Online poker news
Earlier this month, partypoker hosted its first online version of its already-popular MILLIONS event. The $5 million guaranteed tournament was a hit, as over one thousand players registered, generating a $5.1 million prize pool. Jon Van Fleet won the event, banking just over a million dollars. Players will have to wait a year for the… Read more »
When people – lawmakers, in particular – argue against regulating online gambling, point them to stories like this to show them why it is needed. Lightly trafficked online poker network, the Grand Poker Network, has been offline for about five weeks without any real indication as to when – or even if – it will… Read more »
In July, France, Italy, Portugal, and Spain agreed to merge their online poker player liquidity finally doing something positive for poker players after years of each country being ring-fenced from the world. It now appears that Italy may be lagging in its ramp up toward shared player pools and the other countries may start without… Read more »
After more than a year of haggling over the details, the state of Pennsylvania passed online gaming, poker and DFS regulations for its citizens. While the passage of that bill was a watershed moment that brings to four the number of states with such legislation, the question now is when will it go live. Although… Read more »
After Black Friday, like a lot of poker players living in the United States, I stopped playing online poker. I had money on one or two sites and dabbled here and there, but for the most part, I quit because a) there was little traffic where I had money and b) I decided it wasn’t… Read more »
At the end of October, Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf signed a bill to legalize and regulate online gambling – including poker – in the Commonwealth. Pennsylvania is now the fourth state – behind Nevada, Delaware, and New Jersey – to legalize online poker, so now the discussions in the poker community revolve around when, exactly,… Read more »
It took long enough, but Bovada Poker finally joined the year 2017 and launched its own version of the Lottery Sit & Go called Jackpot Sit & Go. Actually, I shouldn’t be harsh in such a sarcastic tone, as Bovada only recently brought its online poker room back to life after selling it to Ignition… Read more »
Nevada-based free-to-play poker and casino sites, acePLAYPoker.com and acePLAYCasino.com, have announced that they will be closing in less than a month. Yes, there were play money gambling sites in Nevada unrelated to WSOP.com. In a blog post, the farewell message was penned: It is with a heavy heart we are announcing that acePLAY Casino will… Read more »
A month ago, former Absolute Poker (AP) customers who had their funds stolen by the site’s owners when AP disappeared after Black Friday saw the first wave of refunds hit their bank accounts. Those people who did not receive their money but still submitted valid claims should be seeing their money in the near future.… Read more »
The passage on Thursday of online gaming, poker, and daily fantasy sports (DFS) regulations in the state of Pennsylvania (among other gaming such as video gaming terminals and “mini-casinos”) was arguably one of the most surprising things to occur this year. Although they had been discussing it for upwards of two years, legislators in Pennsylvania… Read more »
After a frenetic two days of action in the General Assembly, Pennsylvania has joined Nevada, New Jersey, and Delaware in the fraternity of states that have regulated and licensed online casino gaming and/or poker. As reported by my friend and colleague Dan Katz yesterday, the Keystone State – faced with the end of a legislative… Read more »
It now looks like if you have the ability to play on PokerStars for real money from wherever you live and DON’T have access to the new Power Up game, you are in the minority. After initially only rolling the game out to the .EU platform a couple weeks ago, PokerStars has now expanded it… Read more »
Since 2013 the three states that passed online gaming and/or poker regulations – Nevada, New Jersey, and Delaware – have gone their own ways in trying to be successful in the online gaming industry. Now, the trio of states have made the historic decision to compact between each other. In a press release, Governor Chris… Read more »
It has been previewed for months now, but PokerStars new game, Power Up, is finally available for real money play as of Tuesday, October 10th. Currently, players on the .EU site can participate in Power Up games for real money ($1, $3, $7, and $15 buy-ins), while those on the .COM, .UK, and other PokerStars… Read more »
When Absolute Poker and UltimateBet disappeared on April 15th, 2011 – best known in the poker world as Black Friday – it seemed as if all of our deposits with the two poker rooms had disappeared, as well. But six years later, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that there was money left over from… Read more »
The Iowa Tribe of Oklahoma has announced that it has been granted an online gaming license in the Isle of Man, a huge step forward in its efforts to become the first Native American tribe to launch a legal real money online poker site. The Tribe had intended to launch real money online poker on… Read more »
Power Up, PokerStars’ Sit-and-Go with Hearthstone/Magic the Gathering-like strategic card-play elements, has been in Alpha testing for most of this year. It has not been a constant offering, as it does get taken out of the lobby while PokerStars makes improvements, but in its most recent appearance (it was just taken away again, at least… Read more »
PokerStars has released the schedule for the New Jersey Championship of Online Poker (NJCOOP), a 46-event tournament series featuring more than $1.2 million in guaranteed prize pools. Of course, it is only open to people who can play from within New Jersey’s borders, but you knew that already. NJCOOP will run from September 30th through… Read more »
Online poker rooms and networks are constantly trying to innovate, creating new games in order to keep players interested. PokerStars much by virtue of its standing as the world’s largest online poker room, as added many game types over the last few years (not necessarily their own original creations, mind you), most notably Zoom Poker… Read more »
The Garden City Group (GCG), the Department of Justice-appointed claims administrator for millions of dollars-worth of lost Absolute Poker and UltimateBet deposits, announced this week that the deadline for claims submissions has passed. Petitions that were filed on time are being reviewed and after that phase is completed, the GCG will move on to look… Read more »
In an ongoing effort to satisfy more players, PokerStars is widening the pay structure of many of its tournaments today. In a blog post from late last week, Mike Jones, Poker Operations Manager for PokerStars, took readers through the online poker room’s history with tourney payouts and explained the reason for the changes. Jones hearkened… Read more »
Online poker room partypoker announced this week that it has signed German superstar Fedor Holz to its roster of sponsored poker pros. Holz, one of the most highly regarded and well liked poker players around, has been on absolute fire the last couple years, banking about $16.5 million in live tournaments since the beginning of… Read more »
PokerStars has made yet another significant change to its online poker room policies, eliminating the ability for players to earn multiple seats into live tournaments via satellites. This is a massive departure from tradition, as many players (though not “many” relative to the total poker playing population) found satellites to be profitable endeavors past the… Read more »
It had been a while, but America’s Cardroom seemed due for another cyber attack. Yup, leading into the Labor Day weekend, ACR and its network, the Winning Poker Network, were hit with a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack, something that is unfortunately not a unique event for either the online poker room or the… Read more »
A little more than a year after closing its online poker room, Bovada has decided to re-open it, initially accepting players from nine countries: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Venezuela, and yes, the United States of America. So is this what making America great again was all about? Bovada took full advantage of… Read more »
