Meet The Boy Genius Who Just Took Down The Online Poker Industry

Courier-Mail Americans Are Now More Addicted To Gambling Than Alcohol The FBI Seizes The Three Biggest U.S. Poker Websites

The internet is still coming to grips with the huge online gambling bust that just took down the U.S.'s three biggest online poker sites.

But Australia's Courier-Mail already has the scoop on the one man who may have single-handedly built the online industry ... then handed it to the U.S. government on a platter.

According to this story, Daniel Tzvetkoff was a young Australian entrepreneur who set up the payment processing schemes used by the biggest poker sites to handle their (mostly illegal) transactions.

He made Full Tilt Poker and Poker Stars millions of dollars — and making as much $150,000 a day for himself — but then got even more greedy and started taking them for himself.

They sued him, demanding more than $100 million of their own money back.

Then last April, Tzvetkoff was arrested in Las Vegas and charged with the same crimes those sites founders were charged with today: money laundering, bank fraud, wire fraud. As an Australian citizen with a lot of wealth, he was considered a flight risk and denied bail.

Then after a "secret" meeting with prosecutors, he was suddenly out on bail. And now, his former colleagues are the ones facing serious jail time.

Daniel Tzvetkoff knows the operations of these poker site inside and out. He's the one man positioned to give these companies to the U.S. Attorneys on a silver platter. And it looks like that's exactly what he did, cooperating with the authorities to avoid his own lengthy jail sentence.

All the major gambling prosecutions in the U.S., since Tzvetkoff's arrest have been run out of the office of Arlo Devlin-Brown, the Manhattan Asst. U.S. Attorney, who is Tzvetkoff's "handler."

According to a source, "He knows how to reverse-engineer transactions to determine its original source," making him very valuable to investigators.

And the biggest irony of all? It's been rumored that the only reason the FBI got their hands on him is because Full Tilt or Poker Stars (the companies he used to work for and stole from) tipped off the FBI that he was going to be traveling to the United States

They ratted him out ... and he turned the tables. No honor among thieves.

And as the Courier Mail put it, if this were still the old days, he'd buried in the Las Vegas desert right now.

Chaos on House floor as Democrats try to unsettle GOP budget

By Pete Kasperowicz 

The House floor erupted into a chaotic scene Friday as House Democrats tried to upset Republican plans to pass their 2012 budget resolution. 

Democrats unsettled Republicans by voting "present" in a vote on a more conservative budget than the official GOP proposal put forth by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), almost enabling that bill to pass.

In the end, it failed in a 119-136 vote, with 172 Democrats voting present. 

Several Republicans, including Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier (Calif.) and Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (Wash.), a member of GOP leadership, switched their votes to ensure the more conservative budget backed by the Republican Study Committee did not win approval. 

The drama erupted when Democrats began to shift their votes to "present," with Democrats and Republicans alike standing to shout at one another and the presiding officer in a scene more akin to the British Parliament than the U.S. House. A majority of Republicans initially voted for the RSC bill, likely in anticipation that Democrats would oppose it. 

As the presiding officer tried to close down the vote, about a dozen more Democrats asked to switch their vote from "no" to "present," which nearly allowed the RSC bill to pass.

“Democrats, vote 'present!' ” House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) shouted at his colleagues, who tried, one by one, to switch their "no" votes to "present." Ryan, the architect of the official GOP budget, shouted “Shut it down!” in an effort to close the vote and count the tally before Democrats could switch enough of their votes to advance the amendment.  

At one point, Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.) stood on a chair and pointed at the presiding officer to keep the vote open. 

The RSC's alternative budget resolution would cut even more deeply into spending than Ryan's bill, and was not expected to be approved by the House.

In the end, only one more Republican voted against the RSC budget than supported it, 119-120.

“Well, I thought I was paid to actually cast a vote, not just show up,” Rep. Jeb Hensarling (Texas), the chairman of the GOP conference, chuckled as he left the chamber.

Hensarling voted for the RSC budget and said he would have been fine had the Democratic maneuver worked and the GOP adopted the more conservative plan.  

A spokeswoman for Hoyer said the maneuver was his idea and that Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was aware of the plan before the vote. A second Democratic source said the plan was hashed out in a leadership meeting earlier in the week, without staff present.  

"This vote will show which budget Republicans support — the Republican budget that ends Medicare as we know it and cuts investments while giving tax breaks to the wealthiest, or the extreme RSC budget that is the GOP budget on steroids: ending Medicare as we know it and going even further in decimating investments in our future," a whip notice from Hoyer's office said. "With Democrats voting present, Republicans are solely responsible for passage or failure of the RSC budget."

But Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.) said the plan to have members switch their votes was apparently concocted by Hoyer on the floor.

Rep. Scott Garrett (R-N.J.) said if the plan had succeeded, Republicans would have moved Ryan's budget resolution as a substitute amendment.

The Republican whip, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), laughed at the Democratic maneuver. Of the 'present' votes, he told The Hill, "I guess they learned that from Obama in the Senate."

Earlier, the House also rejected a budget plan from the Progressive Caucus, in a 77-347 vote with no support from Republicans. A proposal from the Congressional Black Caucus was defeated in a 103-303 vote, again with no Republican support.

Democrats' Disgust With ObamaThe budget deal, angrily rejected by Nancy Pelosi as it passed Thursday, was the last straw. Patricia Murphy on why some liberals are now pushing for a primary challenge to the president.

As President Obama headed to Chicago Thursday afternoon to kick off the first official fundraiser of his re-election campaign, he left behind a sizable collection of dispirited Democrats.
Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP Photo
They were not relishing the chance to vote on a budget-cutting bill that had been forged without their input and that most found repugnant.

The compromise that Obama struck last week with House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to keep the federal government running contained steep cuts to some of the party’s most cherished programs—nutrition for poor women and children, long-stalled transportation projects, funding for community health centers—as well as language barring the District of Columbia from using its own tax dollars to finance abortions.

Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO), chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, warned that the $38 billion in promised cutbacks would hurt the most vulnerable Americans. “We don’t have enough time to talk about the ways it violates our values,” he told The Daily Beast.

There is no more visible symbol of Democratic disgruntlement than the woman who was perhaps the president’s closest ally when she wielded the speaker’s gavel. When Nancy Pelosi voted against the budget measure Thursday, she did little to hide her anger with the White House over the fact that Obama, for the first time, had left her out of the negotiations on a major deal. Instead, he chose to work directly with Boehner and Reid to hammer out the compromise that each could take back to their caucuses for approval.

“I have been very disappointed in the administration to the point where I’m embarrassed that I endorsed him,” one senior Democratic lawmaker said. “It’s so bad that some of us are thinking, is there some way we can replace him? How do you get rid of this guy?”

“I feel no ownership of that or responsibility to it, except to say we don’t want to shut down the government,” the minority leader said. “As was pretty evident, House Democrats were not a part of that agreement.”

Pelosi sounded miffed by the enhanced status that Obama granted Boehner and Reid. “They were the ones that had the votes, so they had the strength to negotiate and the president presided over that,” she said. (Eighty-one House Democrats voted for the measure, more than offsetting defections by 59 of Boehner’s Republicans.)

For many Democrats, the budget bill was only the latest in a string of disappointments served up from the White House since 2009, when Obama swept into office on a tide of goodwill and a platform of base-pleasing promises they say he hasn’t lived up to. On the list are his pledges to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, pass comprehensive immigration reform, and end the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.

In 2008, for example, Obama promised Latino groups that he would pass comprehensive reform within a year of taking office. But he made no serious push to do so when the Democrats controlled the House and Senate. Latinos are further incensed over the fact that his administration is deporting a record number of illegal immigrants, more than under George W. Bush.

In protest, Illinois Rep. Luis Gutierrez launched a cross-country tour, complete with a stop in Chicago on Saturday, to urge the administration to make its enforcement more compassionate. “I have made no secret of the fact that I think the president can do more to keep families together and that the focus of changes this year needs to be administrative and procedural because legislation is very unlikely,” Gutierrez said Thursday.
Some legislative grumbling is inevitable when a party returns to power after eight years. But a number of Democrats are past protesting the president, discussing among themselves ways to recruit a primary challenger in 2012.

“I have been very disappointed in the administration to the point where I’m embarrassed that I endorsed him,” one senior Democratic lawmaker said. “It’s so bad that some of us are thinking, is there some way we can replace him? How do you get rid of this guy?” The member, who would discuss the strategy only on the condition of anonymity, called the discontent with Obama among the caucus “widespread,” adding: “Nobody is saying [they want him out] publicly, but a lot of people wish it could be so. Never say never.”

A serious challenge still seems unlikely. One Democrat who has repeatedly criticized Obama but won’t oppose him next year is Dennis Kucinich, the liberal Democrat from Ohio who ran for president in 2008 and reiterated Thursday that he won’t be making another run in 2012.

Kucinich said he disagrees strongly with Obama’s policies on Iraq, Afghanistan, civil liberties, and the budget, but added that even Obama could not live up to the expectations House Democrats had for him when he came into office. Instead, he made clear that the president may no longer be able to take his Hill allies for granted.

“Congressional Democrats are going to have to reassert themselves,” Kucinich said. “Instead of waiting for direction from the White House, we’re going to have to give direction to the White House.”

Patricia Murphy is a writer in Washington, D.C., where she covers Congress and politics. She is a graduate of Vanderbilt University and the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism.

20 Most Dangerous Jobs

 Police officers and firefighters are everyday heroes, but it may be time to recognize farmers and fishermen, as well. The Daily Beast once again examines the figures to find out the riskiest jobs in America.

 

This month, a firefighter in D.C. suffered life-threatening burns while extinguishing a house fire. Last Thursday, David Hunsinger Jr., a firefighter in Bladen County North Carolina, died on his way to answer an emergency call. And in March, a Cleveland firefighter suffered a heart attack in the line of duty.

During the last year for which data are available, a total of 39 firefighters died while on-the-job, a fatality rate of 4.4 per 100,000 workers. There are 3.3 deaths per 100,000 full-time workers for the average occupation in the U.S., but for most occupations, the greatest occupational hazard is literally getting to work.

Fishermen must deal with the prospect of becoming lost at sea or falling overboard; farmers face heavy-equipment accidents; roofers are always a fall away from death.

Gallery: 20 Most Dangerous Jobs

To find out which jobs are the most dangerous, posing the greatest risk of injury or death, The Daily Beast combed occupational statistics for more than 100 jobs. As with last year’s list, incidence rates of injury and death were weighted equally.

Rate of injuries are based on the incidence rate [PDF] and number of nonfatal occupation injuries for 2009 and fatality rates [PDF] are based on fatal occupation injuries per full-time equivalent workers. Salary and employment figures are based on average estimates from 2009. All data are from the Bureau of Labor Statistics