With a simple phone call, it seemed that World Series of Poker Media Director Nolan Dalla was able to get to the bottom of the controversial Dewey Tomko (pictured) anti-online poker editorial that recently appeared in the Press of Atlantic City.

Tomko told Dalla that although he was friends with the article’s supposed co-author Bill Byers and associateJames Thackston, he had absolutely nothing to do with it. Furthermore, he said, he had never played online poker in his life and would never say anything to hurt the game.

But now, Thackston is speaking out, saying the poker legend did, in fact, have a say in the op-ed, and that Thackston himself was the original author of the article. In a series of Tweets, the anti-online poker activist laid out his own version of events. “I sat down with Dewey at his office to discuss the op-ed,” he said. “He pointed out the changes that should be made and, with the conditions that edits were made, he agreed to offer the piece.”

Thackston continued, “He didn’t want to be the one to pitch it to newspapers. I asked him if he was willing to share the byline with Bill Byers and have Bill submit it. He agreed.”

Following Dalla’s original blog post about his conversation with Tomko, Thackston called Dalla to reinforce his claim that the WSOP bracelet winner had granted permission for the use of his name. In that conversation, Thackston made clear that it was he, not Byers or Tomko, that was the original author behind the piece. He again said he had “sat down” with Dewey and went through the piece, but conceded that Tomko never approved the final draft.

Thackston later released a statement through Dalla saying simply, “I think Dewey may have simply forgotten details about the specifics of the op-ed. I was with Dewey when he went over the edits.”

For his part, Tomko doesn’t seem to want anything to do with what he now calls a “real mess.” While Dalla insisted that Tomko call the editors of the Press of Atlantic City directly, he preferred to route all communication through his lawyer, Richard Straughn. In an e-mail sent to the publication, Straughn demanded that the website remove the editorial “immediately” and that “any mention of Mr. Tomko with this editorial be discontinued.”

On May 7, the Press of Atlantic City removed the op-ed from its website, telling Pokerfuse, “Tomko says he didn’t write it. We have no way of proving that point either way, so we just took it down.”

Thackston is a somewhat enigmatic figure in the world of anti-online poker activism. While now a strong supporter of Sheldon Adelson‘s (pictured) Coalition to Stop Internet Gambling, Thackston, a software developer, originally hoped to cash in on the industry by selling his own online security software to poker sites.

In a series of e-mails recently released by Poker Players Alliance Vice President of Player Relations Rich Muny, Thackston can be seen peddling his wares aggressively to Michael Waxman of the Safe and Secure Internet Gambling Initiative. “Your e mail employs some of the language that the industry has previously come across in what would generally be described as attempts to extort money,” Waxman replied.

After many unsuccessful attempts at breaking into the industry, Thackston had a change of heart. In an e-mail to Jan Jones of Harrah’s (now Caesars), he wrote, “Because I failed to raise the necessary investment, I have shut down the eSafe project as well as the company that supported it… Due to severe financial stress and with great anguish, I have been forced to take actions detrimental to the internet poker cause.”

Thackston went on to create several anti-online gambling websites including PoliticsOfPoker.com, which aggregated links attacking the industry, and UndetectableLaundering.com, a site dedicated to showing how online poker sites could be used by criminal elements.

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