It was a seemingly lucky night for Thomas Gigliotti until the moment he pulled into his driveway.

Thomas Gigliotti, 74 and his wife Josephine 71, were returning home to their house from the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Hollywood after a lucky night on to the tables.  According to Police, several masked bandits robbed the couple of their winnings in their driveway of around $4,000 in cash. The masked men rushed towards Gigliotti, pulled him from his car knocked him to the ground and stole his cash, credit cards and mobile phone.

However, this was not the end of this crime tale. Rather than being shaken up after being robbed and assaulted, the feisty senior citizen jumped back in his Lincoln Navigator and took off in a almost Hollywood-esque chase after the bandits. He spotted the bandits jumping into a white getaway car near an intersection not too far from where the robbery occurred.

Gigliotti tailed the robbers through the streets of Plantation and at one point even attempted to ram the smaller getaway vehicle in an effort to make force the car to spin out. Gigliotti bumped the car twice from behind in a scene that  could only be reminiscent of a Jason Bourne movie. “The chase was one of the greatest chases you've ever seen, they took rights and lefts, rights and lefts. They couldn't shake me. They just couldn't," Thomas said.

Eventually at speed of around 65mph, he rammed the getaway car sending the vehicle out of control and the bandits skidded off the side of the road.

The suspects bailed out of the vehicle and abandoned the car, "I put my high beams on and reversed to see the vehicle, it looks like there's nobody in the car.' Gigliotti said he as he cautiously approached the vehicle but the men had fled by this point.

Although, in the meantime his wife has said that her card –playing days are over. “I’m not going back there she said. “I don’t ever want to go back there.”The senior bravado was however not on the same opinion, and believes he was not tempting lady luck; “I like to go down to the casino” he said.

And this is why I play online. This same sort of robbery seems to happen far too often. 

Whether poker should be defined as a sport or a game is an ongoing debate that is unlikely to be resolved any time soon. Well, unlikely to be resolved anytime soon anywhere else but Lithuania, that is.

Lithuania has recently announced that it defines poker as a sport. On the 20th March 2010, the Department of Physical Education and Sports issued a decree recognising poker as a sport and establishing the Lithuanian Sports Poker Federation.

This means that the Lithuanian Sports Poker Federation can now organise non-commercial poker tournaments outside of casinos.

Andrius Tapinas, the president of the Poker Federation said: “This is extremely important step in our work,”, “We are receiving congratulations from many of our colleagues abroad, and I know that we are breaking thick ice with our progress for similar international initiatives.”

Interestingly, Lithuania’s neighbour, Russia, also classified poker as a sport for a brief amount of time but removed the distinction last year.

                                 Does Not Happen on PokerTime

Most of you already know the advantages of playing online poker, but one that has been constantly coming to mind over the past couple of weeks has been the fact that us online poker players and poker rooms do not constantly get robbed at gunpoint. I’ve yet to be sitting on my living room, multi-tabling a couple of games, when suddenly masked men break through my front door and demand my poker winnings and other valuable belongings.

A group of 24 poker players playing at underground games in Texas this week had this unfortunate situation happen to them. It might sound like something that happens in the Wild West but it seems to be a regular occurrence constantly.

The latest heist Happens during a poker gaming in Austin, Texas. During the early hours of the morning an armed gang stormed the building armed with AK47s, and started firing their weapons into the air. Players were forced to lay face down as their belongings were lifted from their pockets before making their getaway.

A witness told the Pokerati website:

“Gunshots were fired inside. They kept yelling at us not to look up or move, so we didn’t know if people were shot.

Joseph saved our lives. He obeyed them, rationalized w/ them, showed them closet w/ money, but had no key, they harassed him, they shot or kicked doors in,

Over 9 cops were arriving as we drove away. They stopped us and interviewed us individually, were very concerned for our safety and catching criminals, not even a question of poker game. Helicopters, forensics, detectives and K9 were all there lining the street.”

Plus if you do play online poker at work, hope there is no camera pointing at your screen in case you do get robbed.

We’ve been keeping tabs on what’s been happening with the EPT Poker tournament Robbery on March 6 in Germany where a couple of robbers successfully stole a couple of hundred thousand dollars from the hotel.

The arrests began on the 17^th of March when one of the suspects turned him in and from the point onwards, the Berlin police had the names and photos of the other thieves and claimed it was only a matter of time until the suspects were in police custody.

The first suspect to fall under police custody ratted out all his accomplices. So much for a good bluff I say. The trio was apprehended as Ahmad el-Awayti, Jihad Khaled Chetwie, and Mustafa Ucarkus all saw their dreams of making away with €242,000 disappearing into thin air.

The latter two were arrested at Berlins Tegel airport last Sunday and last Wednesday, el-Awayti was arrested in a subway station and brought into custody.

Bluff Magazine Europe quoted Berlin police officials of a 28 year old Lebanese man involvement “According to the current state of our investigation, the suspect is thought to have been the organizer… He also drove the getaway car””

The domain name Poker.org has been sold for $1 million dollars by the National A1 Advertising to the company aptly named PokerCompany.com which according the folks at Domain Name News. The company as well owns quite a few other domain names such as Craps.net, Blackjack.org, and Rakeback.org. All very expensive domain names I would imagine.

.Org domain names are usually quite a bit cheaper than .Com names, with the highest .Org sale to date being $198,999 for engineering.org and Sex.org being sold for $151,400.

The largest ever domain name sale so far has been for Sex.com which sold for a hefty $12 million dollas.

Well, this is a Poker Blog, so I think it’s pretty obvious which side we’re hedging our bets on.

Poker is a game of skill and in many pro-poker fronts is not considered to be gambling. Here’s why:

Gambling is associated with luck or chance and with the odds being stacked heavily against you to lose your money. The house will make more money than you if you are gambling over time. This is a fact.

While a certain amount of gambling can take place during a poker game, this generally only happens when a player is behind in a hand and decides to leave their chances ‘up to fate’. If this becomes a habit the player will lose in the long term.

The ‘naturally lucky’ poker players who seem to have ‘good fortune’ on their side are in fact highly skilled and knowledgeable. Skilled poker players also know that if they stick with their skills and knowledge they will have and steady and growing income. This is not gambling. The reason why poker is put in the category of gambling is because casinos like to use poker to attract players, not to make money. Poker players will generally be accompanied by a partner who will play games that truly are a gamble such as slots or craps.