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Poker Pro Arrested in Murder of Parents
A professional poker player suspected of killing his mother and poker pro father last year in California has been arrested and charged in the slayings.
According to media reports, police on Tuesday arrested Ernest Scherer III, 30, of Brea, California, USA, in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, and charged him in the murders of his parents, Ernest Scherer Jr., 60, and Charlene Abendroth, 57.
The slain couple were found dead on March 14, 2008, in their home in Pleasanton, California, USA, near San Francisco, California, USA, bloodied and beaten. =A0 Police said Tuesday that the younger Scherer is a compulsive gambler who is deep in debt and killed his parents in order to receive an expected hefty inheritance.
The accused double-killer had borrowed $616,000 from his parents to buy a condominium in Brea and the parents had been seeking repayment, police said.
In addition, the accused, who lacks a steady income, has over $40,000 in credit card debt and failed to pay property taxes and mortgage payments, police said.
The murder suspect is being held in Clark County Detention Center in Las Vegas without bail and awaits extradition to California, police said.
He was charged with two counts of murder with special circumstances and two counts of murder for financial gain, and if convicted, could face the death penalty, police said.
PokerHelper.com played a key role in solving the murder.
After the killings occurred, media reported them and also the fact that one of the victims was a poker pro.
PokerHelper.com, however, broke the story that the son of the murdered couple was also a poker pro and had earned hundereds of thousands of dollars playing tournament poker.
Other media, including the gambling news website Gambling 911 (www.gambling911.com), then picked up PokerHelper.com’s scoop and reported it.
Police investigating the murders saw the PokerHelper.com story about the murdered couple’s son on Gambling 911 and contacted Gambling 911 owner Chris Costigan.
Police, who hadn’t known the son was also a poker pro, urged Costigan to post a notice on his website asking anyone who is owed money by Ernest Scherer III to contact Pleasanton police, a request Costigan granted.
Police said Tuesday information they received from the public in response to that notice on Gambling 911 helped crack the case.
As for poker, the son was more successful than his dad.
According to tournament records, murder victim Ernest Scherer Jr. finished in the money in six poker tournaments in his career, winning a total of $25,108.
His biggest win came at the 2007 World Series of Poker (WSOP) in Las Vegas, where he finished in 18th place in an Omaha tourney and won $7,775.
At that same WSOP, he finished in 47th place in another Omaha tournament and won $3,956, and in 142nd place in a no-limit Texas hold ‘em tourney and won $3,792.
Also according to tournament records, accused double-murderer Ernest Scherer III finished in the money in 23 poker tournaments in his career, winning a total of $298,847.
Among his biggest wins was at the 2006 WSOP, where he finished in eighth place in a limit Texas hold ‘em tournament and won $34,362.
He also moneyed at two other ‘06 WSOP events.
Thomas Somach, www.pokerhelper.com
Beware Phishing Attempts Disguised as Online Casino Invites
E-mails for King Dice Casino are allegedly sent by spammers seeking to reap such info as credit card numbers and addresses from unsuspecting Internet casino customers.
Play Now at Lucky 18 Casino! A scheme to lure online casino patrons to websites that may install malware and are phishing operations is continuing. E-mails for King Dice Casino are allegedly sent by spammers seeking to reap such info as credit card numbers and addresses from unsuspecting Internet casino customers.
Last month, Steve Morgan, casino manager at Club World online casinos, sent out an e-mail warning patrons not to respond to a message from King Dice Casino, claiming affiliation with Club World and asking players to re-register at the new site. Morgan advised customers that the site was not in any way connected with Club World, and was a scam known as “phishing,” a practice of sending fake e-mails searching for identity information.
Letters are still being received with invitations to join King Dice Casino. The message is poorly written and lacks proper syntax. It reads like a three-card monte dealer talks, “We respect all our clients and give them chance to make real money staying at home. Nothing ventured, nothing gained! Whatever, you don’t lose anything! Just believe in your success and open the world of enormous money.”
Yet there is danger unsuspecting Internet gambling patrons could be tricked by the e-mail. The letter promises a special system of bonuses, and offers $3500 for signing.
Gaming industry experts say online casino fans should always be cautious when entering a new casino. Check reviews, articles and comments here at Online Casino Advisory to find out which casinos are established and legitimate. Always research a casino before deciding to play there. And never send personal info to a site not thoroughly checked out.
Published on February 25, 2009 by K.C. Carmichael
California To Legalize Online Poker???
Some legislators in California are trying to find new ways to bring money into that troubled state that they are considering legalizing online poker and might attend an upcoming i-Gaming conference. The i-Gaming conference features operators of online poker rooms around the world.
The online poker room they will not be visiting with is Party Poker.
“Too much baggage,” they said. “California is not going to have an online poker room licensed in the state where one of the founders pleaded guilty before he was even charged with a crime.”
The legislator was referring to Anurag Dikshit, PartyGaming’s billionaire co-founder, who will also be paying the U.S. Government a $300 million fine this year.
“888 (.com) is one that’s been mentioned,” our source stated. “They are looking at companies that are publicly traded and 888.com fits the bill. They are also trying to settle any issues with the U.S. government in relation to their taking bets from U.S. customers prior to passage of poker prohibition in 2006, much like Party, but nobody there is turning themselves in.”
California has the 8th largest economy in the world and to put it simply…they are broke!
California has the second highest foreclosure rate in the country and near double-digit unemployment, California’s economy is on the verge of collapse although this week Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger reached a compromise with legislators to close a $42 million deficit by increasing taxes and cutting state services.
iPhones Can Be Used For Card Counting
Ten years ago who would have guessed we would be taking photographs with cell phones? Now it seems the iPhone is being used for something quite clever – casino Blackjack card counting.
The Australian press has caught onto this mighty fast.
Many of you have seen the film “21″ about a group of Ivy League college students who learned the great art of Blackjack card counting. Back then the iPhone was yet to be invented but probably would have come in handy.
Gambling911.com’s man on the scene – Greg Tingle – says it is something the Australian casinos are becoming more vigilante about.
“Blackjack Card Counter, developed by an Australian named Travis Yates, is among the most popular applications for iPhone,” Tingle says. “And it can be purchased for under $10.”
And it’s not just Australian casinos that are keeping a close eye out for the latest iPhone app.. The State Gaming Control Board of Nevada has already warned about its usage.
This Blackjack Card Counting program can be utilized on either the Apple I-Phone or the Apple IPod touch (portable music player). Once this program is installed on the phone through the I-tunes website it can make counting cards easy. The program calculates the “True Count” and does it significantly more accurately. The card counting program uses a choice of four (4) card counting strategies. For each strategy the user presses the button that contains the face cards as they are drawn from the deck. Depending on the strategy and on the value of the card the button will either add or subtract 1 or 2 from the “Running Count”. The program can utilize the following card counting methods including Hi-Low, Hi-Op I, Hi- Op II, and Omega II.
This program can be used in the “Stealth Mode”. When the program is used in the “Stealth Mode” the screen of the phone will remain shut off, and as long as the user knows where the keys are located the program can be run effortlessly without detection.
Card counting involves keeping a running tally of the number of high cards compared with low cards.
When a higher balance of low cards have already been played, you have a probability advantage and so should place a bet.
Many casinos throw players out if they suspect them of counting cards but using a device to do the maths is strictly outlawed.
The iPhone application, which trains players using simulation blackjack hands, can operate in stealth mode while in a player’s pocket. The gambler simply needs to know where to press the screen, depending on whether the card is valued at less than or higher than 10, and the phone will vibrate when it’s time to place a bet.
Yates claims he would typically sell 10 copies of the application per day, but immediately following a profile on CNN, sales shot to 500 copies.
“I developed the app so people could practise card counting and use it with friends at home,” he said.
Advertisement: Get up to $3000 in free cash bonus money when you join Golden Lounge Casino – with over 300 online casino games.
Alistair Prescott, Gambling911.com
Washington State Loses Online Gambling Fight With Betcha.com
An appellate court in Washington has ruled that the site Betcha.com did not violate state gambling laws because users were allowed to back out of bets without paying.
“Because Betcha.com customers agreed in advance that participants were not required to pay their losses, Betcha.com was not engaged in ‘gambling,’” the court wrote.
The site offered a platform for users to bet with each other about matters like the outcome of political elections and sports games. The terms of service spelled out that Betcha.com worked on the “honor system” and that “bettors are not obliged to pay when they lose.” But the site also allowed users to give each other “honor ratings” based on whether they made good on their bets.
The site was only online for a few weeks in 2007 when authorities from the Washington State Gambling Commission demanded that founder Nicholas Jenkins shut it down. Jenkins filed a complaint asking a state court to rule that the site was lawful. A trial judge ruled against him, but the appellate court cleared the site last week.
A spokesperson for the state gambling commission said it intends to appeal the decision to the Washington Supreme Court.
While this case was pending, Jenkins was extradited to Louisiana to face criminal computer gambling charges stemming from Betcha.com. That case was dismissed in October, according to Jenkins’ lawyer, Lee Rousso. He added that Jenkins is considering whether to revive Betcha.com. “He’s contemplating that as we speak,” Rousso said Friday.
Betcha.com is not only online gambling site to come to a court’s attention. Kentucky authorities recently attempted to seize domain names of 141 out-of-state sites. The appellate court in that state recently ruled in favor of the Web sites, holding that the state’s anti-gambling laws only provided for the forfeiture of physical devices like slot machines and not domain names.
Appeal court rules it’s not online gambling if the participants can renege on a bet
A case in Washington and Louisiana – states notorious for hardline stances on Internet gambling – resurfaced after two years this week with a favorable appeal court ruling, reports Techdirt.
The case involved an innovative online ‘betting’ site called Betcha.com, launched by a Washington state lawyer called Nick Jenkins back in 2007 and closed after predatory raids by police, egged on by the local gambling authority and a sting operation involving a single Louisiana State Trooper. Speculation at the time was that the Washington and Louisiana state authorities may have indulged in some collaborative enforcement designed to put the troublesome and defiant Jenkins out of business.
The irony, as always in American politics and government, is that Washington state benefits from taxation on almost every other form of land-based gambling….but back to Nick Jenkins and Betcha.com. His concept was that his person-to-person betting site fell outside the definition of “illegal gambling” because punters could renege on their bets…therefore removing the risk required in wagering. As Techdirt describes it: “…if you lost a wager, you could click a button saying “I refuse to pay.”
The catch was that the site had a rating system, and if a ‘gambler’ reneged, it was likely to harm his or her rating, and others might refuse to bet against them in future. Betcha claimed that the presence of the renege button meant that it wasn’t actually gambling, because the punter never actually had to bet any money.
The state of Washington not only disagreed with Jenkins’s view, it took only a little more than a month before state authorities threatened the entrepreneur. When he refused to back down, and apparently at the request of Louisiana law enforcers who had mounted a one-trooper sting operation to establish ‘wrongdoing,’ Seattle officials raided the company premises, confiscating equipment and arresting employees, and making it practically impossible for the enterprise to continue.
Techdirt correctly comments that these official actions seem pretty extreme for what appeared to be a rather open question in the law.
Louisiana then asked for the cooperation of Washington state in ‘extraditing’ Jenkins and colleagues Josie Imlay and Peter Abrahamsen to face illegal gambling charges in Louisiana. Despite appeals for support by Seattle-residing Jenkins, Washington state Governor Christine Gregoire refused to set aside the extradition order, allowing this flimsy case to proceed. Jenkins and his employees then traveled to Louisiana to give themselves up and were subsequently released on bail and persuaded to enter a plea.
The case has some similarities with that of the then Sportingbet chairman Peter Dicks who in 2006 was detained on arrival in New York on a sealed warrant from Louisiana after state officials placed ’sting’ wagers on the UK website. However, New York governor George Pataki refused to permit the extradition, and the case was eventually resolved through a $400 000 settlement with the Louisiana officials.
In the Betcha.com case there were hints of official collusion between the Washington State Gambling Commission and the Louisiana Special Gaming Enforcement Division after Jenkins took issue with the former over the legality of his Betcha.com site, which provided an online venue for mainly prop deals between individuals but did not itself offer gambling services.
Soon after the WSGC clash the site facilitated $35 in bets from a single Louisiana resident, netting the company a total of 70 cents on the transaction. The Louisiana resident was subsequently revealed as an undercover trooper with the Louisiana Special Gaming Enforcement Division (SPGED), taking part in a month-long joint ‘investigation’ conducted by the SPGED and the Washington State Gambling Commission (WSGC).
“The only customer Betcha.com had in Louisiana was the state trooper, and the transaction that the state trooper did at the obvious instigation of the [WSGC] netted Betcha.com $0.70,” Betcha.com’s lawyer Lee Rousso said at the time. “These are the facts; these are the indisputable facts. This was a misuse of government resources and government power.”
Too late to save Betcha.com – now long closed – but perhaps forming a platform for personal claims against the authorities, the issue saw a conclusion in the appeal courts this week.
The court found that the Betcha founder was right all along; the presence of the renege button meant that the site was not a gambling site.
The court ruled: “Accordingly, there is nothing risked, which is the essence of both the common law and statutory definition of ‘gambling.’”
So the Betcha.com founder and his employees were threatened, harassed, arrested, deprived of business property, thrown in jail, extradited to Louisiana and charged with gambling-related felonies that finally forced them to negotiate a plea bargain to be rid of the matter.
To quote Techdirt: “Way to go Washington State – you tossed a guy in jail for a completely legal web business.”
Online Casino News courtesy of InfoPowa
Police Investigating U.S. Based Poker Room
An American online poker room that went out of business last year is being investigated by police.
According to media reports, former online poker room Zosoz, which opened in October of 2008 and folded two months later, owes money to numerous former customers.
That has sparked a criminal investigation of the room, based in White Bear Lake, Minnesota, USA, by White Bear Lake police, the reports said.
Zosoz was one of a new breed of so-called “legal” online poker rooms based in the USA.
Operating at www.zosoz.com, the room claimed it was legal because technically, it didn’t offer gambling.
Instead, it charged players a monthly fee for the right to play free poker games where cash could be won.
Lynne Bakes, police chief of the White Bear Lake Police Department, told a local newspaper: “We are at the initial stages of evidence gathering to determine what type of criminal activity may have occurred.” Bakes added that dozens of people have reported that they are either owed monies by Zosoz or were paid checks by Zosoz that bounced.
More than $50,000 worth of bounced checks have been reported, she said.
One couple, Brad and Julia Thompson of Florida, won thousands of dollars playing poker at Zosoz, but when they cashed three Zosoz checks totalling more than $12,000, all three checks bounced, Bakes said.
According to police, Zosoz was owned by Michael Ogren, who also owns a nightclub called the Myth Night Club in Maplewood, Minnesota, USA.
Tim Belisle, whose name surfaced earlier in the operation of Zosoz, worked for Ogren, police said.
Anyone who is owed money by Zosoz and has not been paid, or who has been paid with a Zosoz check that bounced, is asked to call White Bear Lake police at 651-429-8511.
Thomas Somach, www.pokerhelper.com
Duplicate Poker Owes Affiliates Over $480,500
On November 11,2008, we notified creditors that Duplicate (2007) Inc. (Duplicate or the Company) executed a Trust Mortgage (the Trust) on October 28, 2008, which granted a security interest in all of the Company?s assets to our firm, McTevia & Associates, LLC, as Trustee for the benefit of creditors (the ?Trustee?). The Trust provides that a claims process be established so that all creditors are treated equally under the priorities established in liquidations under the United States Bankruptcy Code.
Our primary responsibility as Trustee was to take actions we deemed necessary to realize the highest possible dividends to creditors. Our first step after acceptance of the Trust was to notify creditors, institute a claims process, review the Company’s books and records, and conduct a liquidation analysis to determine the amount of funds that could be available to creditors.
We advised that the Trustee oversees or monitors the liquidation, administers a claims process for creditors and pays creditors in the priority established under the Code. The process is extremely time efficient and most estates we have administered over the years are closed within months, as opposed to years in the courts. The process is also extremely cost effective; creditor distributions are paid promptly after all claims have been reconciled and approved by the Trustee. Virtually all of the estates we have administered in this fashion have closed with far less costs than in a bankruptcy.
We also informed creditors that the Trustee was presently liquidating the Companys assets and that according to the books and records of Duplicate you appeared to be a creditor of the Company. Under the terms of the Trust, creditors who wish to share in the proceeds from a liquidation of the Duplicate assets must file a claim with the Trustee for the amount that they claim they are owed by Duplicate. A proof of claim form was provided with the November 11, 2008 notice.
The Trustees records reflect that you were among the 344 creditors who filed claims with the Trustee totaling $487,500.
The next step in this process is for the Trustee to compare your claim with the records of the Company. Those claims that are consistent with the Companys records will be accepted and claimants will be so notified. Claimants filing claims that are not consistent with the Company’s records will be contacted by the Trustee in an attempt to resolve the differences.
In the meantime, the Trustee is continuing with the assistance of the Companys principles in its efforts to sell the Companys assets, the proceeds from which will be used to pay creditor claims. At this time, there are not any funds available to pay creditors until the assets have been sold. The Trustee anticipates the claims resolution process will be completed within 60 days after which a report will be sent to claim holders which will include the results of a sale of the assets.
Barney Frank Still Pushing For Legalizing Online Gambling
U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat and head of the U.S. House Financial Services Committee, at a news conference on Tuesday morning outlined his agenda for the coming months, including an attempt to have online gambling and poker prohibition repealed.
Congressman Frank has told Gambling911.com reporter Jenny Woo that legalized online gambling plays an important role in the current U.S. economic crisis.
“I think if we do this right we should make online gaming legal and subject it to a reasonable taxation like anything else,” he said. “This does not conflict to our effort to stimulate the economy. This isn’t bad for the economy.”
Gambling on the Super Bowl this past Sunday was widely believed to have generated close to $90 million in Vegas alone. The online gambling sector is likely to have made several times that number.
Barney Frank’s agenda included the following:
* Says favors a federal insurance program for municipal bonds.
* Says Bank of America will testify at hearing next week on Treasury Dept’s $700 billion TARP bailout program.
* Says wants to maintain mark-to-market accounting but try to contain its consequences to banks’ businesses.
* Says wants prohibition on executive compensation that encourages excessive risk.
* Says inspector general will demand that TARP recipients fully account for how they use federal funds.
* Says intends to toughen liability on securitizers.
* Says Treasury Dept shouldn’t ask Congress for more capital until it shows that money is being used responsibly.
* Says thinks Treasury Dept might ask Congress for more federal funds.
* Says hopes for repeal of online gambling regulations.
* Says national flood insurance program to be extended in omnibus legislation until September.
CSR Approved Casinos
