The one thing that both professional and casual poker has in common is that the US government does not protect either. An act was created in 2006 called the Unlawful Gambling Enforcement Act back in 2006 and went into full force in June. These somewhat limited players who want to gamble online.

On Wednesday, Representative Barney Frank advanced the Internet Gambling Regulation, Consumer Protection, and Enforcement Act through the House Finance Committee that he chairs. If the bill becomes law, it would set up the framework for licensing of online poker operators, and that is something many players are looking forward to.

"I was so excited about possible online poker regulations, that I watched the entire meeting today. It was the first time I ever watched a Congressional meeting," said Paula Oliva. "Hopefully, I will soon have the right to play poker online without the fear that I am doing something illegal."

There seems to be a lot of chatter around the internet regarding this advancement, though most of it positive there was quite a bit of negative chatter as well. Some examples:

“Everybody seems to be ignoring that the amendment says they could not break state or federal law. States have a variety of gambling laws and WA State specifically outlaws online poker. Nevada law states anyone that takes a bet must have a gaming license. Illinois has a similar law. Accepting action from residents of those states can't be described as an accident.
“By processing payments for residents in those states, in violation of state laws, the rooms are in violation of the UIGEA. Even if you say poker is not gambling Washington state law says it is. By accepting players there a poker room can't plead ignorance. The PPA seems to have a different opinion than this but to me it seems obvious. The poker rooms are taking illegal action from several states and the provision includes that one who has accepted wagers in violation of state law cannot be granted a license.
“I could certainly see rooms going the route of Party and Dik**** and just paying a massive fine to avoid prosecution but I don't see how in the world these rooms would be allowed to get licensed with B&M players like Harrah's and MGM around, especially since the bill as it stands currently specifically excludes these rooms.
“Edit: If FTP and PS truly think they have good legal advice that they are operating legally then they have a chance but the WA state law is pretty clear. I guess we will see. This is all speculation and of course still has quite a few votes and a presidential signature before it happens. It could be changed 1000 times before that happens.
“Of course these site's would have another option. Change the structure or outright sell. Obviously their businesses are worth a fortune to someone wanting to get in on the land grab.”

And the response

“There are plenty of responses to this concern. The first is that Stars and Tilt will be dealing with the treasury lawyers. The Treasury lawyers will not be expert in the poker related laws of all 50 states. It is perfectly reasonable to believe that the federal government's lawyers will begin and end their inquiry as to whether a site violated a federal law.

“The second answer to this is that states cannot assert jurisdiction (successfully) over conduct outside of their physical boundaries in the same way that the federal government can. Washington state cannot argue that a poker site based in the Isle of Man violates state law because it is accessible in Washington any more than they could argue that a site based in California violates Washington state law because it is accessible in Washington.
“The last point is that UIGEA did not criminalize any payment processing other than for gambling that was already illegal under preexisiting state or federal law. so the "accepted or made payments," language gets you right back to points one and 2--stars and tilt didn't violate UIGEA by processing payments unless poker was already illegal before UIGEA.”

Doyle Brunson, the 76 year old, 10 WSOP poker bracelet holder, has seemingly upset the poker world after one of his tweets.

The 76-year-old, who is notorious for cracking jokes about blondes and terrorists, unintentionally sent Twitter into meltdown when he cracked a lesbian joke the other day. He told his 345,000 followers: “World's shortest books: 'To all the men we have loved before, 'by Ellen de Generes and Rosie O'Donnell.”

Texas Dolly, who has won 10 World Series of Poker Bracelets, was then immersed with side-splitting suggestions for other titles of the world's shortest books.

Quite a few mocked other poker pros, but the discussions quickly deteriorated to encompass celebrities, politicians and other sportsmen.

Brunson instantly retweeted dozens of them to his hundreds of thousands of followers.

“Getting hundreds of different versions of Worlds Shortest Books,” he said. “I'm picking out the ones i think are funny. Sorry, but u don't have to read.”

Poker suggestions included titles such as 'Caucasian Women I've Dated', by Barry Greenstein, 'Beauty tips' by Vanessa Selbst, ’The Integrity of Online Poker' by Russ Hamilton, 'How to Stay Sober' by Gavin Smith and 'My success as a poker pro', by Jaime Gold.

in spite of 300 people deciding to protest at the incessant jokes by 'inflowing' him on Twitter, Texas Dolly

It seems the latest Easter egg from our favourite video site has come up again with a nifty way to waste your day at work away. It turns out you can play your favourite old school Snake game (the kind that used to be on classic Nokia phones) on YouTube videos. All you have to do it pause your video and hold the left and up keys on your keyboard and voila! Snake!

The game is reminiscent of the classic Nokia game where you control a transparent snake around the video player with your arrow keys and gobble dots as the snake continues to grow.

A couple of months ago during the Fifa 2010 World Cup, YouTube put a soccer ball on their videos which played a Vuvuzela sound on all videos. The Google owned site is no stranger to playable games on its websites.  They turned their logo in a playable version on Pac-man supposedly costing society $120 million in productivity.

It’s little stunts like these that make Google one of the most loved companies in the world.

As if he wasn’t talented enough already! Michael Cera, one of Hollywood’s youngest and most promising stars, has apparently got a real talent for playing poker.

Apparently Cera has been cleaning up while playing poker with his co-stars during downtime on the set of his newest film Scott Pilgrim Vs The World. While the reports are that he plays and cleans up like a shark, he remains quite humble about his poker prowess. "I wouldn't say I'm great," he told PEOPLE, but he did concede that his co-stars "didn't know what they were getting into … I play in a really good game in L.A. with really good players, people who are a few levels above me.” He also added, "I just try to walk away with my money from that game, and that's made me a better player."

Cera’s co-star Johnny Simmons added:  "He's a damn good poker player, and he takes all your money” and “Michael and Keiran Culkin are shark-level. I lost so much per diem to those guys."

Michael is not always lucky when it comes to gambling though. They apparently also frequented the local casino during filming, where he says he lost any of the winnings he made in poker while playing at the casino.

With a series of cult classics already to his name, perhaps it’s Michael’s penchant for risk that got him so far in Hollywood at such a young age. 

WSOP bracelet winner Annie Duke, otherwise known as the “Duchess of Poker” can now add another name to her collection- a congressional witness- as she is now advocating the right for every American to gamble online in the privacy of their own homes.

Duke expressed this view to the House Financial Services Committee on Wednesday, and also argued that there were huge advantages to legalising and regulating an ever growing and lucrative underground online gambling market.

"At its most basic level, the issue before this committee is personal freedom, the right of individual Americans to do what they want in the privacy of their homes without the intrusion of the government," Duke said.

As it presently stands, online poker is illegal in the US but players still go to the online casino sites that are set up offshore and therefore beyond the reach of federal regulators.

Duke is firmly behind the views of Rep. Barney Frank, the chairman of the Financial Services Committee, who is trying to introduce a bill that would legalise and tax the online gambling websites.

Frank advocates the players’ freedom to choose: "Unwise choices [are] part of freedom."

If this bill is passed the taxes on it could bring in almost $42 billion for the federal government for the next 10 years.