$24 Million in Bodog Funds Seized

According to an article on Forbes.com, $24 Million in funds has been seized by the US government over the past six months, funds the feds claim are in bank accounts used to fund operations and make payments to US-based customers of Bodog. Court documents obtained by Forbes cite that the seizures began in January of this year, and have continued into this month.
In January and February, the article says feds seized over $14 million in funds from four different banks - Wachovia, Regions Bank, Bank of America and Sun Trust Bank. The seized accounts were apparently in the name of two different businesses, JBL Services and Transaction Solutions. In order to keep the seized funds, authorities must file a civil suit, then wait a predetermined amount of time for an entity to come forward and challenge the seizure or make a claim on the funds. The funds seized earlier in the year have had that period of time expire, and the monies were ordered forfeited to the feds as no one came forward to challenge the seizure.
Earlier this month, just under $10 million was seized from Nevada State Bank, after authorities caught a break when a payout check drawn on the account issued to an undercover employee was honored, and the link to Bodog's business was established.
In the middle of all this is Calvin Ayre, the Canadian mogul who relinquished all control of Bodog earlier this year, and according to the Forbes piece, is said to be residing in the tiny island nation of Antigua and Barbuda, where his Calvin Ayre Foundation is listed as being based. Although no longer involved in Bodog's affairs, the dashing Ayre's flamboyant flaunting of his lifestyle in the face of US authorities may still put him in hot water. The Forbes piece suggests speculation from a web outlet that Ayre is under some type of 'secret indictment', and many in the industry speculate that Ayre will be staying far away from the US and his native Canada for the foreseeable future.
Correspondence requesting comment from Bodog was returned with the following statement, which is included below in its entirety.
An article was recently released on Forbes.com that creates several misimpressions that the Morris Mohawk Gaming Group feels compelled to clarify for our customers.
As most of our customers already know, all operators outsource payment processing functions to third parties and these payment processors are subject to regulatory constraints wherever they operate, and, occasionally in the US, are subject to legal action because of the uncertain legal environment there.
However, the seizure of funds from these US payment processors was mischaracterized in this article, which refers to two specific legal cases against US processors. Rightly or wrongly, the article does not make a clear distinction between these cases, which, as a result, paints a misleading picture.
The facts are these: the first of these cases – relating to a seizure of funds from a processor known as JBL Services – happened some time ago and has absolutely nothing to do with the current payment processing challenges being experienced in the US. The constraints being experienced by payment processors in the US are universal in that region and not specific to any particular processor or site. Also, note that not one single player failed to get paid when this processor was disrupted.
The second case refers to a payment processor known as Zippayments.com and seizure of funds from this processor's bank accounts in Nevada. The article falsely implies – but notably does not go so far as to state - that $9.9M seized from Zippayment's Nevada bank accounts were funds on account for "Bodog". This is simply false.
Processing partners with whom the Morris Mohawk Gaming Group does business are sophisticated organizations that are perfectly clear as to the actual facts of these cases and their contexts. They are unfazed by such media hype and Morris Mohawk wishes to ensure that its customers are similarly informed. Customer deposits are safe and every player has and will always be paid.

Poker Donkeys! New Sponsor

That is right Poker Donkeys have a new sponsor its called Clitter! check it out....

Poker room offers at Station Casinos

If you're in Las Vegas and play poker, it pays to sign up to the Station Casino's player's club.

We preferred the old Boarding Pass card to the new My Card, but that's just cosmetic. Either way, we received a flier in the mail for $10 off our next buy-in of $100.

Just two hours of play is necessary before claiming the $10, so it's basically $5 an hour to play a few hands.

The offer is good through Sept. 30.

You may already know about Station's Bad Beat Jumbo Hold'em Progressive, which starts at $150,000 at quad 10s beaten, then the hand requirement reduces every week until someone gets the beat.

And when it happens, everyone playing poker in every Station casino shares in the progressive... with a minimum of $200.

(This is aside from the in-house bad beat jackpot of $10,000 for Aces full of 10s beaten.)

Another offer is $250 for every royal flush.

And, in addition to the regular $1/hour comp for playing live poker, you'll receive $3/hour if you play between 3 a.m. and 9 a.m.

Tiffany Michelle a star on UB.com

Michelle, who previously worked as video reporter in the poker industry, had a fantastic run at the 2008 WSOP Main Event and managed to make 17th place before finally bowing out of the prestigious tournament for a $334,534. To date it is the highest payout for a female playing in the Main Event.

"From Hollywood to Vegas, Tiffany Michelle is a rising star in so many extraordinary ways," said Ultimate Bet's Annie Duke. "We're thrilled to be able to bring such a recognizable force on board.

Not just a poker player Michelle is also an actress and has starred on such shows as E.R. and Nip/Tuck.

Michelle's sponsorship deal with UltimateBet was not without controversy. Michelle started the Main Event wearing PokerNews patches but in the later stages of the tournament she added UltimateBet ones. An official statement from PokerNews alleged that Michelle had signed an exclusive contract with the poker media company to play for them. Michelle has since responded with a public statement which said there was no exclusive contract in place.

The last few months have been busy for UltimateBet and their team has grown considerably. Cliff "JohnnyBax" Josephy and James "POKERPRO33" Campbell joined the team, which already included players like Phil Hellmuth and Annie Duke.

Michelle can be found playing on the site as Tiffany M.

2-for-1 Crazy Horse Paris

For all of August, locals will receive 2-for-1 tickets to Crazy Horse Paris (at MGM Grand).

Simply show your Nevada I.D. at the box office when purchasing tickets.

A celebration of the female form, the show shares the same name as the famous cabaret in France and also shares dancers -- all 12 of the dancers at the Crazy Horse at MGM Grand were from the original Crazy Horse dance troupe in Paris.

Tickets are regularly $50.50 and $60.50, which includes all fees.

Shows are Wednesdays through Mondays at 8 p.m. and 10:30 p.m.

Jerry Lewis caught with firearm at Vegas airport

Comedian Jerry Lewis has some 'splaining to do. Las Vegas resident Lewis had his gun taken from him at McCarran International Airport, on his way to Detroit on Friday. The unloaded gun was allegedly a prop gun used by Lewis in his show (what show is that, we don't know), but the authorities nonetheless deemed it a concealed weapon with no permit. Lewis claimed he wasn't aware it was in his carry-on bag and said family members had last used the bag.

Prostitute Cost $460.00?

According to the Times of Malta, James Mercieca was leaving a casino in Gzira, up $500 for the night, and feeling good about himself when a woman called him from across the dark street Mercieca was walking down. Mercieca went across to investigate, and was led into a room where a second woman was waiting. Just as the second woman took down James' pants, and he thought he was in business, a man brandishing a big knife entered the room, the women took most (but not all) of Mercieca's winnings, and before he knew it, he was back on the street with about $40 on him.
Calling it "an unwise decision to have a look,"  Mercieca has since chalked the experience up to a hard lesson learned. A man, known only in the article as 'Mr Debono' is currently in police custody as the knife wielding assailant. Mr Debono awaits trial for his alleged crime, and no trial date has been set.

Play with Pussycat Dolls

Online poker room bwin poker is running a promo that can get players to a weekend trip on Poker Island, and the winners will get to mix and mingle with the girl band the Pussycat Dolls. Players who come to Poker Island will have to compete to stay, enjoying the vacation like atmosphere while playing poker for a chance to play in the Poker Island grand final event in October. Each week two players will be kicked off the island, and winners of the Grand Final event will get a year membership as part of bwin’s pro poker team.

Online Poker Room Gearing Up for WSOPE

The next big thing for the World Series of Poker is the WSOPE set to start on September 19th, and online poker room Full Tilt Poker is offering their players a chance to qualify. The World Series of Poker Europe will play in London like it did last year, so part of the prize package to the WSOPE will include airfare and hotel accommodations, as well as the full buy in for the WSOPE main event. Players can buy in to qualifiers for $500 or satellite in for as little as $1.

Online Poker Checks Bouncing

Some players have been reporting that they are getting payouts from online poker rooms that seem to be printed on rubber checks. The checks have been bouncing that were processed from Zip Payments, an online payment processing company that handled payouts for some online poker rooms. Poker forums are buzzing with the news, some more positive than others. In many cases it appears the poker rooms are sending out checks that they guarantee will cash, and with proper proof from the rooms to refund any bounced check fees players incurred from their banking institutions.

Hellmuth versus Dwan on Poker After Dark

There has been a lot of publicity over the past few weeks over this confrontation between Phil Hellmuth and Tom Dwan. The reason why I am bringing this up now is really because someone posted a hand on the forum last week from the “Poker After Dark” series which was quite illuminating and worth a mention.

Will this confrontational match happen... more than likely but only at the right time and after maximum exposure? Let’s face it, if they can sell two forty year old boxers as a worthwhile spectator event and make millions then they can sell this. There is nothing people like better than a grudge match.

But anyway that’s not the point of the article. What I want to write about this week is that hand and take a look at multi-level thinking processes. I still fancy Hellmuth in a live game setting against Dwan but that is purely my own personal opinion. In this hand we see Dwan open raising to $1500 with the Kc-2c and Hellmuth re-raising to $5500 with the Kh-5d and Dwan calling.

Many players would not play like this online but then again we are seriously bumping it up a few levels here and what might apply in a $2-$4 or $3-$6 game isn’t going to cut it here. I find this a fascinating hand just like I do all high limit hands involving top players. Nothing wrong of course with Dwans opening salvo even though his raise is a little low for many peoples tastes but it is not a mistake to make less than pot sized raises once you understand the game and can play very well post flop. In fact poker becomes a whole new ball game in high-stakes play and many of the plays that are considered weak in low-stakes play now become standard.

Hellmuth knows what Dwans likely range is give or take a few hands here and there so he isn’t going to show too much respect to his opening raise which is perfectly standard. So Phil’s re-raise with the K-5 while not being a play that 99.99% of the players in the world would make, against this opponent at this level in this game then this is a reasonably straight forward play also and hence the reason why Dwan calls.

Dwan has a mediocre hand at best but he wants to try and outplay Hellmuth in the same way that Hellmuth wants to outplay Dwan. Tom could try and come back over the top of Phil’s re-raise but then again this risks being raised again and Dwan knows full well that Hellmuth is capable of such a play even on mediocre hands. Dwan doesn’t want to risk wasting a big chunk of his stack being moved off a hand without seeing the flop.

If he folds to Hellmuth’s pre-flop raise then what type of hand is he going to make a stand with? He can’t tighten his range too much because that would be counter productive in itself and is not Dwans style. So a call is the only reasonable option given the stack sizes. Actually as an addition, I would have loved to have seen the entire run up to this hand and how they played out. So generally speaking Dwan cannot fold his K-2 to Hellmuths re-raise (well he can but he can’t do this too often).

So Dwan is going to be open raising on a wide range (Hellmuth knows this and Dwan knows that he knows it) and Hellmuth is going to be re-raising some of the time on a wider range (Dwan knows this and Phil knows that he knows it).

So now we see the flop and this is where the real psychological war begins with each player trying to out manoeuvre the other and to try everything they know to get the other play to think what they want them to think and vive versa. This is Hellmuths greatest strength coupled with his reading ability although it can be his greatest downfall too.

Quite often I have seen Hellmuth use multi-level thinking processes when they have simply not been called for. In these instances then thinking on several levels can be a disaster if you have not correctly identified the level that your opponent thinks on and then taken the next step. It is no good thinking on five different levels if your opponent is a level two thinker otherwise you are just going to end up out thinking yourself.

But on the end Hellmuth makes a $30,000 bet into a $67,000 pot which after long deliberation from Dwan, entices a fold. This is a great bet from Phil because he raises Dwan earlier in the hand on the turn with no pair to Dwans bottom pair and Dwan calls the raise. To call this raise then you must be at least thinking that you could be ahead and not necessarily having to hit your five outer.

So the only thing that I can find fault with here is Dwans river fold. Having pot odds of more than 3/1 then I think that this is a call against this player in this situation. Although I am going to contradict myself here by saying that all this could be wrong simply because I haven’t seen the build up to this hand. Phil cannily makes his river bet look like a milking bet and had he bet any more or any less then I am certain that Dwan would have called. I have seen him make many such calls online when he really knew a player well to think that he would have folded.

I don’t believe that Dwan was giving Phil the tickle here and was really genuinely thinking about calling. But then you have to consider the fact that Hellmuth is sophisticated enough to make his play on the river look like a milking bet. Dwan should know that Phil is constantly trying to direct his thoughts down certain paths so when he sees Hellmuth make what appears to be a value river bet then he has to be aware of the possibility of Hellmuth creating this thought.

Then when this possibility arises and with pot odds of more than 3/1 then a river call becomes the best play. This leads me to think that Hellmuth not only out foxed Dwan in this hand but that Dwan was also lagging a level behind Hellmuth in his thinking processes.

But then again if Dwan made the fold on the river simply because he had made a call thirty minutes earlier and Hellmuth had showed him top pair then this is what I mean by not witnessing the entire action and seeing a warped view of what is actually happening. Still, 3/1 is still 3/1 and I would have still made the call. But then again I would wouldn’t I because it isn’t my 30k that’s at stake.

Blog: Girls drive car off Stratosphere garage

Earlier this afternoon, four teenaged girls aged 16 to 18 drove off the Stratosphere parking garage, three floors (25 feet) up.

Each level has concrete barriers, and the driver (who may not have a driver's license) plowed right through and fell to the ground.

Pictured above is the aftermath of their PT Cruiser, captured by News Channel 8.

Amazingly, no one was seriously hurt, in the car or on the ground.

The girls, already released from the hospital, are being questioned to find out what caused the accident.

Girls Gone Wild founder owes Wynn $2 million

Wynn Las Vegas sure is cracking down on unpaid gambling debts that make the headlines.

First there was $400,000 against Charles Barkley, which he paid promptly plus fees.

Now the Review-Journal is reporting Joe Francis, founder of 70-some Girls Gone Wild videos, owes Wynn Las Vegas a whopping $2 million. The casino-resort filed a lawsuit last week, and Francis has reportedly paid up.

Francis is awaiting trial for tax evasion, not to mention imminent lawsuits from women in the videos claiming they were underage when taped.

Heidi Fleiss charged under influence of meth

Former Hollywood Madame Heidi Fleiss once planned a Pahrump brothel catering to women (a "stud farm" containing all men) and is now running a laundromat called Dirty Laundry.

She also was arrested Feb. 7 for a DUI and possessing Vicodin without a prescription (authorities even took her to her house so she could produce evidence of a prescription).

Toxicology results have now come in, and also swimming around her bloodstream at the time of her arrest were methamphetamines.

Fleiss will now be charged with driving under the influence of a controlled subtance.

PokerStars.tv WTF?

Near the end of a continuing beta-test period which saw increasing levels of content added to the site, PokerStars interactive video portal, PokerStars.tv, officially launched this week. The site's features, which center on video-based poker clips and instructional offerings, is at the leading edge of sites offering free poker-instruction offerings.
The site already boasts numerous clips from several members of Team PokerStars Pro, who share their expertise in specific hand or scenario situations. An introductory video to the site by Daniel Negreanu is now available, with feature videos on the site focusing on such prominent Stars players as Joe Hachem, Bill Chen, Greg Raymer and Dario Minieri.
Stars hopes that the PokerStars.tv members will make thorough use of the site's extensive search functions, which allow users to focus in on such topics as specific hand holdings, to better understand situational play. Said Negreanu, "Just enter a hand like 'Jack-Jack' or 'Ace-King' and you can find out how it's been played in all sorts of different situations by some of the world's great and not so great players! It's a terrific way to learn more about the game."
The site also includes extensive video reporting from all poker events where Stars has a presence, from the Stars-sponsored EPT, LAPT and APPT tours to the current WSOP. Stars is even offering introductory freerolls to the site running through the duration of July's WSOP Main Event festivities at the Rio on July 14th, though to obtain the password to the freeroll, one must watch a PokerStars.tv video through to its completion, where the password is embedded.
Player profiles and interviews are also available on the site, which each user can personalize according to his own preferences.
According to Conrad Brunner, Head of TV & Digital Production at PokerStars, "The team working on PokerStars.tv are all poker players. Our goal was simply to build a site that allowed us to see our favourite poker clips at any time - and that's what PokerStars.tv allows you to do. There are some outstanding poker hands to watch and enjoy. With the excellent video blogs flooding in from the WSOP, there is new material being added every day."

Poker Player Plunges to Death

In what is being called a freak accident a 20 year old poker player, participating in a prop bet that had him hurtling down a hotel hallway clad in only socks and underwear, crashed through a fifth floor window and fell 40 feet to his death. Mark Day had just come back to the hotel after busting out of a poker game when he was dared to make the dash. His friends, Marc Smart and Steve Kimberly, are working with police at the Majorca Beach Hotel in Magalluf to determine the full extent of the incident.

Aussies Say No Thanks to Poker Playing Mike Tyson

The former heavyweight boxing champ Mike Tyson has plans on participating in the $10 million Aussie Millions Poker Championships at the start of next year, and victims of violent crimes are calling for the Australian Government to step in and say no. The 42 year old Tyson is a convicted rapist, the biggest reason why people like Crime Victims Support Association president Noel McNamara want to prevent Tyson from getting a visa. Tyson would have to pass a character test to get a visa and his prior jail terms could make it a moot point, but he could appeal directly to the minister.

Poker After Dark is the New High Stakes Poker

NBC has announced their fourth season of their popular poker  TV show, Poker After Dark, and there will be a few surprises in store. The biggest is a change to the format - the show will run as a high stakes cash game as opposed to a winner take all poker tournament. Rather than six players paying $20k to play, six players will bring a minimum of $100k to the table and play $200/ $400 No Limit Texas Holdem ring games. The first game of the new season will feature Phil Hellmuth and David Peat, as well as Allen Cunningham.

Batman: The Dark Knight Joker Poker Set

A must for fans of The Dark Knight movie and The Joker - don't miss the limited-edition prop replica, The Joker Poker Set!
This unique collectors' item includes a deck of 54 prop replica Joker cards (as seen in The Dark Knight film!) and a standard "playable" 4-suit, 54 card deck defaced by The Joker. Also included are 100 4-color poker chips in Joker-themed colors of green, purple, red and black, and 5 dice. The entire set comes housed in a black aluminum carrying case (which locks to prevent The Joker from defacing the second set of cards!), and the case is packaged in a 4-color box. A 4-color Certificate of Authenticity is also included and appears as one of the playing cards!

Fox Sports Network Picks Up WPT

The World Poker Tour, much to the relief of fans of the hit poker show, has found a home for the broadcasting of their seventh season. Season VII will be shown on Fox Sports Network (FSN), and will consist of 26 episodes, although details about the broadcast content have yet to be released. The Bellagio Cup, which recently finished, will be the first two episodes of the broadcast season. The WPT was looking for a home ever since the Game Show Network opted not to renew their agreement with the WPT, Inc.