From an interview with Las Vegas gambling attorney Anthony Cabot, via online-casinos.com:

However, the imminent US presidential election could impact efforts to overturn the UIGEA, he opined. "If (Arizona Sen. John) McCain is elected, the Internet gaming ban would never be repealed."

But if Illinois Sen. Barack Obama becomes the next president, the equation could change, Cabot said, given that some big Obama supporters, such as Massachusetts Democrat Barney Frank who chairs the House Financial Services Committee, oppose the ban.

"I think if Senator Obama was elected, it would be more likely to be repealed," Cabot said.

This makes sense. The ban was enacted in 2006, when Republicans still controlled both houses of Congress. It was written, sponsored, and passed by them as a giveaway to both the religious right, who sees it as immoral, and the various gambling coalitions (sports, horse racing, etc.). Since it is likely that the Democrats will extend their current leads, it will be much more likely that the UIGEA will be repealed or altered in a favorable way.

This is good news

The Interactive Media Entertainment & Gaming Association (iMEGA) just announced the addition of one of Washington DC's most accomplished attorneys to their legal team, Stephen A. Saltzburg, who is professor of law at George Washington University. Saltzburg has been working with iMEGA's legal team as it gets ready for its appeal case being heard by the US 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals.

"Prof. Saltzburg is simply one of the best," said Joe Brennan Jr., Chairman and CEO of iMEGA in a press release on their site. "His experience speaks for itself. We are fortunate to have a true heavyweight advocate in our corner."

Saltzburg joins lead counsel Eric M. Bernstein, noted First Amendment and Internet Law attorney, and Edward Leyden, iMEGA's president and chief counsel, as an integral part of iMEGA's legal team in its showdown over UIGEA with the U.S. Department of Justice.

It sounds like Brennan will have a strong voice in Saltzburg. Stay tuned, I'll be sure to keep my eye on this.

Just a quick note: PokerStars has released an OS X client. If you use a mac most of the time, you now have more options than Full Tilt! Woo woo!

Clearing out my Google reader feed for all things poker related, I came across this:

Five men will face a judge in South Carolina at the end of August to fight gambling charges levied against them when they were swept up in a raid in October 2006. Police cited 23 players in the raid at a home outside of Charleston, where they were playing a $20 poker tournament.

Sound familiar? Get ready for the best part. The law that they ran afoul of has been on the books for 200 years and apparently would make Chutes and Ladders illegal:

Those five men are fighting the charges with the hope of changing the 206-year-old South Carolina law that makes it a crime to play any type of game that uses cards or dice, including board games like Monopoly and traditional card games like bridge and poker.

No pop-o-matic bubble for you!

The Mount Pleasant 5 asked the case to be thrown out, but the judge denied their request. I really hope these guys take down that antiquated law.

He's in Costa Rica, with a yacht and a mansion. But Absolute still won't hold him culpable:

AJ Green (also known as Allan Grimard) has been located in Costa Rica. You might recall that Grimard was implicated in the notorious "Absolute Poker In-House Cheating Scandal"...

The source also revealed that Grimard has a huge yacht and is building a gigantic mansion in Los Suenos, Costa Rica, a posh Pacific coast resort area.

Green was a low level supervisor at Nine.com before joining the Absolute Poker team. Thus far, company officials have refused to hold Green culpable of the cheating even though all fingers were pointed his way.

You'd think Absoute Poker would want to come clean right away and do some damage control. Instead, they try to sweep it under the rug, which only makes them look like they have something to hide.

I wonder how long AJ Green will be able to stay out of the authorities' hands.

I blogged about this earlier, so when I ran across this review of the Poker Pro tables, I thought I'd point everyone else to it.

The touchscreens are hard to operate with fingers, but the corner of your ID card works well. You have to double-tap a selection to bet/raise/fold, so accidental bets aren"t a major problem. But it can occur. A player who was trying to "clean" his screen by rubbing it with the corner of the card went all in once, and I witnessed several new players run out of time trying to enter the right bet amount, via a calculator interface.

The reviewer has some good things to say too, so go take a look.

It's sending industry overseas:

An Irish government committee set up in 2006 to review how to improve regulation of gaming and casinos, which would apply to both live and online poker games, has stated that Ireland could benefit from the restrictions the United States placed on Internet gambling with passage of the 2006 Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA), if the right reforms and legislation were made.

Not that I have anything against the Irish, or other countries trying to cash in on Internet gambling. It's just stupid when profitable industries that start in the USA are forced to move out.