In an article that appeared on Friday on Pokerati, it was revealed that the PokerStars North American Poker Tour (NAPT) might be on the outs with the Venetian and other casinos in Nevada. The Venetian hosted the NAPT’s first U.S.-based stop in February.
According to Pokerati, the phenomenal success of the inaugural season of the PokerStars-backed tour may ultimately be its undoing. The Venetian Main Event attracted a starting grid of 872 players and a total prize pool of over $4 million. Tom Marchese, who walked away with the title after defeating Sam Stein heads-up, banked a healthy $827,000. The first three stops of the NAPT – the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, Venetian, and Mohegan Sun – all received coverage on cable station ESPN.
Pokerati explains that Nevada gaming officials “began receiving both informal and formal requests from specific casino companies, industry representatives, as well as federal and state authorities to reconsider [the Nevada Gaming Control Board’s position on allowing casinos to work with offshore gambling sites] and at a minimum, clarify the state’s stance.” A Board member told Pokerati, “To be clear, we’re talking about poker specifically. That’s what’s being debated. A new policy is developing as we speak.”
According to the NAPT’s website, “tons of PokerStars qualifiers” made their way to Las Vegas to compete in the Venetian event. The stop’s High Roller Bounty Shootout also appeared on ESPN and ended with young Ashton Griffin laying claim to the title and $560,000 in cash. At Mohegan Sun, 716 players turned out to the East Coast casino for its Main Event, where the Year of the Woman rolled on with Vanessa Selbst winning the title. Meanwhile, Jason Mercier took down the High Roller Bounty Shootout.
What appears to be in question is whether we’ll see another NAPT event in Las Vegas. Pokerati forecasted, “PokerStars has not acknowledged that they’ve actually been booted out of Nevada tournament fare by anyone, nor that they were preparing to challenge the World Series head-on in Las Vegas with another NAPT. Venetian poker room management are not commenting on the matter either, other than to say they are looking forward to an exciting summer Deep Stacks.”
Gaming officials did not specify who was knocking on the doors of the Control Board. On the NAPT’s website, a countdown clock to the next NAPT event reads 51 days at the time of writing. However, that figure has moved down – and up – in recent weeks and no press release has been distributed by the world’s largest online poker site detailing its future. Possible destinations for the next NAPT event include Tunica, Atlantic City, and Chicago.
PokerStars already operates a handful of land-based poker series, including the European Poker Tour (EPT), Latin American Poker Tour (LAPT), and Australia New Zealand Poker Tour (ANZPT), successfully navigating various legal arrangements around the world. Appropriately, a poster on the online poker forum TwoPlusTwo pointed out, “If it weren’t just Nevada casinos, but all U.S. casinos that couldn’t be affiliated with a PokerStars sponsored event, would Indian casinos jump at the chance to host an NAPT event?”
Complicating the Board’s decision is the looming compliance deadline with the regulations of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) on June 1st. Traditionally, sites like PokerStars, Full Tilt, and Absolute Poker have sent players to live events donning patches for dot-net sites, which are billed as educational outlets instead of for-money poker rooms.
Poker News Daily could not reach PokerStars officials for comment.
