Coming up on its second anniversary, the New Jersey online gaming market has been able to slowly build some speed. Along with Delaware in being the only operations that offer intrastate online casino gaming (Nevada only offers online poker), the Garden State earned well over $100 million from its online casino gaming industry in 2014,… Read more »
Online Poker
Online poker news
Full Tilt Launches the Players Club
Full Tilt completed phase two in its turn toward being an online poker room for recreational players last week, launching its new Players Club loyalty program. The system is geared completely towards those who like to play poker, but don’t make it their life’s ambition, yet still want to be rewarded for their play. In… Read more »
Micro Stakes Spin & Go’s Launched on PokerStars Spain and France
All the attention in the Rational Group family has been focused on Full Tilt Poker recently and its efforts to make its online poker room more recreational player-friendly, but sister site (big sister site, to be exact) PokerStars is making one small move to make its casual players smile. The world’s largest internet poker entity… Read more »
Senator Ray Lesniak Predicts PokerStars NJ License Coming Soon…Again
In an interview with CardPlayer, New Jersey State Senator Ray Lesniak said that he believes PokerStars will be granted a license to operate in his state and that it should happen relatively soon. Of course, we have heard this wishful thinking before, but Lesniak is still confident that it will get done. PokerStars has been… Read more »
Full Tilt Gives Glimpse into Loyalty Program Changes
Step one for Full Tilt Poker in transitioning its site to a recreational player model was completely overhauling its cash game offerings. Step two was previewed last Thursday, as Full Tilt Managing Director Dominic Mansour revealed a revamped loyalty program. Some of parts of it, while changed, will look familiar, while some aspects are completely… Read more »
Full Tilt Traffic Hurting After Cash Game Upheaval
It is certainly too soon to issue last rights to Full Tilt Poker (for the second time), but the numbers do not paint a pretty picture since the site completely overhauled its cash game offerings. Full Tilt has lost an enormous number of cash game players, which was not unexpected, but it is ugly, nonetheless.… Read more »
Jason Somerville to Return to Twitch; Phil Hellmuth Makes Twitch Debut
Poker’s most popular streamer will be returning to the interweb in just a few days. On Thursday, Jason Somerville announced via Twitter that he has signed a new two-year partnership with Twitch to broadcast his daily Run It UP! show. Somerville has been on hiatus since this spring, but he sounds like he is itching… Read more »
iPoker Network to Recombine Tuesday
Poker players who inexplicably stayed with one of the iPoker Network’s “Tier 2” poker rooms after the network split into two parts in September 2012 have reason to celebrate, as PokerStrategy.com reports that the network will fuse its tiers tomorrow, creating a single network once again. Online poker rooms and networks have come up with… Read more »
GVC Holdings Trying to Move bwin.party Board Forward on Acquisition
GVC Holdings, one of the two suitors for online gaming company bwin.party, confirmed Friday that it in talks with bwin.party to try to convince its board to move forward with a proposal which would have GVC acquire the parent company of partypoker. In a press release issued Friday, GVC stated: GVC is working closely with… Read more »
iPoker Florida Leads Charge in State for Regulation of Online Poker
Since the flurry of activity in 2013 that saw three states – Delaware, Nevada and New Jersey – create the first state-regulated online gaming and/or poker sites in the United States, there has been a lull in the action. While several states have mulled over legislation in their individual legislative bodies, nothing else has been… Read more »
Optimal Payments Acquisition of Skrill Approved by UK FCA
Online payment processor Optimal Payments announced Monday that it has received approval from the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to acquire competitor the Skrill Group in a deal valued at $1.2 billion. Both companies are major players in the online gaming industry, offering popular, easy-to-use e-wallets with which players can transfer funds to and from… Read more »
WPN to Host Five Million Dollar Tourneys this Fall
You’ve got to give the Winning Poker Network (WPN) credit. The guys who run the show over there are persistent. Less than a year after having its aggressive million dollar guaranteed tournament scuttled by Distributing Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks, the network is set to make that very same type of tourney a regular thing,… Read more »
Amaya Gaming Sells Chartwell, Cryptologic to NYX Gaming
Amaya Gaming, the parent company of PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker, has sold Amaya, Inc. (formerly and best known as Chartwell Technology, Inc.) and Cryptologic Limited to NYX Gaming Group Limited for CAD $150 million. Both of Chartwell and Cryptologic are similar, as both deal in business-to-business (B2B) online casino game and platform development. They… Read more »
PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker Issue Latest Changes To Operations
Slightly more than a year after the ownership change that rocked the online poker industry in particular and the gaming world in general, the two entities owned by Amaya Gaming – PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker – continue to make changes that, while good for the companies, might not be particularly friendly to the customers.… Read more »
Casino Gran Madrid to Close Spanish Online Poker Room
Casino Gran Madrid has announced that it will be shuttering its online poker room effective the end of this month. The site let its customers know via e-mail, citing too many obstacles to allow it to put forth a quality poker offering. The casino’s internet poker off-shoot, CasinoGranMadrid.es, is part of iPoker Network Spain, the… Read more »
Full Tilt Announces Radical Ring Game Changes
A couple weeks ago, Full Tilt Poker announced that it would soon be making big changes in an attempt to better the poker experience for its players and improve the site’s poker economy. We’re not sure anybody expected anything this severe. Full Tilt revealed significant changes to its cash games this morning, arguably the most… Read more »
GVC Holdings Increases bwin.party Offer
The tug-of-war over internet gambling firm bwin.party continues as GVC Holdings refuses to let go of the rope just yet. GVC confirmed Monday that it has made another proposal to buy bwin.party, sweetening its previous offer and ditching its former partner. Bwin.party, the parent company of partypoker, has been on the block for at least… Read more »
GVC Mulling Another Bid for bwin.party
As we reported late last week, the poker world was shocked Friday morning when 888 Holdings and bwin.party agreed to a $1.4 billion deal that would have 888 acquire its fellow online gambling firm. The surprise wasn’t because bwin.party was sold – that has been a possibility for years – but rather that 888 was… Read more »
Full Tilt Tabs Marc Kennedy as First Player Ambassador
Full Tilt announced today that it has named Marc “PlayinWitDreams” Kennedy its first Player Ambassador. It appears that in this role, Kennedy will essentially be a liaison between the players and the poker room, making sure the players’ voices are heard when decisions about changes to the poker room are being made. Kennedy has been… Read more »
New Jersey Online Gambling Revenue Mixed Bag for June
New Jersey’s monthly online gambling revenue figures were once again favorable compared to last year, but online poker is lagging behind, according to the latest report issued by the state’s Division of Gaming Enforcement (DGE). Total internet gaming win, which includes both casino games (roulette, slots, video poker, blackjack, etc.) and online poker, was $11.7… Read more »
Mohegan Sun Launches New Jersey Online Casino
A new online casino is hitting the New Jersey market this week, but for those familiar with gambling geography, it may seem like an odd entry. Monday morning, the Mohegan Sun launched its casino gambling offering, appropriately named MoheganSunCasino.com, using software provided by NYX Gaming. If you are confused, don’t worry. I was, as well.… Read more »
2015 PokerStars WCOOP to Feature Largest Buy-in Online Tourney Ever
PokerStars has announced that it will host the largest buy-in tournament in the history of online poker, smashing the previous record. The $51,000 buy-in event will be part of the 2015 World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) and will feature a guaranteed prize pool of $1 million. The tournament will take place at 12:30pm ET… Read more »
PokerScout: Online Poker Cash Game Traffic Finally Increases
For the first time in three months, the internet poker industry experienced a rise in its cash game traffic. According to PokerScout.com’s Weekly Online Poker Traffic Update, online poker cash game liquidity was up one percent last week. While that does not sound like much (and it’s really not), it is mildly exciting because the… Read more »
Is Virtual Reality the Future of Online Poker?
When it was first created by Planet Poker in 1998, online poker was groundbreaking. Bringing the game from the casino and a live setting to the internet was a truly innovative achievement, allowing people who had never picked up a chip in a casino or home game the opportunity to go online and play the game… Read more »
888 Holdings to Buy bwin.party for $1.4 Billion
In a shocker of a deal that was announced early on Friday morning, 888 Holdings emerged as the suitor for bwin.party. After hectic negotiations that seemingly involved every power player in the online gaming industry, 888 Holdings was able to put together a deal of £898.3 (roughly $1.4 billion U. S.) to overtake GVC Holdings… Read more »