Al is an instrument-rated private pilot and has played professional poker for the past three decades.

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But the axe really fell on the online players a few weeks ago when the FBI and Justice Department arrested 11 online poker executives in a money laundering and fraud investigation and shut down three of the biggest sites operating in this country: Full Tilt Poker, Poker Stars and Absolut Poker, responsible by most reports for around 95% of domestic wagering.

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Last year, the game was further weakened when the Justice Department shut three prominent U.S. poker sites, which had around 90% of the online poker played in the country.

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Teams also compete to see who can find the "best" garbage -- a poker-like game in which two bowling balls tops three refrigerators and a message in a bottle trumps everything.

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The home spans three floors, with rooms that range from a poker den to a series of masculine home offices to a vast gourmet kitchen made homey by plush couches and warm accents.

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Whether confessing that important piece of information to either my colleagues urging me to join in a game of high-stakes poker or to my father in a best-of-three pool match down the pub, I can honestly say that I have saved both a fair amount of embarrassment and incalculable amounts of money by putting my cards on the table at the outset.

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John Campos, a former vice-chairman of a Utah bank that allegedly accepted a cash infusion in return for handling online poker transactions, has agreed to plead guilty to a single misdemeanor charge, according to three people familiar with the situation.

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