Bad Party (Gaming)

The biggest shareholder in PartyGaming and therefore party Poker, has
agreed to pay US authorities $300m (£195m) and plead guilty to a
charge related to illegal online betting.

This person is also in the unfortunate position of being called Anurag
Dikshit, which I know I probably shouldn't find funny. He's an
extremely wealthy Indian businessman who owns a 27% stake in the
company. This will probably be a landmark case where online gambling
in the US is concerned, as it appears two other major Party
shareholders have not followed the same course of action. I also
suspect many of the Poker and other online gambling sites still
operating in the US will be very interest to hear the outcome of this
case.

It's all a much more serious than I had originally thought, with
Dikshit potentially facing up to 2 years in prison. It seems likely
that the negotiations, coupled with Anurag's willingness to cooperate
will result in a settlement with the US DoJ, but it's certainly one to
watch over the coming weeks.

On a more personal note, as a result of playing cash at FTP over
the past couple of weeks, I have also fired up a few tournies there
having never really played anything other than the Sunday $750k. Last
night I busted my first Full Tilt Pro, by sucking out on a short
stacked Lee Watkinson with KQ > AJ, who I didn't even realise was at
my table until I got the pop-up afterwards.

There seems to be so many of these guys in the mid stakes tournies
that I don't think it'll be long until I'm able to cover a whole room
with the commemorative T-Shirts.