Ah yes, gaming scandals and bankruptcies. Why must this be a category in gambling news at the conclusion of each 12 months?
Of all the gaming scandals and bankruptcy news in 2015, perhaps the biggest story of most had been the arrest and indictment of 14 FIFA executives, but not President Sepp Blatter.
Because, unfortunately, bankruptcies and scandals are seemingly inevitable in a world that is high-stakes fortunes are won and lost in a matter of seconds.
2015 wasn’t resistant to scandalous news, including a whopper involving widespread corruption at FIFA; a multi-million buck lawsuit against a star poker player who was accused of cheating; a longtime poker magazine closing up shop; certainly one of golf’s most readily useful players accused of involvement in an illegal gambling ring; and an alleged insider trading case that could alter the landscape of day-to-day fantasy sports forever.
But allow’s start at the very top.
FIFA Gets Kicked
Match-fixing in soccer during the walk out happens all the time. But alleged fixing of World Cups can be an totally various pastime.
Come july 1st, key officials within FIFA, professional soccer’s governing body, were rounded up by the Department of Justice (DoJ) and charged with widespread, systemic corruption. The charges included fraudulence, money laundering, and bribery. In all, the DoJ, aided by a study by the FBI, indicted 14 top-level FIFA employees, all while FIFA’s President Sepp Blatter somehow avoided prosecution (although he was briefly suspended).
Blatter and FIFA, however, are far from in the clear as US authorities continue their investigation and build their case. They will have recently been joined by UK investigators aswell, who have actually opened their probe that is own into and FIFA.
The alleged violations by FIFA date straight back as far as two decades, but more recently the Justice Department’s investigation revealed bribery attempts surrounding past and future World Cup bids. And considering the World Cup may be the richest sporting event each year it is played, the long history of so-called bribes have added up to causeing the possibly one of the greatest scandals to ever hit professional sports.
Mickelson Hits a Hazard
Sports had one other scandal this season when, additionally come early july, star golfer and five-time major champion Phil Mickelson was linked to an illegal gambling operation that is offshore. Court documents allege the operation was run by a 56-year-old bookie who has already plead guilty and claims to have laundered nearly $3 million into the usa for an unnamed client, whom ESPN’s Outside The Lines reported was Mickelson.
The ace golfer, who’s got spoken openly over time about his tendency to gamble on non-golf events that are sporting has denied the allegations and is not currently under investigation. The truth, however, is still pending.
Ivey Over the Edge
Moving to another man who loves to gamble: Phil Ivey. The 10-time World variety of Poker bracelet winner and arguably one of the biggest players of all-time is dealing with a whale of lawsuit by the Borgata Casino in Atlantic City for $9.6 million after allegedly cheating the casino out of millions during a baccarat that is multiple in 2012.
The Borgata’s suit, which Ivey has said publicly, ‘I’m gonna win,’ alleged that the felt superstar hatched a scheme to make use of an edge sorting technique of spotting variants on the back of the cards, thus to be able to predict that which was being dealt.
The lawsuit also alleges Ivey even made special arrangements for the game, which Borgata agreed to, on the basis he was superstitious, but that actually created a unjust advantage for him.
Not helping issues in Ivey’s case is that he’s currently swept up in a similar lawsuit across the pond in which Crockfords Casino withheld nearly $12 million he won playing another kind of baccarat. Ivey is the one suing this time, to get his money back. And like Borgata, Crockfords says the ‘edge sorting’ method was used, since well.
Fantasy Sports Hits the Wall
The final big scandal of 2015 is one of the fantasy that is daily (DFS) world, which ended up being cruising along lawfully and regulation-free until news broke that the DraftKings employee utilized inside information to win $350,000 on rival site FanDuels.
With regards to had been exposed, everyone from feared federal prosecutor Preet Bharara (of poker’s Ebony Friday fame) to Congress got involved to determine if the sites were violating federal legislation. Amid the sudden issues among players of DFS, the sites reported their lowest week of involvement yet in late October.
Caesars Holds Court, rather than in a way that is good
Caesars Entertainment’s bankruptcy drama in 2015 was major and ongoing. Embroiled within the form of complex monetary restructuring that is designed to protect a business but that often will leave its employees by the wayside, Caesars drew ire and criticism this year with regards to reportedly deprived 279 present and former Caesars professionals and directors some $78.6 million as a result of deferred compensation program.
A reported 15,000 note holders of varied types had been kept waiting for whatever piece of the pie the courts and the restructuring will utimately throw at them, nonetheless it appears unlikely that any one of the deferred payment will ever be seen by said execs. We are guessing the lawyers is likely to make out the most readily useful in this example, as is often the case in protracted battles that are legal cash.
Bad Bluff
Not quite since grand a breakdown, but BLUFF Magazine also hit the skids in 2015. A longtime person in the poker community, BLUFF, founded in 2004, shut down the print version of the magazine a couple of years ago after it absolutely was acquired by Churchill Downs, Inc. and switched most of the focus to coverage of the on-line poker globe.
But early in the day this season, the magazine shuttered the digital operation too and release all of its staff, closing a run of, at one time, certainly one of the planet’s gaming periodicals that are largest.
California Online Poker in 2015: a go through the Golden State’s Politics, Factions, and Marketing
California on line poker stalemate: State Senator Isadore Hall(D-Southbay), whose shell on-line poker bill was Ca’s hope that is greatest in 2015. But it came to naught this year. (Image:AP/Damian Dovarganes)
The chance for California online poker in 2015 began having a sense of optimism for regulation in the Golden State.
The feeling was that this was the year it could all finally come together despite the numerous divisions of the state’s various gambling stakeholders, whose inability to see eye-to-eye had led to an impasse for the previous year’s legislation.
Possibly sensing the challenges ahead, Assemblyman Mike Gatto (D-Los Angeles) got in there early, introducing a bill in December 2014, ideally to give squabbling factions the necessary time to agree on mutually appropriate language.
With that move, he felt that on-line poker had an even chance of passing this in his state year. His optimism may too have been high though.
High on the set of divisive issues was PokerStars. While the year began, a big coalition of tribal operators, which may become loosely called the Pechanga coalition after its main agitator, was adamant that the internet poker giant would not enter the marketplace.
Tribal Wars
Opposing them were the Morongo Band of Mission Indians as well as an alliance of the state’s card clubs that are biggest, like the Commerce, Hawaiian Gardens, and the Bicycle, who had inked a cope with PokerStars to supply online poker in a regulated landscape.
The racetracks, meanwhile, also staked their claim to an item of the online world poker market, proven fact that annoyed the Pechanga Coalition, perhaps even more than PokerStars’ aspirations.
It absolutely was into this weather that Reggie Jones-Sawyer introduced his draft that is own legislation which had toned down its ‘bad actor’ language from last year’s effort. The 2014 Jones-Sawyer bill precluded PokerStars from going into the market because of its history of offering bets to Americans post-UIGEA.
This bill proposed to be more comprehensive and had been cagier that is much the PokerStars question, hoping to appease all parties. Hopes were indeed raised once the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians defected to the Morongo faction.
However the Pechanga Coalition, which had supported the year that is previous Jones-Sawyer bill, wasted no time in slamming the newest one. It had been ‘fatally flawed,’ it said, and ‘not sufficient to protect the integrity associated with California market.’
Talk But No Walk
At the Western Indian Gaming Conference in February, there was much talk from both edges of the urgent need for compromise, but none was forthcoming.
Once more, hopes were raised by the emergence of a bill that is new friends in high places. State Senator Isadore Hall (D-South Bay) and Assembly Member Adam Gray (D- 21st District) both chair Governmental Organization committees of the respective chambers, and their bill soon emerged as the frontrunner.
But the Hall/Gray bill included little language that is actual. Instead, it was really a shell bill created to act as an automobile to hold the issue through the legislature, to be filled in that consensus could be reached.
But which was never to be the case in 2015. If anything, divisions grew deeper when the Viejas Band of Kumayaay Indians paid for a set of radio advertisement spots, denouncing PokerStars and comparing the business to ‘Internet scam music artists and con men.’
Charm Offensive
Meanwhile, into the lack of any legislative progress, PokerStars launched a grassroots charm offensive, developing the Californians for accountable iPoker advocacy team, and visiting card rooms over the states with its team of high-profile pros to educate the public about the need for regulation.
As a fiscal problem, any online poker bill in California would want a two-thirds majority vote in the legislature to pass, which is the reason why the consensus of the stakeholders is crucial. But, because of the mutually exclusive demands of the various parties included, it will be as tough in 2016 as it was in 2015.
California probably will regulate eventually, it’s just the procedure may take a complete lot longer than anyone initially thought.