I had a stroke of good fortune a couple of weeks ago when I was given a free £25 bet by Ladbrokes. The Australian Open was about to start and my friend suggested that Justin Henin was a good bet at 5-1. So on went my fee £25 and hey presto - Henin has waltzed to the final and is now even money. The amusing thing is that the friend who suggested the bet also happens to work for Ladbrokes. So cheers Ladbrokes! This must be like how a British bank must feel after being given loads of taxpayers’ money and then have the Bank of England buy its bonds for much more than they are really worth. Except they received 2 billion times more. And they didn’t say thanks.
Still the bet hasn’t won yet so I shouldn’t be giving it the big one because you know what happens when you do that! I think I’ll have a covering bet on Serena just to cover my “stake”. I wouldn’t want to “lose” on this one after my own personal “bailout” would I? That would make me a sort of punting equivalent of the Royal Bank of Scotland.
Anyway, having had this interest in the tennis it means I have watched a lot of the coverage on Eurosport and let me tell you it can be tiresome. There is one commentator in particular who I won’t name (because I’m only 80% certain it is the person I think it is) but all he can seem to say is “wow”. I’ll give you some examples. Long rally ending in brilliant winner - “wow” Player scampers back to retrieve lob and hit winner. “Wow!” Player hits back handed cross court winner on the run – “WOW!” You get the picture. If he has been saying a lot of “wows” and something truly phenomenal happens he deals with the situation by pausing for a second and then unleashing a louder “WOOWW!” The other day I counted 4 “wows” in 15 minutes and this gets rather irksome as you can imagine. This bloke is in his mid forties and seemingly hasn’t learned any new words in the last 40 of those years. Maybe he is trying to sound “cool”? Sounds more like a moron if you ask me (which none of you did to be fair).
But even Mr Wow was trumped by the tournament’s official ginger haired on-court interviewer on Monday. Having just switched on after Murray’s 3-0 win over the giant American John Isner I was subjected to a horrifically cringe worthy interview which was so awful it was almost funny. So I couldn’t let it pass without comment.
At the end of the match this bloke came onto the court to interview Murray. I didn’t recognise him but he had floppy ginger hair and was really full of himself - quite the celebrity in his own mind. So I felt like I should know who he was. He proceeded to give the worst sporting interview I’ve ever heard. If you had asked Garth Crooks to go out there with the instructions to “stare at Murray as intensely as you have ever stared at anyone in your life and try to be the most serious you have ever been”, he couldn’t have done a worse job. Bear in mind the following exchange took part in front of 15,000 people courtside. His opening gambit was:
“Now Andy I know you do meticulous research on your opponents before every match so I know you’ll have done the same on me. What’s your opinion of me?”
Hang on a minute pal, you’re just the interviewer, he’s the famous one. And I for one don’t even know what your name is! Murray didn’t have an answer to this and I can’t say I blame him. It was a good job he was in such a good mood though. He had played brilliantly - “10 out of 10” according to the studio and he had won 3-0. Just as well because I would have loved to have seen floppy ginger ask him that question after losing the final.
Then he said : “go on tell us something personal about yourself”
This was met with a perplexed look, a sort of nervous laugh, and a long silent pause as Murray thought of a possible way to dignify that with a response. Finally and quite humourously he said “see I can’t think of anything, I really am boring” so ginger nut offered some help
“tell us the last film you saw” (as if that was “personal” information).
Still Murray couldn’t think of an answer. Well this was getting really awkward now. Floppy hair suggested “Avatar” to help him. “No” Murray answered but then finally came up with “Bruno”. And that was basically it - interview over!
He released the poor Murray from the “interview” and as Murray was walking to the exit he said :
“Hey, you’re lucky I didn’t ask you about your sex life”
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WHAT? WHO IS THIS FLUFFY IDIOT? I asked myself. “Go on Murray, grab his Mike and shove it up his backside”.
I made it my business never to find out the identity of this preposterous man but speaking to a mate the other day while we were watching the tennis he revealed all when our hero strutted on court after another match. Clearly my mate held similar views because he said.
“Since when does Jim Courier think he is a celebrity/comedian/personality”?
So now I know. I can’t say my life has improved for knowing this information though.
Anyway, I seem to have run into quite a lengthy side track there so let us return to matters of poker and our old friend Anurag Dikshit made the news this week because he has finally ended his connection with Party Poker by selling off his remaining stake in the company. Anurag Dikshit wrote the software for the poker site and is one of the founding members of Party Poker. He once held 27% of the shares in the company and Party Poker was worth $6 billion at one point, making him a billionaire until the USA passed the 2006 Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act. This sneakily passed piece of naff legislation knocked 75% off the Party share price overnight.
Regular readers will know that I am sympathetic to the plight of this chap after he got roughed up by the US Department of Justice. He agreed to pay a $300m fine for breaching the 1961 Wire Act (basically for allowing US citizens to play poker). Many say he should have fought this nonsense charge but when you’re mega rich, want the easy life and have aggressive American lawyers threatening you with God knows what then I can’t say I really blame him.
Anyway, while the selling of his stake is not that newsworthy of itself there may be a clue from this act to what might be happening with a wider issue – the legality of US online poker. Listen to this quote from the source where I read this story:
“The 38.8 million shares of Party Gaming stock held by Dikshit amount to £114 million and helped to drive the price of Party Gaming PLC up during trading on Tuesday and Wednesday. Opening at 277.10p at the start of trading Wednesday, Party Gaming PLC trended up 14.2p over the course of the day, finishing at 292p.”
This comment implied that the share price rose as a result of Dikshit selling his huge stake. What this article glaringly failed to mention was that such a rise after a huge sell off contradicts all economic theory and is virtually unprecedented. When you sell over 10% of the entire share capital of a company, then as a rule, that share price does not rise. If you are ever rich enough to try it, by all means have a go and try to sell 10% of any listed company’s stock over 2 days and report to me what happens: I promise you that the price will plummet and you will lose a fortune.
Someone once likened the process of a broker selling off a large stock position as akin to the British prisoners who dug the tunnel in the film “The Great Escape”. They would take small pocketfuls of earth out to the yard and release it through holes in their pockets onto the yard bit by bit, rather than dumping big clumps of earth that the guards might see. In the same way, a broker would sell little bits at a time for if anyone in the market notices it becomes obvious who you are, what you are doing and everyone will offer you peanuts for your stake.
But Party Poker’s share price did not plummet. It went up and this rather begs the question “why”?
The reason that the share price has gone up is because Dikshit washing his hands of the company is seen as a move away from their “tainted past” (not that he’d done anything wrong) and will position Party for a return to the US market if the law should change. With Dikshit still to be officially sentenced in 2010 this would have not been as viable. But will the law change? Nothing official has happened on the UIGEA debate since 3 December 2009 so should we be optimistic that the dreaded UIGEA will be repealed and online poker will become legal in the USA?
Well this share price rise is a clear sign that the market seems to think so. The news that Dikshit has severed links has clearly sparked a buying frenzy because people believe Party will be back in business in the USA. And let’s face it, people who vote with their wallets usually know more than Joe Soap.
So this share sale marks the final insult for Mr Dikshit. Shafted by the sneaky UIGEA, 75% wiped off his company’s value overnight, his fortune slashed to a fraction, bullied by the US legal system into handing over $300million and threatened with unspeakable things, he is compelled to cut his ties with the biggest project of his life. And the news of him doing so forces up the share price, gains he ain’t ever gonna see because he no longer holds the shares! I honestly hope he sold them to a friend and that he still retains the beneficial ownership.
And in theory he might still go to jail for two years when he has his sentencing on 16 December 2010 (although in practice he will have agreed that he wont go to prison as part of the deal and the DoJ will have insisted he doesn’t reveal this so they can still appear to be acting tough)
Maybe we shouldn’t feel too sorry for Mr Dikshit. There are probably a million people who could have written that software and he got 27% of the company for his troubles. If I had been the founder of the company, then trust me, no computer programmer would have wound up with 27%.
Well the jolly old Iraq “inquiry” rumbles on and Tony Blair is giving evidence as I finish this piece. So I shall spend the next hour or so watching him for tells which I will try to profit from at the poker table. Seriously, that’s all the “inquiry” will be any use for.
You can’t even call it an “inquiry” truthfully. The other week when Alastair Campbell said “I stand by every word in that dossier” no-one enquired “HOW”? When he said that “Britons can be proud of what we have achieved in Iraq” none of the 5 chinless wonders on the panel enquired “WHY” let alone shout him down with howls of derision. If they can’t make those basic “enquiries” when prompted so easily, you can’t really call the whole charade an “inquiry” can you?
So I suggest if you watch it yourself that you play a little drinking game with the following rules. Every time Blair says “I believed I was doing the right thing” drink two fingers worth, likewise drink 2 fingers worth if he says “we make moral decisions, not just legal ones” (or any variation thereof).
If he says “God told me to do it”, say “WOW”, get up the off licence, buy a can of special brew and down it in one.
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