Poker News May 6th, 2008

Online gambling is illegal, right? Not quite; the poker is still going on PurePlay

It’s pretty rare that venture capitalists will bet on a company that shows a hint of impropriety. Yet happens occasionally, for companies that don’t push the envelope too far.

In March, for instance, soft-porn site Zivity got $7 million from two prominent firms. The latest is PurePlay, a poker and proto-gambling site that today announces $15 million in funding from Bay Partners and prominent investors including Ron Conway, Peter Thiel and Owen Van Natta.

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Online Poker Room Signs Bonomo

Online gambling brand Bodog has announced that American player Justin ‘ZeeJustin’ Bonomo has become the latest member of its Team Bodog and will now represent the site at poker tournaments and in marketing campaigns.

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FTOPS VIII Online Poker Series to Begin Wednesday

The Full Tilt Online Poker Series (FTOPS) is back with the FTOPS VIII, and it will feature a massive 24-event schedule, including three so-called mystery tournaments. Full Tilt is guaranteeing more than $10 million in prize pools over the course of the event, which will run from this Wednesday, May 7, to Sunday, May 18. There will be at least five events with guarantees of $1 million or more.

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Titan Poker Players Clock Up Cash as Billionth Hand Countdown Begins

Titan Poker, the largest poker room on the iPoker Network, has started distributing cash to its players as the countdown to its highly anticipated Billionth Hand began last week.

The popular poker room is giving away a total of $350,000 in cash as it counts down towards dealing its one billionth poker hand. The cash countdown started when the 950,000,000th hand was dealt. Hundreds of dollars in cash were awarded to players as Titan Poker reached this crucial hand and hundreds more have been distributed every day since.

From this point on, players have a daily chance to hit a ‘winning hand’ and claim their share of the cash. The winning hands are part of two countdowns that are now running simultaneously, entitled ‘Countdown Hands’ and ‘Jackpot Hands’. ‘Countdown Hands’ occur every 200,000 hands, awarding players up to $3,500 each. Players can win up to $14,000 on Jackpot hands, which occur every 5,000,000 hands.

Players can track the progress of the countdown to the Billionth Hand by logging on to the Titan Poker website, which publishes the hand number currently being played. Titan Poker players also receive regular updates of the countdown progress and are immediately informed when they start to play on a winning hand.

Titan Poker regularly rewards its players with huge cash prizes. At the end of this month, the poker room will give away $3,600,000 in its second European Championship of Online Poker (ECOOP II). It also frequently awards its players with seats at the world’s most well-known poker tournaments. Titan Poker will be sending players to the World Series of Poker 2008 in Las Vegas, and the Asian Poker Tour in Manila. In May, it will sponsor the Eurocity Poker Tour Madrid Open - an elite poker tournament open to just 200 players.

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WPT Canada(TM) Launches Today with Coast to Coast Poker Championships at River Rock Casino Resort

WPT Canada(TM) (WPTC) tour kicks off today with its first stop–Coast to Coast Poker Championships, presented by British Columbia Lottery Corporation–at River Rock Casino Resort in Richmond, British Columbia. WPTC is the dedicated tour for Canada, a country where some of the world’s greatest poker professionals call home and poker is booming in best-in-class casino properties nationwide.

“Canada is an incredible destination for poker, which we have experienced first-hand during three successful Canadian events on the main WPT tour,” said Steve Lipscomb, WPT Founder, President and CEO. “The sport of poker has long been growing in Canada, fostering poker fans and creating world-class poker professionals. It was only a matter of time before WPT offered a tailored tour unique to Canadian poker fans, and couldn’t be more thrilled to finally launch it today.”

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Online Poker: Iron Henry Wins Sunday Million

The PokerStars Sunday Million resumed its normal $200 buy-in event last night (after last week’s monthly $500 buy-in version) with an almost round 7,001 entrants. That number meant a prize pool of $1,400,200 and a first-place prize barely falling below $200,000, at $197,000. This attendance was actually a slight drop from the entry numbers at the last $200 buy-in event two weeks ago, which had 7,176 entrants.

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US Customers Not Receiving Payments From Full Tilt Poker

Full Tilt Poker, the second largest online poker room in the world, has long been known for it’s continuous acceptance of US players. It would seem, accepted or not, many US players have decided to leave Full Tilt behind, at least for a little while, as they have not received any withdrawals requested since the middle of April 2008.

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PurePlay Raises Series C Round, Bringing Funding to $15 Million

PurePlay, the first and largest U.S.-compliant play-for-cash online poker destination, today announced the completion of a Series C equity financing round. Led by Bay Partners, this round brings the company’s total funding to $15 million. PurePlay investors also include Ron Conway, James Joaquin and other prominent Silicon Valley investors.

PurePlay announced in March of this year that it has reached a record 1 million players and it has given away over $3 million in cash prizes to date — more than any other non-gambling poker site. The current funding round will enable PurePlay to expand its marketing efforts and build out its infrastructure to dramatically scale an already rapidly growing business.

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P5s’ Nat Arem: More news coming on AP and UB cheating

Pocket Fives administrator Nat Arem, one of the people responsible for uncovering the superuser scandal at Absolute Poker, said in a post at P5s that more details likely will be uncovered regarding cheating at AP and UltimateBet and said he wouldn’t blame people who don’t want to play at either site.

He was fairly vague in his post, but Arem is about as plugged into the situation as one can get.

Here’s some of what he said:

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Casino Aztar parent files for bankruptcy

Tropicana Entertainment LLC, parent of Casino Aztar in Evansville, Ind., said Monday it has filed for protection under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code.

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8 Commandments for All Online Casino Sites

Sometimes, an online casino is right on. Everything goes right for it, from the download through the help and obviously the games. Other times, the site may be a complete disaster. We’ve devised these 8 Commandments All Online Casino Sites Should Obey:

#8 Thou shalt come equipped with positive reviews
It isn’t enough just to have reviews written about you, though that is a step in the right directions. Write-ups must be positive and fellow online gamblers should recommend the casino too. While players can simply read reviews, online casino sites must earn them.

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US Online Casinos: Who is still in the game?

Are there any U.S. online casinos left or do most of them now ban U.S. players from their virtual gambling lobby? Of course there are plenty of U.S. online casinos left (that is casinos which allow Americans to gamble, not casinos operated in the United States), but at the same time, there are plenty of U.S. online casinos which are out for the quick buck and to take advantage of the current situation created by (as usual) sort-sighted lawmakers.

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