Nambling Notes - May 25, 2004

WSOP -- The World Series of Poker commenced Saturday at Harrah's Binion's Horseshoe Casino with 2,576 players competing for nearly $42 million in prize money. With such an enormous field of players pledging an entrance fee of $10,000, the tournament champion will walk away with cool $5 million in cash, while second place will clear $2.5 million, and third and fourth place will win prizes of over $1 million. In fact, even the top 180 finishers will take away over $10,000. Chris Moneymaker, last year's champion who qualified for the World Series by winning a satellite tournament on PokerStars.com, has already been eliminated from the competition. A large portion of this year's players have qualified through online tournaments, including 315 from PokerStars.com, 100 from ParadisePoker.com and many more from various other sites. The tournament champion should claim the final massive pot of chips sometime late Friday night.

Goodbye -- By a vote of 97-1, the U.S. Senate has approved President George Bush's appointment of Ray Gruender as federal judge on the St. Louis, Missouri-based 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, meaning he will step down from his position as U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri. While serving as U.S. attorney, Gruendner orchestrated a flood of letters to media and broadcast agencies, warning that I-gaming is illegal and the advertisement of I-gaming services is tantamount to aiding and abetting. The warnings were then followed by subpoenas to portals and media outlets for business and financial information. In the aftermath many major TV, radio, and web-based media companies ceased running advertisements I-gaming companies. Gruendner was confirmed in part of a deal whereby Senate Democrats would allow 25 "noncontroversial" (according to the Associated Press) appointments to district and appeals courts in exchange for President Bush refraining from making judicial appointments while Congress is in recess, as he has already done twice in recent months.

Idle Voting -- Broadcasting & Cable (www.broadcastcable.com) ran an article last week exposing some inherent flaws in the voting system of the popular TV program American Idol. Although the show's producers encourage users to vote via telephone and text messaging, American Idol's telephone network is not properly equipped to handle the vast influx of incoming calls during the brief two hour period of open-voting. As a result, a majority of callers hear busy signals when trying to cast votes. Raising further questions about the integrity of the voting process is the fact that certain techno-savvy viewers with fast Internet connections and powerful computer autodialing software can flood the system with thousands of votes while at the same time jamming the lines and preventing others from voting. Adding to the situation the fact that several online sports books provide wagering on who will win the competition, there is certainly a pretty incentive for individuals to skew the votes.

BINGO! -- CasinoFortune.com says it plans to leverage their existing casino infrastructure to the Internet bingo market with the release of its virtual bingo hall at www.CasinoFortuneBingo.com.

Sophisticated Fixed Odds -- Spread betting company Cantor Index has launched a fixed-odds betting service for major sporting events, due to customer requests for a one-stop shop. Cantor, which calls its clients "sophisticated," says its new service "will allow for very large stakes-- larger than many competitors." The company already offers spread betting via the Internet and mobile devices.

Ready for Euro 2004 -- Online operator VIP Management Services will launch a new sports book and casino, BetEuro.com, on June 1, coinciding with the start of Euro 2004. The first of many of its promotions coinciding with major sporting events will be a 50,000 euro prediction game for Euro 2004. The site will be based at the company's headquarters in the Netherlands Antilles and will at first focus on sports betting but will gradually increase its scope to include gaming services.