The new mood in the Amazon Room at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino is a marked departure from the poker boom era Main Events from 2003-2006.

Those tournaments had an almost carnival quality to them. Players tried to get on ESPN by wearing the wackiest costumes. Strippers roamed the halls trying to get players and fans to visit their clubs. Online poker rooms threw lavish parties and paid for elaborate player lounges where people who satellited into Series tournaments could rest, eat and play some video games. The WSOP was an excuse for poker players to come to Vegas, party and take a shot at becoming famous. But winning the Main Event wasn’t the priority.
Much of that was due the nature of players who were arriving in Vegas. Internet poker was in its infancy. Anybody could sign up for an account at an online poker room. And at that point, it seemed anyone could win a satellite to get to Vegas. You just had to get a little lucky. Sure, there were many players who were seriously honing their craft. But they were a drop in the bucket compared to the casual players.

All of that changed in 2006 when the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act became law. Casual poker players dropped out of the online poker ecosystem. And what emerged was a group of young, hungry poker players who earned a living and perfected their craft online before coming to live tournaments.

As this next group of professional players emerged, the WSOP changed. In a sense, the WSOP grew up, even as the players in the field became younger.

The costumes disappeared, as did other props that people thought would get them on television. These players had all played thousands and thousands of hands. There was nothing — from a poker sense — that they had not seen before. They understood the math behind every situation. They were here to win tournaments, not get famous.

The last three Main Event champions have come from this new generation of pros. Peter Eastgate and Joe Cada were both 21 when they won the Main Event. Jonathan Duhamel was 23.

But even with a new generation of pros taking over the game, there was still a bit of buzz in the room during the four Day 1s. You could usually feel the excitement and energy of 1,000 or 2,000 players hitting the felt at the same time.

The Alderney Gambling Control Commission is understood to be talks with Full Tilt and some other potential investors, the Irish Times report said.

Page 123 of the 172-page bill reads, Any person who knowingly transmits or receives a wager of any type by any telecommunication device, including telephone, cellular phone, internet, local area network… or knowingly installs or maintains said device or equipment for the transmission or receipt of wagering information shall be punished.

The penalty? Up to two years imprisonment and a fine of up to $25 000.

The proposal specifies that …any person who, from within the Commonwealth, transmits a wager to, or receives a wager from, another person or gaming establishment within or outside of the Commonwealth is guilty of an offence. The sole exemption granted is to law enforcement officials in the course of their duties.

That’s what appears to have happened with Players Palace Casino, a familiar name to the old Starnet software players going back a few years that has now resurfaced with new owners, new software and a brand new “no US players” website with a .eu domain.

This resurrection is definitely positive, for the 2010 variation on the Players Palace Casino brand is powered by Microgaming, has that company’s very large games inventory and belongs to the Gibraltar-based HMAM Inc group, better known for its Pokershare, Casinoshare and Grand Mondial operations which have been going for some years in the industry.

The professional looking website has a full range of player and financial services, multi currency wagering, and French, German and Italian language versions in addition to English.

Locals of the state, which is made up of a string of eight islands, refer jokingly to Las Vegas as the ninth island, the Post reveals….and Hawaii’s small population of 1.2 million generates more than 150 000 trips to Las Vegas each year. Some of the islanders make five or six trips a year, with the total spend in Vegas by Hawaiians estimed as being in excess of $100-million.

The Financial Post claims that the “ninth island” is so popular that 80 000 Hawaiians now live there.

The public demand for gambling in the state has created much political debate, but has so far been held off by conservative politicians resistant to changes in the status quo. The difficulties of making state budget ends meet has created more debate but no progress.

The usual arguments of providing the state and its people with more employment opportunities and revenues through casino taxes, should gambling be permitted is offered by the pro-gambling faction, who add that tourists visiting the island would find gambling facilities an added attraction, especially punters from Asia. And of course much of the cash taken to Vegas by Hawaiian gamblers would be retained in the islands.

“But the anti-gambling lobby is a powerful one, with roots going way back to the 19th century when the Christian missionaries insinuated the hand of God into every corner of society,” reports The Financial Post. “It was that fundamentalism that at one point frowned on surfing, with the church discouraging Hawaiians from taking to the waves on their longboards because it provided too much pleasure and was next to wicked.

“Today, the lobby argues — persuasively — that any revenue from gambling would not offset the social and economic damage done to those who are most vulnerable. The anti-gamblers also argue that while economic times are tough now, any casino would be several years in the planning and building, by which time the times would likely not be as tough.”

A recent editorial in the Star-Bulletin newspaper stated the anti-gambling viewpoint: “Polls during the 1990s showed that a majority of Hawaii residents understand the negative consequences and oppose its legalization. In 2001, then-Gov. Ben Cayetano’s proposal to allow a single casino in Ko Olina was rejected by legislators. A bill two years ago to allow casino gambling to help pay for rapid transit was also cast aside. At some point, the advocates [of legal gambling] should tire of throwing the dice.”

The anti-gambling streak running through most of the state’s establishment is deeply entrenched. The Hawaii Coalition Against Legalized Gambling is a well-organized campaign that has two simple goals: To educate the public on the overwhelming negative affects of legalized gambling and to prevent legalized gambling from being introduced in the state.

“As a result, about 3 000 Hawaiians each week will continue to get on the plane and travel to the “ninth island” and spend millions. Others will simply continue to gamble illegally at home,” the article concludes.

If you’re doing The Twist now, after reading that, people will probably wonder if something is wrong with you. But if you instead chose to do The Twist this Friday or Saturday when Chubby Checker plays the song live at Chinook Winds, then you’ll definitely be in good company.

He’ll perform lots of other songs, too, of course. The seminal rock ‘n’ roll musician also brought us “Pony Time,” “Let’s Twist Again” and “Jingle Bell Rock,” though that last selection isn’t entirely seasonal.

Researchers at the University of Adelaide surveyed 2669 teenagers aged between 13 and 17, and found that 56 per cent had gambled in the past year and 2.4 per cent had already become pathological gamblers, even before they turned 18.

That is higher than the 2.1 per cent of adults found to be problem gamblers by the Productivity Commission in 1999, although the level of harm, such as losing a house or a relationship, is much lower for adolescents.

The paper, due to be published in the Journal of Gambling Studies next month, found that teenage problem gamblers played arcade games three times more often than non-gamblers, and on average played hand-held games and internet games more than twice as often.

One of its authors, Associate Professor Paul Delfabbro, said teenage boys were more likely to play video games and gamble regularly, which is one reason for the correlation.

”The other reason is that the sorts of kids who are playing video games probably do so because they’ve got less parental supervision, they’re probably bored, they probably don’t have a lot of structured activity in their life,” he said. ”So the physical act of playing video games doesn’t increase the risk of gambling but it is indicative of a pattern of leisure activity.”

Professor Delfabbro said the levels of internet gambling and access to pokies among adolescents in Australia had stayed relatively low in Australia.

CLEVELAND (AP) — An opponent of casinos proposed for Ohio’s four largest cities is now offering his own plan for a casino in downtown Cleveland.

Developer Jeffrey Jacobs envisions a $500 million hotel and casino next to Cleveland’s planned convention center and medical trade show complex.

In an interview with The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer, Jacobs described his casino plan as “steak” and dismissed the four-city proposal on Ohio’s fall ballot as “hamburger.”

A spokesman for the ballot campaign says Jacobs is mainly concerned about protecting out-of-state casinos.

Jacobs chairs MTR Gaming Group Inc., owner of gambling properties in Pennsylvania and West Virginia. MTR executives have vowed to spend up to $8 million to defeat the Ohio ballot measure.