The A-Bomb was dropped. And as a few days have now passed, we’ve assessed the damage.
Grab a cup of coffee and block out some time, here’s our take on the New Poker World OrderTM.
Black Friday = Reid Bill (-Indictments)
First, revisit your notes from the Reid BillTM. This freeze-out may be a little chillier than it would’ve been had Senator Harry Reid not backed off his bill in December to regulate online poker, but the principles are the same. There won’t be online poker in the U.S. for some time, but legislative branches across the country have been working quickly in 2011 to change that. Maybe they move more quickly now, maybe they don’t. We don’t know. But if Caesars and MGM really need Harry Reid to make good on getting him re-elected, now would be the time to apply some pressure.
Simply put, we’ll see what kind of juice Caesars/MGM/et. al. really have now.
For the industry, there really isn’t much time to mope, it’s just time to move on. At the end of the day, the SDNY put together about as solid as a case as they could. Read the indictments. It’s all there. And notice who they left off. And notice when they unsealed the indictments (Friday afternoon). SDNY is putting faceless people (to the mass public) to these crimes so there will be no outcry about it. They did this towards the end of the weekly news cycle so it didn’t get much mainstream coverage. They know what they’re doing.
We agree with Bill Rini’s take, the UIGEA counts are somewhat secondary. They’ve apparently got the Big 3 U.S. operators on money laundering and bank fraud. That’s all they need. Settlements will be made. A few people will do real time. And the rest of the industry will scramble to pick up the pieces.
Who lost the most? Who stands to gain the most? As always, here’s our Winners & Losers.
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