Group of Scholars Will Debate Legal and Ethical Issues of Online Gaming For

Broadcast Over Internet and Second Life

    BOSTON, Oct. 15 /PRNewswire/ -- Harvard Law School's new student-led
 Poker Strategic Thinking Society (GPSTS) and a leading Harvard professor
 have scheduled a series of lectures and conferences to examine the role of
 poker in the law and education.
     The lectures, open to the media and to take place at 5 p.m. in Room 102
 of Hauser Hall on the law school campus at 1563 Massachusetts Avenue, will
 begin on Monday (October 15) and continue for the remainder of the Fall
 Semester. They are being sponsored by Harvard's Global Poker Strategic
 Thinking Society, which is organizing student poker societies on university
 campuses nationwide, and Harvard Law Professor Charles Nesson, who is
 focusing on the study of poker as an academic exercise.
     More information on the lecture series can be found at www.gpsts.org.
 
     Events scheduled thus far include:
     Poker: A Game of Truth In Life and Law (to take place at 5 p.m. on Oct.
 15) features Crandell Addington, co-founder of the World Series of Poker
 and a member of the Poker Hall of Fame, and Howard Lederer, a professional
 poker player who has won millions of dollars in prize money. They are going
 to examine how the game of poker mirrors the challenges of life in terms of
 risk- taking, management skills, decision-making, and strategic thinking.
 Moderating the lecture and adding insights will be Harvard Law Professor
 Charles Nesson, the founder of the Berkman Center on Internet Law and
 Society, and Andrew Woods, a Harvard Law student and the director of
 Harvard's student poker club (called the Poker Strategic Thinking Society).
 This lecture will take place on Oct. 15 at 5 p.m. in Rm. 102 of Hauser
 Hall.
     Law as Rhetorical Poker: Antigua v. USA in the WTO (to take place at 5
 p.m. on Oct. 16 in the same location) focuses on the current international
 trade dispute over online gaming that pits the tiny island nation of
 Antigua against the U.S. at the World Trade Organization. The W.T.O.
 recently ruled that the U.S. has violated its international treaty
 commitments by barring overseas online gaming operators from the U.S.
 market. The implications of this novel case will be discussed by Simon
 Lester, an expert in international trade law; Steven Donziger, a lawyer
 involved in aspects of the W.T.O. matter who will discuss asymmetrical
 litigation strategies (when a seemingly weak litigant like Antigua is able
 to defeat a more powerful adversary, such as the U.S. government); and
 Jonathon Cohen, a lawyer and communications strategist.
     The Educational Value of Poker, an academic conference in Austin Hall
 on Nov. 10 that will feature Jim McManus, Mike Sexton, and Dr. Alan
 Schoonmaker. McManus will present his new book "The History of Poker",
 analyzing past American luminaries, from senators to presidents to
 generals, for whom poker has been a significant aspect of their education.
 Poker celebrity Mike Sexton will discuss the explosion of the popularity of
 poker, the lessons that poker teaches, and the manner in which the intense
 popularity of poker makes it possible to reach students. Alan Schoonmaker
 will present his article, co- written with David Sklansky, "Poker is Good
 for You", analyzing the lessons of poker. The conference will be open, and
 anyone interested in the study of poker and in investigating the utility of
 poker is encouraged to attend.
     The lecture series began on Oct. 9 with an examination of a Department
 of Justice policy to prosecute companies in the online gaming industry,
 which operates legally in most of the world except in the U.S. The lecture
 featured a debate between criminal defense lawyer Harvey Silvergate, trial
 and appellate lawyer Matt Feinberg, and Assistant Clinical Professor of Law
 Alex Whiting. The lecture was titled The Principle of Law and Prosecutorial
 Abuse of IT and examined prosecutorial power in eliciting guilty pleas.
     In explaining the lecture series, Professor Nesson said: "The conflict
 between the U.S. government and the growing online gambling industry is a
 timely issue for law students interested in the impact of international
 treaties on domestic U.S. law, and Internet freedom and regulation."
     "I am excited that this lecture series will examine the complex legal
 and ethical issues relating to online gambling and poker, and will extend
 the Harvard Law classroom beyond the conventional setting via the Internet
 and Second Life," added Nesson, who founded the Global Poker Strategic
 Thinking Society (GPSTS) and who has been a tenured faculty member at
 Harvard for more than three decades.
     More about the lecture series
     The lecture series forms part of a larger experiment in opening up
 legal education to a worldwide audience. Taking advantage of new
 technology, each lecture will be produced in successively more complex ways
 in order to engage with a cyber audience, culminating in a live webcast
 into Second Life. Second Life is a 3-D virtual world entirely built and
 owned by its residents. Since opening in 2003, it has grown explosively and
 today could accommodate small classrooms of students from around the world.
 Welcome to Poker University coming to you from Berkman Island.
     About Charles Nesson
     Charles Nesson is the William F. Weld Professor of Law, Harvard Law
 School and Founder and Co-Director of the Berkman Center for Internet &
 Society. He is joined on the GPSTS board by Stanford Law School Professor
 Lawrence Lessig, who is the author of Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace and
 a previous Berkman Professor of Law.
 
 

SOURCE The Global Poker Strategic Thinking Society (GPSTS)