Poker News

In December, SPIELO G2, a subsidiary of GTECH, revealed that it will be shutting down the International Poker Network (IPN). The plan is for the old, beleaguered network to fade into history by the end of May, but there is still business to settle.

One such piece of business, as reported by Pokerfuse.com, is to do something about the funds that have accumulated in IPN’s Bad Beat Jackpot. After all, the network cannot justify keeping that money once it folds; that would essentially be stealing. As such, the network will hold a series of five freerolls this month as a way to distribute the jackpot money to its players. The freerolls will run April 2nd through April 30th; the first will have a €45,000 prizepool while the other four will have €25,000 prize pools. Each tournament will have a 5,000 player maximum capacity and in order to qualify, players must have logged at least one raked hand on the network in the last 365 days.

This strikes us as a fair and simple solution to the Bad Beat Jackpot dispersal issue. In fact, it is better this way, as now the money can be won by using skill, rather than just praying that dumb luck will strike to players with incredible hands at the same time.

GTECH will remain in the online poker business after IPN closes its doors. In IPN, it is terminating its network that accepts players across the globe. GTECH will now focus its resources on its country-specific networks: Poker Club Italia, the Spain Poker Network, the Canadian Poker Network, and the government-owned Swedish poker site Svenska Spel.

SPIELO G2 was originally called Boss Media, a name that was once very familiar to online poker players, dating back to 1996. Eventually, Boss Media started licensing its software to operators and its poker network was born. Boss Media (later named IPN) once ranked as high as sixth on PokerScout.com’s cash game traffic charts and was comprised of around three dozen poker rooms.

For a while, it seemed like the International Poker Network was going to be a mainstay in the poker world and was generally very well liked by players. It has lost many of its largest poker rooms over the last few years, though, and has never been able to recover. It now has just 15 poker rooms in its lineup and is languishing in the 38th spot in the PokerScout rankings.

In anticipation of the IPN closing, some skins have begun to create options for its players on other networks. According to PokerScout, Poker Heaven will have skins on the Ongame Network and MPN and both Redbet and Paradise Poker will move over to Ongame.

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