Experts Available to Discuss Online Gambling Law

Business Wire, Dec 5, 2005

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TOPIC: Although Americans make up most of the demographic for the online poker customer base, the profits from online poker are sent to companies in foreign countries who lead the industry, according to an article by the Los Angeles Times. As a result, Los Angeles-based WPT Enterprises Inc. has created an overseas online poker web site. The company is barring U.S. citizens from using the poker web site, as the Justice Department states it is illegal to accept online bets from U.S. residents for games other than horse racing. Some scholars say online gambling law is not exactly clear because many of the federal statutes were written prior to the existence of the Internet.

EXPERTS: ExpertSource can offer several highly qualified experts to comment on this story:

Phil Gordon is a top professional poker player, expert analyst and co-host of television's Celebrity Poker Showdown. Professional poker players can be more accurately described as calculated risk-takers. When played correctly, with the intention of winning money, poker is a lot like value investing. You bet heavily on hands that you have a better than average chance of winning and you minimize your outlay for those that you don't. Whether examining business icons like Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, or elite professional poker players from Phil Ivey to Phil Gordon, the key to their success is essentially the same. Being lucky may be fine for the short term, but long-term success in poker, as in business, goes to those who continually put the odds in their favor by making good decisions. Since making his professional debut in 2001 at the World Series of Poker championship event with a head-turning fourth place finish, Gordon has gone on to win well in excess of $1.3 million in tournament play. He is one of only four multi-time winners on the World Poker Tour. At the World Poker Tour's inaugural tournament in Aruba, he beat out seven of the top players in the world to win the professional division and claim the $250,000 first place check. After entering Georgia Institute of Technology as a National Merit Scholarship Finalist at age 15, Gordon earned a degree in Computer Science, which eventually led him to Northern California and a job at Lockheed Missiles and Space Company. Long before Yahoo! or AOL, Gordon was a computer programming whiz kid of 21, living in Santa Cruz and working on artificial intelligence for the government. An unforeseen byproduct of the Silicon Valley technology revolution underway at that time is that it served as a breeding ground for several top professional poker players, including Gordon. The thought process that makes a good programmer can also make a good poker player, Gordon notes. It takes an analytical mind. If you can apply an algorithm to figuring out the technology of your opponent, you are one step up.

Madison, Wisconsin-born Phil Hellmuth, Jr., stands on a stack of poker and life achievements that make him the envy of poker players and non-players alike. Known both for his lightning skill and his unpredictable theatrics, Hellmuth has been called the Michael Jordan of poker and the John McEnroe of cards. Phil's stated career goal is to become the best poker player of all time. With nine World Series of Poker victories, four Hall of Fame titles, and more than 50 tournament titles, Hellmuth is well on his way to cementing his poker legacy, one that began shortly after his graduation from the University of Wisconsin. In fact, his Parade list of achievements began in 1989, at the age of 24, with his first World Series of Poker title. The youngest person to ever accomplish such a feat, he took home an astounding $775,000. This "wunderkind" has since amassed dozens of major tournament wins internationally, including wins at The World's Biggest Seven-card Stud Tournament in Austria and Late Night Poker in Great Britain. After all of his success it is no surprise that in 1996, Hellmuth's poker-playing peers voted him the best all-around tournament poker player in the word. Hellmuth is tied for number one in the World Series of Poker wins and is second on the all-time World Series of Poker money list with over $3.6 million in earnings. Hellmuth has five World Poker Tour top-ten finishes. 2005 started with a bang, for Hellmuth when he took first place ($500,000) at the Golden Nugget's National Heads-Up Poker tournament against 64 of the world's best poker players. A frequent guest on ESPN, Hellmuth is also a coveted commentator for numerous poker tournaments. He has been featured in over 20 television specials on poker and Las Vegas and writes a monthly column in Card Player magazine and a weekly newspaper column syndicated nationally by United Media. He is also a representative for Edge TV gaming network, along with actor Toby McGuire. He brings his poker wisdom to the masses with his instructional video/dvd, Phil Hellmuth's Million Dollar Poker SystemPhil Hellmuth's Texas Hold'em dual dvd, by Masters of Poker, was just nominated for a DVD Entertainment Awards for Best Direct-To-Disc. Hellmuth's Texas Hold'em cell phone game (by Summus) is taking off. On Verizon it ranks #10 of all games available through Get it Now (Verizon's virtual store) and #2 in the Casino game category. Keep on the lookout this fall for Hellmuth's brand new 2006 box calendar with daily poker tips.