Poker Tour Says Law No Big Deal, But Is it Bluffing?

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Give embattled WPT Enterprises Inc. high marks for resilience.

The operator of the World Poker Tour issued a strangely optimistic statement in the wake of online gambling limits recently signed into law by President Bush. The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 effectively prohibits banks and credit card companies from sending payments to offshore gambling Web sites.


“The Justice Department has been very clear that it believes online gaming to be illegal in the United States and our policies have been always been tailored accordingly,” said Adam Pliska, General Counsel of WPTE. “This law clarifies the rules and makes it possible for everyone to move forward on an even footing.”


The loss of outlets for (paying) poker players will almost certainly dramatically decrease WPT tournament fields, however, because of fewer opportunities for players to use online play-ins to earn their way into competition.


It’s been a rocky year for the WPT, starting with a lawsuit filed against its TV partner Travel Channel. The suit was only recently resolved, but was followed by another, filed against the tour by seven of the tour’s best-known players. It accused the company of violating antitrust laws by conspiring with the casinos to eliminate competition.


The company hasn’t reached profitability, and posted a $5 million loss last year, including a $1.4 million loss in the fourth quarter. But it’s not a bust yet. The WPT is holding a lot of cash and reported revenues of $18.1 million for 2005, up from $17.6 million in the prior year.



Hollywood for Dummies?


Publisher Tony Uphoff is out at the Hollywood Reporter and Billboard Publisher John Kilcullen, president of parent company VNU’s Music, Literary & Jewelry Group,is in.


Kilcullen is the Reporter’s third publisher in the past 12 months. Uphoff took the job in January, succeeding longtime publisher and editor-in-chief Robert Dowling. Before taking over Billboard in 2003, Kilcullen worked at IDG Books, where he was instrumental in the launching of the ” for Dummies” manuals.



Real-Life Drama


Dr. Neal Baer, the Harvard-trained physician who was an executive producer on the hit TV series “ER,” is blending his real-life and creative medical efforts.


Baer, currently an executive producer on “Law and Order: Special Victims Unit,” is behind the upcoming launch of a Venice Arts photography exhibit documenting 15 HIV-positive women, recent moms or mothers-to-be from South Africa. The women featured in the project, titled “The House Is Small,” were taught how to document their lives photographically by a team of Venice Arts photographers who traveled from Los Angeles to Cape Town this summer. The money from sales of the photographs goes back to the women.


The Kaiser Family Foundation, Dick Wolf/Wolf Films Inc., Paradigm Talent and Literary Agency and Canon USA back the $40,000 project. Baer teamed with Lynn Warshafsky, Venice Arts’ executive director, and her husband, photojournalist Jim Hubbard, last year to get the project going.



Staff reporter Anne Riley-Katz can be reached at [email protected] or at (323) 549-5225, ext. 225.

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