UIGEA starts to bite

It was only a matter of time before the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act claimed its first headline casualty.

Isaac Haxton is currently $800,000 richer or poorer, depending on how you view those tournament winnings currently entombed in his frozen Neteller account. The interview referred to in the linked report can be seen here:



Remember the face. If Haxton's winnings turn out to be as vulnerable as they currently look, this is the game's biggest martyr since Wild Bill Hickok.
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PR par excellence from the Las Vegas Monorail Co. this week.

"Repeatedly and publicly hammered over falling ridership numbers in 2006, the Las Vegas Monorail apparently has decided that less news will be good news in 2007," reports the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
"Monorail officials on Thursday said that from now on they will release ridership reports once every three months, not monthly as the system has done since opening to the public in 2004.
"We're a private company," spokeswoman Angela Torres said. "Current management doesn't feel it's necessary to release the numbers monthly.""

Which rather begs the question as to why it's taken three years to reach this decision.

How often do we see companies insult our intelligence in this way? Instead of just tackling the problem, they tackle the way the problem is perceived and assume we won't notice the difference.

If I'm in Vegas from now on, I think I'll walk.
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I'd hoped Poker Alerts might be the ideal alternative for having to read umpteen weekly e-mail newsletters from umpteen online poker rooms.

It wasn't. Not so much alert as comatose. Give me chocolate poker chips any day.
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No matter what Jamie Gold says; no matter whether he's a man wronged or simply a wrong 'un, it is too late now to come to any conclusion other than poker can't crown its next world champion fast enough. It will be like opening the window in a musty room.
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"Police are seeking 10 men, including several tribal elders, accused of pressuring a Pakistani woman to hand over her teenage daughter as payment for a 16-year-old poker debt..." - azstarnet.com

So it seems not even Iran will be the end of it. Once Bush has brought freedom to Baghdad and order to Teheran, it will be the UIGEA to Islamabad...