Pokergab

The Canadian province of Nova Scotia has plans of introducing online gambling regardless of opposition from the Atlantic Lottery Corporation that is jointly by the four Atlantic provincial governments including New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia itself.

The Atlantic Lottery Corporation’s (British Columbia) PlayNow.com is the first online casino run by government in North America offering sports betting, bingo and casino and lottery games. Poker is still to come online at a later stage. The site withstood a security breach in July and was taken offline immediately, however following an external review and an estimated CA$5m in total lost revenues; it was back online and available to players on 20 August.

As more and more Canadian provinces look to online gambling to solve their financial burden, it is becoming increasingly explicit that the activity may bring many risks along with it.

A new report by CBC has stated that online gambling experts are warning the various provincial governments across Canada to brace themselves for an influx of hackers and cheaters. After the online casino launched by the British Columbia Lottery Commission fell victim to dangerous glitches, experts in the field want to ensure that other provinces know what they are getting into.

Though the BCLC’s investigation has not shown any indication on any hacking that had been done to cause the glitch, experts are still worried that other provinces’ inexperience in the online gambling industry may cause them to overlook all of the potential security risks.

Provincial governments demands a piece of the pie from every with up to$1 billion being bet on offshore Internet sites by Canadians

Their advocacy is that this would aid charities, warn people on their sites about gambling addictions and, of course pad government treasury.

Ontario is one of the first provinces to announce its dedication to providing safety solutions when its online casino is launched. It is hoped that other provinces will follow suit, so as to ensure that residents do not fall victim to cheaters and hackers.

The Dutch Justice Ministry has proposed that the government give up its monopoly on online gambling in the country. A recent inquiry headed by Justice Minister Ernst Hirsch Ballin looked into the positive and negative aspects of internet gambling in Holland, and suggests that a limited number of licenses be given to online poker sites that would allow them to offer their services to Dutch players.  

The reason online poker has been singled out by the report is that the game is becoming more and more acknowledged among players, but because there are limited legal substitutes available for playing online poker in Holland, players must turn to sites hosted overseas. 

The advisory committee said it had chosen not to monopolize poker due to its raising popularity and also because it doubted a single new competitor in the poker market would “be able to capture a significant market share based on the illegal operators” already involved in the market.

This has lead the Commission to recommend a new ‘internet system’. “This regime should be explicitly designed to bring illegal poker operators under a legal regime, as was successfully done with the introduction of slot machines regime, (and) must be based on a limited number of permits given to a term – limited and periodically allocated through an open and transparent process,” said the Commission.

Some are already outraging the move because of its focus on poker, suggesting that all forms of gambling should be regulated at once. The opening up of the Dutch online poker market is nonetheless a good start, and hopefully it will pave the way to a more open attitude towards internet gambling in the country.

In late March, the Commonwealth of Kentucky filed suit against Pocket Kings, the purported operators of Full Tilt Poker, seeking the amount of money lost by state residents between March 2005 and September 2009. Now, the complaint has been amended to include Party Gaming, which recently announced a merger with Bwin.

Reacting to the news that Party Gaming, whose online poker site Party Poker hasn’t accepted real money wagers from U.S. residents since 2006, was singled out was Interactive Media Entertainment and Gaming Association (iMEGA) Chairman Joe Brennan. iMEGA has been at the forefront of the fight to protect 141 internet gambling domain names that were seized two years ago in a separate legal battle and may ultimately face forfeiture. The case is pending in the Kentucky Supreme Court.

PartyPoker, whose parent company is publicly traded on the London Stock Exchange, vacated the U.S. market in 2006 after the passage of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA). Attorney Jeff Ifrah speculated, “It’s unclear how long the Commonwealth has been researching the viability of claims against anyone. They may have been looking at Party for a while now, even before the merger announcement. They were certainly looking at them last year when they started thinking about putting a complaint together.”

Party Gaming has already signed a non-prosecution agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice and one of its co-founders, Anurag Dikshit, faces sentencing later this year after admitting Wire Act violations. Doubting the success of Kentucky’s case against Party Gaming was Ifrah, who told Poker News Daily, “In their complaint against Party, they continue to omit any reference to any specific loser. They’ve made broad references to losers and broad references to Kentucky residents, but there’s still no proof. They’re hoping a judge will grant them discovery.”

PartyPoker was once the largest online poker site in the world and, when it departed the U.S. market in 2006, was in the midst of its Monster promotion. According to PokerScout.com, PartyPoker boasts a seven-day running average of 3,350 real money ring game players and is the third largest site worldwide behind Poker Stars and Full Tilt. PartyPoker ranks just ahead of Playtech’s iPoker Network and features World Poker Tour host Mike Sexton, “High Stakes Poker” hostess Kara Scott, and bad boy Tony G as its sponsored pros.

Brennan summed up the news by calling out Kentucky’s attorneys, who are allegedly working on a contingency basis: “It is the plaintiff’s attorneys who have now used the name of the Commonwealth of Kentucky to try to blackmail Party Gaming and use the occasion of their merger as an opportunity to get some sort of settlement out of them. It’s about as contemptible and reprehensible as anything I can imagine.”

Curiously, PartyPoker was not named in the original lawsuit seeking the forfeiture of 141 domain names, including those belonging to PokerStars, Absolute Poker, UB.com, and Full Tilt.

Party Gaming likely won’t reenter the U.S. market until a full licensing and regulatory framework is in place. A bill proposed by Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA) would do just that and passed out of the House Financial Services Committee two weeks ago. However, with the current Congressional session quickly coming to an end, its future appears to be in doubt. The bill, numbered HR 2267, boasts 70 co-sponsors.

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had long been on the fence regarding the legalization of online poker in the States. But when Reid sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke asking for a delay for the enforcement of Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) regulations in November of last year, it became clear that the influential politician was becoming more favorable toward poker on the internet.

This week, Reid showed even more support of online poker in the state of Nevada. According to the Reno Gazette-Journal newspaper, Reid claimed he would support the legalization of online poker in the United States during an August 16 meeting at the Atlantis Casino Resort Spa. Reid also stated he would not support any other form of online gaming, including sports betting.

The news was disconcerting to Nevada gaming executives, who fear that the legalization of online poker will result in a major loss of customers in brick-and-mortar casinos.

“It (online poker) is just the tip of the iceberg and could open up this state to more online gaming,” said Bill Hughes, the Marketing Director of Peppermill, to the Reno Gazette-Journal. “It will only draw more money out of this state, from our poker rooms and eventually other facilities.”

Reid has stated that he would not support anything that hurts Nevada jobs, but the Senate Majority Leader will play a huge role in whether online poker is legalized. The House Financial Services Committee passed HR 2267, the Internet Gambling Regulation, Consumer Protection, and Enforcement Act, in July and the bill is currently waiting on a vote by the full House. HR 2267 would effectively legalize online poker, overturning a 2006 law that bars offshore sites from accepting money from U.S. bettors.

Congress is on summer recess until September 8, at which point Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA) hopes the House Ways and Means Committee will mark up their tax companion bill, HR 4976, and bring both measures to the floor.

Meanwhile, gaming properties in Nevada are in the process of developing strategies to monetize the legalization of internet gaming. With the future of sites like PokerStars, UB.com, and Full Tilt Poker up in the air following the markup amendments of HR 2267, people like Jan Jones, Harrah’s Senior Vice President for Communications and Government Relations, seem to think online poker would improve Nevada’s gaming market.

“If you look at the businesses that are surviving today, they approach their customers in three ways,” Jones told the Gazette-Journal. “One is brick and mortar. One is direct marketing sales, and the other is the internet.

“The businesses that have not done that have gone out of business. Look at record stores. Look at newspapers. In the gaming industry, we need to realize, where are the X-Y generation customers? They are all on the internet. That is where they play. That is where they congregate, and if we don’t leverage the internet, then we run the risk of becoming an old person’s entertainment.”

Stay tuned for more on UIGEA legislation on pokergab.com

If you love poker and you’re in the United Kingdom then you should definitely head to London this september. Even if you’re further abroad the trip is probably worth your while with the massive range of poker events taking place during the course of the month, resulting in the city brimming with prize money and top pros. Alongside the well-known poker tournaments is the British Poker Festival, which will be making London its home for the entire month of September, ensuring poker fans need never be bored over the coming weeks.

The World Poker Tour is going to be hosting its London stop during the month of September, which is in itself a pretty good reason to visit the fine city. Oh, and the European Poker Tour is also holding its London stop in September, just to spice things up. As if that wasn’t enough, London is also being graced with the presence of the World Series of Poker Europe, again during September. If you’re a serious poker player there’s no better time than to head on over and play some cards and, who knows, maybe you’ll be making an offer on Buckingham Palace before the month is out.

Along with these three titans of Poker tournament series, there’s another reason to visit London. Kicking off this Saturday, August 28th and running right through until the end of September is the British Poker Festival. The festival boasts over one hundred events and over £12 Million Sterling in guaranteed prize pools, so is definitely worth checking out. The festival isn’t just host to fun tournaments, though, there are a whole range of events for poker fanatics to enjoy across the board.

Probably the most anticipated of these is Poker in the Park, two days of poker fun held in Leicester Square. Over the two days there will be poker training, tuition, talks and tournaments. Many top pros will be there giving out helpful advice and tips, and there will be two Poker Domes set up hosting Turbo Sit & Go Tournaments at all hours of the day and night. For poker fans this is a great chance to both learn something and spend a little bit of time mingling with your favorite poker superstars.

The wife certainly couldn’t begrudge you for wanting to give a little to charity in an effort to help out those less well-off than yourself, so if you are in town for the festival then be sure to check out the Charity Strip Poker Tournament being held at Stringfellows. Exotic dancers and other such distractions are of course purely secondary to your aim of helping out a good cause, and this is a great opportunity to cut loose and have a little fun.

The British Poker Festival has been a hit in the past, and it’s sure to be a great success again this year. With so many poker greats in town for the tournaments London will be abuzz with like-minded poker fanatics so there’ll be nowhere to hide from the fun. If you’re able, definitely make the trip and check it out!

If you are looking for a poker tournament Full Tilt is holding a great tournament with a huge prize pool tonight. The name of the tournament is the Monday $1K, however the prize pool is much bigger than the name suggests.

The tournament will start at 9pm ET on Monday the 23rd, and Full Tilt has guaranteed $300K for the prize pool.

This Poker tournament is one of the biggest held every week and it will cost you $1000 to enter. The blinds are moved up every 10 minutes so you are going to have to make a fast start to get through the early stages of the tournament.

However this is the biggest tournament held at Full tilt today and if you want to play small stakes poker there is a huge range of poker tournaments with buy ins starting from a couple of dollars.

Kevin Stani is an EPT winner after triumphing in Tallinn.

Arnaud Mattern, the skilful French poker player, failed to set a historic record in Tallinn as he lost out at the death to finish third in the latest event.

The star was bidding to become the first man to win two European Poker Tour (EPT) titles, but was beaten to this latest prize by Kevin Stani.

At the start of the final day’s play, Russian Konstantin Bilyauer appeared to be Mattern’s most serious threat, but Norwegian Stani spent the afternoon slowly building his stack.

While the two leaders tussled, Stani burst into life, knocking out Steven van Zadelhoff into sixth place and then dumping Dimitry Vitkind out of the tournament with a fourth-place finish.

He created such a strong position that, despite flickers of a comeback, Mattern had no answer to the Norwegian poker player and also bowed out.

The EPT now moves on to Vilamoura, Portugal, where poker players will compete for the next title at the end of the month.

Sunday is traditionally a huge day for the online tournament player, but three last FTOPS events meant that yesterday was bigger than usual. The highly anticipated Event 33 was yesterday’s 2nd FTOPS tournament, and it featured Rush NL Hold’em with rebuys. An impressive 1,589 players paid the $150+$13 buy-in, and with 3,810 rebuys and 964 add-ons, the total prize pool ended up at $954,450 with $205,206.75 for 1st place. Let’s take a look at some final table action.

The first big hand at the final table came with eight players remaining. cdbr3799, a previous FTOPS winner, 3-bet an UTG min raise on the CO with QK and saw a flop 3-way with slaskovic, another previous FTOPS winner, and wheelguy. The flop came K84 and cdbr3799, with top pair, called wheelguy’s donk bet. The turn brought a Q giving cdbr3799 two pairs, and he was happy to call when wheelguy made another donk bet, this time pushing his entire stack. wheelguy flipped over AK and missed his 3-outer on the river, busting him in 8th place for just over $19k.

Let’s fast forward to 6-handed action. Dalbaiyob made a small raise on the button with KTs, and slaskovic decided to call in the BB with KJo and 30bb behind. Unfortunately for slaskovic the flop came KT4 giving him top pair but giving Dalbaiyob top two pair. Dalbaiyob made continuation bet of less than half the pot and slaskovic check/called. On the turn slaskovic checked again, but this time it was to check/raise all-in. Dalbaiyob quickly called and slaskovic was down to just a few outs on the river. He didn’t catch and instead of winning another FTOPS jersey, he received $41k for 6th place.

Dalbaiyob’s next victim would be whatariver1, yet another previous FTOPS champion. With just four players remaining, Dalbaiyob opened with ATo and whatariver1 made a suspicious 3-bet with just a 20BB stack. Dalbaiyob didn’t see the warning signs though, and his all-in push was quickly called by whatariver who held KK. It was Dalbaiyob’s night to shine, though. He made winning look easy as an Ace fell on the flop, and whatariver busted in 4th place after failing to find one of two remaining Kings on the turn or river.

This meant that only one previous FTOPS winner remained, but soon he, too, fell victim to Dalbaiyob’s hot streak. After a flurry of raising that saw a 4-bet and then a 5-bet push, Dalbaiyob got it in preflop with 44 versus cdbr3799’s AQs. It’s safe to say that this was the equity flip of the night, with an absolutely huge pot at stake. The board came KJ936, however, and Dalbaiyob continued his roll while cdbr3799 was sent to the rail. cdbr3799 received over $96k for his 3rd place finish, a pretty decent consolation prize for a night of work.

This left Dalbaiyob and davidp18 to play heads-up for 1st place. The two players ended up making a deal based on chip count, leaving $7.5k and the jersey for the winner. Dalbaiyob had started with a considerable chip lead, but he got it all-in with JJ versus davidp18’s AKs and couldn’t win the coin flip. The biggest hand heads-up came when the two players were about even in chips. davidp18 3-bet preflop with AA and Dalbaiyob called with QJs. Dalbaiyob continued to run good by flopping top two pair on a QJ3 flop, and the two players eventually got all their chips in by the river. This left davidp18 with just 3BB, and he went on to bust in 2nd place the very next hand.

Congratulations to Dalbaiyob for eliminating three past FTOPS winners and winning the golden jersey! After his chip chop, he took home a healthy $182,798.

The highest finishing Red Pro in this event was Damian Salas, who placed 37th for $2,290.68, followed by Nordberg and Eli Elezra who finished 71st and 74th respectively. Please see below for the final table payouts. Thank you for reading and be sure check back soon the last of our FTOPS coverage!

1. Dalbaiyob – $182,798.90
2. Davidp18 – $152,213.05
3. cdbr3799 – $96,399.45
4. whatariver1 – $76,356.00
5. colenel decker – $57,267.00
6. slaskovic – $41,041.35
7. TakeItBack – $26,724.60
8. Wheelguy – $19,089.00
9. meireles23 – $13,362.30

France has passed a new online gaming law that requires online poker rooms to be licensed under the Autorite De Regulation Des Jeux En Ligne (ARJEL). New sister poker sites are opening in compliance with the French poker law which does not allow for outsiders to play at any French poker site. Also, poker rooms are subject to a 2% tax by the French government. In short, this means little traffic and high rakes for French poker players. Recently, Full Tilt Poker has opened a domain at FullTiltPoker.fr for French players.

Full Tilt Poker opened its French poker site in the beginning of August. It is already boasting high traffic in relation to other French poker sites. 235 players, on average, are on the site at any given moment. This is good enough 25th in the world for traffic among poker sites. However, most French sites are doing better such as PartyPoker, Everest Poker, and PokerStars. As a matter of fact, PokerStars is leading all French websites with 2,823 players on their site on average.

Full Tilt Poker is the second largest poker network in the world. It has become a trusted name in the online poker world. They are sure to grow in France and compete with PokerStars. Famous French poker player, David Benyamine, is the spokesperson for Full Tilt Poker in France and is sure to pull in many new players. The new law is under a lot of opposition by players due to the limited traffic at these poker sites. This has lead to an unstable poker situation in France. The story of online poker’s legality in France is sure to continue. Stay logged into FlopTurnRiver.com for all your poker news!

FTOPS XVII has been running for over a week now and we are halfway through another exciting event. Highlights from the popular tournament series includes Event 3 which saw Full Tilt Pro Jeff Madsen come so close to a win with a 3rd place finish that pocketed him a nice payday of $28,000. Coming in 2nd place was “professor plum” who got $42,000 and the event’s winner “chapmoney” won just over $68,000.

Event 13 was an awesome run for the famous Chris ‘Jesus’ Ferguson who finished 5th out of 4,684 entrants. Ferguson pocketed over $68,000 for his final table run. Fourth place was taken by “shipthemula” for $92,000 and third place went to “maseandlou” who took home $124,000. The runner up was “93Tilnfinity” who got $174,000 and the event’s winner ended up being “andinista” who won just over $251,000.

Event 14 ended up being significant, as it was the first event won by a Full Tilt Pro. Brandon Adams outlasted 865 players to win the Omaha Hi/Low event and won a modest $39,000. This event paid the top 90 places with a large handful of Full Tilt Pros to make it into the money, such as James Dempsey (11th), “Miami” John Cernuto (51st), John DAgostino (56th) and Steve Wong (74th). Overall this event ended up being a great representation by the Full Tilt Pros.

So far no event’s prize pool has exceeded Event 16,  which ended up at an impressive $1.37 million. The No Limit Hold’em event drew 1,370 players who all spent $1,060 to compete. Event 16 was won by “yahoo33” who got $301,000 for first place.

There are a total of 34 events in FTOPS XVII and we still have some big tournaments to come, including Event 22, a $322 buy-in, 6-max Rebuy No Limit Holdem tournament with a guaranteed prize pool of $1 million. There is also Event 29, a $2,100 buy-in, 6-max No Limit Holdem tournament which will run over 2 days. Unlike most normal tournament structures this event will have antes starting from level 1. This event has a guaranteed prize pool of $2 million. Two more tournaments of significance are Event 32, a $256 buy-in, 6-max No Limit Holdem tournament with knockouts that has a guaranteed prize pool of $1 million and Event 34, the Main Event, that has a buy-in of $640 and a massive guaranteed prize pool of $3 million.