In the first ever main event of the Epic Poker League, Chino Rheem walked away as the champion. On August 12, Rheem won when Erik Seidel went all-in after the two fought it out for 50 hands, with the chip lead repeatedly changing hands. Rheem then won the $1 million first prize and the first Champion’s Ring for the Epic Poker League.

The tournament took place over 4 days with 35 hours of playing time and 212 hands at the final table. The event was held at the Palms Casino in Vegas. Erik Seidel finished second, winning $604,330. Third-place finisher Jason Mercier won $360,970. Hasah Habib and Gavin Smith finished fourth and fifth with $237,560 and $154,260 respectively.  Huck Seed finished sixth and won $107,980.

By many standards, the new Epic Poker League was a success. The league is the brainchild of Annie Duke, who wanted to create a pros league similar to the PGA Tour for golf. The league also wants to build a brand recognition so it can cash in on eventual U.S. online poker regulation with an Epic Poker League online poker room.

Some are skeptical about the appeal of a pros-only poker league, though. The most vocal skeptic is Daniel Negreanu who has said that it has a bad business plan that will not generate enough interest from the public. Negreanu said in a blog post that he doesn’t think the league will “bring in enough revenue to survive.” The Epic Poker League signed a TV deal with CBS Sports and Velocity Network, who will air episodes of the competitions throughout the year.

Yesterday, there was a rare statement from a Congressman that didn’t have anything to do with the debt deal. Congressman Michael Grimm, a Republican representing New York in the House of Representatives, issued a press release stating his support for online poker regulation in the U.S. He also praised FairPlayUSA, a poker lobbying group.

In the press release, Congressman Grimm said that he fully supports “the efforts to create a strong regulatory framework for legal online poker and to crack down on illegal sites, many of whom have ties to organized crime.” He went on to say that there are a lot of online poker players among his constituents and that he supports their right to continue playing online poker. He wants federal regulation to be passed in order to provide adequate protection for the players.

Having a Congressman, especially a Republican – since the party tends to be more anti-gambling than Democrats – speak out in favor of online poker on such a busy political day could be a good sign that regulation is coming. Many in the industry, most recently Bodog’s Calvin Ayre, have said they believe that is the case.

Congressman Grimm also praised the efforts of FairPlayUSA to “educate policymakers and the public on the broad public policy interests raised by the current ambiguous laws in the U.S.” The group wants to amend UIGEA to clarify that constitutes “unlawful internet gambling,” getting rid of the ambiguities that the Justice Department is using to its advantage. The group also supports federal regulation of online poker, but believes that individual states and Native American tribes should be able to opt out.

Too often when we look at an issue, especially a political one, we are short-sighted. We only notice the things we are inclined to notice. When Black Friday and the resulting carnage happened, I was outraged at an overreaching government and a trampling of freedom. Those are the things that resonate with me. I thought of the people Americans who are no longer able to play their favorite game online simply because Big Brother had a problem with it. What I didn’t think about, however, is employment and the ability to provide for families.

For whatever reason, when I think of online poker players, I don’t think of professionals. When I think of poker pros, I think of a small, select group of people who travel around the world playing in tournaments – people like Phil Ivey and Doyle Brunson. There are a lot more people playing online poker professionally than I thought, though.

According to the Poker Players Alliance, there are 50,000 Americans who play online poker full-time as either their only job or as a major source of income. That is 50,000 people who are now out of work because the Justice Department thinks people shouldn’t be able to spend their money on a website if they are doing so to play cards. The unemployment rate in the U.S. is at 9.1% (which is a kind estimate) and instead of finding ways to create jobs, this government is finding ways to do away with the jobs we already had.

On Saturday, Fox News ram a story that did a great job putting a name and face on the online poker players affected by Black Friday. The story profiled a man named Brian Mogelefsky, who used to own a mortgage company and was hurt by the bursting of the real estate bubble. He then decided to live his dream job, playing poker online full-time. It allowed him to make money to support his family while getting to spend time with his wife and kids. As a poker pro, he was on pace to bring in almost $90,000 this year before Black Friday happened. Now he is unemployed.

The government didn’t just take away a popular hobby; they took away the perfectly legal profession of Brian Mogelefsky and 50,000 other Americans. As a result, some online poker pros have decided to move to Canada and play there. Imagine, people leaving America to go to Canada for jobs! Mogelefsky won’t do that, though, because he loves the community where his family lives. When you think of what the government did, it helps to think of people like Mogelefsky, who took part in a legitimate business only to have their profession destroyed by an intrusive government. Even if you’re not a poker player, we can’t stand for that.

On Thursday, the Nevada Assembly unanimously passed a bill that would set up a regulatory framework for online poker. The bill was severely weekend in committee when parts were stripped out that would immediately start allowing poker regulation. Instead, it is now contingent on federal action.

If the bill becomes law, Nevada would set up an intrastate online poker regulatory framework. The regulators would come up with the necessary rules, develop licensing procedures and more. Then they would wait. The bill requires federal approval for Nevada to actually start regulating the industry, even though it would be an intrastate industry.

So there are three options. The first is that the feds say “yeah, you’re cool. Go ahead.” Nevada could then start regulating intrastate online poker. The second option is that the federal government does nothing but eventually regulates the industry at a national level. In that case, since the feds have approved the industry, Nevada could also move forward. In the third scenario, the federal government does not approve of the bill and does not regulate online poker, so the law is worthless.

There is no federal law against online poker in the United States, but the U.S. Department of Justice is of the “opinion” that it is banned. Funny how that works. Though Nevada’s bill is decidedly weak and I joked before that because they made it spineless, I no longer care, in truth it does some good. It may not be much, but the bill is better than nothing, because it’s a state showing approval of online poker.

The bill next will go to the state Senate. Most insiders expect it to easily pass there as well and later be signed by the governor. After that, it’s a waiting game with the federal government.

Today people got a shock when trying to play at their favorite poker sites. Instead of getting the homepage for the poker room, players were greeted with an FBI warning, telling them that the domain had been seized pursuant to an arrest warrant obtained by the United States Attorney’s Office.

The warning from the FBI laughingly points out that being involved in an “illegal gambling business” is a federal crime. That’s true, but being involved in any type of illegal business is a crime. Online poker, however, is not a crime in and of itself.

Initially, some thought that the so-called seizures were a hoax by some hacker, but soon thereafter, the Department of Justice issued a press release concerning a recently unsealed indictment. The press release states that eleven people have been indicted, including the founders of the three largest online poker sites doing business in the U.S., Full Tilt Poker, PokerStars and Absolute Poker.

In addition to the indictments, the United States filed a “civil money laundering and in rem forfeiture complaint against the poker companies, their assets, and the assets of several payment processors.” In other words, the government wants to seize the assets of the poker companies and anyone who processed payments for them. The Justice Department also issued restraining orders against more than 75 bank accounts that were used by the poker rooms and the payment processors. They also confiscated five domain names.

There are nine charges that the defendants are facing, including conspiracy to violate UIGEA, operation of an illegal gambling business, conspiracy to commit bank fraud and wire fraud, and money laundering conspiracy.

In short, the government is saying that the poker website operators and payment processors conspired to trick banks into processing payments for online gambling. They allegedly tricked the banks by laundering the money through fake Internet businesses. In other cases, the allegedly bribed the banks in order to gain their cooperation.

All of this comes shortly after Australian entrepreneur/slimeball Daniel Tzvetkoff was released from jail on bail after a secret meeting with prosecutors. Tzvetkoff founded Intabill, an online payment processor that worked closely with the very poker websites currently under indictment. After he supposedly ripped them off, the companies sued him. Unable to recoup their money, they alerted the FBI to his presence in the United States, which resulted in him being arrested and charged with various money laundering and fraud crimes.

As a man with inside knowledge into the payment processes of these poker sites, he had a lot of leverage. With him now released on bail, having previously been denied bail due to being a flight risk, and these eleven people being indicted, it seems that Tzvetkoff cooperated and turned over these “bigger fish” to the authorities.

As many of you know, some in the state of Florida are trying to regulate online poker. Florida seems to be fighting with New Jersey and California to be the first U.S. state to regulate online gambling. New Jersey has a head start, since they already passed the legislation and are only awaiting the signature of Governor Chris Christie.

The online poker legislation, introduced by state representative Joseph Abruzzo, would allow existing pari-mutuel facilities to offer online poker. Because those facilities are already licensed and regulated by the government, they are already considered safe and trustworthy and already have experience offering gambling to Florida residents. The legislation would offer intrastate online poker to Florida residents only. With the activity confined to the state, it is not subject to federal regulations or taxation.

Last year, attempts to regulate online gambling at the federal level failed in both the House and Senate. While that was in many ways bad news for online poker players, it could be good for states that pass their own regulation. If online poker was regulated at a federal level, the federal government would get the tax money and, in the case of Harry Reid’s legislation, casinos located in Vegas would benefit. Florida’s government and businesses would lose out. By regulating online poker at the state level, Florida would get to keep the tax money and the pari-mutuels, who are struggling for business, would make money.

The downside is that an online poker market in Florida is much smaller than a national market. Some question whether an intrastate market can compete with large overseas companies like Poker Stars and Full Tilt Poker. The Florida poker rooms could compensate by offering lower stakes games, but that could potentially reduce the revenue. Due to all of the uncertainty, including not knowing how many Floridians would ditch poker rooms they already use in favor of intrastate poker rooms, it’s impossible to tell how much tax money the market would generate for Florida. Since nothing like this has been done before, the first states to do it will be guinea pigs for the rest of the nation.

iPhone users have been through a lot. They have shelled out lots of money for a brand new phone that is really pretty and has some trendy (read: poinless) apps, but is absolutely useless if you want to make a phone call. iPhones aren’t really phones so much as small, rectangular app boxes, anyway. iPhone users also have to deal with the fact that they get poor reception and the phone will eventually break and will be virtually impossible to repair. In fact, Apple is swapping out the screws in the iPhones when you send them back so you are unable to open them! That means, of course, that Apple still considers it their property, rather than your own.

But now there is a tiny ray of light for those who wasted their money on a trendy-yet-mosly-worthless iPhone: The first two real-money poker apps have been released. This is big news, because prior to this event, there were no gambling apps for the iPhone where you can play for real money. This week, the first two were released.

The first was released earlier this week by bwin, the popular sports betting and online poker company. That app is currently only available to iPhone customers in Austria and the United Kingdom. There are no announced plans to release the apps in any other jurisdictions, though most believe they will work out a deal to release them in other European markets soon.

The bwin poker app is a Texas hold’em game that is free to download. It can be found in the Apple Store under the name “bwin.com Poker.” This app allows you to play real-money online poker against live opponents. To make things easier for new players, the game has a hint feature that displays the best possible hand out of what cards you have.

The other new poker app was released on Thursday by Microgaming and it is not affiliated with a specific casino. Instead, the software provider directly provides a poker game like you can find at many of their affiliated casinos.

In recent months, the United States federal government has seized almost $8 million from financial institutions, saying that the money was the result of illegal online poker in the state of Washington. It is the latest signal that Washington is serious about cracking down on illegal gambling, and residents of the Evergreen State had better take heed.

Like it or not, online gambling (including online poker) is illegal in the state of Washington. The state legislature passed a law banning the activity back in 2006, but that law was challenged in the courts. While it was being challenged, residents continued playing and poker rooms, such as PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker, continued to accept wagers from those residents. However, in September of 2010, the state Supreme Court upheld the law, stating that it was constitutional. When that happened, it settled the argument: Online gambling (including poker) is illegal in the state of Washington. As a result, PokerStars immediately began blocking bets from Washington residents.

According to federal prosecutors in the state, though, online gambling has persisted since then. In recent months, they have seized funds in a variety of banks – including Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, SunTrust and more – that were transferred from online poker rooms. According to Forbes, the largest forfeiture case involves $5.1 million seized from a man who had received a check of poker winnings from Arrow Checks.

According to the federal prosecutors, they have the authority to seize the funds because online gambling is illegal in Washington and therefore, by gambling at overseas websites, the Washington residents violated the federal Interstate Wire Act. That seems like a rather broad reading of the Wire Act, but even if they’re wrong, it’s just a technicality.

As I had said many times, there is no federal law banning online gambling (except sports betting). Therefore, gambling online is legal in the U.S. as long as it is not done in a state that bans the activity. Washington does have an online gambling ban. Therefore, even if the feds don’t have the legal authority to seize the funds and prosecute the offenders, the state government does. In either case, a law is being broken, which makes the money ill-gotten gains.

So I will say this now to be perfectly clear: I support legalizing online gambling everywhere, so people have the freedom to make their own choices about their money. However, I do not advocate breaking the law. If you live in a U.S. state that does not have a law banning online gambling, feel free to play. If you live in a state where it is illegal, such as Washington, do not gamble online.

The big news coming out of Italy right now is that the World Series of Poker is coming to town. The popular poker tournament, which is owned by Caesars Interactive Entertainment (formerly called Harrah’s Interactive Entertainment), has partnered with Microgame.

Not to be confused with software developer Microgaming, this company is a Montreal-based software developer that specializes in online poker. Their poker platform is the largest in the new Italian online gambling market. As a result of the long-term deal, the World Series of Poker will be advertised and marketed extensively in Italy with online tournaments and poker tournaments in brick and mortar casinos.

For online poker players already excited about the newly liberalized market in Italy, news of the World Series of Poker coming to the Boot is particularly exciting. The WSOP is the most recognized poker tournament in the world, partly because of co-opts the “World Series” name from the popular Major League Baseball postseason tournament. I heard of the WSOP before I even began following poker, partly because it plays such as pivotal role in the movie Rounders.

Mitch Garber, CEO of Caesars Interactive Entertainment, is excited about the partnership, calling the deal “a logical step in our European and global expansion strategy.” He referred to Microgame as the “clear leader in Italy” and the obvious choice for growing the World Series of Poker brand in the Italian market.

As part of the deal, Microgame will have exclusive rights to provide the World Series of Poker in Italy. They will hold WSOP tournaments for Italian players and will also have exclusive booking rights for pre-registering Italian players for the Main Event of the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas.

One small consolation for people who have the unfortunate circumstance to live in France is that they now have another good option for online poker. Titan Poker has launched a new online poker room tailored to the French market.

Many online gambling operators are unhappy with the French government’s regulations, with a BetClic chairman even calling them the “worst online gambling laws in Europe.” Due to government rules that are both restrictive, high taxing and bad for the players (an 85% cap on rate of return), it’s difficult for gambling websites to make money in France. Despite that, Titan Poker is giving it the old college try.

France’s regulatory agency for internet gambling, ARJEL, recently awarded Titan Poker with a gambling license and certification. On the heels of that victory – and it is a victory, since it’s so hard to get licensed in France – the company launched a new dedicated website, Titan.fr.

Though the new online poker games are not yet available, those who visit the website are welcomed with a greeting that says “Decouvrez I’univers Titan.fr tres prochainement.” What, did you expect it to be in English? While I don’t know what that sentence or any of the 7 paragraphs that follow it say, I can take a wild guess. I believe the page can be paraphrased as saying “welcome to the new Titan Poker website, the most awesome poker website in France. Play poker with us. Please. It cost us a lot of money to get this license.”

Somewhere on that page it might say when the actual poker rooms will be operational, but I don’t know enough French (i.e. any French) to figure that out. It was only last month that Titan Poker received permission from France to operate in the country, so it may take some time.

Titan Poker is one of the largest and most respected online poker rooms in the business. They tout themselves as the third-largest poker website in the world, behind only PokerStars and PartyPoker.