by Haley Hintze
POKER NEWS SPIDEY SETTLES POKER LAWSUIT FOR $80,000
“Spider-Man” star Tobey Maguire and veteran TV-poker commentator Gabe Kaplan are among those settling actions brought by victims of a convicted fraudster who participated in the stars’ high-stakes Hollywood games. Maguire settled for $80,000 and Kaplan for $26,900 to resolve claims brought by bankruptcy lawyer Howard Ehrenberg, who sought to recover hundreds of thousands lost by imprisoned swindler Bradley Ruderman in the games.
MILLION-DOLLAR BRACELET EVENT CONFIRMED FOR 2012 WSOP
The World Series of Poker has confirmed that a charity-themed tourney with a million-dollar buy-in will be added to the 2012 WSOP schedule. The new event will be named “The Big One for One Drop,” for the One Drop charity chaired by billionaire Cirque du Soleil founder and high-stakes poker dilettante Guy Laliberte. The WSOP has already confirmed 22 participants for the elite event, which is set for early July, just prior to the main event. Early sign-ups include tourney stalwarts such as MGM boss Bobby Baldwin, Daniel Negreanu, Tom “durrrr” Dwan and Laliberte himself.
CLEMENTS CAPTURES DEEP STACK FINALE
Veteran Scott Clements added another solid cash to his resume by taking down the championship event in the Venetian’s latest Deep Stack Extravaganza series, which has developed a solid niche among mid-stakes tournament players. Clements’ latest win came over a 265-player field in the $2,500 main event and was worth $145,775. Zachary Fahmie finished second to Clements for $89,892, while Ryan Welch claimed third-place money of $60,738.
OVER THREE MILLION UB EMAIL ADDRESSES, NAMES EXPOSED IN DATA LEAK
The names, addresses, e-mails phone numbers and account balances of more than three million mostly UltimateBet players were briefly available to the public in early December, courtesy of faulty security on a spammer’s site. The complete story of how the names were spirited out of UB parent Absolute Poker and into the hands of e-mail marketers has yet to be fully explained, but could be due in part to the company’s post-scandal collapse and ‘Black Friday’-related mismanagement. Fortunately, passwords do not seem to have been part of the leaked information.
A DOWNRIGHT UN-AMERICAN WORLD RECORD
PokerStars’ annual attempt to renew its Guinness Book of World Records mark for largest poker tournament once again provided a new mark, and for the first time, without benefit of any US players. Stars turned off the sign-up spigot after 200,000 of its players signed up for the $1 tourney, which was won by a Russian player screen-named “sokoluk1991.”
BODOG’S ANONYMOUS TABLES CRACKED
A surge in entertaining online-poker news items when Bodog rolled out its anonymous-player tables as December began, only to have a hacker and data-reseller crack the falsely-proclaimed anonymity in three hours’ time. Bodog quickly attempted to fix the issue while asserting the data-cracker and others were the types of player Bodog hoped to rid from the site, in favor of the interests of “net depositing” (translated: losing) players.
ANDELSON PULLS BACKING FOR REGULATED ONLINE POKER
Las Vegas Sands chairman Sheldon Andelson has reversed his previous support of recent efforts by the American Gaming Association to help craft federal online-gambling legislation. The casino magnate cited moral opposition and concerns over age verification as reasons for the change. Andelson’s “moral” charges drew immediate attack from several poker observers, in part because Sands previously inked a 2006 megadeal with Cantor Fitzgerald arm Cantor Gaming to launch an online gambling site that fell by the wayside when the UIGEA was passed later that year.
Veteran poker-industry writer/editor Haley Hintze is the author of an upcoming book on the Absolute Poker and UltimateBet online cheating scandals, to be released later this year.
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