If today’s news in the Financial Times about one of the Party Poker founders, Anurag Dikshit, is to be believed, it seems there's been a significant development for the Department of Justice. The media outlet reports that he turned himself in to the New York office of the US attorney, offered to pay US$300M and had no plea bargain in place regarding the length of sentence for his offense. It further states that he’s pleading guilty to an offense of the Wire Act and could serve up to two years time.

As FT also states, Mr. Dikshit is a chess player and implies that he’s clearly no gambler, turning himself in on the eve of a new administration in the White House. One would wonder about his timing given the circumstances. Apparently, the DoJ was successful in convincing him that he’d get more leniency in sentencing if he turned himself in now.

Given the machinations in the BetOnSports case, the fact that the Wire Act violation was chosen is significant for a number of reasons. First of all, it’s been clear (including in a 5^th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling) that the Wire Act applies to no activity other than sports betting.Since Party offered primarily poker with a little casino gaming thrown in, this is a significant legal development. Plus, the Wire Act does have a relatively short sentence (2 years) while the charges issued in the BoS case carried much longer sentences. The original charges of racketeering in that case carried as much as a 20 year sentence.

With the new BoS superseding indictments which were more fraud-oriented, it’s unclear how much time a guilty verdict could carry. As most folks know, when plea-bargaining discussions are initiated early on, one can even negotiate what the charges are and which laws are pertinent. That seems to be the case here. It will be interesting to see how this all plays out with Anurag Dikshit as it relates to the US justice system.

And was this the right gamble on Dikshit's part? Will a new administration, with a poker-playing President who clearly has more serious problems to tackle, put i-gaming prosecutions on the back-burner? And what if the land-based gaming industry is successful in getting regulatory measures passed in Congress or in a statehouse? Does that create complications or at least a different milieu for these prosecutions?

There’s no doubt that 2009 will offer some very interesting news for those of us who are veteran observers on the i-gaming industry.

According to the New York Times, the National Football League (NFL) will reduce its staff by about 150 employees after the Super Bowl. The NFL has a total of 1,100 employees at its New York headquarters, at NFL Films in New Jersey and at the Los Angeles offices of the NFL Network and NFL.com. The NFL is estimated to bring in revenues of US$6.5 billion.

We now know that entertainment options like gambling are not recession-proof. Now, it appears that professional sports is falling to the same fate. The NFL is feeling the pinch of sagging licensed merchandising sales, sponsorship renewals and new-media deals. All of this while salaries are rising (players will receive about $4.5 billion in salary and benefits in 2008). St. Louis, we don’t know if the declining attendance at NFL games is just due to sucky football (Rams are 2-11) or the economy.

According to the NYT, “There was a time that if the NFL said, ‘I would like a window shades company as a sponsor,’ they would have a slew of prospects trying to throw money at them to be the official window shades company of the N.F.L.,” sports consultant Marc Ganis said. “Sponsors are being much more discriminating with the use of their dollars now. Advertising money is going to decrease, if for no other reason than the auto industry has shrunk. The N.F.L. relies on auto, finance and real estate — it is a mess. Yet your costs aren’t going down. You signed contracts for their increases.”

I read this with a chuckle remembering a great panel at GIGSE 2004 when SportingBet founder and then CEO, Mark Blandford, sat with Derrick Crawford of the NFL. Mark creatively offered Derrick US$5M for SportingBet to be the official oddsmaker of the NFL. Before the panel was over, Mark had upped the ante to US$10M.

Mark was trying to be instructional to the NFL explaining that sports betting and the sports were inextricably tied together in many other parts of the world. In fact some of those creative sports leagues around the globe are now considering offering a “right to bet” to gambling operators which will make the relationship even that much more entrenched.

In 2004, the NFL’s Crawford responded that the league received sponsorships exceeding US$1B a piece from the likes of Pepsi and Reebok among many others.That put things in perspective for the crowd.

When asked what the response would be if a gaming operator could match that figure, Crawford responded, “"I am sure that would force our owners to consider it," Crawford said, "but I just don't think the league is ready for that step right now."

Given the fact that the NFL has been the truest of true believers in pushing for an internet gambling prohibition bill over the past decade, we don’t expect that this response will change. But, given the economic downturn, who knows……

We’ve long heard from those actually offering gambling products on mobile devices that its time is just NOT here yet. While discussions of mobile gambling prospects are good fodder for conference and report companies, the operators just aren’t seeing the revenues yet. (If you’re an exception to that rule, please let me know so I can revise my views on this.)

More of the same was reported today in Gaming Industry Media. It said:

In a new report, Juniper Research, the research firm that provides analytical services to the global communications sector found that that total wagers on mobile phones are expected to more than double in 2009 to more than $3.6 billion, whereas user spending on mobile TV and mobile games will be adversely impacted by the global economic downturn.

"Gambling is essentially a recession-proof industry, as while there may be marginal reductions in the level of stakes amongst casual users, the overall appetite for gambling per se will be unaffected," said Windsor Holden, report author, in a prepared statement. "Furthermore, with the growing availability of betting services on-portal, the mobile is an increasingly convenient and user-friendly means of placing a bet."

From my perch, it’s become clear that gambling is proving NOT to be recession-proof. While our side of the business (i-gaming) is slower to show signs of declines (people may not be traveling to gaming venues but are still playing at home), online operators are beginning to report downturns in their revenues as discretionary income patterns are altered.

So, Windsor, gambling is recession-proof, eh? Having recently seen first-hand and heard (from workers) about the impact in Las Vegas, the report writer should tell that to the 50,000 Nevada residents expected to lose their jobs in 2009 according to the Las Vegas Review Journal, quoting a new Global Insight study.

Come on Juniper …….get real!

This town is one of a kind. It’s where every permutation of human being is drawn like a bug to a bright light.

My first night in Vegas started out rather tamely. Dinner at Little Buddha with someone with whom I’ve spoken with on the phone and emailed a lot but never met. Those are always interesting. It was good to meet Lisa in person and I’m sure we’ll find ways to work together.

When Frank Fahrenkopf and the AGA crowd showed up, I joined them at the bar when my friend left. We dissected the recent political developments in the US. As former Chairman of the Republican National Committee, I’m always curious to hear his views…. although we agree to disagree.

I was fortunate to ride along on their coattails into the G2E reception at the Rain Nightclub and avoid the long queue developing. Once in the club, I perched in one of the upstairs conversation pits awaiting the arrival of my office colleagues (two new folks on their first trip to G2E.) Unfortunately, they faced a series of delays at the airport, hotel check-in lines, etc. so I made new friends who joined me in the pit. As the grousing about the long lines at the food stations and bars increased and the music turned from conversational to increasingly louder “ooonz ooonz ooonz” I decided to move back to my base of operations, Paris.

Luckily, my old friend Andy called right then so he met me in the bar in Paris for a catch-up. Before long, a man came up to our table and began to tell us a story. I kept surreptitiously asking Andy if he knew him since the guy was acting like he was his long lost friends He emphatically said No.

Andy then asked the guy why he stopped to talk to him. Andy says this kind of thing happens to him all the time with crazy people coming up to chat him up and he’s curious why. Our guest was stumped though and couldn’t put his finger on it. Of course, I was thinking, “takes one to know one” but that was too easy.

The guy had a tall tale, quite pornographic in nature, about his recent trip to the Paris hot tub where a couple made his acquaintance……in a big way. He even pealed off his newly purchased Paris socks to show us how shriveled up his feet were from hours in the Jacuzzi. The hot tub encounter led to being invited to their room to continue the escapade. Andy and I were enthralled by the story at that point and had found our entertainment… temporarily.

The guy then finished his story, saying that the couple then kicked him out of the room under threat of calling security. His biggest complaint was that they kept his bottle of Absolut. (It just goes to show that people who come to Vegas often engage in risk-taking behavior that goes above and beyond gambling.) We got more of his life story which was a bit convoluted to say the least.

I made the mistake of asking our visitor what was in the duffel bag at his feet. Andy made a crack referencing a movieand by then I was beginning to get a bit uncomfortable. The guy struggled with opening the bag when it was determined that the zipper had no zipper thingee. But, he was determined so he just ripped open the zipper and showed us the bag. It was completely empty. He must have really left that hotel room in a hurry.

By then, we were bored and a little creeped out. Andy very deftly, ushered the guy out of our space saying that we hadn’t seen each other in a while and wanted to catch up. Gratefully, our visitor got it and moved up to the bar to his next audience. Within 15 minutes, we watched him be escorted out of Paris by security.

We spent another couple of hours discussing politics, life, love, business but we kept coming back, in awe, to our strange encounter at the beginning of the evening. Ya’ gotta’ love this town!

I’m constantly amazed at how hard it is to explain the US legislative system to those not familiar with it. It’s been challenging since ’95 when I got in this business and it continues today. As one friend likes to remind me, when he asked about the perennial i-gaming prohibition bills pending in Congress, I was quick to let him know that he was being “too rational” in trying to understand US politics. That situation was only exacerbated with the procedural shenanigans of Senator Bill Frist in passing the UIGEA. No hearings, no debate, hell, not even a bill introduced in the Senate.

Well, with the recent maneuverings of the Bush administration and their “midnight rule-making”, the head-scratching continues among international observers of our politics. What good will we garnered for having the sense and guts to elect Barack Obama was already challenged by these incumbent tricksters.

In spite of the appearances of a government person and former NFL lobbyist (the most vocal proponent of the prohibition) behind these maneuvers and the dictates of the White House Chief of Staff last May that there would be no rules propagated beyond November 1, we find ourselves now faced with the long-awaited “final” rules.

What can be done about it? Lawyers and lobbyists representing the industry have been deep in discussions about this. I-gaming is not the only industry affected, of course, and www.politico.com was quick to point out that there is some banding together and consideration of the use of the Congressional Review Act to overturn these “midnight” rules. All of this is being done under the backdrop of discussions of which of the “regulatory” bills introduced this year will crop up again next session under what the industry hopes will be a more rational and sympathetic Congress.

Clearly, as we say here, Congress has ‘bigger fish to fry” in 2009 and beyond. But, given the fact that any regulation (and taxation) of i-gaming and particularly poker (the sport of presidents) is “found money” in a struggling economy, we’re keeping our fingers crossed that positive movements on either the state or federal levels may emerge. In what has been, over the years, an increasingly fractured industry from an advocacy standpoint, I’ll ask again for cohesion and a search for the most reasonable and politically expedient approach to getting our foot in the door in the US regulatory landscape. To my mind, that’s poker. I think most veteran observers now realize that online sports betting in the US is a non-starter. If it happens in my lifetime, it will be a shock to me. But poker is a uniquely American game which continues to be played by millions in spite of the roadblocks thrown in front of them.

I’ll be spending next week in Vegas at G2E and will be listening closely to the myriad of discussions on this topic. Stand by for more observations on the debates regarding this issue.

For those who are fans of Real Time with Bill Maher on Comedy Central (and if you're not, you should be), you'll know that irreverent looks at politics are his main fare.  And if you watch the show, you know that one of his contributors is Matt Taibbi, an irreverent writer with credentials such as Rolling Stone Magazine.  Taibbi typically takes no prisoners and he took a shot at the i-gaming industry this week. 

In a piece on the Democratic Convention, he began at the "free speech" zone which looked like a ghost town.  Then, he moved on to the rash of lobbyist sponsored parties which were going on all over town.  At that point, he heard that there was a poker tournament going on (organized by the Poker Players Alliance) and he tried to get in.  Although you never can be sure about the brutal editing he does, a rather ineffectual tournament gatekeeper was featured with a true "deer in the headlights" look.  When he was refused entrance to the poker tournament for not being on the list, he proceeded to blast the internet gambling lobby (which had legislation pending in Congress) as he would any other big lobby. 

So does that mean that i-gaming has "arrived" if they draw the ire of liberal pundits who go after lobbying interest for "big business"?  Perhaps.  We won't really be able to say that until we're successful getting a proactive piece of legislation passed.

In the mean time, we'll keep an eye out for when this Real Time piece is posted to the internet and make it available.