Love Nuke

Names of few famous celebrities where making headlines last week for their alleged involvement in an illegal celebrity poker tournament. The name which was most dragged into the whole issue was Tobey Maguire who is facing lawsuit for his connections with former hedge fund manager Brad Ruderman. Apart from Tobey other celebrity names that were associated include Ben Affleck, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Matt Damon though none of them are facing any legal issues surrounding the controversy. The game, run by convicted con man and former hedge fund manager Brad Ruderman, attract a fairly well-heeled clientele of the Hollywood elite.

Tobey Maguire, star of the Spider-Man films, has hired a lawyer to argue that the poker gameisn’t illegal, as he’s being sued in connection with them and a $300,000 debt that was paid off with money Ruderman took from investors.

Reports now indicate that cocaine and hookers were also present at the games, with inside sources saying that

“It was known to a handful of us that one player would keep two hookers down the hall of the hotel in another room. He would disappear for 30-minutes at a time, leaving the main players in the game frustrated. In reality, he was getting to do blow (in a room with) two hookers.”

How Maguire plans to argue that a poker game run by a convicted con artist(a game in which Maguire himself is reported to have been winning over a million dollars a month in) ought to be interesting. But even more interesting than that is the unknown identity of the “one player”. No indication yet on who that might be, but it will probably be very newsworthy when it gets out, as it almost certainly will.

Peace made between Lady Gaga and Laurie Ann Gibson. Some had reported rumors of an impending split between the two: the pop star was accused of neglect because the choreographer ‘too busy with the preparations of “Dance Scene”, the reality show devoted to dance, after the United States, will debut’ in Italy June 12 at 20:30 on channel E!(124 Sky).The rumors of a possible rupture but are ‘already’ been denied by a spokesman for the singer.

Gibson has recently stated: “When I met Gaga she was still famous. I put all my determination, passion and professionalism ‘in working with her, because’ it was clear his stuff from a great artist.”Storm came back then.

Laurie Ann Gibson ‘was the author of some of the most’ important video clips of Lady Gaga, including “Alejandro”, “Poker Face”, “Love Game”, “Paparazzi” and the last “Judas” for which the choreographer has had to defend his client against charges of blasphemy.With “Dance Scene” Gibson back on camera after participating in the reality show “Making the Band” and the movie “Honey” (2003) with Jessica Alba.

Since Black Friday, online poker in the United States has never seen worse days, even after the UIGEA came into force in 2006 and the biggest poker site in the United States PartyPoker, withdrew from the U.S. market. Player poker online casual all levels of the chain for high stakes online pros and everything had to adapt to life with fewer poker sites in the United States.

Online poker pros who live in the U.S. and earned a living playing poker online now in financial difficulties, especially when a large portion of their portfolio and if some are still linked to the seizure of their online poker account. After moving to Europe, as difficult as it seems.

Such an online poker pro Brian Mogelefsky, who had left the family in North Carolina after being forced to close its mortgage business because of the national financial crisis, it is now facing another crisis, as its sole means of income Poker Online is annihilated by the Government of the United States.

Head of the Poker Players Alliance John Pappas says that Mogelefsky’s story is not rare, as 50,000 online poker players who made a living playing online poker are now out of work since Black Friday when Poker Stars, Full Tilt Poker, and Absolute Poker were all shut down to US players. Now this sector of the US public has now joined the unemployed Americans group.

Some players whose cash is tied up in an account at one of these online poker sites that no longer accepts US players may or may not get their money back. If they had a Poker Stars account, their chances are better, as Poker Stars has paid out some players; therefore, it seems likely they will continue to make pay outs.

It may be months if ever before Full Tilt or Absolute pays back any of their former US players. Most have already accepted the fact that their money is gone.

Given the state of affairs in the U.S. market for online poker, professional poker players to leave their jobs, their businesses have closed, and depended on their revenue base online poker now face bleak financial times and is a new way of doing so month, whether to return to his original career or find new ones.

Steven Levitt, of “Freakonomics” fame, plays poker. His wife loves to play more than he does, as he has written on his blog.

It should be hardly surprising then that Mr. Levitt would take his analytical eye to the card game and revisit the age-old question of whether poker is a game of skill. The question is the subject of a new paper he wrote with Thomas Miles, one of his University of Chicago colleagues who was a former student. Their research could not be timelier.

The future of online poker is hazy after federal authorities last month shut down popular Internet poker sites and charged their founders with bank fraud and money laundering. The question of whether poker is a game of skill or luck goes to the heart of the debate over the legality of online poker. Games of chance are considered gambling under federal law.

Analyzing results from the 2010 World Series of Poker, the researchers looked at poker the way an investor would study a stock portfolio. They found that highly skilled players earned an average return on investment of more than 30 percent, compared with a 15.6 percent loss for all other players. They concluded that the large gap supported the idea that poker is a game of skill.

Mr. Levitt wrote on his Freakonomics blog earlier this month that “this finding has serious implications on the legality of online poker, as that debate is heavily dependent on whether the game is based on skill or luck.”

Other studies have come to the same conclusion, and yet state courts have consistently ruled that poker is gambling, said Chuck Humphrey, a Colorado lawyer who specializes in online gambling.

“It boils down to what the courts say,” Mr. Humphrey said.

Mr. Levitt became interested in studying poker after the passage of a federal anti-gambling law in 2006 that tried to shut down the online poker industry, Mr. Miles said.

Mr. Levitt could not be reached for an interview.

The 2006 law did not directly outlaw online poker sites but made it a federal crime to knowingly accept most forms of payment for Internet gambling. That move blocked access to U.S. banks, and thus, the ability to accept wagers from U.S. gamblers. Popular online poker sites took operations offshore and continued to operate.

Mr. Levitt has written that he found the logic underlying the 2006 law deeply flawed. Under the law, games of skill are exempted.

Mr. Levitt had a casual conversation about the gambling statute with Mr. Miles, a law professor who has a Ph.D. in economics.

When the World Series of Poker made its 2010 data available, “it appeared to us to be an ideal opportunity to test for the importance of skill in poker,” Mr. Miles said.

The annual event, held in Las Vegas, had 57 events last year that drew more than 32,000 participants. The researchers separated players they rated as highly skilled based on lists of rankings found in poker magazines and other sources. The pair found that the 720 players rated as highly skilled earned an average of $1,200 per tournament, while other players lost more than $400 on average