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Poker Industry PRO: Sunday Million Anniversary Edition Returns With $10 Million Guaranteed

After a substantial overlay back in February, PokerStars brings back the anniversary edition of their iconic Sunday tournament with $1 million earmarked for first place.

PokerStars has announced it will be running its Sunday Million Anniversary Edition: Take 2 in April guaranteeing $10 million in prize money with $1 million going to first place, despite having to contribute a large sum of money to the prize pool of the same event last month after the tournament fell short of meeting its guarantee.

For the past three years PokerStars has celebrated the anniversary of its Sunday Millions tournament—that sees $1 million guaranteed each week—with an impressive offering. Players are guaranteed $10 million or more in prize money for the same buy-in as the normal Sunday tournaments of just $215.

Read the full article on pokerfuse →

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Esports Take On Las Vegas With New Arena At Luxor

For the past couple of years, Nevada casinos have tried to figure out a way to tap into the Millenial crowd through their love of video games. Ventures like skill-based slots and MGM Grand’s Level Up lounge did not exactly succeed at bringing in hordes of new gaming customers.

The lack of success so far is not stopping the Luxor though. The casino recently unveiled the first-ever esports arena on the Las Vegas Strip last week. Allied Esports Arena occupies the space previously housing the nightclubs LAX and Ra. Now, instead of going after the clubbing crowd, the Luxor hopes its unique venue will be a draw gamers cannot resist.

Allied Entertainment behind arena efforts

Allied Entertainment, an esports company, partnered with MGM Resorts on the new project. It is not the first of its kind for the company. Allied originally built a facility in Southern California, then went on to commission two mobile studios. The Vegas arena is the largest of all the Allied facilities.

“Esports Arena Las Vegas is the cornerstone of our property, brand and content development and will allow us to engage esports communities, brands and stakeholders like never before,” Jud Hannigan, CEO of Allied Esports, said via a press release. “With Las Vegas rapidly becoming a hub for esports, Esports Arena Las Vegas at Luxor will be the city’s home for competitive gaming and interactive entertainment.”

The venue kicked off the weekend with a series of tournaments featuring $25,000 in prizes. The arena hopes to host a wide range of gaming events, not just stick to a particular brand or game.

In fact, the venue is going to house poker tournaments as well. Allied Esports shares a parent company, OnGame, with the World Poker Tour (WPT). The WPT is bringing its season-ending championship event back to Vegas, but rather than film the table at Bellagio or Aria, which are hosting the tournaments, the final table will run at Luxor.

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Can an arena succeed where other gaming ventures haven’t?

It is a project with lofty goals. Can it succeed though? Unlike previous efforts, which try to create hybrids of gambling and gaming, the arena is relying on live events to bring in a crowd.

New Jersey casinos have hosted similar events in the past, hoping the relatively young demographic in town for the event find their way the gaming floor.

Chris Grove, managing director of sports and emerging verticals for Eilers & Krejcik Gaming, spoke to the Las Vegas Review-Journal about the idea and its potential.

“To try something like this and build an esports arena and wrap a marketing and event concept of this around a destination for gaming is unprecedented. There are a lot of people waiting to see how it plays out.”

Vegas is increasingly becoming a town with less emphasis on gambling, but it is still the heart of the hospitality industry. Though, MGM is one company eager to diversify into entertainment options. T-Mobile Arena has been a huge success for them, the company is in the process fo rebranding Monte Carlo as Park MGM, and the company launched a new campaign emphasizing entertainment over casino games.

Nonetheless, it seems like this arena’s success will be rooted in bringing in a new generation of players, not just filling up some hotel rooms. The expectations are perhaps unfair, as gaming companies continue to cling to the hope appealing to gamers will bump their revenue.

Truth is, this may be a dream everyone is chasing that will never come true. Grove summed it up rather succinctly:

“With this venue, this team and this partner (MGM Resorts International), if they can’t make this work, I’m not sure who could at this point in time.”

Photo by Jeffrey J Coleman / Shutterstock.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

The post Esports Take On Las Vegas With New Arena At Luxor appeared first on Play Nevada.

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A Strong Garden State Super Series Spring ’18 Surpasses Guarantees

Borgata‘s Garden State Super Series Spring ’18 came to a close on Sunday. Looking back on the series, we can say it improved upon the fall version of the tournament and provided a solid bump to Borgata and partypoker online poker traffic for the week.

The GSSS Spring ’18 went off without a hitch, which hasn’t always been the case. After tallying the prize pools, Borgata found itself on the right side of the balance sheet.

It’s nice to have some positive results to report about New Jersey online poker, for a change.

GSSS Spring ’18 Recap

The popular online poker tournament series gathered a total prize pool of $436,150 from the 17 events on the schedule. That figure more than covered the $365,000 in guarantees set before the series began.

Of the 17 events, 11 exceeded their guarantee, leaving six that didn’t. Even so, the 11 that exceeded the guarantee did so by a good margin.

Analyzing the series, we found:

  • The series started strong when Event #1 – $109 Six-Max No-Limit Hold’Em exceeded its $10,000 guarantee with a $15,400 prize pool.
  • Both of the $55 buy-in events, the lowest buy-in on the schedule, struggled to meet their guarantees. Pot Limit Omaha (Event #12) missed its guarantee by $400, and NLH Turbo (Event #5) missed it by $950.
  • Pot-limit Omaha continues to struggle to generate interest. In the Spring ’17 series, the PLO event posted a 20% overlay. And even though last fall the event barely made its guarantee, falling back into overlay territory during this series does not bode well for the one NLH event on the schedule.
  • Both of the $535 buy-in events (the highest buy-in except for the high roller) smashed their guarantees. Event #6 – Mega Tuesday Six-Max NLH exceeded its guarantee by $13,500 and Event #9 – Mega Thursday NLH exceeded it by $11,500.
  • The series ended strong with three of the four events held on the final day exceeding their guarantee. The High Roller being the one tournament that missed the mark.

The GSSS Spring ’18 Major Events

On Sunday, the final day of the series, Borgata held four final events, two of them with massive guarantees.

Event #15 – $320 NLH Main Event with a $100,000 guarantee had 369 entrants, producing a prize pool of $110,700. The number of entrants was a 24% increase in registrations compared to last week’s major tournament. It also surpassed last fall’s Main Event by 25 entrants.

The event lasted just over 11 hours and concluded when the tournament reached heads up. The remaining two players, ‘Jenger’ and ‘TULLYTIME31’ made a deal, the details of which aren’t public yet. We know ‘Jenger’ finished in first place and likely claimed the larger portion of the $34,084.54 that was left to be divided.

Event #16 – $1060 High Roller with a $60,000 guarantee fell short of its guarantee by $5,000. This was the largest overlay of the series.

Last fall this event was on the opening Sunday of the series and drew 47 entrants compared to just 45 entrants this year. It seems the move to the final Sunday and competing with the Main Event was an experiment that didn’t pay off.

After nearly five and a half hours, winner ‘pay4medsch00l’ collected $15,500 worth of medical school tuition.

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Some Final Thoughts

Yes, the series exceeded its guarantees and appeared to have had a strong showing. It’s not hard to appear strong in a struggling online poker market like the one New Jersey has been experiencing.

It seems as if Borgata was hedging its bet a little when creating the schedule. Compared to the series held last fall, GSSS Spring ’18 offered three more events and yet there were $10,000 less in guarantees for the entire series.

While New Jersey players love their big, bold tournaments, the online poker rooms are not quite ready to bank on them to reverse the declining revenue trends we have been seeing.

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New PA Online Casino Regs Open The Door For Out-Of-State Servers

The latest Pennsylvania gaming regulations answered some questions pertaining to security, integrity, advertising, and location of the servers for the forthcoming online gambling sites in the Keystone State. However, there are still several unanswered questions, namely how many skins each license can have.

The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board (PGCB) approved preliminary online casino and poker regulations this week. Both are temporary regulations but deal with interactive gaming testing and controls and interactive gaming platform requirements, reported Online Poker Report.

Even with the establishment of these regulations, they are not official until published in the PA Bulletin, from which they are currently absent.

Player exposure to risks

The scope of the recent regulations deals primarily with the security and integrity of the interactive gaming operations and how they impact the player.

Things of note:

  • Server location
  • Server security
  • Platform inoperability
  • Player access

Equipment for interactive gaming (e.g., servers) may be in a restricted area of the licensed facility. These must be approved but could be anywhere in the U.S. as long as they meet PGCB requirements. This is a big departure from regulations in Nevada and New Jersey which require servers to be located in the same state as the operators. It also opens the doors for Pennsylvania casinos to partner with NJ operators without having to set up entirely different servers and equipment.

Server security addresses physical protection of equipment from natural disaster as well as man-made disasters. Additionally, the licensee must also be wary of personnel access to the server and keep a log of access to the various parts of the system. In the event of any sort of issue, the licensee must have a recovery plan for any of the above concerns.

Per the new regulations, players can exclude themselves from playing and replay previous outcomes. Geolocation protocols will not allow players to access these online casinos or poker rooms outside of the state.

Mainly though, these regulations will put the onus on the licensee’s IT and security staff and the platform providers to “ensure the integrity and safety of interactive gaming operations in the Commonwealth.”

The security and integrity regulations include controls for equipment, system requirements, software disclosures, shutdown and recovery standards as well.

Second set of regulations start to standardize

The other set of regulations from PGCB make more information available to players.

Even if players haven’t deposited, they should have access to paytables and game rules. Players should also receive the minimum amounts of information required to play the game once inside of a game. This includes:

  • Name of the game
  • Player’s current balance
  • Restrictions in place
  • Amount won and lost per session

Other information comes along with these items, but regulators must approve any changes to any of game. A gaming laboratory must test random number generators. The PGCB standards apply to these random number generators as they determine game outcomes.

In turn, the licensee must also abide by certain “comprehensive house rules governing wagering transactions.” As is the theme, the players must be able to find these rules. Licensees can also ask for approval for live dealer games, or games with live dealers that are conducted online.

Promos and ads will need PGCB approval

Beyond that, ads must meet minimum standards without being exclusive or offensive. Additionally, promotions must be vetted by the state.

The goal of the PGCB is transparency and accuracy.

The next PGCB meeting April 2 will hopefully set regulations for how many branded online casinos (“skins”) the licensees may have.

The post New PA Online Casino Regs Open The Door For Out-Of-State Servers appeared first on Play Pennsylvania.