World Poker Tour group's legal counsel filed the company's first
response this week in an interesting case brought by leading poker
players who claim that the WPT tournament agreements place them at
a personal and business disadvantage.
WPT has hired top legal counsel in Makan Delrahim of the Washington
D.C. law firm of Brownstein, Hyatt and Farber, working in conjunction
with Gibson Dunn and Crutcher. In his 22 page response. Delrahim suggests
that any of the players involved in the litigation that are affiliated
with, or participate in the business decision making process of an
online poker room are putting the WPT at an unfair advantage.
He asserts that by participating in profits reaped by accepting US
bettors via their online poker site, these players put the WPT at
a competitive disadvantage. This is because the WPT's online poker
site, WPT Online.com bars US bettors due to the unclear legal situation
surrounding online poker in the United States.
Delrahim additionally claims that, by promoting online poker in the
U.S. and accepting U.S. customers, these players are subsidizing the
poker TV programming these online poker rooms produce, therefore competing
with the WPT in its core business of producing poker television programming.
Andy Bloch, Annie Duke, Chris "Jesus" Ferguson, Phil Gordon,
Joseph Hachem, Howard Lederer and Greg Raymer are the seven internationally
famous poker players who brought the action against WPT earlier this
year, announcing it at a widely publicized press conference. Their
submission is that WPT tournament pre-conditions required them to
waive rights to the use of their images and names to promote products
and video games. The claim is also made that WPTE colluded with member
casinos to prevent players from entering their tournaments unless
they forfeited their rights.
Delrahim denies any wrongdoing, saying: "WPTE denies that
it has violated the antitrust laws or engaged in any unlawful conduct
whatsoever. As will be shown in the course of this litigation, Plaintiffs'
complaint misstates the facts regarding WPTE and its relationships
with the casinos that host World Poker Tour events and mischaracterizes
the state of the poker industry."
WPT's general counsel, Adam Pliska said the company believes that
the action is misleading and without merit. The case continues in
the United States District Court, Central District.