Online poker news
We all knew it was coming. And now it’s almost here. At the European Poker Tour Grand Final, PokerStars Head of Poker Communications Lee Jones announced that the world’s largest online poker room will soon be launching its Road to 100 Billion celebration. That’s one hundred billion cash game hands over the history of PokerStars.… Read more »
Online poker cash game traffic monitoring website PokerScout.com released its Weekly Online Poker Traffic Update Monday, revealing the first weekly increase in the number of players sitting down to ring games in two months. Before everyone starts jumping for joy, it was only a half a percent increase, but still, that is better than the… Read more »
Back in the “good old days” of online poker, PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker were fierce rivals. Numbers one and two in the traffic rankings, they were in the business of trying to one-up each other. PokerStars had the World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP); Full Tilt launched the Full Tilt Online Poker Series (FTOPS).… Read more »
Although it is extremely early to gain a read on how successful it will be, the early days of action on Ultimate Poker are showing that the site is steadily garnering support from Nevadans who can actually play on it. Opening up on Tuesday, Ultimate Poker became the first regulated online poker room in the… Read more »
In a few minutes, a new era of poker will begin in the United States. Ultimate Gaming, a subsidiary of Station Casinos LLC, will see its Ultimate Poker deal its first hand at 9:00am PST (noon ET), becoming the first legal, regulated online poker room in the United States. Initially, Ultimate Poker will only be… Read more »
Online gaming firm 888 Holdings Plc reported its quarterly financials Tuesday, showing improvements from last year across the board. On the whole, the company brought in $103 million in the first quarter of 2013, a new record for 888. That represented an increase of 9 percent over the same quarter last year, when revenues were… Read more »
PartyPoker is not winning many fans these days. The latest in a series of missteps: the cancellation of several tournaments in its Pokerfest III tournament series. Players were excited to get the festivities underway yesterday as six tournament were set to launch in the span of an hour and a half. But just when the… Read more »
The NYX Gaming Group has purchased ZEN Entertainment, hopefully saving ZEN’s creditors after the company filed for bankruptcy in January. ZEN Entertainment, which has billed itself as a “massive multiplayer online gaming (MMOG) tournament network,” has origins stemming back to 2006. It was that year that the National League of Poker (NLOP) and NLOP.com were… Read more »
Last month, PokerStars released the first draft of the schedule for its popular Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP). Now the official schedule has been published. It is very similar to the original draft, with just one event, Triple Stud, dropped from the series. More tournaments have been added, though, increasing the number of events… Read more »
Full Tilt Poker launched an update to its software Tuesday, introducing three new features. The most significant addition is Full Tilt’s take on player segregation, but done in a much gentler manner that at competing poker sites. Player segregation has been a disappointing trend in the online poker world lately in which different sites and… Read more »
After a short test on Titan Poker late last week, the iPoker Network has rolled out anonymous tables to the rest of the poker rooms on the network. The tables, which remove players’ identifying information from the tables, are currently available for No-Limit Hold’em games with $2 through $100 buy-ins with additional tables possible in… Read more »
Former Full Tilt Poker chief executive Ray Bitar will plead guilty to felony charges stemming from his 2011 “Black Friday” indictment, according to several media sources, including the Wall Street Journal and Diamond Flush Poker. This news in and of itself should not really come as a shock, considering Bitar was arrested in July 2012… Read more »
Ultimate Poker, one of the online poker companies that has received a license to operate interactive online gaming in Nevada, announced Tuesday that is has signed Antonio Esfandiari as its Brand Ambassador. Esfandiari becomes the first poker pro to represent an internet poker room licensed in the United States. Ultimate Poker is product of Ultimate… Read more »
On Wednesday, social gaming giant Zynga will launch its first real money gambling games, starting with a limited release in the United Kingdom. ZyngaPlusPoker and ZyngaPlusCasino will run on the bwin.party software platform and will be available to players 18-years of age and older. The launch was announced by Zynga’s Chief Revenue Officer Barry Cottle… Read more »
Another day, another hit for Boss Media’s International Poker Network (IPN). One of the network’s oldest poker rooms, InterPoker, has officially announced that it will be moving over to the Ongame Network by the end of April. The news began to be communicated to both players and affiliates via e-mail as much as a couple… Read more »
The iPoker Network is bringing back its tournament series for a fourth time, promising a total of $1.2 million in guaranteed prize pools. The not-quite-originally named iPoker Online Poker Series (iPOPS) will run from April 21st through May 5th and will feature 17 events as well as satellites. The format for iPOPS IV is different… Read more »
Fortune Poker, one of the longer standing poker rooms on the internet, officially shut down its games Monday, ending a nine year run. The poker room had been living, albeit at a subsistence level, on Boss Media’s International Poker Network (IPN). Customers of Fortune Poker received an e-mail about a week ago informing them of… Read more »
It appears that this is the time to release the schedules for online poker tournament series. Already this week, PokerStars revealed a draft of its Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP) schedule and now PartyPoker has announced the schedule for this spring’s Pokerfest III. A relative newcomer to the online tournament series scene, Pokerfest, has… Read more »
Full Tilt Poker announced Wednesday that it is bringing back its Black Card Program, the popular elite loyalty status level that disappeared when Full Tilt went offline after Black Friday. Those players who earn Black Card membership will be able to instantly convert their Full Tilt Points to cash at their full value, which could… Read more »
Spring is here (in the northern hemisphere, anyway) and with it comes PokerStars’ Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP). On Monday, the world’s largest online poker room released the first draft of the 2013 SCOOP schedule, revealing an expanded slate of 42 events. It will all begin (pending changes, of course) on Sunday, May 12th… Read more »
The Bodog Poker Network announced this week that it is launching qualifiers for its Anonymous Poker Series (APS) Live Invitational Finale, which will be held in Manila, Philippines in January 2014. The Anonymous Poker Series was created in December as a sort of hybrid live/online tournament series to highlight the network’s unique software that features… Read more »
The Nevada Gaming Commission (NGC) granted interactive gaming licenses to 888 U.S. Limited and Treasure Island LLC last week, bringing the launch of the first legal intrastate online poker site in the United States just a bit closer to a reality. These two licenses were not unexpected. The companies had already been recommended for approval… Read more »
One of the most popular forms of poker in the world, Omaha Hold’em, is enjoyed because of the ‘action’ nature of the game. The leading online poker room in the world, PokerStars, is looking to expand its popularity by introducing two new Omaha derivatives for both cash games and tournaments. The first is a rather… Read more »
Moving a step closer to bringing its online gaming industry to life, the state of Delaware announced yesterday that fourteen companies have applied for online gaming licenses for their proposed online casino gaming system. The online operation, which will be operated by the Delaware Lottery, will offer all types of casino gaming and online poker,… Read more »
Neteller, the e-wallet of choice for Americans during the online poker boom, is looking to make a return to the States. Six years after the payment processor exited the U.S. market after running afoul of the Department of Justice, it sees online gaming legislation at the state level as a way back in. When online… Read more »
