E), about the online poker industry, and frankly I was stunned. Without going into huge detail, it's based on an alleged drunken barroom conversation between Steve Lipscomb of the World Poker Tour, and "an executive of a prominent Internet poker site".

Mr. Lipscomb alleges that this "exec", after giving interviews to the media stating that the online poker industry welcomes taxation and regulation in exchange for normalized access to the huge US market, essentially told Mr. Lipscomb (after many drinks) that he completely lied.

“He said, ‘Are you kidding me?’ ” Lipscomb said. “ ‘I don’t want to be regulated and taxed. That’s the most ridiculous thing in the world. I’m making money without being taxed, without being regulated.’ ”

Mr. Haney's column proceeds from that charming anecdote to essentially flame the entire online poker industry. You can read it here:

Las Vegas Sun/Jeff Haney: "Officially, they want to be regulated, but …"

I wish I'd caught this on Friday when I was still in Vegas. I was checking out and heading home after a long week, and was not on my media-monitoring game I guess. (The ever-vigilant Engineer posted in the comments section - when does Rich sleep? Maybe his online name should be truncated to simply "Engine").

However, Mr. Haney is good enough to provide a "contact" link (to an email form) next to his by-line (actually, he should be commended for that - most journalists shrink from direct contact with potentially angry readers). So, here is what I sent to him:

Mr. Haney,

How can you justify your 11/20/09 article regarding the online poker industry, when it is built on a possible hearsay conversation with a supposed online poker executive?

Your source is certainly suspect: Mr. Lipscomb's firm was recently acquired by online gaming firm PartyGaming PLC, and "Party" has made no secret of their feelings about other firms that stayed in the US after Party withdrew in 2006, due to the passage of UIGEA.

I have nothing against Party - they are a good company, and I'd like to see them back in the US. However, Party feels it is unfair that these privately-held firms stayed and profited, while Party felt compelled to withdraw due to their status as a publicly-traded company.

This portrayal of "an executive of a prominent Internet poker site" is a possible self-serving PR canard for Mr. Lipscomb, who may be seeking to discredit those operators while hoping to have them excluded from any new federal or state regulatory system. However, his story is published as an unscrutinized fact.

I am a regular reader of your column, and enjoy it very much, but the lack of journalistic standards at the root of this column leaves me wondering. You are touting an alleged position by the online gambling industry as fact when there is nothing to support it other than this rumored conversation?

For members of our trade association, which represents the online gaming industry here in the US, the exact opposite is true. Our members understand better than any that reasonable tax rates and regulation would more than offset any losses through access to the immense US market, and they would trade their tax-free, unregulated status for it in a moment.

They didn't get to express that, though, because you decided to take a supposed third-hand barroom conversation from an interested "party" (no pun intended) as the final word on the industry's disposition.

A barroom conversation with a drunk online gaming exec? Really?


Joe Brennan Jr.
Chairman
Interactive Media Entertainment & Gaming Association (iMEGA)
Washington, DC
www.imega.org

BTW, yes...I saw this was posted in the legislation forum, but I did not want to intrude on that forum with what is a policy statement by iMEGA.

Joe@iMEGA

Very well put, Joe. I hope he makes a public retraction. This is journalism at its worst - unsubstantiated hearsay and one individual's biased opinion reported as the desires of an entire industry. Boo and hiss, Mr. Haney.

Hi Joe:

I also read the article and thought it was shameful. However, I do wonder how much of it was accurate. Specifically, did Lipscomb actually tell this stuff to Haney? and assuming he did was there a drunk Internet poker room executive who actually told this to Lipscomb? and given that this was the case, was the Internet executive serious?

This seems like a big parlay bet to me where perhaps each of the individual bets has a reasonable probability of success, but all of them coming in together seems like a long-shot. I suspect that a knowledgeable gambler would not get his money down here.

Best wishes,
mason

Why are you surprised ?

Mr. Haney ........ was he the guy on Green Acres who was always scamming the Douglases ?


"Mr. Haney (given name apparently either Eustace or Charleton) was a local farmer turned salesman and con man in the rural Hooterville community who was a supporting character on the 1960s CBS television series Green Acres.

Haney, portrayed by veteran character actor and longtime Western film sidekick Pat Buttram with the odd, yodeling voice, sold his family's ancient, dilapidated farm to Oliver when he and Lisa Douglas left New York City for rural Hooterville and their new life as farmers. In the process of the sale, Haney stripped the farm of everything of value down to the plumbing.

Haney had cheated the Douglases by charging them several times what the property was worth and saddling them with a disfunctional farm. He continued to cheat them by initially selling the movable property associated with the farm to them one piece at a time. Douglas bought Haney's cow, tractor and plow. All of which were as useless as the farm."

Now I know what to get TP-CEO for the holidays: the Green Acres Complete Series DVD set.

Joe@iMEGA