Carbon Poker Goes Live with Real-Money Mobile App

Carbon Poker, the largest site on the Merge Network, has quietly gone live with a real-money, mobile-device app for its site.  The news comes following full pay-chip testing of the mobile app initiated just four weeks ago, that after Carbon announced earlier this summer that a mobile app was in the works.

This is great news for American poker players, with Carbon allowing the app to be used by players in 44 of the 50 United States.  The six exceptions, along with a seventh in the District of Columbia, are Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, New York and Washington.  All seven of these jurisdictions are already blocked by the network, denying access to its traditional internet-based platform.

The mobile app is somewhat limited at this early stage, with games limited to no-limit and fixed-limit hold'em cash games micro stakes, with Omaha and other games still to be introduced, along with tournament and SNG play.  Some accessibility issues still to be resolved for Android users.  At the present time, the app is also designed to be used in conjunction with a traditional Merge Network / Carbon Poker account, for which players must register separately using a standard Web-connected computer.  Once an account is created and funded, players may then access and play in the games via the new app.

A Carbon Poker representative posting on various discussion forums announced the app had gone live for real money this week, as well as dropping the address for existing real-money Carbon players to download the app: http://m.carbonpoker.ag. Early users reported Google Chrome accessibility working properly on mobile devices, but some problems were occurring in conjunction with Firefox.

For those 44 states where players are able to play on the Merge Network, this week's official rollout marks the first time US-based players are able to play real-money poker via mobile device, a capability that's been enjoyed in other parts of the world for two or three years.  Given the historic significance, Carbon's rollout is understated if anything.  Carbon's parent Merge remains in a three-way battle for US-facing market supremacy, with Bodog and the Winning Poker Network, and the introduction of a mobile app has the potential to be a big moneymaker for the Aussie-based site and network.

John McCain's Irresponsible Poker Moment

Political pundits were abuzz this week after prominent Senator and former Republican Presidential nominee John McCain (R-AZ) was captured by Washington Post reporter Melina Mara sneaking in a little play-chip poker on his iPhone (photo at right) during a Senate hearing on the possibility of US military intervention in Syria.

Mara's fellow Post worker David Beard subsequently Tweeted the photo, kicking off the expected firestorm of snarky commentary and finger-wagging, up to and including a "David Letterman Show" top-ten list of made-up excuses by McCain on why he was playing video games during an important Senate hearing.

A lot of observers have noted the general hypocrisy in McCain playing a game (poker), about which he's been a strident opponent of in the past, and there's a point to be made about that.  McCain was a strong supporter of noted fellow Arizona Senator and "Four Horsemen of the Online Poker Apocalypse" member Jon Kyl, back when Kyl joined Bill Frist in jamming the UIGEA through Congress in 2006, attached to an unrelated port-security bill.  The Daily Caller piece linked above even remembered to include an old classic -- Doyle Brunson's long blog rant about McCain's anti-gambling stance, published back in the DoylesRoom days.

So what was McCain's excuse?  Boredom.  McCain quickly Tweeted himself about the gaffe: "Scandal! Caught playing iPhone game at 3+ hour Senate hearing - worst of all I lost!"

Well, whatever.  Pols do that garbage all the time.  It was only a few months ago that a handful of French Parliament members were caught doing the same thing, and if we expect our politicians to be anything other than hypocritical hyenas, we're really fooling ourselves.

If there's a sadness to it all, it's that McCain couldn't even be bothered to keep his serious political face on during a hearing of such relative global importance -- the United States considering military options in yet another Middle East country is something that everyone should be taking seriously.  We'll keep this piece apolitical, and just note that it really doesn't matter whether or not McCain likes or disagrees with John Kerry (who was speaking as McCain tilted off his play chips), or whether McCain has already made up his mind irrevocably on the issues being discussed.  That McCain couldn't care enough to even pretend to be paying attention, given what was going on, is the real shame of the tale.

It's just another story of a politician proving again that what they say and what they do are light years away from each other.  American poker players understand that all too well.

Fourth Plea Deal in Trincher-Linked NYC Poker, Sportsbetting Prosecutions

A fourth plea deal is now pending in the Eastern District of New York prosecutions of a major sportsbetting and high-stakes poker ring that operated in New York City, and that included both prominent poker players and alleged links to Russian organized crime.  Edwin Ting, one of 34 defendants in the case, will plead guilty September 4th to a single gambling-business charge of helping organize the ring's poker games.

Ting was among a dozen or so defendants with noted poker tournament cashes, having won more than $80,000 in several East Coast events in recent years.  Ting's pending plea deal was first reported in a New York Daily News piece, which also claimed a similar deal is also pending for another minor defendant in the case, prominent player Justin "BooostedJ" Smith; however, the possible Smith deal cannot be confirmed at this time from online court dockets.

Ting was charged with helping to operate the high-stakes poker games centered around former WPT champion Vadim Trincher, who remains indicted on several more serious charges.  Those games were often held in Trincher's own high-rise, Trump Towers apartment, the same elite location over which Trincher filed a $6 million mold-damage lawsuit against Trump Towers management, alleging faulty plumbing repairs.

The sweeping indictments in the case, US v. Tokhtakhounov et al, allege that Trincher and other heads of the NYC-based syndicate operated under the protection and guidance of Russian organized crime boss Alimzhan Tokhtakhounov.  Tokhtakhounov, known as "Taiwanchik" and "Akim", was also tied to the celebrity West Coast games featuring several Hollywood actors (Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Ben Affleck and others) that were hosted and organized by Molly Bloom, another of the case's defendants.

Tokhtakhounov remains a fugitive from US justice, wanted international on arms-smuggling charges and domestically for his role in organizing an attempted fix of an Olympic event during the Salt Lake City Games.  The indictment alleges that millions were siphoned off from the poker and sportsbetting operations, and sent overseas to Tokhtakhounov and his other interests.

Ting's relatively minor role could still have netted him a five-year term, though he'll likely receive a much shorter sentence later this fall.  Ting becomes the fourth defendant of 34 indicted to plead guilty in the case, following similar deals for East Coasters William Barbalot and Kirill Rapoport and  a self-described Hollywood film producer, Bryan Zuriff, who was likely collected to the Bloom-run L.A. games.

Texas Sportsbetting Sting Cites Gregg Merkow, 17 Others

Prominent Texas poker pro Gregg Merkow was among 18 defendants named in a major sportsbetting sting which took place in Texas, and which was announced to the public in a press conference at which more than $4.7 million in seized proceeds was awarded to the city of Plano, where much of the illicit activity is alleged to have taken place.

According to several reports from local Texas outlets and the USAO's recent presser, the investigation into the ring stretched over a decade, beginning in 2001 and having major developments in March of 2011, when search warrants were executed against participants in the operation.  The investigation continued on from there, with the defendants being indicted last summer.

The size of the gambling ring was significant, according to reports.  In addition to live bets being accepted throughout the Dallas-Ft. Worth area, where the ring was centered, authorities allege that more than $5.4 billion in gross wagers were made through more than two dozen interconnected online sportsbetting sites in a little more than four years.  All the sites were incorporated and maintained in Curacao.

Merkow was reported as being a bookie for the group, and may well have served as investigators' access point, who in the sting's earliest phase were looking into another, smaller operation.  The good news for Merkow and the others is that most of them received only probation or a suspended sentence, except for the ring's leader, Albert Sydney Reed, Jr.,  Reed received a sentence of one year plus one day.

Merkow isn't due to be sentenced until December, but is likely to receive probation or a suspended sentence.  The real hit to Merkow and the others was the seizure of more than $10 million in cash and other assets alleged to be connected to the operation.  In Merkow's case, he lost the $233,000 that he claimed in an appeal was his poker-playing bankroll, along with jewelry and gold coins, including at least one family heirloom.

Merkow, who won a WSOPC event at Tunica in 2005 for more than $570,000, defeating Amnon Filippi for the win, has about $1.5 million in career tournament earnings.  His attempt to claim his seized funds back from authorities was mentioned in this 2012 KXAN piece, where they reported, "I am a professional poker player and have been for a number of years. In order to participate in this profession, it is necessary to have a cash hoard which is accessible on short notice ... Part of the money is my cash hoard which I have accumulated over the last 20 years or so."

Despite the fact that Merkow kept poker-playing records, such claims usually fall on deaf ears, as happened with Richard "Chinaman" Lee, who finished sixth in the WSOP main event and lost an even larger chunk of assets when authorities in San Antonio busted up a sportsbetting operation there several years ago.  Merkow thus gets added to the lengthy, lengthy list of prominent poker players who have had bookmaking-related scrapes with the law.  In this case it's a quarter-million-dollar life tax, right?

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