After a lengthy legal battle, the folks who run the World Series of Poker (WSOP) have gained control of a critical website.

The website?

It’s www.wsop.com.

Harrah’s Entertainment Corp., the owners of the WSOP, for years have owned and operated a website about the WSOP at www.worldseriesofpoker.com.

The only trouble was, many people looking for that website typed in www.wsop.com and arrived at a website not about the WSOP and not run by the WSOP.

Until recently, the www.wsop.com website was owned and operated by someone named Federico Schiavio.

The www.wsop.com site appeared to be some kind of poker portal, with sections called “news” and “forums,” though the sections were blank and simply said “coming soon.”

There was one advertiser on www.wsop.com, Pit Bull Poker, and there was also information about the court battle between Harrah’s and Schiavio over ownership of the www.wsop.com website. =A0 The info on www.wsop.com about the court battle had said: “In response to the lawsuit I filed against Harrah’s in Los Angeles, Harrah’s has now filed a motion to dismiss my lawsuit…I am in the middle of a legal battle with Harrah’s over my ownership of wsop.com, the home of the World’s Standard of Online Poker.

“This is my registered trademark (and) I worked hard to get this registration, overcoming an initial refusal by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office that my trademark was merely descriptive of my services. The Patent and Trademark Office did not find confusion between the World’s Standard of Online Poker and any other trademark, including the World Series of Poker.

“Harrah’s, a multi-billion dollar company, waited two and a half years to sue me for alleged trademark infringement, which is an improper lawsuit and filed only after I grew sick and tired of being harassed by Harrah’s and sued Harrah’s first, for a declaration that I am doing nothing wrong. I will not go down without a fight.”

In a news story last year about the domain name controversy, PokerHelper.com reported: “Like most court battles, this will probably be a battle of money more than anything else–with the side throwing more of it around likely winning. Want to bet how this one will eventually end?”

Recently, without any fanfare or announcement, the WSOP took control of the www.wsop.com website from Schiavio.

Now, if you type www.wsop.com into your computer browser, you will automatically be taken to the www.worldseriesofpoker.com website.

You also continue to arrive there if you type www.worldseriesofpoker.com.

So much for the World’s Standard of Online Poker, whatever that is (or was).

(E-mail Tom Somach at tomsomach@yahoo.com.)