If Jon Porter is on the side of gambling, it's whatever the Harrahs/MGM/Adelson wants him to do. He's certainly not on the side of those of us who want to play online, that's for sure.

Porter is a lightweight. We have a lot of those out here. Berkeley is one of the few with stones.

ladbrokes management was and is considering allowing usa players as there profits have lowered.

Do you have a link? Or an e-mail address to a company officer willing to confirm this?

Jimbo

***********Ladbrokes Prepared to Accept US Poker Bets Says Managing Director
Submitted by C Costigan on Thu, 08/07/2008 - 09:45.

England's largest bookmaker, Ladbrokes, is said to be considering accepting US poker bets in a move sure to rattle the industry.

John O'Reilly, managing director of Ladbrokes, made the suggestion Thursday morning while commenting on the firm's half yearly results.

The company reported an 18pc in first-half profits after a poor Royal Ascot and Euro 2008 and fewer bets by high rollers.

Pre-tax profits fell from £154.4m to £126.7m on net revenue up 5pc to £614.8m. Operating profits from high rollers fell 33pc to £40m, while operating profit excluding the high-stakes players edged down 2pc to £130m. Christopher Bell, chief executive, said the company had shown "resilience against a challenging economic backdrop".

"In UK Retail, following a strong first four months of the year, June suffered a string of poor results affecting all channels, most notably Royal Ascot and the early stages of Euro 2008."

Ladbrokes had made the decision to enter the US market prior to the passage of a bill making the operation of an online poker room illegal in the States. The firm had not officially announced its intentions but was forced to back off those plans. Nearly all the publicly traded Internet poker companies retreated from the US market following passage of the Unlawful Internet Gaming Enforcement Act in October 2006.

Ladbrokes is a member of the FTSE 250 Index and was once part of the Hilton Group, owning the hotel brand outside of the United States.

Ladbrokes owns over 2,200 retail betting shops divided between the UK, Ireland and Belgium. It also operates several online gambling websites offering sportsbook, poker, casino, games, bingo and backgammon. Ladbrokes uses the OpenBet system from Orbis Technology.

scorer,

This has been mentioned before in this thread, but there is a difference between accepting "bets" which can mean just letting your players play on common Microgaming tables with US players, and actually accepting US deposits and thus players as its own customers as a skin.

So all we have here is "considering" and an ambiguous "bets". When they actually accept US players as customers then that will be half way toward being worth talking about. The other half is actually having working payment solutions for such US players.

Let's also note 2 things here re Ladbrokes:

1) Ladbrokes was one of the first if not the first site pre-UIGEA to block US players and take moderately effective measures to do so, i.e. IP blocking (geo-location);

2) Microgaming sucks ass if you play for any real money. The hoops they make you jump through and the false positives for dumping/collusion/cheating are legendary and can be found in the zoo archives.

If they join Microgaming network, and they are, there's no way around common tables with US players. They could just use their software and keep a 100% non-US network on it, but that's not what I'm reading.

So the "common Microgaming tables with US players" is already a foregone conclusion, and there's already sites on the network (Unibet, Dream Poker) that do not let US customers play for real money via their skin.

So for Ladbrokes to follow suit would not be unprecedented, and I don't even think it would really be news. Since this IS news, I think your reading of the latest press release is incorrectly pessimistic and that it means they are considering accepting paying US customers through their skin.

So you don't think it would be news if they were not "considering" taking US players as customers, and thus it must be news! Yours is the exact kind of "logic" that the spinmeisters and cons of the gambling industry hope for. Just as they hope you consider as serious "news" whatever G911 or other such affiliate rags spout no matter that such is not repeated in mainstream (real) media.

BTW, I am "considering" climbing Mt. Everest. When is that news:

1) when I am just "considering" it?

2) when I make an actual attempt successful or not?

3) when I get to the top?

4) when some ass wipe rag like G911 reports it (or multiple such rags)?

On the internet when someone won't provide a link you always know why:
.

http://www.yogonet.com/english/detal...a.asp?id=11762

Jimbo

Jimbo is a very bad man, he knows and sees all.

i didnt know gambling911 has a history of misleaing info

FYP. The RGA as much said so when it alluded to its members seeking amnesty .... Call a spade a spade .... This is Party's dirty work, pure and simple. They want a free pass for themselves and to screw PS and FTP, among others, in the process ..... Another reason to bitch-slap them whenever possible.

Another thing to note is that Ladbrokes have played a pretty clever game within the EU winning several court cases re advertising in other EU countries and accepting EU players. Their legal team is a good one.

This leaking of "we planned to enter US pre UIGEA" and would still like to accept US players seems tailor made to ensure that Ladbrokes can claim lost profits and revenues as a direct result of UIGEA. This is just what the WTO need to press the claim subsequent to Antigua's.

They have a working relationship with the EU trade people and have like those bureacrats champoned free trade in gambling within and outside the EU. Whilst I am sure Ladbrokes are not making it up the timing and content of this news suggests to me that there has been some movement within the EU bureacracy on UIGEA and with Doha still stalled it seems more likely that the EU will try using the gambling stick to beat the US.

i hope ladbrokes keep their mtt schedule rather than go over to microgaming's sucky scehdule