"The CBA also made unauthorised payments to other prominent players on the Asia Pacific Poker Tour"

eh eh I wonder how these people must feel right now. I know Jordanu was putting some big names in tournaments in Aus, but I guess they would have assumed the money was coming from somewhere not entirely legal anyway. Interesting to see if they get outed at some point

"Champion poker player".

Lol.

haha my thoughts exactly

I've always figured most of the underworld type donators in the bigger games are using it to launder drug money, nope, accounting fraud

Also champion poker player is lol obviously

lol that doesn't even have anything to do with poker, they might as well have said "luxury car driver linked to $70m loss" or "gold ring wearer linked to $70m loss"

From the Pokernetwork article

For Jordanou, traveling the world is part of playing poker and he has become a familiar face in the Australian poker industry with roughly $570,000 in lifetime winnings plus undisclosed winnings from the high stakes cash games he plays. Travelling to these locations is part of the job and buying Harley-Davidson’s, luxury cars or new gold blind can all just be seen as rewards for success on the felt.

He's almost definitely bought into more than 570k worth of tournaments lifetime i've seen him reg pretty much all of the 10ks/high rollers etc

Let's just say those undisclosed 'winnings' from cash games would amount to negative... a lot if my read on his game compared to the regulars in the big game is accurate

Also fortunately this doesn't seem to be a 'poker player steals to fund addiction' story, more of a 'ponzi scheme idiot happens to play poker' story

Any latest updates on the situation?

Nothing is happening right now and nothing can or will happen until the new senate sits mid-2014

Every political figure pretty much who has been contacted by anyone including a few crossbenchers have viewed it as a 'non-issue that they will research if it comes up'

Greens seem split on the issue, Di Natale is done with the issue after banning the iphone app but views poker as illegal which is technically true. Greens QLD candidate thought poker should be legal but didn't win election. Palmer party will be pro-gambling I would imagine since Palmer is a businessman and wants to open a casino in Coolum at some point in the future. Xenophon and FF will be anti-gambling. Libs will do whatever Abbott says and Labor will probably oppose any non important LNP bill like this in the senate. Basically, if it comes down to a vote, it'll be made or broken by the Greens/Palmer. LDP guy is pro online gambling. Muir is basically a Palmer guy now.

There are no plans for a vote on any bill related to poker at this stage and Abbott will have a fight on his hands repealing the ETS/Carbon Tax because Labor's decided to stand by it and so have the Greens so he's going to spend a year or whatever negotiating with Palmer and Muir and the LDP to pass it, and Palmer/LDP are probably pro-gambling (definitely in the latter case) so the coalition will probably struggle to pass anything banning online gambling because it's not a priority and would be a close vote, plus it would piss off the LDP guy who they will need to help pass some right-wing economic agenda stuff and the LNP will be busy meeting Palmer's demands to pass their agenda because he controls 4 votes (5 if we include the LDP guy who is pro gambling) and Xenophon only has two including the FF guy on gambling and only one on other issues so Palmer is the voter bloc that the LNP wants

TLDR; we're fine, will happily book that you can play on Pokerstars on Dec 31 2014 at evens if anyone wants to hedge. If the Abbott government is re-elected and controls the senate outright we could be in trouble but it's just too much work for them to ban poker right now and the minor parties they need to court to pass their agenda is a bloc that doesn't really include Xenophon right now

Breakdown of the new senate

Coalition 33 (Anti-gambling if Abbott says so but not a major issue)

Labor 26 (Will vote with us probably because they want Abbott legislation to fail as much as possible and Labor had different plans etc.)

Greens 9 (Don't view poker as an issue that matters, could vote either way, but they hate Abbott which is good. Di Natale is anti-gambling but not hugely and the rest of the party doesn't care. Greens will probably stand with Labor because their constituents hate Abbott and want him to fail)

PUP+MotoristsMuir 4 (Wild card, but Palmer himself is pro gambling since he wants to open a casino. No stated position on online poker afaik probably doesn't see it as an issue)

Xenophon 1 (Anti gambling zealot)

Leyvenjolm/LDP 1(Pro-online gambling libertarian)

Family First 1 (religious right, anti-gambling)

DLP 1 (no one has any idea what this guy wants other than he doesn't like commies and got elected by accident and doesn't ever do anything noteworthy)

So Abbot needs 39 votes to have a majority or 38 to tie which is a loss for the legislation, so 39

33 Liberal (assuming no one crosses the floor)
1 Xenophon
1 FF

He starts off with 35, and would need to spend political capital to get to 39. The most likely voter bloc is PUP but he will need to meet a lot of their demands to get their support on major issues like repealing the carbon tax and muir's motoring policies need to get met for that too, so a lot of the coalition's political capital is gone

DLP guy could be convinced but he's meaningless since he isn't part of a voting bloc and they would still needs Greens Labor or PUP Bloc to pass it.

The only other path to pass the legislation is to get Labor to support it (unlikely since they're not willing to trade political capital to help Labor on any issues over something like poker that the LNP doesn't care much about) or the Greens (no chance, Greens will demand too much lefty stuff to support a coalition bill, if LNP negotiates for their support it will be over something big, not a gambling bill)

TL;DR - the only way poker gets banned is if one of Labor, the Greens or PUP sells us out to the coalition for something that matters more to them. They would, but would the Coalition budge on any issue that mattered to them to any of the three parties over something as minor as online gambling? No.

Clive Palmer and the random minor party wins probably saved online poker in Australia for this term (2013-2016) through denying the Coalition control of the senate outright siphoning off conservative voters.

If anyone thinks poker will be banned, will book you at evens that Stars is operating in Aus in Dec 2014. We're at risk, but we're huge favourites to hold here. We're only in trouble if Coalition + Xenophon + FF outright have control of the senate in 3 years. Palmer will want so much that the coalition is going to have to negotiate with him on the big issues first, we're going to fly under the radar and the Greens/Labor just want the Coalition to fail so that they have a chance of winning government or senate control in 3 years.

1) why do you think this needs to be voted on? I thought it was already established in this thread that the law making online poker illegal has already been passed and no further legislation would be required to implement a ban.

2) why would you assume that someone in the casino business would support online gambling. If anything I would think the opposite would be true. Local casino operators would want to maintain their monopoly and see any form of legalised online gambling as money being take directly from their pockets. Isn't this why Sheldon Addleson has been lobbying against legalised online poker in the US?

It's also the status quo that the existing ban is viewed as unenforceable because poker is offered by offshore companies and playing online poker isn't illegal for Australians, it's offering it that is against the law - we don't have a powerful DOJ equivalent that is willing to go after offshore corporations over something as trivial as poker.

If you actually think poker is going to get banned, feel free to accept my bet that Pokerstars is offering poker to Australians in December 2014, we ARE at risk but it's a small risk, it is NOT a priority at all for the government to prevent Australians from playing poker. They have other stuff to spend their political capital on and i'm sure they've seen how inefficient the ban has been in the US etc too

What odds you giving?

even money he said pointy, tyvm for the info Swoop i think i will be able to sleep a little easier now

I honestly have no idea whether it will be banned or not, I just find your arguments against a ban completely unconvincing, which is not to say that I believe a ban to be likely.

Only time will tell but our best hope is apathy on the part on the part of the government rather than some alliance of opposition MPs who will fight for the right of online poker.

Thank you for the long info post swoop!

Yeah good work Swoop. Ludlam's win in WA it seems will make the task harder but still the make up of the new senate isn't too bad to keep poker rolling here in Aus.

I'll take a $100 bet with you on that. If you prefer I'll make it a charity bet, I'll pay the $100 to the Disasters Emergency Committee appeal if I lose and you can pick a similar charity. If you want it as a Stars transfer that's fine, but I don't think you have a 50% or better chance of having that option.

Richas: i'll book you for $100 there. Evens, and when the clock ticks over to Dec 31 2014 if Pokerstars is still offering poker to Australians I win, if not you win.

Stars xfer if stars is available/Bank xfer if it isn't, I prefer to keep any donations to charity I make seperate from bets I make.

To clarify terms, pending legislation/official legal status of online poker is irrelevant, if I can log on to Pokerstars from Australia on Dec 31 2014 I win, if not you do.

I'm offering evens if anyone else wants to bet with me but no bets are confirmed unless I post booked

@Richas, we're booked for $100, i'm sure you wish me good luck on this one and hope you lose :P

Apathy is on our side and i'm not sure Abbott has the numbers in the Senate even if he wanted to pass legislation that is enforceable and if he does I don't think he wants to spend his valuable political capital on something he doesn't really care about.

Oh yes he does

He's going to lose

This

Booked. My only clarifications are

• logged on from Aus with your address and location made clear as being in Aus to Stars,
  
  logged on not to access your balance or for play money but logged on and able to play poker for real money
  
  I'd also like after midnight on Dec 31s not 31st itself. If they close access for 2015 but not 2014 before 2015 starts I win.

As someone said I hope you win, if I do I will chuck it to charity myself, I would take little pleasure in spending it myself.

Here is the deal as to why I think you have the worst of it.

By 2014 if PokerStars want to accept UK players they will need a UK licence. To have such a licence they need to exclude all players from other countries where participation is not legal. A network can accept foreign players from skins that do not have a UK licence but the operator needs to make sure that the players are from a country where participation is legal and authorised.

Stars, and all other sites, will face a choice - legal access to the UK market including the ability to advertise or accepting US or Aus players. They will not be able t have both. Now the decision for Stars is not really UK vs Aus either as the UK is offering a model that delivers pooling of players across the EU, an open EU wide market. The comparison for Stars is access to the legal EU market with player pooling or carrying on taking Aussies into that pool.

Good luck.

I know Ludlum is all about internet freedoms etc however I'm pretty sure the greens stance is not pro online gambling

Isn't the current legislation enforceable? I was under the impression it was just a matter of finding a government willing to spend the $ and time to act on it.

I doubt anything gets done before 2014 however there's a decent chance something happens in Abbot's term. It's basically a political freekick for the coalition imo, and getting pokerstars to stop serving could probably be done as easily as making a phone call given their recent tendency to cooperate with goverments.

source?

Basically this, I wish people would stop mentioning the senate as some sort of fail safe, pretty sure the senate is not needed to enforce this legislation.

Originally Posted by Richas View Post
By 2014 if PokerStars want to accept UK players they will need a UK licence.

http://services.parliament.uk/bills/...vertising.html

Pretty much agree with all of this.

PS are clearly in the business of cooperating with governments after getting their fingers burned in the US. I doubt it would take much more than a request from the right office to have us shut down, at least temporarily.

I do agree as others have said that apathy and particularly distraction are on our side. The US is due for another financial meltdown in a couple iof months, and that wont be the end of it. Bigger fish to fry. I'm just hoping this isn't ever going to find it's way to the top of Abbot's ToDo list.

Realistically bigger test may be when they need NickX for something.
Also just for the record, tend to disagree with earlier statements about Palmer being a potential ally. If he has plans for large BrickMortar gambling investments we may actually have the entirely opposite on our hands.

Not a lot of recorded examples of B&M operators getting behind online gambling other than when they have a financial interest in the operator. Just look at the big boys in LV