As PokerStars’ push to attract and retain recreational players forges ahead, it has launched a new promotion, featuring, for the first time, a celebrity-branded poker table. Just days after retiring from his legendary sprinting career, Usain Bolt has lent his name to the – appropriately – Zoom Poker tables with the “PokerStars Zoom Usain Bolt… Read more »
Online Poker
Online poker news
PokerStars Launches Spin & Go Max Tournaments
PokerStars has launched a new Spin & Go format called…wait for it…Spin & Go Max which adds a heaping spoonful of variables to a Spin & Go game. The idea of Spin & Go Max is essentially the same as a Spin & Go, but rather than the predictability of the three player, winner-take-all format… Read more »
NJ State Senator Lesniak Wants to Open State’s Gambling Borders
When Nevada, New Jersey, and Delaware launched their online gambling industries (just poker for the former, poker and casino games for the latter two), the gaming sites were restricted to accepting players only from within their respective states’ borders. It was kind of bullshit, but it was the way they could be compliant with federal… Read more »
MGM Launches Online Poker Site in New Jersey
MGM Resorts International has beefed up its internet presence in New Jersey, launching a pair of online gambling sites last week: playMGMpoker.com and playMGMcasino.com. The two sites made their “soft launch” on August 1st, meaning they had limited uptime while the company and state regulators made sure everything was going fine. The sites are now… Read more »
Amaya Changes Name to The Stars Group
PokerStars parent company Amaya Inc. has finally made the transition it previewed this spring, embracing the power of the PokerStars brand and changing its corporate name to The Stars Group. Along with the rebranding comes a headquarters move from Montreal to Toronto. In a brief press release, the company said: TORONTO, Canada – August 1,… Read more »
Partypoker Offers Initial Details for September Powerfest
Partypoker has unveiled the first details of the fall 2017 Powerfest online poker tournaments series, a series which will feature an insane 330 events (more than that, actually), a dozen Championship events, and $35 million in guaranteed prize pools. Powerfest will run September 3rd through September 24th. “Powerfest just keeps getting bigger and better so… Read more »
PokerStars Testing Shorter Time to Act at Select Cash Game Tables
In what seems to be a never-ending effort in the poker industry to speed up the games, PokerStars announced last week that it will be conducting a trial of some new “time to act” settings at its cash game tables. Announced in a post on the corporate blog, the goal of the new settings is… Read more »
PokerStars Bailing Out PKR Players Left Holding the Bag
One of the worst things that can happen in the online poker world is when a poker site closes shop, leaving players looking for another room at which to play. Even worse is when the poker site goes under and takes its customers’ money with it. But that’s exactly what happened in early May when… Read more »
UKGC Announces New Customer Account Access Regulations
The United Kingdom Gambling Commission (UKGC) recently unveiled new regulations with the goal of making sure consumers are given better options by online gaming operators for ways to review their own gambling activity. The requirements that online operators will need to have in place by April 1st, 2018 are: • ensure consumers are able to… Read more »
PokerStars Rolling Out Stars Rewards to All Markets
About a month-ish or so ago, PokerStars launched its new Stars Rewards loyalty program in Denmark and Italy. The world’s largest online poker room announced today that Stars Rewards has launched on Tuesday, July 4th in Spain, Portgual, and France and will roll out to the rest of the world on Thursday, July 6th. The… Read more »
WSOP Produced Largest Prize Pool in Nevada Online Poker History
It seems that with each passing year, the World Series of Poker sets new records. It did so on Saturday, as the $3,333 WSOP.com Online No-Limit High Roller bracelet event built the largest prize pool in Nevada online poker history. By extension, of course, the $1,335,600 prize pool was also the largest online prize pool… Read more »
Editorial: Just How Badly Do You Need to Play Online Poker?
What was the greatest loss from 2011’s “Black Friday?” There were millions of dollars tied up, which for some players was returned after nearly three years and others who never saw a nickel, and several top online poker rooms were either shuttered towards U. S. players (PokerStars) or dried up and shut down under nefarious… Read more »
Partypoker Changes Caribbean Poker Party Promo Structure
Online poker room partypoker announced on Friday that it has changed the structure of Caribbean Poker Party promotion because of player feedback. Most of the promo, which is highlighted by prize packages to the partypoker MILLIONS Caribbean in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, remains the same, with the main changes coming with the number of prizes… Read more »
Edgar Stuchly Out as President of PokerStars Live
After the tepid performance of the rollout of their rebranded tournament series, the President of PokerStars Live, Edgar Stuchly, has been terminated from his position. Stuchly was the boss of what had been one of the most powerful tournament poker schedules in the world circa 2011. Hired from Casinos Austria, Stuchly took over for the… Read more »
New Online Gambling Advocacy Group Ramps Up
A new online gambling industry trade group made itself known this week, with an aim to work toward helping internet gaming become legalized and regulated throughout the United States. iDEA (iDevelopment and Economic Association – which is a hell of a way to force a name into a handy acronym) represents stakeholders from many different… Read more »
Former Absolute Poker Head to be Sentenced
Former Absolute Poker president and co-founder Scott Tom is set to be sentenced on September 28th, 2017, for crimes relating to his role running what was once one of the top online poker rooms in the world. Unfortunately, it has nothing to do with his involvement in the infamous “Potripper” super-user cheating scandal from back… Read more »
partypoker Adds VIP Level to Cashback Offering
When partypoker launched its Cashback rewards program a couple weeks ago, there was a little line at the bottom of the Cashback rewards page that indicated that some sort of VIP level was coming soon. And soon it did, as less than a week later, the online poker room announced the launch of the Diamond… Read more »
WSOP to Feature Three Online Bracelet Events
The World Series of Poker evolves every year; not everybody likes every change that is made, but it does appear that WSOP officials do take player suggestions into account and try to adjust to the times. Case in point: 2015, when the very first online bracelet event was held. It was by all indications a… Read more »
Stars Rewards Hits PokerStars Denmark Market
The new PokerStars rewards system, logically named Stars Rewards, went live for players in Denmark last week; it should be available to Italians shortly. It is a significant departure from VIP program the world’s largest online poker room had previous and to this point, reviews are not good. Stars Rewards begins with reward points, which… Read more »
Online Player Sits Out, Misses Bad Beat Jackpot
If there is one thing we should have all learned by now, it is that there is no reason not to play online poker on a laptop or a mobile device. That way, you never have to take a pee break. It’s really that simple. Nature calls, take your laptop with you, and never miss… Read more »
Mike Sexton Leaves WPT, Goes All-In at partypoker
Not content to rest on its laurels while the World Series of Poker gets all the headlines, the World Poker Tour (WPT) dropped a stunner on Monday, announcing that the legendary Mike Sexton is retiring from his position as the WPT’s long-time co-announcer. Sexton, a Poker Hall of Famer and the “Ambassador of Poker,” has… Read more »
partypoker Launches New Rakeback System
A new rakeback system went into effect on partypoker on Monday, May 22nd. The Cashback reward program, as it is called by partypoker, allows players to earn from 20 to 40 percent in rakeback per week. It really is a simple system, something that should be familiar to most people who have participated in virtually… Read more »
New Stars Rewards Program to Debut This Month in Denmark
We have been hearing from PokerStars about its new rewards program for what seems like a decade now, but according to a post on the PokerStars blog Wednesday, it looks like players will finally get to see it in action soon. PokerStars Director of Poker Innovation and Operations Severin Rasset said that by the end… Read more »
PokerStars All Stars Competition Completed, Hatrick19911 Wins Top Honor
More PokerStars news, how fun! The first season of the PokerStars All Stars is in the books and the leader board winners have been determined. Ukranian player Hatrick19911 emerged as the overall champion of the top division, the All Stars Table, winning $25,453 across 4,686 hands. In addition to the money he won from his… Read more »
Outage Hits PokerStars, Affects SCOOP
Technology can be a pain in the ass sometimes. As awesome as it is (it lets us play poker online!), it can let us down at the worst possible moments. That was the case yesterday on PokerStars, when the world’s largest poker room experienced an outage right in the middle of the Spring Championship of… Read more »