Online poker news
The PokerStars Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP) is seven days into its fortnight of tournaments and Jason Mercier has been the dominant force of the event so far. It isn’t just No Limit Texas Hold’em that Mercier has been showing his proclivities but a wide array of games. On back-to-back days last week, one… Read more »
In March, an odd bill was introduced into the Nevada State Assembly; it listed no sponsor, but was said to have been backed by the Las Vegas Sands Corporation and its CEO, Sheldon Adelson. AB 414 aimed to restrict any interstate online gaming compacts to only internet poker, keeping Nevada out of any partnerships that… Read more »
Now well into their second year of operation, the revenues for the online gaming industry in New Jersey are still presenting a mixed bag of results. In some areas, the industry seems to be performing strongly while in others the numbers just don’t seem to be coming to the game. April brought an increase in… Read more »
In an op/ed piece in a major California newspaper, one of the leaders of the multitude of Indian tribes in the state comes out as an advocate for consumers and players in the ongoing debate over online poker. In the San Diego Union-Times Bo Mazzetti, the chairman of the Rincon Band of Luiseno Indians (which… Read more »
It appears that Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D – Nev.) is not content to just let Las Vegas Sands Corp. CEO and deep-pocketed Republican mega-donor Sheldon Adelson fight the war against online poker in the United States by himself. It is increasingly looking like Reid may, in fact, help him out. On his way… Read more »
PokerScout.com published its Weekly Online Poker Traffic Update on Saturday, reporting that for the third straight week, internet poker cash game traffic declined. The 3 percent drop seemed to be the responsibility of just about everyone, as out of the top ten networks and sites in PokerScout’s cash game rankings, nine of them saw their… Read more »
It is not exactly play money, but for people who like to play poker for free, these next two weeks should be fun at Full Tilt Poker. Starting today, Full Tilt is hosting Freeroll Mayhem, a tournament series in which players do not have to buy-in to play (if that was not completely obviously by… Read more »
In an e-mail to affiliates on Friday – in some cases other businesses that have been with the site since its inception in 2001 – PokerStars announced major changes to its affiliate program that will have a seismic effect on the online poker industry. The e-mail, which was posted on several online poker forums by… Read more »
Bryan Micon, founder of SwCPoker.eu, is a wanted man in the United States. First reported by the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the Nevada Attorney General’s Office has issued an arrest warrant for Micon, charging him with one count of operating an unlicensed interactive gaming system. Should he be arrested and convicted, Micon could face up to… Read more »
For years, proponents of online poker in California have been trying to get something going in the state legislature, only to have every bill die before it can even get on its feet. Yesterday, though, one bill finally took its first step. The California State Assembly Governmental Organization (GO) Committee passed AB 431 by a… Read more »
The unnecessarily long, stupid saga of Lock Poker has come to an inglorious end. While the online poker site has not issued any sort of formal statement (and we would expect nothing less), it appears that it has shut its doors for good. According to USPoker’s John Mehaffey, Lock Poker has been down since the… Read more »
Full Tilt Poker made some drastic changes Tuesday, eliminating a slew of games from its roster in order to make the game lobbies more manageable. This is the biggest culling in the online poker industry since the UIGEA was passed in 2006. Here are the games that Full Tilt Poker has purged, as listed on… Read more »
The Pennsylvania House of Representatives passed a bill yesterday urging the United States Congress to toss out Sheldon Adelson’s H.R. 707, better known as the Restoration of America’s Wire Act (RAWA). RAWA would make all online gambling in the United States effectively illegal, scuttling Pennsylvania’s future internet gaming industry before it even starts. The Pennsylvania… Read more »
Online poker rooms were under attack again this past weekend, but it wasn’t from Sheldon Adelson and his hangers-on (well, I guess we don’t know this FOR SURE…). This time, unfortunately, a number of poker rooms were once again the targets of Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks, rendering their games unplayable for a few… Read more »
LexisNexis Risk Solutions announced last week that it has been approved by the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement (DGE) to provide age and identity verification services for the state’s online gambling industry. LexisNexis already has plenty of experience in the gaming industry, though it does not publish a list of its gaming clients on… Read more »
PokerStars is the king of the hill in the online poker world and will be for a long time to come, barring any unforeseen development, but that doesn’t mean the giant can’t be knocked down a peg. Over the last couple months, PokerStars has seen its cash game liquidity drop. While it still is head… Read more »
Not that it should come as any surprise, but Delaware gaming officials are monitoring the progress of H.R. 707, the Restoration of America’s Wire Act (RAWA), very closely, according to a report in the Wilmington, Delaware news outlet, the News Journal. Though Nevada and New Jersey have garnered most of the headlines when it comes… Read more »
A miracle has happened in the online poker industry. No, Senator Harry Reid didn’t yell “April Fools!” No, Sheldon Adelson wasn’t thrown into the Death Star’s reactor shaft by Darth Vader. Nothing that miraculous. For the first time in two months, online poker cash game traffic actually rose during the week, increasing one percent, according… Read more »
Combing through hundreds of pages of government budget minutiae can be a chore, but if you look hard enough, you might just find something fun and amusing. Now, I am not about to take credit for this because I most certainly did not comb through hundreds of pages of minutiae (but I did spell the… Read more »
At a time when the industry is still trying to get on its feet, the financial services corporation Morgan Stanley has lowered its previous revenue estimates regarding the United States’ online gaming and poker market. According to Wayne Parry of the Associated Press, the analysis of online gaming in the U. S. by Morgan Stanley… Read more »
We hope this is not an April Fool’s joke. If it is, don’t blame us, we’re just the messenger. In this week’s earnings call, Amaya Gaming CEO David Baazov said that he “expects” PokerStars to finally launch in New Jersey in the third quarter of 2015. There have been many guesses during the last year… Read more »
In what is another milestone in United States online poker history, Delaware and Nevada have combined their player pools, marking the first time there has ever been legal, regulated interstate internet poker in the country. The merge occurred last night in what is being termed a “soft launch” of the player pool sharing, as the… Read more »
A new bill was introduced into the Nevada state legislature on Thursday, aiming to clarify some of the rules surrounding interstate gaming compacts. Assembly Bill No. 414 (AB 414) was referred to the Committee on Judiciary on March 19th, 2015 and, if passed, would restrict any interstate agreements to online poker only. The bill is… Read more »
I think I once wrote something like, “The long Full Tilt Poker frozen funds nightmare is almost over.” Something like that. I suppose, though, that by “almost,” I meant “your guess is as good as mine.” But now, NOW maybe I can say that the four year (FOUR YEAR!) ordeal is coming to an end.… Read more »
A representative from partypoker released a preliminary draft of the schedule for the second New Jersey Championship of Online Poker (NJCOP II) on Two Plus Two this week in order to seek feedback an everything from buy-in levels to game types to tournament structures. NJCOP II will run April 16th through April 26th and will… Read more »
