Internet poker this week was once again in the international spotlight as an American television network that airs worldwide broadcast a special program on gambling.

The Consumer News and Business Channel–CNBC for short–an American cable television network, on Wednesday night presented “CNBC Investigates: The Big Business of Illegal Gambling.”

Despite the title, most of the show was about legal gambling, including online poker in the USA.

The obligatory mentions were made of the recent cheating scandals at online poker rooms Absolute Poker (www.absolutepoker.com) and Ultimate Poker (www.ultimatebet.com), of course, but the highly-detailed, one-hour program also delved into the ongoing political debate in the USA over regulating online gambling.

(Currently, it’s legal to play online poker in the USA. What’s illegal is using an American credit card to fund online poker.)

U.S. Congressman Jim McDermott, a Democrat from the State of Washington and the sponsor of one of several bills out there that would regulate and tax Internet poker, was interviewed on the show and gave predictable, pro-gambling responses.

U.S. Congressman Bob Goodlatte, a Republican from Virginia and the co-sponsor of the bill-turned-law that banned credit cards for online gambling (the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act or UIGEA) in 2006, was also interviewed and gave equally predictable, anti-gambling counter-arguments.

Also touched on in the show was sports betting on the Internet, which is legal to do in the USA if you’re the bettor, but not if you’re the bookmaker. Interviewed on the program was Jay Cohen, the first American to serve time in prison for running an Internet bookie operation.

Cohen, who served two years in a Federal prison a few years back for helping run Antigua-based online sports betting site World Sports Exchange (www.wsex.com), was back in Antigua, helping run the site again, a violation of the terms of his release from prison (he had agreed to stay out of the online betting biz forever).

Making his first TV appearance since his release, Cohen, 44, despite being in a tropical paradise, looked beaten down, worn, old, grey, tired, fat and bloated, a testament to the harsh prison conditions the former San Francisco stockbroker had to endure and which clearly have taken a toll. Not surprisingly, he reiterated his innocence (amazingly, World Sports Exchange now also operates an online poker room, called World Poker Exchange).

The CNBC show, which has reaired several times already, will air again tonight at 9 p.m. and midnight Eastern Time in the USA, as well as tomorrow at 7 p.m. ET and Sunday at 10 p.m. ET.

Check local TV listings for air times in other countries.

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