While the prosecution has taken to having the witness read whole articles from Business Week and Fortune to the Enron jury, I'll turn my attention back to one of my other obsessions interests, the intersection of securities trading and gambling.  Exhibit A this morning is an LAT article (tip:  WSJ Law Blog) describing how the SEC has attempted to serve a subpoena on the administrator of the online poker site, Doyle's Room.  However, the SEC is not alleging that the site, which is operated out of the Netherland Antilles, allows citizens of the United States to gambling illegally online.  The SEC is interested in what it is usually interested in:  securities fraud.

The online poker site is owned by Doyle Brunson, a high-stakes poker champion.  Last July, Mr. Brunson announced a $700 million tender offer for WPT Enterprises, Inc., which owns the World Poker Tour and other things.  This offer was twice the market value of WPT and caused the stock to go up 66% to almost $30 per share.  However, when asked about the specifics of his offer, Mr. Brunson rescinded the offer, causing the stock to plummet.  The stock currently trades at a little over $7, less than its $8 original 2002 IPO price.  Was Mr. Brunson bluffing?  Did WPT call his bluff and then he folded?  (Vic, if I get these terms wrong, let me know.)  Or, was Brunson's move a pump-and-dump?  ProfB posted on that possibility in December.  WPT and Mr. Brunson are not strangers to one another, after all.  The SEC seems to thing something was fishy.  Now that Mr. Brunson, who presumably lives offshore, has refused to cooperate or be served, the SEC is trying to subpoena the site administrator through the administrator's brother, who lives in LA.  Civ Pro profs will have to tell me how that works.

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