According to eGaming Review, social networking site Facebook is poised to offer a United Kingdom-facing real money online casino, potentially early next year. The site has apparently been in discussions with various U.K. online gambling operators, and is currently in the process of hiring new staff to support the endeavor.
eGaming Review states that Facebook will facilitate the gambling platforms of up to eight different licensees, including Gamesys and 888 Holdings. The fact that Facebook is partnering with existing operators seems to indicate that it will serve as a hub for various providers as opposed to a host of its own online gambling brand.
Facebook is already deeply involved with games involving real money transactions, such as Farmville. The site currently takes a 30% cut of profits resulting from sales of virtual items in that game and others. It’s difficult to say whether a similar system would be utilized for its online gambling operations.
Zynga Poker, a free-to-play online poker room, already experiences traffic exceeding 30 million users a month on Facebook. Although representatives from Zynga Poker have stated that they have no interest in converting to real money play, that could easily change should online poker be legalized and regulated in the U.S.
In the past, Facebook enforced a zero-tolerance policy against the advertising of online gambling sites on its website. Now, however, that policy has changed to allow online gambling advertisements, including those related to poker, bingo, sports books and casinos, in certain countries and with approval from Facebook.
Many details remain to be announced, such as how players would confirm their identity and age, and how players would ultimately fund their accounts. Although Facebook hasn’t exactly maintained a squeaky-clean image, it will be interesting to see how the announcement sits with the site’s more conservative critics.
Dec 1 2011
Tobey Maguire decides to settle poker lawsuit out of court
written by: Steve Comments: Comments Off
It appears that Tobey Maguire (and most of the other players named in the lawsuit) has decided that it’s much easier to cough-up what would be an exorbitant amount of money for most of us in order to have a lawsuit settled regarding poker winnings in a private game. Apparently one of the players was a hedge fund manager who was using his clients’ funds to live the High-Life.
Victims of Bradley Ruderman (now in jail for his crimes) decided to sue some of the winners from these high-stakes private poker games even though none of the defendants knew where Ruderman’s money was coming from, or suspected him to be involved in illegal activities.
According to the Associated Press, Maguire has entered a settlement amount of $80,000 of the original $311,000 he supposedly won from Ruderman to make the lawsuit go away. The settlement amount still needs to be ok’ed by a court next month. Maguire was adamant that he had done nothing wrong, and he simply didn’t want to have to pay the exorbitant legal fees to defend himself.
The article also noted that many of the other players named in the lawsuit have similarly settled out of court. Apparently 14 of the 22 people named have decided to settle the case out of court, and the AP is reporting that over $1.7 million has been handed over by the participants in the game –the ultimate bad-beat in poker in my opinion.
Although November was a relatively slow month for big-bet online poker, a few players managed to turn enormous profits. The most successful high-stakes grinder last month was Finland’s Ilari Sahamies, who destroyed the competition to earn approximately $945k, over double that of second-place finisher Fake Love888 who earned $455k.
At this rate, it seems almost certain that Sahamies will finish the year as PokerStars’ biggest winner. Sahamies’ yearly profits currently total $2.2 million, just ahead of Rafi Amit at $1.9 million. The title of overall biggest online poker winner of 2011 will undoubtedly go to Gus Hansen, who amassed almost $4 million in profit on Full Tilt Poker before the site was shut down on poker’s Black Friday.
Viktor “Isildur1″ Blom of Team PokerStars Online was extremely scarce on the site this past month. The upcoming one-year anniversary of his contract is fueling forum rumors that he may be leaving PokerStars in the near future.
Other notable winners in November include Kanu7 (up $389k), Doncarignano (up $271k), Diggidave (up $180k) and Koncert888 (up $122k).
November wasn’t so friendly to several other notable online poker pros. The month’s overall biggest loser was mikki696, who dropped over $315k mostly to ImDadonk. Benny “toweliestar” Spindler, who experienced incredible live tournament success earlier in the fall with a win at EPT London, was also devastated in November with $255k in losses.
Brian Hastings, typically one of the more consistent online pros, was down as well with $253k in negative earnings. Hastings recently tweeted that he was leaving Vancouver, CA, possibly indicating a temporary retirement from online poker. He remains positive by roughly $485k for the year.
Other noted pros to falter significantly in November include Ben “Ben86″ Tollerene (down $192k), Moirhums (down $183k), Verve.oasis (down $151k) and Sami “Lrslzk” Kelopuro (down $147k).
It seems that everything’s just a bit richer in Macau. According to an interview published in GamingToday with William Murray, an American businessman, a new poker tournament entitled the Macau Pro Am Open may be coming to China in the spring of 2013. Why would anyone care about a poker tournament that’s over a year and a half away, at best? Simple: it’ll have a prize pool of $100 million, if organizers get their way.
Murray stated that different Chinese companies are currently collaborating on what would be the world’s richest poker tournament by a huge margin. As of now, the goal is to create a prize pool of $100 million, though it would apparently still run with as little as $65 million. The grand prize would be up to $25 million, nearly three times larger than what Pius Heinz won earlier this month in the WSOP Main Event.
With such a massive planned prize pool, you’d expect the Macau Pro Am Open to shoot for at least 10,000 participants, similar to the World Series of Poker. You’d be wrong, however, as Murray is stating that the event will only include around 500 participants, ideally with 33% from the U.S., 33% from the Far East and the remaining portion from other areas of the world (presumably Europe, of course).
Some quick math indicates that each of the 500 runners would need to pay buy-ins of $200k per person in order to generate a $100 million prize pool. Best of luck to Murray and the other organizers, given that the PCA Super High Roller earlier this year attracted just 38 players with a $100k buy-in. The goal could be more easily obtained if sponsors pitched in some prize money, although it seems more logical to open the tournament to at least a few thousand more players, especially given the “Open” in the title.
Nov 30 2011
Ongoing High Stakes Cash Game in Macau Draws Big Talent
written by: James Comments: Comments Off
This is the sort of thing you’d typically only see in a Hollywood heist movie: an ongoing NLHE cash game, at a secret location in a Macau casino, with blinds of $1,300 / $2,600, and big name talent including Phil Ivey experiencing regular swings of a million dollars or more. Believe it or not, this is really happening somewhere inside the StarWorld’s Poker King Club casino.
Last weekend, Macau hosted the APPT Main Event. Phil Ivey was in town for his first poker appearance since Black Friday. Although he only made it to Day 2 of the tournament, he apparently stuck around to participate in the high stakes cash game, facing off against respected pros such as Tom Dwan, Johnny Chan, Peter Chan, Guy Laliberte, Winfred You, Andrew Robl, James Bord, Sam Trickett and whatever wealthy Chinese businessmen happened to be around that day.
Robl stirred up some attention on Thanksgiving when he tweeted about winning “2 million USD straight” followed by “now lost 2 million straight.” Whether he meant to say HKD, which would equate to about $190k USD, is unknown, but the fact is that large sums are being won and lost regularly.
According to TwoPlusTwo forum member Frank Op de Woerd, who was supposedly at the Poker King Club, the cash game is so exclusive that Patrik Antonius was denied entry, and foreigners are required to pay 20% of their earnings to the casino, at least in some cases. Apparently, James Bord wanted Antonius to play but Laliberte refused because of the Finnish pro’s reputation for tight play.
Sources suggest that the biggest winner of the games so far is Johnny Chan, who is apparently positive by $1.4 million. The biggest loser is Tom Dwan, who has dropped $2.6 million. Dwan has supposedly lost his passport, meaning that it will be sometime before he’s able to return and recoup his losses.
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