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Danielle Andersen, 28, leads a seemingly innocuous life: she's a stay-at-home mom who works a few shifts as registered nurse every month. But, due to her modesty, few people know this New Ulm resident is an international professional poker player who has played with Hollywood stars and been featured on major documentaries about poker. Her hard work in poker has turned into a lucrative career, and her skill has earned her praise as "one of the world's top female online poker players" by top poker players and organizations.

Humble beginnings, surprise success

Andersen said she started playing poker in college when she felt left out of the many games her boyfriend, who later became her husband, would play with friends. She surprise everyone by quickly learning the ropes and surpassing everyone in skill.

A pivotal moment came when her boyfriend encouraged her to try her abilities at online poker. She was initially against it, feeling it was a likely way to waste the $50 investment. She eventually agreed to try on the terms that she would quite forever if she lost the initial funds. But, instead, she proved so skillful that her significant winnings over the course of her career have all gone up from that initial $50.

The turning point in her poker career came when she decide against the career she was pursuing and realized she could make much more online than her $8-per hour shoe store job. With the support of her family, she dropped out of college to pursue a full-time career in poker.

"I wanted to see how far I could go in poker. I wanted to see how far I could push myself and how good I could be," said Andersen.

Later in life, she returned earned a nursing degree to set a good example for her child.

Dream Job

Andersen described her online poker career as a self-employed "dream job" that paid to play the game she loves. She said she got set her own hours, allowing her to schedule her poker around her family's schedule.

Her typical days involved spend the day with her son, with a quick nap mid-day due to her working hours. Later in the evening, she would play several hours of continuous poker on her laptop. The later hours, which often could run from midnight to 4 a.m., took advantage of when the highest density of players were available, allowing her to play as much as five tables at the same time. She ends days by finishing playing and going to sleep. Variations in her routine are based on her schedule with her family. She plays a few more random games during downtime and can take days or weeks off if she feels like it.

Andersen emphasized her preference for the "grind" style poker over highly variable tournament poker is due it being dependant on her hard work and skills. The key to her approach is being skilled enough to guarantee at least a 60 percent win rate. This allows her to statistically pull ahead into profitability over a long enough timeline, even in events as extreme as a month long losing streak.

Andersen said one skill poker players have over most of the public is the ability to not become emotionally attached to either winning or losing money. She said its matter of simply sticking to the raw statistics and letting skill win in the end.

"It's crazy how much money you can lose in the process of making money," said Andersen, "The problem with players that are not professional is they get too attached. They get too upset when they lose money."

She explained this leads to a phenomenon called "tilt." It is the situation when a player becomes too emotionally attached to a loss, leading to sloppy play and further losses.

Andersen made a point of criticizing stereotypes about professional poker players, particularly in movies or television, where they are shown to be "degenerate gamblers" or luck playing a part in their winnings.

"For me, I'm skilled enough that poker is work instead of gambling," said Andersen, "I'm totally against all kinds of luck gambling. I don't like lotto tickets and Blackjack. There's no way for me to make money with them."

She said its the work, skill and respect for statistics that allowed her to have her job. She added that it has helped her make critical thinking decisions, such as the best option to encourage while she is coaching softball.

Black Friday

Andersen's current poker career is radically different due to a day etched in the minds of all online poker players: Black Friday. The date signifies when the U.S. Justice Department unsealed indictment against the top online poker companies on April 15, 2011, seizings their funds and shutting down their sites. The Justice Department accused the companies of violating the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, bank fraud and money laundering. The resulting complex legal cases lead to debates about online gambling that are unresolved to this day.

But, for the online poker players caught unaware on that day, it was simply logging into the site to find their online funds gone and online poker now illegal in the U.S.

Andersen declined to share how much she lost, but stated it was sizable sum of money. She has still not yet been returned the funds.

"I went to sleep one night with a good job. I woke up without one and my money gone," said Andersen.

Faced with a dramatic and potentially life-changing event, Andersen consulted with her family about whether she should try to continue her career. After a few months, she settled on keeping with her "dream job."

Her routine now involves six weeks at home with her family, then flying to places like Los Angeles for seven to 10 days of continuous poker with up to 10 hours of play each day. The real-life limitations have increased how much work is needed for her to turn a profit. She can only play one table at a time and the hands only go at the speed a human deal them out.

The change has not been entirely negative for her: she gets to travel for work, including to exotic places like Ireland

888 is getting a new partner in Nevada to help enter the online poker market within the state’s jurisdiction. 888 will partner with Golden Gaming to market the Treasure Island Casino’s online poker room to Golden Gaming customers across Nevada in what the Nevada Gaming Control Commission calls “a good example of new ideas coming to the marketplace.”

As opposed to Canada, where offshore internet sites are free to market their products to Canadian players, the US banned such activity in 2006. However, many states are legalizing online gambling in their own borders, and Nevada lawmakers led the way as the first group to authorize state regulated online poker.

Due to the renewed liberalization of online poker laws in Nevada and other states, 888 recognized the potential for growth in the US online market. The company announced it is establishing an “All American Poker Network,” and the Treasure Island online poker room will be the first live site on the network.

But to help accelerate the growth of the online poker room, the two groups implemented a third party agreement with Golden Gaming, the largest operator of taverns and slots in Nevada. The agreement, as approved by the Nevada Gaming Commission, allows Golden Gaming to market the 888-powered Treasure Island online poker room to its casinos and taverns, though the company’s slots venues are excluded from the deal. As a result, Golden Gaming can legally register online poker players for the Treasure Island poker room.

Michael Alonso, an attorney for Golden Gaming, told the Gaming Control Board the three-way agreement is in the best interests of all three parties.

“It’s unique and allows Golden Gaming to market 888’s platform to its customers.”

Treasure Island has yet to launch the online poker room, as the casino is waiting for final approval from the Nevada Gaming Commission, which is expected before the end of September.


- See more at: Three-Way Agreement Allows 888 To Promote Nevada Online Poker Room | OnlineCasino.org

The World Series of Poker will debut its real-money online poker site on Thursday morning. The poker site will be available only for those within Nevada’s borders.

“It is a gratifying and exciting day to see the WSOP online launch,” WSOP Executive Director Ty Stewart said in a conference call Monday morning. “From Fremont to any street in Nevada in less than a decade.”

“We want to thank the Nevada Gaming Control Board,” the firm said about the extensive licensing and testing process. The WSOP had originally planned to launch a bit earlier this summer.

Nevada legalized online poker in 2011 and adopted online gaming regulations in December of that year. Earlier this year, the legislature acted to allow for state compacts in order to create greater liquidity for online poker sites. Nevada and New Jersey will likely partner in the future, with some in the industry predicting it coming sometime in 2014.

Liquidity, Mitch Garber, CEO of Caesars Interactive Entertainment, said, is a key to success for online poker. “We are very big supporters of shared liquidity. A small state like Nevada will benefit from shared liquidity. It is in everyone’s interest to have compacts between states.” Nevada, however, he said will have a very healthy business on its own.

“This is a domino. This is the beginning of a very large online gaming business in America,” Garber said of what this crucial step means for Caesars and the industry at large.

As Bloomberg pointed out, Caesars Entertainment (CZR) stock has more than tripled this year.

So far, an offshoot of Station Casinos is the only Nevada gaming firm offering real-money online poker. Ultimate Poker launched this past spring and has been going strong.

Caesars Entertainment said it will look to be “the dominant” online poker provider in Nevada.

The firm said that it signed up 12,000 players during the WSOP in Las Vegas this summer. Live poker players were able to register in the Rio Hotel and Casino’s sprawling convention center. Caesars offered perks for those who signed up then. However, that number pales in comparison to the 43 million people Caesars has in its Total Rewards database.

The WSOP’s poker site will launch with Texas hold’em, in addition to other games like Omaha high and Omaha eight-or-better, seven-card stud high and seven-card stud eight-or-better.

The poker site will have a number of deposit methods to start. Players can deposit via Visa, MasterCard and ACH. Players will not be able to at Caesars’ properties at launch.

The WSOP is also preparing for its own online poker championship series, but doesn’t have any plans right now for awarding bracelets from web poker events. It will first use its real-money site to help players qualify for existing live tournament stops.

The software will be Windows and Mac compatible at launch.

There was some bad news for poker pros, however. The WSOP said it will not embrace the sponsored player model as seen in the past with many online poker rooms.



World Series Of Poker To Launch Nevada Real-Money Online Poker Site On Thursday Morning

The corporate owners of the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas are betting their championship name will play large on the Internet, with the planned launch of their real-money online gambling website.

WSOP-com will be the second entry in Nevada’s online poker world when it opens at 9:19 a.m. Thursday. Ultimate Gaming, a subsidiary of Las Vegas-based Station Casinos, became the first when it debuted an online partnership with Ultimate Poker on April 30.

WSOP-com will be available for people who live in and visit Nevada, one of three states in the U.S. with legalized online wagering. Players must be 21 or older, with their age verified by Caesars Interactive Entertainment.

“This is a historic moment for our company,” CEO Mitch Garber said. “We will bridge land-based and online gaming in ways that have never been seen before.”

Garber emphasized the link with Caesars Entertainment Corp., a publicly traded company that he called one of the most established and regulated casino operators in the United States. Garber said combining the 43-year-old World Series of Poker brand with other Caesars programs would attract “today’s technologically savvy consumers.”

One feature: WSOP-com will be the only place online to win seats in the real World Series of Poker.

“This opens up a whole new category for the WSOP brand, enabling us to connect with consumers year-round and reach them where they are most today — on digital devices,” said WSOP-com general manager of online poker Geoffrey Stewart.

Nevada regulatory authorities will monitor what the officials called public field trials of cash, sit-and-go and satellite games, including penny buy-ins and tournaments starting at $1.10. Games will include limit and no-limit hold’em, with full table and short-handed games, plus Omaha hi-lo and seven-card stud.

Tom Breitling, co-founder and chairman of Ultimate Gaming, issued a statement welcoming the second player at the Internet poker table.

“This news, along with the 15 million hands Ultimate Poker has dealt since April 30th, is a clear indication of the strong market for regulated online poker,” Breitling said.



World Series of Poker owners are betting big on new Internet gambling site

The World Series of Poker's webpage will enable Nevada gamblers to go online and play for the first time ever on Thursday. The new gambling trend could affect the traditional casinos as well as the thousands of jobs they provide for our valley.

It's all in the cards or it should be said in the cards on the computer screen as the internet has brought new options for gamblers looking to try their luck.

Dave Schwartz is the Director for the Center of Gaming and Research at UNLV and said online gaming has had an interesting impact for Vegas casinos.

"They get a taste of it online and they come here to see the real thing," Schwartz said. "In the 2000's when online poker first became really big, there's a funny thing that happened, in Nevada the revenue in poker rooms tripled so more people on line meant more people wanted to come to Las Vegas to play poker here."

Caesars Palace saw the poker trend and got in on the ground floor.

15 years of talk's research and discussion now has one of the most recognizable brands of the World Series of Poker online.

Seth Palansky is with the World Series of Poker said even though folks are playing online, they're still going to try and get them to come into the casinos.

"World Series of Poker has always tried to connect digitally with consumers, this is really the first time ever you'll be able to do so for real money and win real seats in the land based World Series of poker," Palansky said. "You can earn online and transfer that to off line goods, for rooms nights, for show tickets, for free food, that kind of stuff."

There are safeguards in place to make sure this highly regulated style of gaming is being played by the right people.

"We'll have social security cards, required ID checks, triangulation, which is a process where we verify your location to make sure you, are in the borders of Nevada," Palansky said.

Gaming experts said Nevada will likely stay on top when it comes to gambling online with other resorts like Treasure Island and MGM expected to reveal their own online gaming platforms soon.

World series of poker officials said online gaming is less intimidating than traditional casinos as the stakes can be lower, games start as low as one or two cents.



Online Poker Site Launches for Players - 8 News NOW

When it comes to online poker, Chris "moorman1" Moorman is a paramount player held in the highest regard. Whether by the fans or his peers, Moorman is widely considered the best online tournament player to ever click a mouse. His accolades are almost endless — over $9.9 million in online tournament earnings, 5,856 total online cashes, and 15 triple crowns — but his legend continues to grow.

According to PocketFives-com, Moorman needs to $92,719 more in online tournament earnings to become the first player ever to eclipse $10 million in tournament winnings. Given how uncommon scores above $300,000 are in the online realm, Moorman's inevitable accomplishment will go down in the poker history books as one of the greatest ever to be achieved.

"Being the first person to hit $10 million in online tournament cashes is incredibly important to me," Moorman told PokerNews. "I started playing online tournaments way back in 2006, and to have continued success throughout the last seven years, especially with the ever-changing environment of the game, is more than I could have hoped for."

Of Moorman's 5,856 online cashes, only four of them are for six figures, putting his accomplishment into greater perspective. Moorman notched his first six-figure score on April 12, 2009 when he finished in eighth place in the PokerStars Spring Championship of Online Poker $10,300 Main Event (High) for $112,950. Later that year on August 12, Moorman earned $204,000 for a runner-up finish in Event #17 of the Full Tilt Online Poker Series. Moorman's two other online scores over the century mark came on March 14, 2010 and March 28, 2011. In the first of those, Moorman won the Full Tilt Poker Sunday Brawl for $109,620. In the second, which turned out to be the largest score of his online career, Moorman finished third in the Full Tilt Poker $1K Monday $2 Million Guaranteed for $235,592.

Nearly 10 percent of the time Moorman cashes in an online tournament, he finishes in the top three places. It's happened 545 times in his career, and the majority of those top-three finishes are victories. He has 223 first-place finishes, 145 second-place finishes, and 177 third-place finishes.

"I've seen many incredibly successful players get burned out over the years, but thankfully I continue to enjoy the game more than ever," added Moorman. "To be able to wake up and get to do something I love every day makes me feel truly blessed. I feel that the 10 million milestone is a testament to my dedication and ultimate passion for the game of poker and challenging myself to be the best that I can be."

Moorman's 15 triple crowns are four more than any other player, having achieved his 15th just last week, and it doesn't look like he plans on slowing down at anytime in the near future. In 2013 alone, Moorman has won the Full Tilt Poker $1K Saturday for $53,560 and taken second in an FTOPS event for $62,261. His success this year also extends to the live felt where Moorman has final tabled the European Poker Tour London Main Event (8th - £57,000), a €2,000 side event at EPT Berlin (2nd, €72,900), and the World Series of Poker $1,500 No-Limit Hold'em Ante Only event (5th, $44,227).

When it comes to live poker, eclipsing $10 million in live tournament earnings is also quite the feat. In fact, only 19 players have ever done it. Still, this is unprecedented territory for online poker and Moorman is the most elite of record setters.

With the amount of volume that Moorman puts in online, his massive accomplishment of breaking the $10 million barrier could come any day now. Be sure to stay tuned to PokerNews for updates on Moorman's quest as he approaches a goal no other player has ever achieved.



Chris Moorman Set to Achieve Unprecedented Goal of $10 Million in Online Earnings | PokerNews

Carlos Hernandez, the newly-appointed Director General of the Spanish online gaming regulator DGOJ, has drawn a clear path towards opening the online poker market in Spain from a segregated player pool to internationally-shared liquidity.

In an interview [Spanish] conducted with Poker-Red Editor Jairo Moreno, Hernandez spoke in detail about his plans for regulated online poker.

Though he shied away from any specific dates, he stated that he would “love to see” international liquidity before mid-2014.

Three meetings are scheduled with regulators from Italy, France and Denmark in this quarter to further pursue the idea of liquidity sharing.

Speaking candidly on the topic of liquidity, Hernandez denied that, in retrospect, launching a closed-liquidity market was a mistake, stating that it allowed for more control and protection for players and for crime prevention. However, now is the time to look at the market data, understand the downward trend, and look to opening up liquidity, he said.

Going further than previously stated, a planned liquidity share with Italy “is a temporary solution” only—if opening liquidity to Italy makes sense, then opening it entirely to dot-com pools is also justified, says Hernandez.

Hernandez falls short of setting any firm dates. Referencing former head Alejo’s estimations of shared liquidity by the of the year, Hernandez cautions that no realistic date can be set until problems have been anticipated, and solutions proposed—“substantial work” remains, he warns.

However, he did venture that “he would love to see” international liquidity by mid-2014.



Spain's New Regulator Committed to Opening Up Player Pools | Pokerfuse Online Poker News

When Ultimate Poker launched the first legal and regulated real-money online poker site in Nevada back in April, it was supposed to be the first of many. Other Nevada-based operators were chomping at the bit to get into the game and launch their own online poker rooms. As of this past Wednesday, Ultimate Poker was the only site you can legally play on in the United States.

That all changed on Thursday.

During a conference call Monday afternoon, Mitch Garber, CEO of Caesars Interactive Entertainment, made the announcement he's been waiting months to make. WSOP-com was ready to launch. "This is a historic moment for our company," said Garber. "A state-of-the-art poker offering from one of the most established and regulated operators in the United States is finally here."

Caesars, of course, is the company that owns the World Series of Poker, a brand that even the most recreational poker player recognizes as one of the most important, if not the most cherished.

"For the past 45 years, for all the hype and all the growth, the WSOP has remained a very simple idea: to be the definitive gathering place for those that love the game. So to be able to do that daily, hourly even, versus just annually, it's profound, a natural progression of what we're all about," said WSOP executive director Ty Stewart while invoking the name of the player who helped make poker as big as it has been over the last 10 years. "There are more Chris Moneymaker's out there and WSOP-com is going to find them."

This long-awaited launch means nothing but good news for online poker players in the United States. Yes, the real-money games are available only to people in Nevada (residents and tourists) for now, but it also means Garber and his crew have even more incentive to work with other states to regulate the game. New Jersey has regulated online poker and expects to go live sometime before the end of the year. Delaware is also on board. While federal legislation seems like a long shot – at least in the immediate future – getting more and more states on board is the first step in making online poker in the United States a success.

Garber made it quite clear that CIE is working hard to get more and more states on board. "We're very big supporters of shared liquidity. I think anybody who knows anything about poker, whether it's land-based poker or online poker, liquidity is extremely important. A small state like Nevada, I think it's no secret, could benefit greatly from shared liquidity," he said. "I think it's in everybody's interest at the end of the day that there be a compact among states and there be shared liquidity."

And why should a smaller state's politician care about a shared player base, too? The bigger the combined player base, the more action on the site and the more revenue that can be generated as a whole. Sharing player bases is really a 1+1=3 situation.

The new online poker market will grow extensively over the next couple of years, and that part of the industry will boom again. Black Friday may have halted all the positive momentum, but things are gradually turning around and the game will return to its zenith once again.


Competition arrives in the online poker space - ESPN

After another horrible week at the high-stakes online poker tables, Viktor “Isildur1” Blom has reached his lowest point on the year since early in January.

According to HighstakesDB, Blom dropped about $560,000 over the past seven days, which puts his winnings on the year at around $650,000. He was, at one point this year, up more than $5 million thanks to one historic upswing. However, those efforts might have all been in vain.

The Swede has played more than 310,000 hands this year.

Despite the awful run of cards as of late, Blom seems to be in OK spirits. It makes sense, because, after all, there appears to be a small chance he will ever be out of action. (He is sponsored by Full Tilt Poker). It also doesn’t hurt that he is undoubtedly world-class and a seven-figure upswing is usually around the corner, at least historically speaking. While Blom kept losing, Niklas “ragen70” Heinecker was the big winner over the past seven days. The German poker pro won about $631,000. The performance was a continuation of a massive heater he has been on — and riding — for quite some time.

Heinecker is now up just under $3 million on the year on Full Tilt. He had a massive $4.5 million win at a live tournament in Asia back in June, so between live and online he is having one of the best years in the entire poker world. For comparison, the World Series of Poker main event champion in November will walk away with $8.3 million.

Phil “Polarizing” Ivey, who has been seen logging on from Mexico, was among the largest winners during the week, as he scooped around $530,000. Despite the profits, he is still down around $2.5 million on Full Tilt Poker — the site he once endorsed — for the year.

Ivey’s troubles haven’t been confined to the computer. The high-stakes gambler is battling it out in court with a London casino after he won $12.1 million playing a form of baccarat and the casino decided not to pay. Just this week it was made public that Ivey admitted to playing with a huge edge thanks to a manufacturing flaw in the cards. He maintains he deserves his money.

Don’t feel too bad for Ivey, though. The nine-time WSOP bracelet winner is still the biggest winner in online poker history thanks to around $17 million in profits.

Here is a look at the updated scoreboard for online poker this year.

Winners In 2013

cottonseed1: $3.43 million
Ben “Bttech86” Tollerene: $3.00 million
Niklas “ragen70” Heinecker: $2.99 million
Alexander “PostflopAction” Kostritsyn: $2.80 million
Patrik “FiddaGrind” Antonius: $2.55 million

Losers In 2013

Gus Hansen: -$4.44 million
MalACEsia: -$3.77 million
samrostan: -$3.08 million
Phil “Polarizing” Ivey: -$2.59 million
punting-peddler: -$1.56 million


Online Poker: Viktor Blom Approaching The Red After Once Being Up $5 Million This Year

Catching up with an as-yet-unreported story of significant interest to online poker players, particularly those former US customers of PokerStars and Full Tilt, two of the three (and the two largest) US-facing sites that were bounced from the American market after April, 2011′s “Black Friday” indictments.

Court documents recently obtained by 4Flush and this author show a deal reached by Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice lawyers that calls for a 50:50 split of funds seized from accounts at the SunFirst Bank of St. George, Utah. Four SunFirst accounts containing more than $13.62 million, largely consisting of online-poker funds, were divvied up between US Marshals working on behalf of the Department of Justice and the court-appointed receivership of Robb Evans and Associates, working on behalf of the Federal Trade Commission.

The interests of the FTC in what appears on its surface to be an unrelated online-poker matter has its roots in the massive and ongoing investigations into the activities of Utah marketer Jeremy Johnson. Johnson and his tele-/internet marketing firm, iWorks, have been the subject of an ongoing, massive $275 million FTC trade lawsuit alleging telemarketing fraud and other felonies.

The crossover into online-poker matters began in late 2009, when online-payment processor Chad Elie, at one time associated with the failed Intabill processing arrangement, contracted with Johnson and other partners of Johnson’s to provide similar processing services for PokerStars and, later, Full Tilt. Johnson in turn had internal banking connections to Utah’s SunFirst Bank, and convinced that bank’s officers that processing online-poker players was legal.

That arrangement lasted until December of 2010, when the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) shuttered the poker processing, citing violations of third-party-payment-processing (TPPP) protocols. By that time, Johnson had already been targeted by the FTC for his iWorks activities, which included forced upsells and unauthorized credit-card charges.

The FTC and their contractor, Robb Evans & Associates were then tasked with the seizure of Johnson’s assets, and in 2011 discovered a massive commingling of accounts between Johnson’s iWorks and online-poker operations, both of which connected to dozens of corporate shell accounts controlled by Johnson and his associates. In all, more than 61 corporate entities were uncovered by the Robb Evans search, which involved a warrant being served on a Jeremy Johnson-run office location in January of 2011.

The problem , which eventually resulted in the recent FTC-DOJ deal, is that Johnson and his acountants freely shuffled money into and out of various corporate accounts connected with online poker, iWorks and other businesses, in addition to extracting many millions into a handful of personal accounts. While all that is detailed in nearly 1,000 pages of documents seized and later published by the Evans group, the fate of the $13.62 million in the four SunFirst accounts, along with four other related accounts not at SunFirst but seized as part of the DOJ’s Black Friday crackdown, remained uncertain.

The recent deal between the FTC and DOJ resolves that. The deal was signed in late July but was not immediately filed into the case’s online documents. The four SunFirst accounts in which online-poker funds were found as of Friday were as follows:

Account numbered 12900584 held at Sunfirst Bank, St. George, Utah, formerly in the name of SunFirst Bank ITF Powder Monkeys/Full Tilt, now in the name of Sun first Bank, and all funds traceable thereto (“Account 1″), with an amount of $8,495,522.22;
em>Account numbered 129000576 on deposit at Sunfirst Bank, St. George, Utah, formerly in the name of Sunfirst Bank ITF Mastery Merchant/Pstars, now in the name of Sunfirst Bank, and all funds traceable thereto (“Account 2″), with an amount of $5,112,102.97;
Account numbered 121015408 held at Sunfirst Bank, St. George, Utah, in the name of Triple Seven LP d/b/a Netwebfunds-com. and all funds traceable thereto (“Account 3″), with an amount of $9,025.26;
Account numbered 1210] 5390 held at Sunfirst Bank, St. George, Utah, in the name of Triple Seven LP d/b/a A WEB DEBIT, and all funds traceable thereto (“Account 4″), with an amount of $7,805.19.

The two Triple Seven accounts have already been previously identified as PokerStars-related accounts in previously published court documents and depositions. The grand total of $13,624,455.64 is to be split equally between the FTC (via Robb Evans) and the DOJ, $6,812;2.27.82 to each agency.

In addition, three other accounts connected either directly or indirectly to PokerStars’ US-facing operations may be divvied between the DOJ and FTC in a similar 50:50 manner, although the seizure efforts against those accounts appear to be ongoing. Those three accounts, with uncertain balances therein:

Account numbered 5510045221 held at Wells Fargo, NA., in the name of Triple Seven L.P., and all funds traceable thereto (“Account 5″);
Account numbered CYI211501001065983USDCACC002 held at FBME Bank LTD, Cyprus, in the name of Triple Seven Inc., and all funds traceable thereto (“Account 6″);
Account numbered 7478010312 held at Wells Fargo, N.A., in the name of Kombi Capital, and all funds traceable thereto (“Account 7″).

An eighth account, possibly also connected to PokerStars and located at the bank of Societe Generale Cyprus, called Golden Shores Properties Limited, was not included in the agreement. Whether this is because the account in question was insulated against US-based seizure attempts or was not proven to be in anyway connected to the FTC’s claims is not made clear in the agreement.



[url=www-4flush-com/online-poker-news/unreported-corner-ftc-dips-into-sunfirst-bank-online-poker-funds-snags-6-9-million/14851]Unrepor

Nevada’s second online poker website launched Thursday.

So now the market is over-saturated.

Time will tell if Ultimate Poker, which has been accepting wagers since April 30, and WSOP-com can generate enough players within the confines of Nevada’s borders to co-exist. Meanwhile, at least three other real money websites — 888 Poker, Treasure Island and the South Point — could go live by year’s end.

Nevada’s relatively small customer base isn’t changing. Competition, however, will increase.

We don’t yet know the size of the Nevada market because the Gaming Control Board won’t break out monthly revenues from Internet poker into its own category until at least three websites are active. For now, revenues from online gaming are co-mingled with revenues from live poker games.

In July, the Balance of Clark County’s poker revenues were up 55.4 percent, to $2.1 million. Union Gaming Group Managing Director Bill Lerner said the figures imply that online poker — i.e., Ultimate Poker alone — had roughly $750,000 in gaming revenues during the month.

“We believe this is notable, given that there haven’t been tangible financial results yet of online gaming,” Lerner said.

Eilers Research gaming analyst Adam Krejcik estimated that Nevada could produce online gaming revenues of $45 million annually based on various economic factors, including population and the possible wagering spend per customer.

“If Nevada were also to approve online casino games, we estimate the total market could exceed $100 million,” Krejcik said.

The operators of Ultimate Poker (Station Casinos) and WSOP-com (Caesars Entertainment Corp. and the World Series of Poker) need players from outside of Nevada to grow the market. They want the state to enter into a compact with other states that would increase the player pool and allow online poker to be played across state lines.

“We’re very big supporters of shared liquidity,” Caesars Interactive Entertainment CEO Mitch Garber said on a conference call prior to launch of WSOP-com. “Nevada will have a healthy business on its own. I think it’s in everybody’s interest at the end of the day that there be compacts among states and that there be shared liquidity.”

Garber said compacts would also increase time on the game for the websites based on the three-hour time difference between the West and East coasts. It also gives the online operators “a greater diversity of players.”

Ultimate Gaming Chairman Tom Breitling called interstate agreements “a win-win-win scenario” for everyone. More players benefits the gambler and the operator.

“It’s a huge win for the states because pooling liquidity will generate additional tax revenue,” Breitling said.

The Legislature, at the urging of Gov. Brian Sandoval, tweaked Nevada’s interactive gaming regulations this year to put the state in a position to capitalize if Congress were to pass legislation to legalize and regulate online poker. That action now has as much chance of happening as Las Vegas Sands Corp. Chairman Sheldon Adelson changing his mindset toward online gaming.

The revised Nevada regulations also allow Sandoval to sign compacts with his counterparts in other states.

If this were a game of Texas hold’em, the governor is on the button.

In May, Sandoval said he held preliminary talks with other governors about partnering with Nevada on Internet poker. Nevada has the regulatory apparatus and the online casinos — it just lacks population.

“I’m introducing the concept of compacting,” Sandoval said. “We have the infrastructure and other states have the players. I’m hopeful we’ll continue to talk.”

Most observers view New Jersey as a possible partner with Nevada.

The state has an ambitious schedule to launch its own online gaming websites by the end of November. The potential customer base — New Jersey has 9 million residents and is adjacent to New York City, Philadelphia and other population centers — towers over Nevada.

The state’s potential online gaming revenues — which include all casino games — could generate $500 million to $1 billion annually.

Caesars plans to launch WSOP-branded websites through the company’s four Atlantic City casinos. Ultimate Poker operator Ultimate Gaming has deal with the Trump Taj Mahal.

Analysts said the announcement of a compact would be a more important event for Nevada than the launch of a third, fourth or fifth website.

New Jersey has its own issues, however. The Division of Gaming Enforcement said a large number of applications for interactive gaming licenses were incomplete. Casino operators and online partners have a long list of requirements they must fulfill.

It’s also unclear if Nevada and New Jersey are even talking. Krejcik said he doesn’t believe that “New Jersey is in any rush to partner with Nevada.”

Internet gaming is the most important growth initiative to Caesars Entertainment. It’s the company’s personal Macau, since the casino operator passed on entering that lucrative Chinese gaming enclave nearly a decade ago and has lamented the mistake ever since.

Without a compact with New Jersey or another state, Nevada won’t be much of a bump on the balance sheet.

Krejcik estimated WSOP-com will generate $10 million to $15 million in annual revenues.

Consider that the company’s World Series of Poker generated $14.4 million in revenues in 2012, which includes licensing and online operations in Europe. Caesars Interactive’s free-to-play social casino games, such as Slotomania and Bingo Blitz, produced $70 million in the past quarter.

For now, the opportunities for Caesars are similar to what Ultimate Gaming has found in tying the online site to Station Casinos’ land-based properties through branding and marketing.

Krejcik said Nevada is “serving as a benchmark” for other states considering Internet gaming regulations.



[url=www-reviewjournal-com/columns-blogs/business/economy/bottom-line-web-poker-nevada-n

For most of the summer, chatter about the start of regulated online gambling in New Jersey went on at nearly a fevered pitch with little sign of abating. With games scheduled to go live in the Garden State at the end of November, it would appear that fans of online betting aren’t the only ones chomping at the bit for the official launch.

Operators and technology companies are also counting down the days until New Jersey residents can place bets via the magic of the Internet, with betting company Bwin.party remarking this week that it is looking forward to the industry getting underway in the state.

Bwin.party has partnered with the Borgata

Bwin.party, which is based in the tiny British territory of Gibraltar, has entered into a partnership agreement with the Borgata Hotel Casino and Spa, arguably the toniest of Atlantic City’s twelve land-based casino properties.

Under the terms of New Jersey’s new online wagering law, which was signed by Republican Governor and likely 2016 presidential contender Chris Christie back in February of this year, the nascent New Jersey online betting business must be tied to land-based casino operations in the state. As such, recent months have been rife with announcements of partnership deals between properties there and Internet gaming companies.

The Borgata, owned by MGM and Boyd Gaming, plans to offer online casino games and online poker via the websites borgatacasino-com and borgatapoker-com, respectively, reports the Press of Atlantic City. Bwin.party operates one of the best-known online poker rooms in the world, Party Poker.

In New Jersey, a wide variety of online gambling options will be on offer to residents and visitors who are over 21 years of age and are physically located in the state when logging on. Cell phone verification will likely be used – as it is in Nevada – to confirm location.

Industry is expected to transform Atlantic City

Online gambling is predicted to be an enormous business in states where it has been regulated, which so far is a short list of places: Nevada, Delaware, and of course New Jersey.

Anyone who has followed casino news in recent years is likely intimately familiar with the troubles plaguing Atlantic City’s betting industry, on the decline since peaking in 2006.

The neighboring state of Pennsylvania is largely to blame for Atlantic City’s woes, however a focus on land-based casino expansion up and down the eastern seaboard has made gambling more accessible to more Americans, and has lessened the necessity of a trip to gambling centers like Atlantic City.

As a result, there have been increased worries in recent years about casino closures and potential job losses. The ability for Internet-based wagering to bring in a new brand of gambler – and his money – to Atlantic City was not lost on lawmakers, who passed the online wagering legislation in part to help stem the consistent revenue decline experienced by the state’s struggling casino industry.

Gambling experts and financial analysts predict that regulated online gambling in the U.S. has the potential to generate tens of millions of dollars annually for the states that have legalized access to it.



Excitement for NJ iGaming Mounts for Players and Companies Alike

In a recent opinion piece in the Las Vegas Review-Journal, writer Howard Stutz expounded upon a fact that has been obvious to gambling and online poker industry experts since the state became the first in the nation to pass online poker regulation back in 2011 – Nevada is going to need to enter into interstate poker compacts in order to expand the customer base for its online poker web sites.

State is very small, population-wise

Nevada, a sparsely-populated state that ranks toward the bottom of the nation in terms of population size (it sits at number thirty-five), simply does not have the population base to support a thriving online poker market limited only to the state’s borders, even if a portion of the millions of visitors who come to Las Vegas each year decide to play a few hands of poker over the Internet.

Nevada, with an estimated population of fewer than 2.8 million residents, will need to partner with other states if its market is to grow and thrive, says Stutz. Should the state team up with other states that have also cleared the way for Internet-based gambling (so far just Delaware and New Jersey have followed Nevada’s lead), the potential for a much larger pool of players exists.

With last Thursday’s launch of Nevada’s second real-money online poker site, the World Series of Poker room operated by Caesars Entertainment, there are now two operational regulated poker sites in the state. The first to go live, Ultimate Poker, which is owned by Station Casinos, the operator of a number of land-based locals casinos in Nevada, did so in late April of this year.

According to the Review-Journal, that total could jump to five before 2013 is out, with online poker sites from South Point, 888, and Treasure Island all potentially looking to set up shop prior to the year’s end.

Law permits such compacts

Earlier this year, Nevada lawmakers passed legislation to allow the state’s Republican Governor, Brian Sandoval, to negotiate such deals with other states. Sandoval, who once served as the chairman of the Nevada Gaming Commission, says he is already in talks to create such agreements.

Lawmakers and industry pundits aren’t the only ones calling for interstate compacts; so too are online poker operators.

On last Monday’s conference call to publicize the launch date for the WSOP-com real-money poker site, Mitch Garber, the CEO of Caesars Interactive Entertainment, spoke to the need to expand the player pool.

“We’re very big supporters of shared liquidity. Nevada will have a healthy business on its own. I think it’s in everybody’s interest at the end of the day that there be compacts among states and that there be shared liquidity,” Garber told reporters listening in on the call.

Broadening scope of online offerings to include casino games will also boost market

And while talk of interstate poker deals has been at the forefront as Nevada looks to best capitalize on the fledgling United States online gambling market, there is also speculation that the state might soon look to further diversify its iGaming choices by passing a law that would also permit residents to play online versions of classic casino games like blackjack and roulette.

In Delaware and New Jersey, iGaming laws are broader in scope to allow a comprehensive suite of betting options. Though games have yet to be launched in either state – that is predicted to happen later on this fall – certainly both markets will be closely watched when the sites are up and running.

888 could be a company to watch as markets take shape

The online gaming market in Delaware could prove to be of particular interest, as in that state the lottery, which is tasked with overseeing the marketplace, has enlisted 888 as a service provider. Being that 888 is one of the largest and most proven online gambling brands in the world, offering a huge selection of games, the company could turn out to be a model as it hosts not only regulated online poker games, but casino games as well.

The company has a presence in all three states where some form of online betting has been regulated. In New Jersey, 888 has entered into an iGaming partnership with Caesars.


State of Nevada Looks to Enter into Online Poker Agreements

All signs point to the state of New Jersey being fully prepared by the end of November to see at least one of its licensees debut online gambling, the Associated Press reported Monday.

The Garden State legalized online gambling — which includes poker — earlier this year, after a hard-fought battle in the legislature and with Gov. Chris Christie. The state began moving quickly to work on crafting the rules that will oversee the highly complex industry.

“The division can confirm that it has received a significant amount of additional materials from the casino licensees on behalf of their Internet gaming applicants,” a spokeswoman told the AP. “The Division remains committed to meeting the statutory deadline of November 26.”

About three dozen firms initially filed to be involved with the web games.

The online gambling move was seen as necessary for Atlantic City, as casinos there have been bringing in less and less gaming revenue as time moves on. Last year, the state was passed by Pennsylvania for the second-best casino market in the nation.

Nearly all of the casinos in Atlantic City have forged some sort of partnership in order to run online games. Revel Casino Hotel and The Atlantic Club remain without partners. The Atlantic Club had once been involved in a sale to PokerStars, but that deal fell through.

Revel went through a bankruptcy protection process earlier this year.



www-cardplayer-com/poker-news/16182-new-jersey-on-track-for-online-poker-by-december

A European court has issued a preliminary ruling that Italy cannot legally block some gambling sites from accessing its 61 million person population.

Critics for Italy’s practice reportedly think that the country was simply trying to protect its “€2 billion gambling monopoly, belonging to the Italian state and a few authorized private partners,” according to Malta Today.

Some of the firms that were blacklisted are completely legal in Malta, but Italy still didn’t want them in. Italy legalized online poker cash games in 2011.

“The CJEU ruled that EU Member States restricting national gambling markets in order to favour the economic interest of incumbents over operators licensed in other Member States is against EU law. National legislation which precludes all cross-border activity in the betting and gaming sector, irrespective of the form in which that activity is undertaken, is contrary to EU law,” the reporting said.

Sites like PokerStars, Bwin and Lottomatica are reportedly allowed to do business in Italy.

“Articles 43 EC and 49 EC must be interpreted as meaning that, under the current state of EU law, the fact that an operator holds, in the Member State in which it is established, an authorisation permitting it to offer betting and gaming does not prevent another Member State, while complying with the requirements of EU law, from making such a provider offering such services to consumers in its territory subject to the holding of an authorization issued by its own authorities.”


European Court: Italy Cannot Block Online Poker

In an interview with CalvinAyre-com’s Becky Liggero, John Pappas, the Executive Director of the Poker Players Alliance, stated that he expects online poker legislation in California to pass early in 2014.

Pappas stated that there are “a dozen key tribes” onboard with the idea of online poker with only the specifics of a bill remaining to be hammered out.

“I would be very surprised if there wasn’t a bill that went through the full process by the end of January middle of February in 2014 in California,” Pappas remarked.

Other states on the PPA radar include Pennsylvania and New York.

Pappas said that, as a result of conversations with state legislators in New York, he thinks “there is a real interest” in online poker. He hopes to see revenue from online poker as part of the upcoming spring budget bill in the state and if that happens the PPA can be expected to ramp up efforts there to get online poker legislation passed.

Attempts to pass federal legislation have been hampered by other issues including Syria, healthcare and immigration reform, according to Pappas. His suggestion: “Keep Praying.”



PPA Expects California Online Poker Bill to Pass in Early 2014 | Pokerfuse Online Poker News

People call him the "sheriff of online gambling," but Rip Gerber says he's more like border patrol.

As CEO of Locaid, a San Francisco technology company, Gerber makes sure gamblers are where they say they are. Locaid verifies the location of online gamblers for Ultimate Poker, William Hill and the newest entrant into Nevada's online poker industry, the World Series of Poker.

On what Locaid does ...

We are the world's largest location company. We created what's known as "location as a service." We provide location information to all industries, from financial services to health care to hospitality and gaming.

What the regulators are saying about mobile and Internet gaming is, "I'm OK with it as long as you can verify that that person placing the bet on that device is in my state." What we do is locate those devices.

On how his company locates devices …

We can locate more than 5 billion devices anywhere on the planet through multiple location sources.

It could be through the cell towers you see dotting the countryside or through wireless carriers, such as AT&T, Verizon and Sprint. It could be off the device, through an IP location from your Internet connection or from a third-party database. We bring all those location sources together.

On his nickname, the "sheriff of online gaming" …

I'm not the cop. I provide information to the sheriff's office, which might be 888 Holdings or Verify or GTech or Bally, who provide the platforms. I'm more like border patrol.

An online gaming company will come to us to see if a player is in the state of Nevada.

Basically, we draw a line around the state and ping the device they are wagering on. If the dot is red (outside the border), the transaction doesn't go through. If it's green (inside the border), it's OK. That information is provided to the sheriff's office.

Caesars Entertainment, for example, takes our information into their system to ascertain if that wager can go through. They also use a lot of other information for authentication, such as age verification and identity verification. We focus solely on location.

On how often people try to trick the system …

There's a very small percentage.

Most of the applications don't let you get through to the end of the registration where my location fix would be utilized if you're trying to log in from, say, Virginia. You can't even register if you're not in the correct state.

A spoofer app can get in and trick the platform. Some of the gaming apps, like Cantor's, for example, do a pretty good job of trying to detect if a spoofer app is in place. But hackers and blackhat guys are very savvy about jailbreaking the phones and getting around them.

On the challenges of verifying location …

We use multiple technologies for authentication.

For example, one interesting requirement in New Jersey is that a bet can't be placed by the pool or in the parking lot. So we can authenticate that you're in the state with one technology, but to get highly accurate to see if you're inside a particular wall, we use a locale-based technology like Wi-Fi networks.

The challenge becomes that all of our customers have their own twist on what they require. It's not like you just plug in and everyone drinks the same water. There's a little bit of mix and match that goes on.

On whether online gaming will change brick-and-mortar casinos …

A good example is the retail industry. Has the mobile phenomenon stopped retailers from existing? No.

There is a sense of community and sharing and entertainment that happens inside a casino that you cannot replicate online. Most people want to interact with other humans. That's never going away.

As long as casinos provide an amazing experience and brand, and as long as they mean something to their community, this is going to be a major enhancement.


How online poker companies track players and verify their location - VEGAS INC

The 2013 World Series of Poker Main Event opened to a pastiche of landmark tournament moments from the last decade starting with, of course, Chris Moneymaker’s serendipitous Main Event win in 2003. Moneymaker – a then 27-year-old poker hobbyist with an easy going countenance – won an online satellite tournament for a $10,000 entry fee to the Main Event, then navigated an 839 person field, “eliminating” various heady professional players on his way to a $2.5 million first place payday.

The “Moneymaker Effect” was poker-prozac and ESPN replayed the 2003 Main Event highlights in multiple-hour blocks at all times of day; making it feel like Moneymaker was ousting Las Vegas legends like the Great Johnny Chan, The Great Phil Ivey, and then in a final heads-up duel, the Great Sam Farha hundreds of times over.

The Worldwide Leader in Sports’ continual replays of the event churned a typical short-run happenstance into an iconic event. The odds of winning even a small field tournament are extremely small; over a relatively tiny number of hands, a great deal of luck is involved. However, literature and forum discussion emphasizing both these realities and an understanding of the mathematical, psychological, and logical complexities that made those Las Vegas legends so successful paled in comparison to the massive sample size of ESPN replays of short-run Main Event highlights.

By 2005, ESPN had succeeded in introducing a once cultish game to the mainstream. In doing so, the network provided a delirious combination of escapism and the promise of making exorbitant amounts of cash the proverbial American Way. The coverage drew in a number of online poker sites that ceaselessly promoted their “free play” software during commercial breaks.

That year, the online poker industry had amassed $60-billion in poker wagers with 2.4 billion dollars in reported revenue (up from 82 million dollars in 2001). Consistent with the Moneymaker ethos, bold aggressive moves rife with logical errors paid off handsomely at the online tables. Even insufferably tight players with only a basic understanding of hand values could wait for quality holdings and then let a litany of weak players pay them off with lesser hands or terrible bluffs.

Over the next several years, however, online poker tournaments evolved considerably. Players who had spent countless hours of play making haphazard all-in bets learned the hard way that ESPN highlight style poker was extremely unprofitable. In response, thousands of Americans engaged in public forum discussions on microeconomic skill-based topics like “leveraging” and “expected value maximization,” coaching videos, private coaching sessions and statistical programs that tracked almost every betting frequency imaginable. As every day players became more sophisticated poker thinkers, the game’s skill element became more prevalent.

Although online poker strategy was rapidly evolving, there continued a lingering debate about whether online poker sites could legally operate in the United States as “games of skill.” The Unlawful Internet Enforcement Gaming Act (UIGEA), a U.S. federal law passed in 2006, made it a federal offense for an online gambling site to accept payments “in connection with the participation of another person in unlawful Internet gambling.” The UIGEA did not explicitly cover online poker, an ambiguity which harnessed public debate and litigation about online poker’s status in the United States.

Over the next five years, ESPN did no favors to bridge the necessary gap between poker’s nascent phase in 2003 and its widespread development into a complex if not tedious skill game during the latter half of the decade.

For a network so responsible for the online poker boom, its continual emphasis on short-run, high variance coverage of poker hands – Aces winning one hand and then getting quashed by a bad beat ten minutes later – continually ebbed against strengthening the perception of poker as a game of skill.

ESPN’s World Series of Poker coverage routinely failed to provide by way of non-intrusive info graphics or quick commentary fundamental, skill-based pieces of information. Rarely did the broadcast provide players’ positions and stack sizes, or the tournament’s blind levels. The audience was mostly treated to showdown results, which, whether it is poker, basketball, or finance, is always heavily flavored with luck. And eventually luck runs out.



Has ESPN ruined poker? - Salon-com

This week in Las Vegas, the Association of Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialists (ACAMS) held the 12th annual AML & Financial Crime Conference at Aria Resort & Casino. Highlighting the conference was a first-hand testimony of online poker money laundering given by compliance officer Cathy Scharf.

As reported by Hannah Dreier, AP Business Writer, Scharf addressed the conference about her experiences while working at SunFirst Bank Utah. Her testimony emphasized the bank's illegal processing of at least $200 million for online poker websites PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker.

According to the report, Scharf was told by her bosses that the bank would fail without the illegal income. Scharf added that criminal lawyers were brought in to threaten her with arrest if she were to report the activity. Eventually, Scharf worked with federal regulators to expose the bank's activity.

Dreier states that Scharf's "colleagues at the Association of Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialists conference congratulated her on her bravery."

It is estimated that the bank Scharf worked at was earning $400,000 per month in transaction fees. This operation was seen as a direct violation of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA).



Cathy Scharf Gives Story of Online Poker Money Laundering at Vegas Conference | PokerNews

With the launch of the WSOP-com website in Nevada, New Jersey and Delaware prepping for their own online poker launches, and with talks of interstate online poker compacts heating up, we are on the precipice of an exciting time in the world of poker, and it begs the question: Is there another poker boom on the horizon?

In the past I’ve been very pessimistic about the chances for another “Poker Boom,” as it seems altogether unlikely considering the amount of knowledge even causal players are armed with nowadays –if you think there are thousands of players who think poker is a game of “luck” and will call all-in bets with top pair weak kicker 2003 called and it wants its ridiculous win-rates back.

I’ve said this many times, but if you want to understand what a poker player from 2003 was like, just picture an athlete from the 1920’s who had no idea that strength training would help their performance –in fact they thought it would hinder them.

The Foundation of a Poker Boom

To have a Poker Boom you need one thing: An influx of new, ignorant players.

You won’t find too many poker players in 2013 who don’t understand the basics of the game like pot odds, position, hand selection, and even concepts like continuation bets are pretty much “common knowledge” at this point. And if you do find these players there is so much information available online that they don’t stay ignorant for very long.

Still, the early reports on the softness of the games during the launch of both Ultimate Poker and the WSOP-com sites seem to indicate that the seas have not been completely fished out, and there are still some of these players left. What we need to do now is bring them into the game.

So, while I don’t think we are going to come close to the “glory days” from about 2004-2006, I am now starting to come around to the idea of a mini-Boom, for the following reasons:

Networks and advertisers no longer have to worry about their associations with the game

For one thing, networks like NBC, CBS, ABC, and FOX no longer have to worry about the stigma of online poker advertising. And even more importantly, advertisers (actual mainstream advertisers and not slipper and beef jerky companies –no offense Jack Links and Dear Foams) will also be more likely to attach their names to a product that no longer has a government crackdown hanging over its head like the Sword of Damocles.

With poker’s audience chiefly made up of the all-important Male 18-24 demographic advertisers should flock to a legalized, regulated, industry.

Online Satellites

If you recall, back during the poker boom, literally thousands of the participants in the World Series of Poker Main Event were there because they had won their seat in an online satellite. While this is still a possibility for players outside the US, the number of US players qualifying for the WSOP Main Event in recent years could probably be measured in dozens and not by the hundreds or thousands.

Somehow the WSOP has continued to pull in excellent attendance numbers, but could you imagine the buzz if the tournament could once again approach 2006 numbers?

And the key to getting to this figure is satellites –the only way for your average amateur player to play in the WSOP. Not only do satellites bring in more players, but they also make the tournament more appealing for professional and semi-professional players, since –on average—satellite winners are likely to be less skilled than a player who buys-in at full price.

Furthermore, pretty much every casino now hosts some sort of major tournament series, and with these casinos now controlling US online poker sites (especially in their local area) you can bet you will see tons of satellites into these events, not to mention the capability to direct-buy into these tournaments through your online poker account.

WSOP-com has already stated it will run satellites to WSOP tournaments, and bwin.party’s decision to move the WPT Championship to the Borgata (putting the number at three, when it comes to WPT events held at the casino each year) likely has a direct correlation with bwin.party’s partnership with the Borgata in the New Jersey online gaming market.

Worldwide satellites to these same events

While the stateside rooms are busy running satellites, the sister sites operating overseas will likely be doing the same, and as I stated above, when players from Europe, Australia, South America, and anywhere else you can think of, start to see the weaker fields heading to these events via online satellites in the US, they are in turn more likely to try to win their way in or make the trip on their own dime.

When Will the Second Boom Hit?

I’m still of the opinion that a second Poker Boom is still a ways off. It’s going to take a cycle of increased attendance, leading bigger and better advertising, which will lead to more exposure, which will bring in even more players, which will bring in even more advertisers, and so on.

It’s not going to happen overnight (remember, it took three years after Chris Moneymaker’s win for WSOP attendance to peak) and it will likely be on a smaller scale. But considering the alternative, which is a terrible poker economy where live tournaments are widely considered -EV for virtually all but the very best players, waiting a couple years for a mini-Boom doesn’t seem all that off-putting.


Is Another Poker Boom on the Horizon?