Professional poker players: Andy Bloch, Annie Duke, Chris Ferguson, Phil Gordon, Howard Lederer, Greg Raymer and Joe Hachem filed a suit in 2006 against the World Poker Tour for what they felt was an unfair release they had to sign when playing at a World Poker Tour Event.
News has been circulating that the lawsuit has come to a close after two years. No money will exchange hands but the World Poker Tour has agreed to change the terms and will no longer have the right to use players names, images and/or likeness in any type of WPT promotion without getting the players consent and also paying them. This was a problem for professional players that had agreements with poker sites and other player contracts signed that had clauses that players needed to represent them at tournaments.
The lawsuit stemmed from players feeling that the World Poker Tour had no competition and was able to write the release forms any way they wanted because players had no choice but to play in the large buy-in tournaments. This is now less of an issue because of the EPT and LAPT. The popular poker tours have really changed the tournament landscape and the WPT no longer has a monolopy.
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