With the industry having converged on London this week, the Nambling Notes department would like to present a featurette -- wait, is that a word? -- covering some of the more recent and noteworthy direct quotes offered to us as well as our editorial brethren, the Media At Large.
The I-gaming industry welcomed one of its most well-known and unfairly notorious stars, Peter Dicks of Sportingbet, back to the fold. While Dicks would certainly disagree with this cheeky designation, he rejoined Sportingbet on Tuesday after more than a year away from the company.
In an interview with Roger Blitz of the Financial Times, Dicks spoke publicly of his experience with the U.S. authorities, allegedly for the first time.
"My arrest was something out of left-field, it wasn’t something anyone was expecting," he said. "I had a rather sharp exposure to U.S. law, but I was treated fine, no one did anything to me."
"The police officers treated me very well. Once they ascertained I had a funny accent and was not a smart-arse, they inquired after me and were pleasant," he added.
Meanwhile, it appears European cyclists do have opinions -- and informed ones -- about last year's spat between Unibet, the group's cycling team and the French government.
Mauro Gianetti, winner of the 1995 Liége-Bastogne-Liége and current manager of Saunier Duval, told Pez Cycling News the following when asked of the Unibet affair:
"The full story is not clear to me, but I think that the UCI (Union Cycliste Internationale) knew that there may be problems with the issue of advertising that product (Unibet) and were precipitate in issuing the license; I think they should have held back from granting the license until the situation was clear."
In the United States, attorney and I-gaming proponent Lee Rousso made a splash with the U.S. poker populace by announcing his candidacy for the Washington state gubernatorial race.
While Rousso's candidacy certainly presents an opportunity for the poker blogosphere to unite, his work on other fronts -- namely, his constitutional challenge against state statutes that render I-gaming a felony offense -- has a defensive industry asking: Can this guy really pull it off?
He seems to think so.
"Yeah, all of a sudden I'm getting pretty optimistic about that. I'm still waiting for a ruling from the Court of Appeals," Rousso told IGN last week. "On Jan. 4, I had a hearing before the Court of Appeals for the state of Washington, and based on what the magistrate was saying at the hearing, it seems very, very likely that the Court of Appeals is going to take my case, and is going to rule in my favor, I believe, and then send it back to the trial court. Hopefully, I can get a hearing on the merits before too many more months pass."
Some may also remember the Betcha.com case. The Web site's outspoken founder, Nick Jenkins, and two of his employees were extradited to Louisiana after Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire signed off on the warrant (a signature, remember, that New York Gov. George Pataki did not give in the Peter Dicks-Louisiana case). The calamitous gaming cosmos evidently aligned when Jenkins and co. were booked for facilitating a $0.70 bet from an undercover Louisiana trooper.
Rousso spoke about this case too; he represents the three.
"Well, with the Nick Jenkins case, we had a hearing on Nov. 9, 2007, and we lost," Rousso said. "The trial court judge in Thurston County Superior Court ruled that the Betcha.com business model was in fact gambling. And as you know, Nick and I would respectfully disagree with that.
"So, we filed our appeal in that case last Thursday (Jan. 10), and so I think we'll have that case heard by the Court of Appeals sometime in April, and probably get a decision around June."
Finally, a RAY of hope for Finnish resident poker players has arrived -- or has it? -- as their Minister of Culture and Sport, Stefan Wallin, is pushing the government to launch a state-run poker site.
"With the increase of online gambling, the number of problem gamblers will just grow, while most of the profits flow to firms based in tax havens," Wallin wrote in his blog, portions of which were translated to English by the wonderful staff at Finnish daily Helsingin Sanomat.
"A better solution would be to allow one of our national lawful operators, Veikkaus or RAY, to take the responsibility for Net poker."