Breaking Down The PA Online Gambling Market: Rivers Casino
The parent company of Rivers Casino in Pittsburgh already has an online gambling platform, so its future in the PA online casino market is almost set in stone.
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Kevin Iacofano has been a poker pro for over a decade, with millions in earnings online and another million in cashes in live events. Despite all of that success, a …
The World Series of Poker Circuit made history on Tuesday night. The first-ever online circuit ring event was held in Nevada on WSOP.com to coincide with the WSOPC series being held at the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino.
According to Bill Rini, head of online poker at WSOP.com, the inaugural was a success. “We felt it [the tournament] performed very well,” he told US Poker. “If you look at live circuit events at the Rio, the online ring event was at the top end of those events in terms of attendance for a mid-week tournament.”
When registration closed, 256 players had taken to the virtual felt with 5,000 in starting chips and a dream of a ring.
The prize pool for the event was an impressive $137,760, which included buy-ins plus 164 rebuys.
We touched base with Las Vegas poker pro Allen Kessler during the tournament to get his thoughts. It’s probably no surprise that Kessler thought the structure looked fast and called our attention to spots where additional levels would make the tournament more attractive.
As with most online events, the levels increased quickly — every 12 minutes to be exact. In the end, it took just over seven hours to award ‘casedismised’ a gold ring and the first-place prize of $35,817.
Heads-up play between casedismised and ‘Gijoseph’ lasted about 20 minutes. casedismised emerged victorious when his ten-deuce turned a full house, and Gijoseph called the all-in on the river with less.
| Place | Player | Prize |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | ‘casedismised’ | $35,817.60 |
| 2 | ‘Gijoseph’ | $20,644 |
| 3 | ‘FenixX | $13,224.96 |
| 4 | ‘Forever21’ | $10,469.76 |
| 5 | ‘Sleeth’ | $9,092.16 |
| 6 | ‘JR4591’ | $6,199.20 |
| 7 | ‘Bigriskky’ | $4,821.60 |
| 8 | ‘GLADIATOR’ | $3,581.76 |
| 9 | ‘jchak’ | $2,892.96 |
Everything seemed to run smoothly and the first online circuit event performed as expected.
“We’ve been running online bracelet events during the summer so we knew there was demand for cross-over online tournaments,” Rini said. “We also see a lot of satellite interest going from online to live circuit events whenever we run them. It was really just a matter of offering something that the players wanted.”
There is one more circuit stop in Las Vegas before the 49th Annual World Series of Poker begins in May.
The next circuit stop in Las Vegas will be at Planet Hollywood beginning March 22. While there isn’t an online circuit event on the Planet Hollywood schedule, there’s always hope that the success of the first online circuit ring event will breed more online ring events in the future.
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Online events are a win-win for the players and the WSOP. Players can chase gold on the virtual felt while pursuing some new jewelry in a live tournament. The WSOP, meanwhile, grows its player base and keeps players at the tables.
At this year’s WSOP, the number of online bracelet events will increase from three to four according to the WSOP schedule released earlier this year.
Event #47 – $565 Pot-Limit Omaha 6-Handed is the first non-no-limit hold’em event online bracelet event.
Click here for the complete 2018 World Series of Poker schedule.
The first round of WSOP online satellites and qualifiers concluded on Feb. 25.
WSOP Communications Director Seth Palansky spoke to U.S. Poker last month and said to expect new satellites on WSOP.com every month before the WSOP starts at the end of May.
Palansky also shared that World Series of Poker Main Event and online bracelet satellites will begin running in March.
Rini added, “We’re following the same game plan as we have in the past, which is to begin a light schedule in the beginning of the year and then ramp up with a very satellite heavy schedule the closer to the WSOP we get.”
“We’ll have some other announcements coming up that we believe that players will be excited about as well,” he concluded.
Stay tuned to this space for ways to win your way into the most anticipated poker tournament series in the world.
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The gambling world can sometimes produce really off-the-wall stories. Every month there are plenty of cases of individuals going to extreme lengths to pay back debts, or of simply bizarre …
The release of Star Wars: Battlefront sparked a contentious debate over the presence of “loot boxes” in video games last year. That debate was once again in the spotlight after New Hampshire Senator Maggie Hassan questioned Federal Trade Commission nominees on the matter.
The exchange between Hassan and the FTC nominees came during a Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee hearing last week. Additionally, it comes on the heels of Hassan writing to Patricia Vance, the president of the Entertainment Software Ratings Board.
Hassan is the highest-profile lawmaker to broach the issue in the US. She joins Hawaii State Representative Chris Lee, who has been calling for stricter controls on loot boxes since last November.
In the letter, Hassan asked the ESRB to look into the presence of loot boxes in video games and what can be done to mitigate any potential harms.
Hassan wrote in part:
“I respectfully urge the ESRB to review the completeness of the board’s ratings process and policies as they relate to loot boxes, and to take into account the potential harm these types of micro-transactions may have on children. I also urge the board to examine whether the design and marketing approach to loot boxes in games geared toward children is being conducted in an ethical and transparent way that adequately protects the developing minds of young children from predatory practices.”
At the hearing, the former New Hampshire Governor turned Senator noted the FTC studied aspects of videos games in the past, including violence in video games. She asked if the FTC nominees would be willing to independently review the issue of loot boxes.
All four nominees responded in the affirmative.
So far loot boxes have only narrowly avoided the gambling designation.
Reviews of loot boxes in other jurisdictions find they meet only two of the three criteria which define gambling.
To be gambling, it needs meet the following guidelines:
Since loot box prizes have no real-world value, so they only pass the first two tests. This is unlike video game skin betting, where players can sell, gamble, or transfer special in-game items to other players.
As the Danish Gambling Authority Spillemyndigheden wrote in its opinion:
“The winnings that can be obtained from a loot box in Star Wars Battlefront 2 cannot be converted into financial resources, as the fictional items in the loot box cannot be sold or otherwise converted into money. Therefore, loot boxes in their present form in Star Wars Battlefront 2 are not covered by the gaming act.”
But as I wrote in November, that doesn’t necessarily mean loot boxes shouldn’t be heavily regulated.
There’s mounting research pointing to a possible connection between social games and problem gambling behavior. Related is the ability for young people to easily access these simulated gambling games.
A 2016 study titled “Is it gambling or a game?” summarizes the issue thusly:
“In today’s digital landscape, potential for exposure to gambling-like experiences far exceeds that experienced by previous generations. Previously exposure to gambling was primarily through traditional land-based venues, involving travel to a venue, complying with dress codes and producing age-related identification. The advent of electronic simulated gambling games means that people today are much more likely to have a realistic gambling-type experience at a young age.”
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Poker Night in America is launching a new celebrity focused poker show in March. Community response to the show, dubbed Poker Night LIVE, has been a mixed bag, making it the latest entry in the, “Is this good for poker?” debate.
Poker Night in America’s new show is challenging two widely held beliefs about poker programming.
Those two beliefs are:
Poker Night LIVE is flipping both of these notions on their heads.
The game will be played for low-stakes ($5/$5 blinds with a $500 buy-in).
The lineups will consist of largely celebrity amateurs, with a single well-known poker name, and a poker personality, Joe Stapleton, thrown into the mix to keep the atmosphere light and the table talk flowing. To appeal to as wide a swath of celebrities as possible, PNiA is offering to go to the celebrities’ homes and give them a poker primer.
“This show is going to be different from any show that’s ever been done,” Rush Street Productions President Todd Anderson told PokerNews. “It’s really not as much a poker show as a late night comedy talk show. It’s more Johnny Carson than WPT.”
But is this really the first time something like this has been tried?
The answer is yes and no.
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The premise itself isn’t exactly new. The show seems quite similar to Bravo’s Celebrity Poker Showdown, which had a five-season run at the beginning of the poker boom.
What’s different is, Poker Night LIVE will be played as a live cash game, not an edited down tournament. It will be filmed at Gardens Casino in California and broadcast in close to real-time without editing.
Celebrity Poker Showdown was a show that I watched religiously. At the time I was playing poker professionally, and even though the show’s players were almost exclusively entry-level players it was still very entertaining.
The show simply worked.
to expand on this: So many people talk about bringing new people to the game. Bravo’s CPS was so good at this because it made it ok and fun/funny to not know what the hell you were doing playing poker. You saw celebs learning the basics of poker in real time https://t.co/TC52tK7WwO
— Steve Ruddock (@SteveRuddock) February 23, 2018
Like Celebrity Poker Showdown, it appears that Poker Night LIVE wants to celebrate the rank amateur part of a person’s poker journey, even if that means hardcore poker fans have to sit through some commentary that will be the equivalent of a frequent flyer listening to the flight attendant safety instructions.
For instance, the first segment of Celebrity Poker Showdown explained the most basic game mechanics, from the button and blinds to five-card hand rankings. Hand analysis was also kept very simple.
It may be boring and something of a waste of time for seasoned players, but this quick primer and basic analysis meant viewers didn’t have to know much of anything about poker to understand what was going on. Furthermore, there was always a player or two at the table who was just as inexperienced as someone seeing poker on TV for the first time.
As Jessica Welman pointed out on Twitter, this “take celebrities out of their comfort zone” TV strategy has a long history of success.
To this day I cite it as my favorite poker programming. Networks still capitalize on this make celebs look silly them: Lip Sync Battle, Game Night, etc
— Jessica Welman (@jesswelman) February 23, 2018
Nor were people tuning in to see people compete for life-changing sums of money. The Celebrity Poker Showdown games were played 100 percent for charity, with participants’ chosen charities receiving prizes based on how they finished.
Each season featured five, five-person tournaments. The charities of the four players eliminated in each of the preliminary tournaments received $5,000. The winner of each preliminary tournament played in the championship, with their charities receiving:
Celebrity Poker Showdown worked, and the concept is sorely needed in an age of poker where GTO strategies and higher level analysis has become the norm.
Based on the early looks at the show, Poker Night LIVE has the chance to make poker fun again.
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Industry: Spain’s Leo Margets and Portugal’s João Vieria join the ranks of the French online poker operator, as it prepares to expand into new European markets.
French online poker operator Winamax has announced that is has appointed former PokerStars Team Pro Leo Margets, and Portuguese poker pro João Vieira, as its latest ambassadors.
The signings come as the operator readies to launch online poker in Spain, Italy and Portugal with eyes towards European shared liquidity as its path forward for growth. While the expansion into Spain was not in doubt, the signing of Joao Vieira is the clearest indication that the operator is also expecting to go live in Portugal too.
Live and Online: The KO Series has five different buy-in levels spread across 164 events.
The inaugural Knockout Series, a new offering of progressive knockout tournaments from partypoker, is currently underway with a total $10 million guaranteed prize pool.
It is the second of an ambitious ten tournament series that partypoker plans to run this year, and the first of three KO series that will have a knockout-exclusive schedule.
Live and Online: The Spring 2018 Garden State Super Series from Borgata Poker and partypoker NJ returns to the schedule this March.
Borgata Poker and partypoker NJ are bringing back the Garden State Super Series (GSSS) for its Spring 2018 outing—marking the eighth time the series has run in New Jersey.
The return of New Jersey’s iconic tournament series will have a mix of events with buy-ins starting at $55, topping out at $1060 for the High Roller event.
Overall, the past week in New Jersey online poker saw mixed results. Cash games took another dive, while the tournament scene saw the rewards of having two tournament series on the calendar.
It’s fair to hope that a good weekend at the tournament tables would create some extra cash game tables, but that wasn’t the case.
The number of entries for tournaments posted a 15.43% increase, thanks in no doubt to New Jersey Poker Classic II $100,000 guarantee Sunday tournament.
The cash game traffic tells another story. The weekly average cash game traffic decreased by 8.1%, and the peak cash game traffic fell by 6.8%.
Everyone these days is writing about the record numbers for online casino gaming in New Jersey. Yet, online poker still struggles to find the momentum and numbers that were posted only a year ago. Specifically, the online cash game traffic is down 28% from this same time last year.
We’re starting to sound a bit like a broken record, but hope springs eternal that a combined player pool once Pennsylvania gets online will plug the leaks and turn this ship around.
When going through this week’s report, take note that cash game traffic and tournament data were unavailable for Pala Poker at the time of writing of this week’s article.
With that said, let’s take a detailed look back at the cash game and tournament trends in the New Jersey online poker market for the week ending Feb. 25, 2018.
New Jersey has seven online poker sites operating on four separate networks.
During the week of Feb. 19 – Feb. 25, New Jersey online poker sites averaged 262 cash game players, a decrease of 8.1% from the previous week’s number of 285.
Peak traffic numbers were around 607 players, a decrease of 6.8% from the previous week’s number of 651.
Here’s how those players are distributed across the four online poker networks.
The seven-day rolling peak traffic average for partypoker is 168 cash game players. Compared to last week’s number of 169, Borgata remained flat (-.3%).
The seven-day rolling peak traffic average for WSOP/888 is 181 cash game players. Compared to last week’s number of 229, WSOP/888 saw a significant 20.7% decrease in traffic.
The seven-day rolling peak traffic average remained at 253 cash game players, the same number as last week.
Cash game traffic and tournament data were unavailable for Pala Poker at the time this article was written.
*Cash game traffic data provided by PokerScout.com. Collected Feb. 27, 2018.
PokerStars and partypoker both remained flat compared to last week, and while not encouraging numbers on the surface, compared to WSOP/888’s 20% decline week over week, it should be considered a win.
PokerStars remains in the top spot capturing a majority of traffic and widening the gap a bit between them and second-place WSOP/888. In fact, partypoker is gaining a little ground on the second-place position.
It’s somewhat surprising that WSOP/888 didn’t have a better week at the cash game tables with the New Jersey Classic II in its final weekend and their $100,000 guarantee Sunday tournament on the schedule.
And while PokerStars had one of the better weeks when talking about cash game traffic, you would expect people logging in for their popular Turbo Series would hang out and play some cash, giving them a nice little bump.
Alas, neither scenario seems to be the case.
Looking ahead, the New Jersey Turbo Series is still running throughout the week on PokerStars, and while nothing has been confirmed, we are expecting another round of satellites from WSOP/888 sometime soon.
Additionally, looking back at last year’s data, there is a growth trend in cash game traffic that happened from late March through mid-April. It’s hard to say with the numbers so far off from last year if we will see a similar increase this year.
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Each week, the four online poker networks host a signature Sunday tournament. This week the major tournaments were:
Additionally, while the guarantees are much lower than their signature tournament, PokerStars also hosted The Turbo Series New Jersey this past week. The series will continue through Sunday, March 5.
The bright spot for online poker in New Jersey came on the tournament side of the poker rooms. With a 15.4% increase in total entries for the Sunday majors, it’s fair to say that New Jersey players love their tournament series.
As mentioned, there were two major series on the calendar last weekend – the New Jersey Poker Classic II held on WSOP/888 and The Turbo Series New Jersey on PokerStars. Additionally, the first round of satellites for WSOP events came to a close this past weekend.
WSOP/888 was the big winner with 272 total entries into their NJPC II $100,000 guarantee event, generating a prize pool of $127,024.
PokerStars came in on the other side of the spectrum with 232 total entries into their $200 Sunday Special. The prize pool of $43,152 did not meet the guarantee.
PokerStars’ Sunday major was expected to attract more runners with the Turbo Series underway, but maybe the $100,000 guarantee at WSOP/888 kept players away.
Looking forward, you can expect each of the operators to return to their regularly scheduled Sunday major tournament schedule this coming weekend.
As mentioned, the Turbo Series on PokerStars will run through Sunday, March 4.
Additionally, keep an eye out for some more WSOP satellites to be announced. While we don’t know when they will drop, we do know that more satellites are expected, especially as we get closer to the 49th Annual World Series of Poker.
And with that, here’s a look at the total number of entries for the largest tournament held on each of the three leading online poker networks in New Jersey:
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