Fine, lets leave it at this:

YOU made a post claiming the PPA was just as hypocritical as Commerce Casino because the PPA supports laws against sports betting. And now you know that is WRONG.

When asked why you made such a claim, you referred to a 4 year old press release that no one has been able to find an actual copy of. I do not think Bolcerek said what you said he said (not because you are "lying" but because you somehow got it wrong). If I had any recollection of anyone at the PPA saying sports betting should be illegal, I would have simply responded that the PPA no longer holds that position. But I suppose its possible he said it somewhere and it never otherwise got attention. Bolcerek was a lose cannon and not among the "best and brightest" IMHO. But whether you based your claim on a 4 year old actual statement or whether you had a lapse of memory, your claim is currently, and has been since at least the fall of 2007, false.

I may irritate you that I feel the need to say that, but you have already seen that at least one poster was affected by your false claim.

Skallagrim

PS - Delaware has recently been trying to implement sports betting at its casinos. Much litigation occurred. I believe what they have ended up with is nothing like what occurs in Nevada, but you can call it "sports betting" if you like and thus also call me wrong if you like.

http://www.casinomeister.com/news/nov2006/index.php

I don't believe we intentionally pulled that or any other press release.

We don't archive every statement or press release. I don't believe we ought to be required to do so, either.

The problem here is that the ONLY contemporaneous records of this are YOUR posts. Skall and I are trying to address your concerns by responding on ways Bolcerek could have potentially made the statements you (and you alone) ascribe to him. AFAIK, he made no statements on why anyone would think poker should be lawful or not.

Again, aside from your posts there are no contemporaneous records of this on the entire Internet.

I can assure you PPA does not seek or advocate any bans on online sports betting.

We're trying to help you out. I simply can find no evidence of this press release. I checked http://theppa.org/articles/a091806-1.html and http://pokerplayersalliance.org/articles/a091806-1.html (our old domain). I Googled both to check for cached copies or for reprints (as it was a press release, it should have been carried somewhere). I find nothing, including here on 2+2.

False. I used the past tense in every claim. I did not once mentioned the PPA's current position. I also never used the word "hypocritical," I simply said that the PPA does not represent my interests as an advantage gambler in disciplines additional to poker.

I provided the actual URL it was stored at. "No one can find an actual copy" because your organization deleted it. That's the equivalent of the defense destroying the prosecution's evidence and blaming the prosecution.

Please show me where I claimed the PPA currently holds that position.

Please show me where I spoke of the PPA's position in the present tense.

Delaware has had legal sports betting for almost a year. It's very limited (NFL only, and parlays and teasers of 3 teams or more only) but the odds are the same as most Nevada casinos, 6/1 on 3 team parlays and +160 on 3 team 6 point teasers. It's the equivalent of legal poker where you can only play limit hold'em, which is "nothing like" Nevada but is still a start.

I can't find it either.

The closest thing I found was this...

Washington, D.C.(July 11, 2006) - Michael Bolcerek, president of the Poker Players Alliance, released the following statement after the U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation that would prohibit Americans from playing poker on the Internet.

"We are disappointed that the House of Representatives would assail the rights of Americans to enjoy the great game of poker on the Internet. It is unconscionable that a skill game like poker gets swept into the net of prohibition, while online horse betting and Internet lotteries get free passes," said Mr. Bolcerek.

BTW, where did you get that URL? We were using the domain www.pokerplayersalliance.org back then. www.theppa.org has only been in use for a year or two.

From the URL, the date was Sept. 18, 2006. As that was prior to passage of UIGEA, Bolcerek's purported statements could have represented almost anything. Was he saying a bill would need to define what was banned and what was not? Was he saying regulation is preferable to prohibition? Was he arguing against carve-outs (which would have been a poison pill to kill the bill)? Who knows what was being said in the argument against UIGEA. I don't, as no copy of this press release exists anywhere.

I disagree. IMO, the best way to get other gaming licensed is by having us go first.

PPA was a new, and rather small, organization back then. It's of little surprise that not all press releases from that early era were archived.

We didn't censor the entire Internet. Sorry, but it's not just us. Again, there are no contemporaneous records of this, outside of your posts.

That is consistent with the strategy to add a poison pill to UIGEA to make it unpassable.

FMP

I'm reading through them now...

http://theppa.org/tag/pressrelease2006/

Well, I wasn't able to find the actual press release but I found something extremely similar from that day. The URL in the press release was 091806-01, which led me to believe the date of the press release was 09/18/06, and poking around the Poker Players Alliance blog yielded this article from that same day:

http://www.pokerplayernewspaper.com/node/5401

That author, Byron Liggett, said:

Before running head-long into the War on Online Gambling in passionate defense of individual freedom, the American Way, and our unalienable "Right to Make It and Stake It", the online poker industry should consider its strategies for winning acceptance. The online poker industry should separate itself from online sports betting. Sports can make their own case for online gambling. What's clear is that Poker is not a sport. Although Poker may involve considerable mental exercise, it's not physical.

Sports have a long history as a source of crime and corruption, from the 1919 World Series fix to the current concerns over steroids and doping. The 1961 Wire Act was specifically aimed at organized crime in sports.

In June, a Washington Capitals' hockey star admitted he ran up a half-million dollar debt betting sporting events online. A former Florida State quarterback pleaded no-contest to betting on college games, including his own games! Arizona Senator Jon Kyl, sponsor of the House bill to stop Internet gambling, said "Internet gambling is going to become an increasing problem for athletes."

Unlike sports, poker players pay to play. What's more, the players represent themselves. Neither do poker tournaments lend themselves well to collusion and corruption. Large numbers of players and the nature of the competition make consistent control of the outcome impossible.

This is the same gist of the press release from the PPA and I'm almost certain Bolcerek used some of the same analogies in describing either "why sports betting is illegal" or "why sports betting should be illegal." As I said 4 years ago, the idea that "poker doesn't lend itself well to collusion and corruption" is laughable to put it mildly...

For all I know Byron Liggett could have also authored the press release (was he a ranking member of the PPA at the time?). I suppose we won't know the extent to which Bolcerek discussed the supposed "corruption" in sports betting, and I suppose Skallagrim will argue Liggett wasn't actually advocating a ban on sports betting, but the fact that the press release was a month before the passage of the UIGEA makes those comments even worse IMO.

Obviously from the Liggett article quoted, the Bolcerek strategy was to distance poker from sports betting. It's fine to focus on poker and ignore sports betting. It is not fine to spread misleading propaganda about "corruption and sports betting" in order to make poker look like some lilly white ladies tea, which it most certainly is not. I'm sure I'd be pilloried, tarred, and feathered on this board if I issued a press release from the "Sports Bettors Alliance" advocated that we separate ourselves from the poker community due to the various scandals with online poker cheating (chip dumping, collusion, Absolute Poker/Ultimate Bet) and the various scandals with live poker cheating.

From what I've read it is very clear to me that the PPA strategy circa the fall of 2006, even prior to the passage of the UIGEA, was to not only separate poker from sports betting and other gambling, but to additionally spread false propaganda about these other forums of gambling. Lumping in sports betting with roulette, craps, etc. as "not a game of skill" is deliberately misleading and inflammatory.

pokerplayersalliance.org now redirects to theppa.org. The URL quoted in the actual EOG post of mine from Nov 2006 is:

http://www.pokerplayersalliance.org/...a091806-1.html

But when I clicked on the link to cut and paste it, it redirected to:

http://theppa.org/articles/a091806-1.html

Considering that there are plenty of press releases from the same time that still exist on the PPA website, we must question why that press release was deliberately removed. Quite possibly it was so the PPA could distance themselves from comments from Liggett, Bolcerek, etc. trying to impugn other forms of advantage gambling in order to make poker look better, which is all well and good, and I support the PPA distancing themselves from these statements, but let's not pretend such statements never existed.

I was referring to the "throwing sports betting under the bus" mentality under Bolcerek. It would be more accurate for me to say "the PPA did not represent my interests as an advantage gambler."

I don't know if having poker go first is necessarily "the best way," but I certainly have no problem with a group specifically dedicated to poker that doesn't care about other forms of gambling or their advocacy, provided they don't go out of their way to impugn the other forms of gambling like Bolcerek and Liggett did.

I think you're grasping a bit here. There are plenty of other press releases from the same time still archived and it's not like a single article takes up enough bytes that it can't be digitally stored. Frankly I think it works in your favor that the article wasn't archived, as it shows the PPA was/is trying to distance itself from that "throw sports betting under the bus mentality" by removing any references to it.

First of all, this all has nothing to do with the thread. We provided a couple of courtesy answers to your questions since you asked them here, but you keep asking the same question over and over. If you still have questions after this answer, start a new thread.

Perhaps you're confusing this and the PPA press release.

I don't know how many ways I can tell you that PPA never supported banning online sports betting. We did not then and we don't now.

"For all I know"....now it sounds like a conspiracy where everyone has to prove negatives.

Byron Liggett didn't write the press release or have anything to do with PPA's operations. I don't know if he was even a PPA member.

Why are you trying to tie a random writer to PPA?

What's obvious???? A poker writer wrote about his thoughts. How does that tie to Bolcerek or to PPA?

We never did.

We did not do any of this.

I think you misunderstood PPA's argument that poker is a game of skill and, over the years, that misunderstanding was combined with your subconscious memory of the linked article. That's why you can find nothing on the Internet about this at all.

If you wish to discuss this futher, start a thread on either Poker Legislation or the 2+2 PPA forum.

Yeah, I figured you'd lose your patience once I found pretty solid evidence of the content of that press release. I would have set the o/u on replies to my last post at roughly 1.

You must think I'm nuts if you think I'd want any part of participating in "legislation" or "poker rights" boards that are moderated by PPA directors and board members, particularly given the heavy censorship on 2+2. Yeah, I'm going to post something critical of the PPA to a board run by the PPA. (???) People have been banned from 2+2 for far less.

I have no "questions" for you as I know perfectly well what I read with my own two eyes and finding that Liggett article convinces me that Bolcerek took his advice and immediately issued a press release distancing poker from sports betting by highlighting all of the corruption with sports betting that supposedly doesn't exist in poker.

Maybe I wasn't clear in my reply, but that article from Liggett which I pasted is linked on the Poker Player's Alliance blog site, which is where I found it. I'm not sure how I could confuse the article with the press release when I posted the link to the press release to EOG that cited corruption and scandals in sports betting, and have now found an article from the exact same day, quoted on the PPA blog site, which mentions those same concepts. How could I have confused the two in my EOG reply when I pasted the direct URL to the PPA press release?

As I've said several times, the PPA President saying "poker does not have the same risk of corruption as sports betting" and then citing some examples of betting scandals is as bad in my mind as saying "we advocate a ban on online sports betting."

You're calling Byron Liggett a "random writer" when his article about sports betting and corruption was linked on the PPA blog the same day a press release was issued, which I later posted to EOG and I made a comment about "sports betting and corruption" in reference to the press release. That isn't exactly a conspiracy, it's a pretty specific train of thought.

Because I found that "random writer's" article on the PPA's blog site and the article is dated the exact same day as the PPA press release I linked/referred to on EOG and contains the exact same concepts I quoted in my EOG post. You really think that's a sign of a "conspiracy?"

So the PPA doesn't know Byron Liggett, but they linked his article on their blog site the same day they issued a press release on the exact same topic. Skallagrim would use this as evidence that your memory must be incorrect in terms of what the PPA did or did not advocate, as you weren't familiar with Byron Liggett, yet his writing was linked on the PPA's website the same day a press release was issued on the same topic, quoting the same concepts.

Then why did I post a PPA press release to EOG and complain about the references to corruption in sports?

Right, the linked article that was posted the same day as the PPA press release, where I posted in response to the linked article and made comments about the scandals and corruption.

You are really grasping at straws now. If we were having this conversation without the benefit of my contemporary thoughts on the issue, it would certainly be possible I was confusing the Liggett article with the PPA press release, but at the time I linked to the press release on EOG, and then made a comment about corruption and sports betting, which kind of indicates that the PPA press release mentioned corruption and sports betting. I am not basing this on four year old memories, I'm basing this on comments I made in direct response to the PPA press release.

FWIW I have no problem arguing that poker is a "game of skill" provided one doesn't go out of their way to claim sports betting or horse racing or whatever else are "games of chance" rather than "games of skill."

No thanks to moving the discussion to a board where I can be censored or banned at will by the PPA. While searching for the old posts on other boards, I found quite a few people mentioning being banned from 2+2 for anti-PPA comments, which may well explain why I had trouble finding much in the archives.

There isn't really anything else to discuss anyway. If the PPA is unwilling or unable to produce this press release there's no way for me to prove what it did or did not say, but common sense based on my EOG post and the fact that the PPA linked an article on the same topic the same day which I was able to find indicates that the press release probably contained the same ideas expressed in that article, but you seem to think it's some big conspiracy and I must have been confused about the URL I was pasting into my EOG post.

him and every other person that's read at least half of your posts in this thread

You posted no evidence at all. You posted an unrelated article then somehow tried to mesh that with this mythical PPA press release.

Anyway, I have no idea why you hijacked this thread. If you didn't want to start a new thread on PL where we'd all discuss your memories from four years ago, you could have started a new thread here on this forum.

If you don't wish to start a new thread, I'm done. You wanted to know if PPA wanted to ban online sports betting and I told you we don't.

I've answered your questions. Feel free to try to convince people that you think you might remember a person who isn't even involved with PPA anymore (Bolcerek) saying something four years ago that you can't quite remember -- but you think it was anti-online sports betting -- in a statement that is nowhere on the entire Internet. Then try to explain why that means they should be angry at the PPA of today.

Later.

If you all want to go round and round on the sports betting topic, now it's in its own thread. Those concerned about Commerce and home games, use that thread.

From the web archive of the PPA web site in Feb 2006, it appears they reprinted many poker news articles from many sources on their web site. See archived site here:

http://web.archive.org/web/200604150.../articles.html

The individual articles listed on that page above had URLs like [ppa].org/articles/a021906.html - similar to the URL you are using as your evidence.

It seems highly likely that what you are remembering as a press release was probably just an external news article (probably the one you found) reprinted on the site.

You have a habit of letting your imagination run wild. You did it by claiming that our posting of an external link to a non-PPA article was the same as a PPA press release, even accusing anyone of questioning your memory of calling you a liar. You did it here, too.

No one was ever banned from Two Plus Two for posting anti-PPA comments, and no posts have been censored. A couple of people have been banned for repeatedly failing to follow Two Plus Two Terms & Conditions, but it had nothing to do with their opinions. I ran their bans through the Two Plus Two mod chain, so it wasn't even just me taking action.

Sorry to let a little reality mess up your fun story, though.

Excellent catch!

It's here: http://web.archive.org/web/200612141.../articles.html (scroll down to Sept. 18, 2006)

All PPA did was provide an external link to the Liggett story (and to a bunch of other poker-related stories).

PPA did not endorse this story or even agree with it, of course.

lol @ ppl reading half of his posts.