Party Gaming is talking to DOJ, seeks an indulgence?

[counthomer]

As much as this disgusts me as a US player, this is a quite brilliant strategic business move by Party, and possibly one of the most significant things to happen this month (although it probably doesn't appear so to the people outside of the industry).

For those who think this is positive, Party has, and always has been, interested in its own position. People in the industry have been fearing this type of play for a while, the only question is why it has taken so long.

Party is simply looking to come out of this with a clean slate, and in the process it hopes to deal a crippling blow to all the current US rooms. All it may need is some sort of joint agreement with the DoJ stating exactly what Milton theorised - that poker is illegal etc etc.

The US rooms won't agree with any statement, but it puts them in a terrible position - if the DoJ openly comes out against them (whether this is legally correct or not) they face the prospect of many of the payment providers taking an extremely risk averse attitude and pulling the plug.

In many respects this is possibly a terrible bit of news for us US players, but you have to admire how Party is playing their hand.

If you want to look at this on an even deeper level, it says a lot about the fragmentation of aims within the industry, how Party possibly sees the WTO issue and the challenges we face getting everyone pushing in the right direction.