Online poker news
Despite being in the middle of a firestorm of controversy surrounding her ongoing battle with Poker News, Tiffany Michelle found time to sign with Ultimate Bet in a move that was officially announced on Tuesday. Read more »
Each week, several of the largest online poker rooms offer gigantic prize pools as part of their Sunday tournament offering. With the news this week that it would bump up the prize pools of the Sunday Million and Warm-Up starting next week, PokerStars saw a nice bump in traffic for its five major tournaments that kicked off Sunday afternoon. Combined, they offered more than $2 million in guaranteed payouts and more than 15,000 total entrants. In this week's online tournament roundup, we'll focus on the online poker action from the largest room in the world, PokerStars. Read more »
Iron Duke Poker made headlines on Tuesday in the online poker world by announcing the signing of Jennifer "Jennicide" Leighwho will become the newest face of the Merge Gaming site. Read more »
Some people can't get enough action in Sunday tournaments online. You'll find many of the same names playing in several of the major tournaments on the weekends for that exact reason. One online poker room recently set the bar for guaranteed tournaments just a little bit higher. Over the weekend, it was revealed that the two largest tournaments offered on PokerStars every week would see their guarantees increase dramatically starting on August 3rd. The Sunday Million, which currently sports a $1 million guarantee, will now offer at least a $1.5 million prize pool. The Sunday Warm-Up, which currently boasts a $500,000 prize pool, will now have a $750,000 guarantee. In both cases, the largest online poker site in the world just increased its two largest guarantees by 50%. Read more »
Ultimate Bet has come into the forefront of the media for the past few days since the Kahnawake Gaming Commission announced that its findings on the cheating scandal at the online poker room would be announced shortly. Read more »
This week, the Kahnawake Gaming Commission released a statement concerning the improper conduct on the tables of two of its permit holders, Absolute Poker and UltimateBet. Read more »
Johannesburg must be looking very attractive to many professional poker players today, as South African President Thabo Mbeki has signed the National Gambling Amendment Bill (NGAB) allowing the licensing and regulation of online gaming. Read more »
Major news hit the wires in the online poker world on Thursday, as the management of Ultimate Bet and Absolute Poker announced the launch of CEREUS, a poker platform that will combine the users and features from both sites. Read more »
It was only a matter of time before the Poker Players Alliance, the main lobbying group for the online poker industry in the United States, weighed in on the cheating scandal that has rocked Ultimate Bet, one of the world's largest online poker rooms. After all, the cheating occurred in an online environment that was not regulated by any U.S. entity, which is exactly what the PPA has been seeking ever since the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act was enacted into law in 2006. With regulation and oversight, in theory, future situations like the ones that occurred at Ultimate Bet and Absolute Poker could be avoided altogether. Read more »
Leading Scandinavian gaming operator Betsafe joined Cryptologic's large poker network in January 2007 with Betsafe Poker. 18 months later, both companies have found a way to seamlessly merge wallets, so that Betsafe players can now use the same bankroll for poker, casino and sports betting. Read more »
Online poker giant Party Poker is getting ready to celebrate its seventh birthday, a lucky landmark for the site and for its members, who stand to profit form generous guarantees and special tourneys. Read more »
It was business as usual in the online poker world this past weekend and the action in the major Sunday tournaments was brisk as usual. One week removed from the PokerStars $2 Million Guaranteed as part of the site's 2X program, thousands of poker players flocked to the virtual felts of Stars, Full Tilt Poker, and Party Poker to try and claim their share of life-changing money. Let's check out the action this week as we recap some of the largest weekly guaranteed prize pools offered online. Read more »
The Russ Hamilton saga has been sweeping the online poker world in the last week. Ever since January, UltimateBet has come under fire for the actions of one of its founding fathers, leading many to wonder whether he is the man who is directly responsible for cheating in the top-level games that UB offers. Recently, on a major poker radio show, Barry Greenstein, a PokerStars pro and the owner of three World Series of Poker bracelets, defended Hamilton after paying the former UB owner a visit in Las Vegas. Greenstein met with Hamilton along with his son, Joe Sebok, who is also a heralded poker pro. Read more »
As if poker players worldwide needed another reason to play on PokerStars, the online poker site is now doubling its new depositor freeroll prize pools. Between now and the end of the month, PokerStars will be running a pair of $2,222 freerolls each and every day. All you have to do is use the bonus code FIRST2X when you sign up and you're automatically qualified. It's all part of the site's 2X promotion, which has been going on during the entire month of July as PokerStars continues to draw attention away from the recently-completed World Series of Poker. Read more »
On Wednesday, word broke in the online poker world that Congressman Jim McDermott (D-WA) introduced HR 6501, the Investing in our Human Resources Act. The bill was referred to the House Committee on Ways and Means as well as the Committee on Education and Labor. Two co-sponsors have already signed onto the bill, George Miller (D-CA) and John Larson (D-CT). The Act will provide up to $40 billion in assistance to those in foster care as well as those in declining job markets. McDermott has been unavailable for comment throughout the course of the week after the bill's introduction. However, PokerNewsDaily.com met with Mike DeCesare, the main spokesperson for McDermott, to learn why the Congressman introduced this important piece of legislation. Read more »
Looking for something to do this weekend? Are you in need of some entertainment? How about winning a trip to Aruba? On Saturday, Ultimate Bet is offering a tournament that gives away 50 prize packages to its annual Aruba Poker Classic, which starts on September 27th from the Radisson Aruba Resort and Casino. All you'll need to pack is your sunscreen. Get ready for the white sandy beaches of this island paradise. It's hard to believe that this is the seventh year that the Aruba Poker Classic has been played. Previously a stop on the World Poker Tour circuit, it's one of the top tournaments offered today that's held outside of the United States. Read more »
To say that the last six months have been busy for the customer service department at Ultimate Bet would be quite an understatement. Rocked by a cheating scandal involving the former owners of the company, Ultimate Bet has struggled to maintain its customer's trust as it moves forward. Recent threads on several of the major online poker discussion forums, including TwoPlusTwo and PocketFives.com, have implicated one of UB's former owners, Russ Hamilton, in the cheating scandal. Although the information is currently nothing more than pure speculation, the online poker world is gradually beginning to learn more about just what caused the larceny to occur. Read more »
While the eyes of the entire poker world were fixed squarely on Las Vegas, online poker tournaments across the major sites continued as normal. The highlight of the week came on PokerStars, where every guarantee was doubled. Who needs the World Series of Poker when you have double guarantees on PokerStars? This meant the Sunday Million, a weekly tournament with a one million dollar guarantee, was actually the Sunday Two Million. The buy-in remained $215, attracting a ridiculously large field as you might expect. Three total tournaments on PokerStars this week offered $2.4 million in guarantees, much larger than twice the total tournament prize pool of the Full Tilt Poker $750K Guaranteed, UB $200K Guaranteed, and Bodog $100K Guaranteed combined. Let's find the poker star in us this week in the online tournament roundup. Read more »
Ever since the scandal erupted at Ultimate Bet, the site has been quick to take action. On May 29th, the company issued a statement regarding the findings of its investigation, which had been ongoing since UB was made aware of the abnormalities in January of several of its user accounts. In response, UB issued a statement last week outlining other screen names that were involved in the scandal, which rocked UB and caused many to question its security measures. The list of newly-named user accounts follows: Crackcorn55, WhakMe, GrabBag123, gravitation, Bgroup, H_Curtis, Twenty 1, WacoManiac, Broke_In_L_A, ShaqTack, BlueBerry101, HolyMucker, 55WasHere, Xnomas, dannyboy55, Indy05, and SlimPikins2. It's the latest news in the scandal, which is currently still being investigated by UB's parent company, Tokwiro Enterprises ENRG. Read more »
Until this weekend, I don't think I've ever seen almost every Sunday tournament sport an overlay. If you've read these online tournament recaps before, you'll know how important an overlay is to extracting the maximum amount of value from a tournament. An overlay means that the guaranteed prize pool of a tournament exceeds the actual prize pool. For example, if 1,000 poker players bought in for $200, the actual prize pool would be $200,000. If the tournament guaranteed $250,000, it would sport a $50,000 overlay. Now that you're caught up on these definitions, let's take a look at the action from this past weekend across the major online poker sites. Read more »
The outlook on a situation that has looked hopeless over the last few months may have just improved. Recently, Colkom, Inc., the company which owns Walker Poker announced that it will be purchasing the assets of Wingows Gaming, assets which include its player database. Read more »
Online gaming software developer, Cryptologic, announced last week that it has signed a contract to be the exclusive software provider for BetJacks.com, a new Irish online gaming site. The site will initially target customers in Ireland, UK, South Africa, and Canada. BetJacks claims to be Ireland's first dedicated online gaming and betting platform. Read more »
Starting July 16, PokerRoom.com will host the ultimate poker "reality" competition, complete with plush accommodations, tropical beaches, and the chance to win a six-figure poker sponsorship. The promotion, dubbed Poker Island, will pit online qualifiers against each in live poker competitions in order to determine who will receive a lucrative sponsorship from PokerRoom.com. The sponsorship will include buy-ins to some of the richest land-based poker tournaments around: the WSOP, WSOP Europe, WPT Championship, and WPT Five Diamond Classic. Read more »
While not as dramatic an update as the one this past November, Bodog Poker has released a new beta version of its poker software to the general public. Typically, beta software is distributed on a limited basis to preselected testers, but in this case, Bodog is looking for as much feedback as possible. Read more »
To quote Mike McDermott in Rounders, "…[poker is] not about pride or ego. It's only about money." Tell that to Patrik Antonius. In his most recent blog entry, the Finnish poker star expressed his discontent with some of the young online poker phenoms who have been "dodging" him on Full Tilt Poker. Read more »
