For the first time in anyone’s recollection, the Republican Party has dropped its opposition to Internet poker from the election platform. It’s a win for the Poker 
Players Alliance, which lobbied for the change of heart. This doesn’t mean the GOP is about to embrace Internet gambling. But if it reframes the i-gaming debate as a state-level issue … that’s where it should have been all along. However, you will pardon us if we enjoy the egg on the faces of Sheldon Adelson, sugar daddy of the GOP, and Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (R), another bitter foe of online poker. However, at the top of the ticket you have Donald Trump, who — as a private citizen — has dabbled in prospective Internet gambling. It would hardly do for the party to give him the finger by dissing one of his fields of endeavor. Compound this with the grisly demise of Restore America’s Wire Act in the last Congress and Adelson’s Luddite crusade against the evil Internet seems to be breathing its last, thank God.
* MGM National Harbor hasn’t opened yet and already the competition with Maryland Live has turned nasty. The latter is alleging that ex-Cordish Gaming employees made off with a list of 3,000 high-value players,“the lifeblood of any successful casino,” when they (the employees) were sacked and went to take jobs with MGM. Cordish is asserting non-compete agreements which MGM dismisses as non-binding. All copies and originals of the lists have supposedly been returned to Cordish, which doesn’t necessarily mean the information contained therein didn’t make its way into MGM’s hands. After all, once a (for instance) PDF makes its way into cyberspace, it could go anywhere and everywhere. That’s why Cordish wants a forensic analysis of the hosts’ personal electronic devices. The controversy centers upon three casino hosts, although Cordish asserts that MGM actively connived with them to plunder Chairman Club and Black Card tier players for its own purposes.
“Although it is our normal practice to not comment on pending litigation, this lawsuit amounts to nothing more than a thinly disguised attempt to stifle the competition 
Maryland Live expects from MGM’s National Harbor resort and to try to tarnish MGM’s reputation in the marketplace,” MGM responded. The Cordish allegations may represent an attempt to blunt MGM’s competitive thrust into the Free State, as Maryland Live is expected to take the hardest hit. Cordish is suing to enjoin further “breaches,” presumably by having the courts forbid Maryland Live workers from taking jobs at MGM. The latter is being a little bit disingenuous about the existing non-compete agreements, saying that the three hosts were hired not to work at National Harbor but in a Virginia-based subsidiary.
This isn’t the first time down this road for Maryland Live. It sued a casino host for supposedly taking high-roller names to Horseshoe Baltimore when she defected to that casino. In the present case, the canned casino hosts were supposedly making calls on behalf of MGM as early as June 1. More recently, the three issued duplicate statements that read, in part, “I have abided by and intend to abide by the post-termination provisions of the agreement, to the extent they are legally enforceable.” There’s a wealth of ambiguity in those words.
