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 councel 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 (which can be read in full at www.media.worldpokertour.com) 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 subsidising 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 publicised 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 mis-states the facts regarding WPTE and its relationships with the casinos that host World Poker Tour events and mis-characterises 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.