Poker Players Are Tax Evaders Implies Rivers

The very charitable Annie Duke has blasted her fellow Celebrity Apprentice colleague, Joan Rivers, on Twitter.  The popular poker pro learned that Ms. Rivers had accused Duke (and perhaps all poker players for that matter) of being "tax evaders".

From Joan: Are you catching the fact that Annie has unlimited funds that she can call upon? Wish I had friends like that but mine pay taxes.

Duke, who is at the forefront of efforts to help those in Darfur offered up this response:

"Nice huh? Exactly what is she implying about poker players. That we are tax evaders or worse? Nice, huh? God forbid they are just generous.. Maybe Joan can't fathom that nice, honest people would give money to charity because they care and would support me just cause they like me."

There is no love lost between Duke and Rivers.  The two have been at odds since Day One.  Annie Duke has long been considered among the favorites to win this season's Celebrity Apprentice.

In an earlier episode, Annie Duke told the comedian to "Shut Up". 

The poker pro described what had transpired in the boardroom between her and Rivers after the comedian blamed Duke for not allowing her to carry through with an assignment, specifically something to do with writing:

"They really didn't show the full force of the attack on me in the board room. Joan really jumped on me in that room and was clearly very upset that she did not get to write anything and blamed it firmly on me.  I was shocked by that since I did not know prior to that how upset she was.  When Khloe had divided people up Joan did not speak up then.  She saved it for the boardroom. The other thing they did not show was that Brande Roderick defended me in that boardroom.  She was upset that I was being attacked when Joan had gone home at 8 pm and we had stayed right up until that 11 pm deadline and Brande and I had been running around to get the printing finished earlier than the other people on the team in the morning.  It was nice to know that at least one woman on that team liked me because I was really feeling at that point that no one liked me on that team at all.  I felt like I had no idea how to talk to these women and it was not going to get better and that no one on that team was getting me, was getting that I just really wanted our team to win."

Annie Duke is a spokesperson for www.ultimatebet.com and has been meeting with that poker group in Costa Rica the last few weeks to discuss future marketing strategies.

Christopher Costigan, Gambling911.com Publisher