Poker face off

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DÉCOUVERTES
Jeux
11:56
CULTURE
ENJEUX
17/05/11
SOCIÉTÉ
12-13-619-Steph:SOCIETE
Poker face off
RIEN NE VA PLUS. Depuis 2006, les jeux d’argent sur la toile sont interdits aux Etats-Unis, mais certains sites de poker contournaient la loi en travaillant avec des banques étrangères. Récemment, trois des plus grands sites de poker en ligne ont été
fermés par le FBI. Les fondateurs de Full Tilt Poker.com, PokerStars.com et Absolute Poker.com ont été inculpés pour fraude
bancaire, blanchiment d’argent et organisation illégale de jeux en ligne. Néanmoins, cette action d’éclat préparerait-elle
le terrain à une nouvelle législation en la matière ?
THE ECONOMIST
i Joe
Michaels, Colorado Director of Poker Players Alliance. (CRAIG F. WALKER/ THE DENVER POST)
Poker face off
Le poker dans le collimateur
(jeu de mots avec face-off remise en jeu,
confrontation et poker face visage impassible)
to flout se moquer de, passer outre, ignorer /
to bear, bore, borne supporter / to part séparer, ici priver / attorney procureur / to not
mince one’s words ne pas mâcher ses mots /
to indict inculper / gambling jeux (d’argent)
/ charge chef d’accusation / fraud scheme
escroquerie, magouilles / to trick escroquer /
to bribe soudoyer, corrompre / laundering
blanchiment / to seize saisir / to file a suit
intenter un procès / penalty amende.
2. on the face of it apparemment, à première
vue / blow coup / significant important / booming en plein essor, florissant, prospère / indictment mise en examen / swiftly promptement
/ to christen baptiser / former ancien / to chair
présider.
12 • VOCABLE Du 26 mai au 8 juin 2011
oreign firms that choose to operate in
the United States are not free to flout
the laws they don’t like simply because they can’t bear to be parted from
their profits.” Preet Bharara, the US attorney in Manhattan, did not mince his
words on April 15th as he indicted PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker,
three of the world’s biggest online-gambling companies, on charges of operating
illegal gambling businesses, concocting
an “elaborate criminal fraud scheme”, involving tricking and bribing banks, and
“massive money laundering”. At the same
time, America’s Department of Justice
seized and shut down the firms’ main websites, and filed a civil suit for penalties
of $3 billion.
F
Black Friday
2. On the face of it, this is a devastating blow to those who hoped that online
gambling would soon be made fully legal
in America and to the estimated 10m
Americans who have been gambling online even as their government has insisted
that it is illegal. Americans have been significant contributors to the global onlinegaming industry’s booming revenues, now
close to $30 billion a year. In response to
the indictment, outraged poker players
swiftly christened April 15th Black Friday.
“Online poker is not a crime and should
not be treated as such,” protested Alfonse
D’Amato, a former senator who chairs the
Poker Players Alliance, which claims over
1m members.
Page 13
3. A debate has gone on for years over
3. hastily précipitamment / to tack onto ajouter à / unrelated sans rapport / to handle gérer
/ to go, went, gone to great lengths se donner
enormément de mal / to hide, hid, hidden dissimuler / flow flux, volume / to disguise déguiser, dissimuler / purchase achat / jewellery
bijoux / on the wrong side of the line hors la
loi.
4. legit réglo, en règle, légal / so far jusqu’à
présent / to boost accroître, augmenter / to
confine limiter / to go through the motions
(of) faire semblant (de) / to fall, fell, fallen
foul of se heurter à, se mettre à dos, aller à
l’encontre de / interstate entre les Etats / to
trigger déclencher, provoquer / to commit
(s’)engager / to enforce (faire) appliquer / prohibition interdiction.
5. jointly conjointement / to predicate fonder,
baser / offline hors réseau / lawmaker législateur / to draft établir, rédiger / to scrap abandonner, annuler.
6. the chips are down les moments sont difficiles, la situation est critique, “ça sent le roussi”
(jeu de mots avec chip jeton de poker) / prosecutor procureur, avocat général, représentant du ministère public / crackdown mesures
répressives / to reverse oneself faire volte-face
/ to press faire pression, insister / attempt tentative / to pass (faire) adopter, voter / to fold
échouer / to misplay a good hand mal jouer
(malgré un beau jeu), ici échouer (alors que
toutes les conditions étaient réunies pour un
succès) / lobbying pressions / disconnected
hors réseau / punter parieur / belatedly tardivement / enticing attrayant, intéressant, alléchant / prospect perspective / to get, got, got
one’s act together se reprendre, se ressaisir,
s’organiser.
7. wanna = want to / to bet, bet, bet parier /
customer client / to demand exiger / refund
remboursement / fee cotisation / to be worth
valoir, mériter / punt pari / fortunes destin,
sort.
whether online poker is in fact illegal in
America. A 2006 law, hastily tacked onto the
end of unrelated legislation, bans American
banks from handling money related to internet gambling. The indictment against the
poker sites accuses them of going to great
lengths to hide the flow of payments to
them, such as by disguising them as purchases of jewellery or golf balls, implying
that they must have known they were on the
wrong side of the line.
Going legit
4. Talk of federal legislation to make the
industry legal again has so far got nowhere.
In the absence of this, several states have
moved towards legalising and regulating online gambling within their territory. On April
7th the local government of Washington,
DC, said that, to boost its tax revenues, it
would do so this summer. By confining access to residents (or at least going through
the motions of doing so), it hoped not to fall
foul of federal legislation, which only applies
to interstate commerce. This announcement
may have triggered the indictment the following week, as a demonstration that the
government remains committed to enforcing its interpretation of the law, and to send
a message to the gaming industry that it
should stop planning for a life after prohibition.
5. On March 24th Wynn Resorts, a casino operator, had formed a partnership with PokerStars with a view to operating online sites
jointly. Six days later Fertitta Interactive, a
business associated with the owners of Station
Casinos, joined up with Full Tilt Poker. Both
deals were predicated on online gambling becoming legal. The two offline firms support
legislation now before lawmakers in Nevada,
the home of Las Vegas, that called for the
state’s gaming commission to draft regulations for online gambling, to take effect on
approval from Congress or the Department of
Justice. Both firms scrapped their deals within
hours of their partners’ indictment.
6. Although it would appear that the chips
are down for internet gambling, the prosecutors’ crackdown may in fact turn out to be
the last before Congress reverses itself and
scraps prohibition. There are prominent supporters of legalisation in both parties press-
CULTURE
SOCIÉTÉ
11:56
ENJEUX
17/05/11
DÉCOUVERTES
12-13-619-Steph:SOCIETE
ing for such a change. An attempt to pass new
legislation late last year looked promising at
first, but folded when Harry Reid, a senator
for Nevada, misplayed a good hand. With lobbying from 10m disconnected punters and
the big casino companies (which have belatedly realised how much money there is to be
made online) plus the enticing prospect of
much-needed tax revenues, Congress has
plenty of reasons to get its act together, despite the inevitable moral objections of a minority of members.
Wanna bet?
7. Legalisation, if it happens, may not come
soon enough for the three indicted websites,
which are under pressure from customers demanding refunds of their fees. But things are
looking far better for those sites that had refused to accept American clients. Investors seem
to think it worth a punt. But betting on the fortunes of online gaming companies seems every
bit as risky as playing their virtual tables. ●
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Du 26 mai au 8 juin 2011 VOCABLE • 13