World Poker Tour Enterprises (WPTE) has made the news again.  This time, however, the large poker tournament conglomerate is not in as favorable a light as it has normally been accustomed to.  As of last Wednesday, the company has been seeking legal counsel on how to best deal with an anti-trust lawsuit filed in Los Angeles U.S. District Court by seven of the World Poker Tour's top players.  Annie Duke, Phil Gordon, Joseph Hachem, Andy Block, Greg Raymer, Howard Lederer and Chris Ferguson have all included their names on the lawsuit, which claims that WPTE has forced the poker pros to waive lucrative rights in order to appear in World Poker Tour tournaments.

In what essentially amounts to identity theft, lead counsel for the players - Jeffrey Kessler, says the players are being prevented from participating in major poker tournaments at world-class casinos, which is consequently preventing them from earning money.  Some of the host casino sites include Foxwoods, the Bellagio and Aviation Club.  In order for the players to be allowed to participate in a WPT tournament, they must first sign a release that gives WPTE full rights to use the player's image and likeness for promoting the WPT as well as any derivative media products.  The addition of derivative media products to the waiver releases was made in November of 2005, which prompted Annie Duke's entertainment lawyer to negotiate with WPTE.  Despite these efforts, WPTE has remained defiant, and will not make any changes to the releases.  The players say the lawsuit was their last recourse.

An additional lawsuit has been filed by Crave Entertainment, who has an exclusive licensing agreement with Raymer, Duke and Lederer to use their images and likeness for its popular World Poker Tour-branded poker video game.  If anything, this additional lawsuit gives the players' claim even more merit, for it shows the entrapping nature of the WPTE releases, as well as its uncompromising stance in regards to previous contractual rights of players.

Kessler said that although the players knew about these rules from the start of the WPT, the popularity of the tournament has grown so considerably that the rules are no longer justifiable.  Additionally, the rules have only become more monopolizing since the start of the poker tour.  As such, the players are asking that the language of the releases be changed and that all previous releases signed by the players be deemed nil and void.  They are also seeking punitive damages (undeclared value as of yet) for the World Poker Tour's use of their image and likeness in prior WPT marketing promotions and products.

Lawyers for WPTE say they will fight the lawsuit in court, and that the claims made are unfounded and without warrant.  The CEO and founder of World Poker Tour Enterprises, Steven Lipscomb commented that it is unfortunate that a small handful of players are making these demands, when all of the other thousands of players who have signed such releases have been satisfied with the outcome.  What seems to be missing from Lipscomb's point of view is that only a handful of players are used in such a way to promote WPT events.