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Other Poker news includes the absolute flood of Poker blogs that have popped up over the last several months. In case you are wondering, a blog is basically an online diary where readers can leave comments and share in the topics discussed by the blog writer. Today there are many hundreds of poker blogs covering the spectrum from the professional—such as WSOP winner Daniel Negreanu's "Poker Diary" at FullContactPoker.com—to the enthusiastic amateur (Google "poker blog" and you'll find hundreds).

Although it's not usually a big banner news item, there have been some important events in the jurisdictions area.

Two years ago Antigua won a World Trade Organization ruling against the U.S. for unfair prejudice against Antigua, a fellow WTO member, and its internet gambling companies. The argument posed was that the U.S. permits a variety of types of gaming within its own borders and thus is being hypocritical in it's criminalization of the gaming services of fellow WTO member based companies. Although the U.S. has virtually ignored the WTO ruling there has been serious talk recently of trade sanctions against the U.S. and that has continued to raise the important issue of non-U.S. jurisdictions being able to access the U.S. market.

Equally important is the slow but steady progress the United Kingdom is making toward implementing their 2005 Gambling Act. Once fully implemented the Gambling Act would legalize internet-based casino companies within the UK and in anticipation of this, British government officials have been visiting internet gaming companies in other jurisdictions and trying to sell them on the benefits of relocating. Although there hasn't yet been a huge response, it's not hard to see that once they’re "online" they will be a huge player in the business.

Needless to say the recent events in the U.S. concerning online gaming—legislation in Washington state, arrests of gaming company executives, etc—has had an effect on the industry as a whole. In particular gaming stocks have slid by as much as 30 percent but it's not the avalanche that some analysts had predicted. Unfortunately the general trend of gaming companies toward going public with their stock has slowed noticeably.

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