A Texas man remained in critical condition Wednesday after he was shot twice during a robbery of a high-stakes poker game.

According to media reports, Charles Lineberry, 49, of San Antonio, Texas, USA, was shot twice in the upper chest early Tuesday morning after three masked gunmen broke into a house in San Antonio and robbed a high-stakes poker game involving about a dozen people. (more…)

Lobby group the Poker Players Alliance (PPA) spent almost a million dollars last year to lobby the Federal government on online gambling legislation.

According to a disclosure form filed with the U.S. Senate’s Public Records Office and obtained by the Associated Press, the PPA spent approximately $900,000 in 2007 to lobby for a bill that would exempt poker from a law that restricts online gambling, and for legislation that would regulate the Internet gaming industry. (more…)

Top poker pro Doyle “Texas Dolly” Brunson, a lifelong Republican, is endorsing Democrat Barack Obama for President of the United States.

In his blog, at the website of the online poker room he shills, Doyle’s Room (www.doylesroom.com), Brunson wrote a few days ago: (more…)

A California legislator wants to officially make online poker legal–at least in his state.

According to media reports, State Assembly member Lloyd Levine, a Democrat from Van Nuys, California, has introduced Assembly Bill 2026, which would order a study on the Federal law that restricted Internet poker and would explore whether a California-only online poker service might be legal. (more…)

Television talk show host Montel Williams is hosting a charity poker tournament and it’s not for the faint of heart, or wallet.

The tourney’s entry fee is a whopping $2,500! (more…)

Phil “Poker Brat” Hellmuth Jr. and Doyle “Texas Dolly” Brunson are among the top professional poker players who are scheduled to compete in the upcoming National Heads-Up Poker Championship.

The event is to be held at the Caesars Palace hotel and casino in Las Vegas, from February 28 to March 2, 2008. (more…)

An online poker room that claims to be legal in the U.S. is holding its first world championship tournament.

New York City-based Duplicate Poker (www.duplicatepoker.com), which offers a variation of conventional online poker that it says is legal in the USA, announced that the first-ever Duplicate Poker World Championship will commence in September. (more…)

A Florida man has been arrested and charged with assassinating three men he thought were cheating him at poker.

According to media reports, officers from the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office in Florida on Sunday arrested Duane Demaris Crittenden, 28, of Palatka, Fla., and charged him with three counts of first-degree murder in the shooting deaths of a trio of poker players. (more…)

A professional poker player from Canada has been charged with fraud and other crimes for pretending to be an investment broker and defrauding clients out of $7 million.

According to Canadian media reports, Shaun David Rootenberg, 40, of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, persuaded people to give him money to invest in businesses in Canada and the United States to which he had no connection. (more…)

A South Carolina man was sentenced to six years in prison Wednesday for running an illegal video poker operation and bribing law officers to look the other way.

According to media reports, James Otis Henderson, majority owner of Henderson Amusements, Inc., a South Carolina-based vending machine company, made $14 million over a seven-year period by operating illegal video poker machines in western North Carolina. (more…)

Poker in all forms has been illegal in South Carolina for over 200 years, but that may be changing.

A bill that would allow charity poker events to be held in churches in the state passed its first hurdle Thursday when a State Sentate committee approved it, according to media reports. (more…)

As if out-of-control gambling isn’t enough of a problem already on the nation’s college campuses, now there’s a new poker competition just for college students.

Something called the New England College World Series of Poker Championships was held for the first time Sunday and the winner was Patrick O’Donnell, a 22-year-old college student at Boston College in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, USA. (more…)

Just what we need, another poker show on televison.

The Best Damn Poker Show, a new televison program on cable sports network Fox Sports Net, premiered on Monday. (more…)

Professional poker player Scott Obst, the “Bad Beat Deadbeat” who authorities have issued an arrest warrant for because he owes $115,000 in child support payments, balked at paying a $2 million judgment he was hit with by a court in the 1990s, in connection with his work in the adult film industry, PokerHelper has learned exclusively.

A television station in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA, reported last week that authorities in Wisconsin had issued an arrest warrant for Obst, 39, who now lives in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, because he owes $115,000 in back child support payments for a son, Andrew, 17, who lives in the Milwaukee area with his mother. Despite making $37,000 a month as a professional poker player, Obst hasn’t made child support payments in three years, the TV station, WTMJ, reported. (more…)

If it wasn’t for poker, the disappearance of American teenager Natalee Holloway in Aruba would not have been solved.

According to media reports about the case, Patrick van der Eem, the man who tricked Dutch student Joran van der Sloot into confessing his involvement in the disappearance, met the student at a Dutch casino where both of them had gone to play poker. (more…)

The unofficial motto of the mail carriers of the U.S. Postal Service is: “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.”

Whoever came up with that motto apparently forgot about trying to fill an inside straight–some mailmen, it turns out, are doing just that instead of delivering the mail. (more…)

Most poker players may fear the bad beat, but there’s one who doesn’t fear being a deadbeat.

A deadbeat dad, that is. (more…)

Three people have been arrested in Australia for breaking into social clubs and robbing video poker machines. According to Australian media reports, the poker bandits broke into a dozen clubs in New South Wales, a state in southeastern Australia, and used knives, iron bars and swords to break open video poker machines at the clubs and steal cash.

The crooks did more than a million dollars worth of damage to the clubs and the machines, the reports said. (more…)

Three people were charged with gambling offenses after State Police raided a convenience store in Ohioville, Pennsyvlania, USA, and found 13 illegal video poker machines.

According to media reports, three undercover members of the Pennsylvania State Police’s vice unit went to Haynes Super Service on January 2, where the store’s owner, Darrel Haynes, told them there were video poker machines in a back room. (more…)

Another U.S.-based online poker room that claims to be legal in the USA is to open this month–and this one has the backing of a poker magazine.

Spade Club (www.spadeclub.com) is the brainchild of Barry Shulman of Las Vegas, owner and publisher of Card Player magazine. (more…)

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department yesterday officially confirmed what PokerHelper.com readers knew days ago–convicted child molester and professional poker player Shahram Sheikhan will not be a guest at the charity poker event being held later this month by the Sheriff’s Department’s Transit Services Bureau.

In response to an e-mail query from PokerHelper.com about the status of Sheikhan’s participation in the event, media spokesman Lt. John C. Baylis of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department on Thursday issued a terse, one-sentence statement about the matter: (more…)

Professional poker player and convicted child molester Shahram “Shawn” Sheikhan, who was just disinivited from an upcoming charity poker event run by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department because of media outcry, attended a similar charity poker event the department held last year, PokerHelper.com has learned exclusively.

In addition, PokerHelper.com has also learned exclusively, the Los Angeles County deputy sheriff who invited Sheikhan to both charity events was given $2,500 in chips by the child-molesting ex-con at last year’s World Series of Poker, so the deputy could try to qualify for the WSOP main event. (more…)

The World Series of Poker (WSOP) has a new p.r. flack.

The WSOP announced this week that Seth Palansky is its new communications director, replacing Gary Thompson. (more…)

Professional poker player and convicted child molester Shahram Sheikhan will not be attending a charity poker event that will be held later this month by the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, PokerHelper.com can report exclusively.

Sheikhan, 38, an Iranian native who lives in Las Vegas and goes by nicknames “Shawn” and “Sheiky”–as well as the media moniker “Poker Pervert”–was convicted of sexual battery of a minor and other sex crimes in 1995 in California and served nine months in jail and five years probation. The U.S. government tried to deport him back to Iran last year. (more…)

Organizers of the 2008 Canadian Open Poker Championships have announced that several top professional poker players have been confirmed to participate in the event, which is scheduled for March 5-9, 2008, at the Deerfoot Inn and Casino in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

According to a news release from the event organizers, among those scheduled to participate are Jennifer Tilly, Phil “Unabomber” Laak, Antonio “The Magician” Esfandiari, Huck Seed, “Yukon” Brad Booth, Mel Judah and Greg Mueller. Seed won the main event at the 1996 World Series of Poker (WSOP) in Las Vegas. (more…)

A seat at the main event of the upcoming 2008 World Series of Poker (WSOP) in Las Vegas is the grand prize at a celebrity poker tournament set for this weekend in Southern California.

The Celebrity Poker Championships are scheduled to be held on Sunday, February 10, 2008, at the Hollywood Park Casino in Inglewood, California, outside Los Angeles. (more…)

A woman and her daughter have been charged with running an illegal video poker operation in North Carolina. According to media reports, Carole Lynn Hopkins, 53, and her daughter, Heather Lynn Hopkins, 31, both of Statesville, N.C., USA, were each charged last week by Iredell County sheriffs with operating video gaming machines and allowing gambling in a public house.

On January 31, sheriffs executed search warrants at four locations in Statesville, culminating a month-long investigation that revealed patrons were paying to play video poker at the locations and were receiving cash payments for winning hands, the media reports said. (more…)

The Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department is defending a convicted child molester whom it invited to participate in a charity poker tournament.

Professional poker player Shahram “Shawn” Sheikhan, who served nine months in prison in 1995 for convictions of sexual battery on a child and other charges, was invited by the L.A. Sheriff’s Department to participate in its February 24 Memorial Poker Classic, which raises monies for the families of police officers and firefighters who died in the line of duty. (more…)

Police in Melbourne, Australia, have charged two men in connection with the armed robbery there last month of an American professional poker player.

On January 20, Jason Potter, 22, of Tulsa, Okahoma, USA, competed in and finished in 31st place in the Aussie Millions, a poker tournament at the Crown Casino in Melbourne, and collected $30,000 in cash. Later that night, while walking back to his hotel after grabbing a bite to eat at a nearby restaurant, Potter, still carrying his winnings, was confronted by two knife-wielding muggers, who stole his cash. (more…)

Online poker room Betfair Poker (www.betfair.com) is demanding some of its online poker players return $200,000 in winnings that they actually stole.

According to a report in the London Telegraph, a British newspaper, United Kingdom-based Betfair has contacted about 20 of its account holders, accused them of collusion and ordered them to repay the money or face possible legal action. (more…)