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.