TOP FIVE

Top five: New Year’s resolutions

5) Check out WinnerOnline’s blog on a daily basis.

4) Vow to watch more NFL and college football, beginning with the NFL playoffs and BCS title game.

3) Play an unorthodox and non-traditional online gambling game. Backgammon anyone?

2) To hell with losing weight. Go to Las Vegas and gorge at an all-you-can-eat buffet. MMMMMMM! All the prime rib and lobster you want.

1) Take a shot at Intercasino’s Millionaire’s Jackpot. I can give you over 5 million reasons why.

POKER

From Grinch to St. Nick

Next Christmas might be under 350 some days away, but PokerRoom.com still has some Christmas cheer left over, though they were looking like Scrooge a little bit.

The online gaming site ran a Christmas Tournament in mid-December which promised prizes such as an LCD TV, PokerRoom merchandise and a supposed guaranteed $19,000.

The player, identified as mvzander on the 2+2 forum, won the tournament, the television and $3,829.06.

Mvzander was horrified to find in an e-mail received the following day that PokerRoom had overpaid the prize money and had taken out the funds out of the player’s account.

After logging on, the player found out that it was true and then the storm of controversy began.

We are happy to report that everything has been resolved and that the spirit of giving is alive and well.

SPORTS

Forget Christmas, if you love football this is the most wonderful time of the year. The NFL playoffs are set to kickoff and the Bowl Championship Series title game is set for Monday.

Before wagering here’s some food for thought for the next three or four days.

After being anointed the NFL’s Chosen One, Tony Romo is crashing hard. Dallas is 2-3 in their last five and instead of taking the NFC East; they will travel to Seattle to play the Seahawks on the Fieldturf of Qwest Field.

Dallas is 1-0 ATS on turf away from Texas and 4-3 ATS overall on the road.

The New York Giants also had a late season swoon and nearly missed the playoffs altogether.

They will face division rival Philadelphia on the road. The New York football Giants have a 5-3 ATS road record.

Finally the Ohio State Buckeyes get set to square off against the Florida Gators on Monday in Glendale, Arizona. Despite being projected as the champions before the start of the season and being pegged as a 7½-point chalk by Vegas, Ohio State is only seeing 50 percent of the betting action. In fact, three quarters of the public like the Gators straight up. Maybe Jim Tressel will use this as motivation. Then again, maybe not.

 

 

FEATURE

Choosing the Person of the Year in any medium can often be a daunting and controversial task. The job of the selectors is usually not to choose the most popular person, but rather the one who has made the greatestamount of impact in a given year.

There were a number of people who were inthe online gambling industry spotlight in 2006. Calvin Ayre graced the cover of Forbesmagazine; David Carruthers was a sympathetic character in light of BetonSports hanging him out to dry; Jamie Gold won the 2006 World Series of Poker and then was sued for the winnings and Michael Bolcerek and the PPA banged hard on the pro-poker drum.

All these people were prominent, but only get an honorable mention—at least in our opinion.

The person, who made the biggest impact in our estimation, wasn’t someone who enjoyed playing a hand of poker at Pokerstars. In fact his actions were detrimental to the industry.

Prior to the fall 2006, Bill Frist was known only as a possible presidential candidate for 2008, Senate Majority leader and doctor and many insiders think that his ambitions for 2008 led to the industry’s biggest news story of the year, the passage of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act as a part of the Safe Port Act.

Perennial anti-online gambling opponents and U.S. Representatives Bob Goodlatte, James Leach and Jon Kyl were once again attempting to push through unfavorable legislation in 2006 without much success.

Jon Kyl was stonewalled while attempting to attach an online gambling ban amendment to a Lobby Reform Act, which was ironically sidelined by another amendment, aimed at preventing the United Arab Emirates from managing U.S. ports.

The gambling ban movement gained a bit of steam in March when Leach’s Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (HR 4411), which was introduced back in November, was approved and referred to the House Judiciary Committee by the Committee on Financial Services.

But the major turning point was in September Senate Majority Leader Frist decided to throw his support in the corner of HR 4411 and began working with Kyl to polish it up.

Frist first tried to attach the unfriendly legislation to a military authorization bill but was rebuffed by two prominent members of the Armed Services Committee, Senators John Warner and Carl Levin, both citing that it wasn’t related to defense.

Read more here