Those who check out gambling industry news from time to time have no doubt heard of former Bodog owner Calvin Ayre.  The self-made billionaire and flamboyant playboy has been the subject of many magazine cover stories while his problems with the US government have received just as much attention as his business skills and partying lifestyle.

And throughout all of the turmoil that Ayre has faced, he has never really seemed fazed by the threat of litigation against him and he’s even taunted the US government in the past through the media.  However, there are plenty of poker players and gamblers on his site that are very scared at the prospect of not being able to access their money (or even lose it) amid more serious investigations into the company and Ayre.

Just recently, the US government seized $24 million from bank accounts that have been servicing Bodog over the years.  And this may only be the beginning as the feds are warning that there is going to be a huge investigation into the company.  And even though Ayre has distanced himself from the company, he too would face criminal actions since he owned Bodog for so long.

Some of the banks that have had Bodog money taken from them include major chains like Wachovia, Bank of America, and SunTrusts Banks.  This creates further worry in poker players and gamblers who use the BodogLife.com site as there is a very real possibility that their money could be put on hold or be frozen while further investigations would take place of Bodog and the bank accounts it has used.

An even worse scenario would be if the US government was able to take away much more money from Bodog or even shut it down entirely.  This would create the possibility that players could lose a lot, if not all of their money.  However, this would be the extreme scenario and I certainly hope that the people who play poker there wouldn’t lose their money as it would definitely hurt the industry quite a bit.

There’s been plenty of news on some poker room scandals as of late.  Thousands of players were furious after being ripped off by Ultimate Bet and Absolute Poker which had certain players who could see other players’ hole cards.  And plenty of poker sites and blogs were quick to report on this injustice so I don’t want to harp on it anymore.

But now there is a new problem arising in the poker room world where players are having checks bounce as they try to cash them in.  The problem seems to stem from rooms that use a payment processor called Zip Payments.  There are quite a few sites that offer Zip Payments as an option so a lot of people have been affected by this. 

The rooms that sent these checks out are now trying to rectify the situation by sending new checks to the affected players and, in a lot of cases, covering the bank fees and penalties that arose from the situation.  But this is just a band aid being put over a growing problem and a lot of people are looking for someone to blame.

And most of the blame for poker rooms being forced to use questionable payment processors like Zip Payments can be pinned on the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act that was implemented in 2006.  Ever since the UIGEA act, poker rooms have been using these processors as a crutch and it doesn’t appear as if all of them are reliable. 

There’s already been enough problems with UB and AB rocking the poker world and this is the last thing that players need.  Hopefully poker rooms can find a 100% reliable method of getting money to players but this is probably something that will take a while to fix. 

The federal government seems to believe that poker is a form of gambling and there needs to be restrictions put on it.  They treat the game as if it is a vice that people can’t control and so they need to be supervised like kids by their parents.  But every person who’s played poker for any significant amount of time knows that poker involves a great deal of skill and that people can come out on top in the long run if they have enough skill.

In fact, there are plenty of people out there who are taking these thoughts to the next level and preparing for poker as if it is a career.  Just recently I saw where a West Virginia community college was offering a course on poker and they had 70 people graduate from it this year.  Poker in college?  It’s something that I never thought I would see.

However, there are also those who are choosing the game of poker over college entirely.  Some of these college eligible players are starting with the game directly and not even choosing to enroll while others are taking college classes before they eventually decide that their futures would better be served in the game of poker. 

This route has worked for many players in the past including pros like Erick Lindgren and Annie Duke who cut out on their college curriculum on hold in order to go for the green in the game of poker.  In the case o Kathy Liebert, she quit her stock market analysis job at the prestigious Dun & Bradstreet company in New York City to move out West where she found poker much more enjoyable.

But in the case of the average player, it’s tough to say whether it is a good decision to skip out on an education to fall back on if poker doesn’t work out.  Unfortunately, I don’t have any statistics to say whether or not it pans out in the end on the average but I’ll definitely be looking for studies on this in the future.

Back in June, the defeat of Massachusetts representative Barney Frank’s proposed bill to halt the strict UIGEA regulations marked a sad day for the world of online poker.  The 32-32 tie vote meant the bill was done for and this decision brought more regulations from the Treasury Department and Federal Reserve.  However, there may be some light on the horizon as the state of California is moving closer and closer to implementing legalized online poker. 

The proposal just recently passed through the California Senate Governmental Organization Committee and is on its way to the Senate Appropriations Committee in August.  The name of the bill is the California Gambling Control/Intrastate Online Poker Legalization Act and it seeks to legalize online poker gambling.

If it gets passed, the bill will take effect as quickly as July of 2009.  More importantly, if the bill makes its way through the California Senate, it would make California the first state in the US to legalize and run online poker for the people who live there.

Some people may have heard about this bill back in February when word of it first spread, however, this version of it is different in the fact that this is no longer a proposed study into online poker but instead an all-out plan to regulate and legislate legal Internet poker in the state.

And though this is just one state that is in the midst of legalizing online poker, it is the biggest state in terms of population in the US and would be a huge boost overall to the effort of getting online poker legalized in other places.  But if the legalization comes as proposed, it will also be interesting to see if this state-run brand of poker will be better or worse than the current method of international businesses running online poker.

En lieu of certain poker shows being in limbo such as High Stakes Poker, it’s nice to see one show that is proving to be a main stay on network television.  NBC has decided to renew Poker After Dark for yet another season after its quality ratings called for the show to be brought back.  But there will be a twist to the fourth season of Poker After Dark. 

Possibly in an attempt to fill the void for High Stakes Poker (which may never be seen on TV again), Poker After Dark has decided to switch the successful format of deep stack tournament to high stakes cash games.  And things might be more exciting than ever with this new format.

That’s because the blinds are said to reach $200/$400 and the minimum buy-in for the episodes will be $100K to $250K.  Plus there are already highlights from the first episode out featuring stars like Phil Hellmuth and Tom “durrrr” Dwan in heated competition.

One can only imagine how interesting the table talk will be in this season of Poker After Dark with Hellmuth and Dwan involved.  Last time these two met in a NBC event they were exchanging quite a few comments with each other. 

Hellmuth kept calling Dwan “son” in saying things like, “Son, I would tell you this much, son.  I would never have put more than $3k in the pot with two tens before the flop.”  Dwan fired back saying, “I was gonna’ say good game, sorry for the suck out, but when you phrase it that way it makes me not wanna.  Phil, that’s why you lose money online.  Pick your stakes heads-up.  We can play right now if you want.”

With the new format and the interesting personalities like Dwan and Hellmuth at the table, it will be fun to see how this new season of Poker After Dark shakes out!