The 888 Poker room operates on its own proprietary software, and the new software update seems to have led to an increase in the player numbers on the site in the last six months.

888 Poker Bonus

First things first, the 888 Poker bonus is still as good as ever, offering up to $400 at 100% deposit match. One very good point to note about this bonus deal is that you get 25% up front, without having played a single hand of poker.

This is not the standard bonus that most other online poker rooms offer. So if you decide to play online poker and make your first deposit for the maximum bonus and deposit $400, then with this bonus deal you will actually have $500 to play with. You can release the remaining 75% of the bonus by earning player points at the table. You need to earn 10 Bonus Points for each $1 of bonus money. Another good thing about the 888 Poker bonus is that you can earn bonus points for both cash and tournament play.

888 Poker Software

The recent software update included what they call ‘ghost cards’. This is the feature that shows you a faded version of your hole cards when you have folded so that you can see what you might have filled if you had stayed in the hand. You can also turn this feture off if you prefer.

Some other changes include the way that play money and real money are handled. Previously players had to choose which play they wanted before logging in to the site. Now the software uses the more standard system where you can choose the play money tables or real money tables with the same login.

Other areas that have been upgraded are the cashier system and the players bonus page, both of which are now a bit more user friendly.

To be fair here, I don’t think there ever was much of a problem with the old 888 software, but even so the new upgrade makes the whole experience more pleasing.

888 Poker Tournaments

One area that did not need any improvement is the 888 poker tournaments schedule. Even so, they have added Double or Nothing tournies which have seen amazing growth in popularity in recent times.

One other addition to the tournament schedule that is worth noting is the new ‘Challenge’ series of tournies. These tournies run every day with varying gauranteed prizes, the largest of which is the Saturday Challenge with a gauranteed prize pool of $50,000. The buy-ins to these tournies vary also,with the lowest being the $1.00 +10c buy-in to the satellite to the Thursday $10K GTD Challenge.

The previous bonus of a maximum of $50 at 100% match was well below what most other online poekr sites have been offering.

The bonus code for this new bonus is STARS600.

So, why was the old bonus so small and why have they increased it now?

Well, the general consensus on the previously tiny deposit bonus from Poker Stars was that they didn’t need to offer more, as they were, and still are, the most popular and biggest online poker room. I guess that they would prefer to spend their promotional money on various advertising and events rather than give it to their players.

It must have worked, as PokerStars has grown to be the biggest online poker site in recent years and by far out ranks their nearest competitor, Full Tilt, in terms of player numbers.

Having said all that, then you must wonder what reason they can have for increasing their bonus now. It is not as if they are feeling their competitors breath down their figurative neck as the distance between Poker Stars and all other sites in terms of player numbers has only increased in the recent past.

My guess for this sudden bonus increase, and it is only a guess, is that it is because of the situation in Italy, where all poker rooms that want to accept Italian poker players are required by Italian law to have a separate poker site just for Italians.

Being forced to launch was is esentially a new poker room just for Italians means that Poker Stars, and other sites in this situation, do not have the weight of numbers that they were used to using to dominate the market. So they had to offer a decent sized deposit bonus to their Italian players. I imagine then that when this situation became common knowledge it could give rise to some resentment from existing players, which in turn might lead to some bad press and negative feeling about their site.

This is only a guess, mind, and now that I write it down, I’m not sure that it makes as much sense as I had initially thought.

Whatever the reason, it is now a good sized bonus that can stand up against most other sites bonus offerings.

Further to that, Poker Stars are also offering their existing players a reload bonus of up to $300 at 50% deposit match. Which is good for their existing players as most of them will have only received the old bonus of $50.

All in all, way to go PokerStars!. Claim this bonus at Poker Stars.com – use the bonus code STARS600.

It seems that the legal basis for this move rests on the Wire Act, which is more usually the law used to go after online bookmakers and not poker rooms.

Also unusual in this move is the fact that the funds targeted belong to online poker players and not the poker rooms. Bearing in mind that there is actually no law on the statute books in the US that prohibits playing poker online, the seizure of ordinary citizens cash would seem to require some serious explanation.

So what is that explanation? Well, so far the people behind this move, the US attorneys office of New York have refused to comment on the case.

The Poker Players Alliance has been quick to respond this this move, issuing the following statement;

“The PPA is disappointed that this unprecedented action has been commenced against law abiding poker players. The payment processor funds frozen by the Southern District of New York belong to individual poker players – not operators of poker websites – and do not represent the proceeds of any gambling activity, much less illegal gambling activity. This money should be immediately released by the Southern District to ensure that player payouts are not further disrupted. To that end, the PPA is coordinating a legal strategy to appropriately protect PPA members who are impacted by the Southern District’s actions. Further, the PPA has contacted the affected poker websites and has been informed that deposit and payout issues of players are being addressed and will be fully satisfied.”

The main poker rooms affected by this move are of course those rooms that still take American Players, such as FullTilt Poker, Poker Stars and UltimateBet and Absolute Poker. Full Tilt have come out with a statement effectively guaranteeing their players money. The important part of this statement is

“All players who were affected by the current situation have had their funds returned to their Full Tilt Poker accounts and all new withdrawal requests are processing normally.”

And the whole statement can be read here.

We have also heard, but cannot find any online statement yet, that Poker Stars will also cover any of their players withdrawals that may have been affected by this seizure.

Andrew Cohen took the bracelet, and the $80,000+ prize, on the second day beating out a field of over 800 other players.

Cohen, 39, who works as a bartender at the Palms Casino, had the right attitude even after winning the game, saying “…I don’t care about the money … It’s the bracelet that counts…”

That is an excellent attitude to start this years WSOP with.

With seven weeks of play, we will be leaving the blow-by-blow, and day-to-day reporting to bigger and better poker news sites. Luckily for us, sites such as PokerNews and Bluff magazine have reporters on the ground at the event in Vegas and will do an excellent job of reporting the highlights and the interesting play.

That means that we can cherry pick the really interesting stuff here.

Event number 2, the $40,000 No Limit Hold’em was won by Vitaliy Lunkin out of a field of over two hundred. His effort get him a bracelet and a cheque for $1.8 million, winning the final showdown with a very nice pocket aces which held up.

Thang luu won event number 3, the $1,500 Omaha Hi/lo 8-or-better, to take home the top prize of over a quarter of a million dollars. And in the process he set some kind of record, as he also won this same event last year, making it two in a row.

At the time of writing, Event number 4, the $1,000 No Limit Hold’em, is still in play. There are over 6,000 players entered to this event, making the top prize over three quarters of a million dollars, and the final ten percent of the field can expect a payout.

In a nice touch, this years bracelet winners will receive their prize in a little ceremony scheduled during daylight hours, instead of the more usual practice of receiving it right after the event ends, which often times is during the night when all but the most die-hard fans have given up and gone to bed.

This move should bring a small amount of extra publicity to some of the lesser known events, and their deserving winners, whihc should be good not only for them, but also for the public perception of the game in general, and the world series in particular.

The first such ceremony should take place today, June 1st, and hopefully this will be continued in future years, making this a nice tradition.

Rep. Menendez reasons for suspending the bill seem to be his growing realization of the amount of opposition that it would face, not least from the Governor of the State of Texas, Rick Perry.

Governor Perry is on the record as as promising to veto this, and any other pro-gambling legislation. The next serious attempt to legalize Texas Hold’em in Texas will probably not be taken until after the next State election, which hopefully will produce a governor that is less anti-gambling.

In his statement withdrawing the bill from the House agenda, Rep. Menendez said “You need to know when to hold them and you need to know when to fold them”.

That statement shows a shrewd understanding of what must have been a gamble all along, because it was evident from the beginning that no matter how many stages the bill passed on the way, ultimately the showdown would be with the Governor, and his veto power.

Ultimately, the play here was that the progress of the bill would raise enough public support and backing along the way that it would present a much stronger hand when it came to the House vote. Rep Menendez withdrew the bill last Thursday when it became apparent that the gamble had not paid off this time.

A significant element of the suspended bill, especially in these hard economic times, was the proposal to allow local communities to vote for or against allowing poker in their own community, and to allow the communities that voted in favor to issue the poker license thereby raising much need finance.

As with any law that protects people from themselves, one has to wonder just who the anti-gambling stance is protecting.

It certainly isn’t protecting those poker players that voluntarily choose to gamble their own money in currently unlicensed games. These players are not only at the risk of being raided by Law Enforcement and having their funds confiscated, but they are also in danger of being robbed by criminals that know that poker games are outside the law.

This bill in reality only recognized and tried to regulate what is already a fact in Texas, that people want to and will play poker. With enough public support of politicians like Jose Menendez, the next gamble will hopefully pay off.

Well, we got nothing. The Times Online reported last month that Party Poker have been talking to Gigamedia, who are the owners of Everest Poker, about a possible buyout. Of Everest by Party, by the way, not the other way around.

On the face of it this seems like a very strange partnership.

These are two very different business, albeit that both are in the very same industry, namely online poker.

Party Poker is the old giant of the online game, while Everest Poker is the up and comer.

Party Poker is weighed down with their corporate-ness and that weight stops them from being dynamic and spontaneous in an ever changing marketplace, while Everest Poker seems to be a clearly focused, energetic and dynamic, forward thinking company.

Further to that, Party Poker is dealing with the fallout of the Department of Justices invasive probe into their pre-UIGEA actions, while Everest has no such problems, being clearly focused on getting their product out to their non-American player base in as many local languages as possible.

This would certainly seem like a marriage made in hell.

Party’s previous history of operating skins or separate poker rooms is not one of unqualified success, a la Empire Poker.

But the recent change of administration in America, and the imminent Franks bill, are just the circumstances to make this seem like a good move to both parties involved. From Everests point of view, the legalization of online poker in America would drastically change the marketplace where they currently are well placed. Any room that can get American traffic will get the European traffic to follow.

From Party’s side, being able to concentrate on the newly opened American market with their core poker room, while still having a strong presence in the European market with Everest, could be an ideal situation. And of course, having the skilled people that come with Everest to operate the poker room would be a major step forward for a company that is burdened with overpaid and less that competent staff from the good old days.

The only thing in this deal for Everest, as far as I can see, is the money.

In general though, I think that this can not be a good thing for the online poker scene. Everest is a good, well run business, climbing up the ranks of the top 10 trafficked poker rooms, with a growing player base and what seems like a clear idea of where they are going.

Whereas Party Poker is … well, none of the above.

Due to be put before the House of Representatives sometime this Summer, this Bill should effectively legalize the position of online poker in the U.S., if it gets passed, that is.

Called the Internet Gambling Regulation Consumer Protection and Enforcement Act, this legislation should effectively overturn the much debated UIGEA of 2006, which went after online poker through restricting financial transactions to online poker sites.

As a measure of how quickly Congressman Frank thinks this bill will be enforced, he also plans to introduce a specific bill to curtail the effects of the UIGEA before the full implementation date which is set for the 1st December.

Should this new gambling bill be passed, it will take some time, as these things do, to be passed into law and put in effect.

And what will the effect be?

This bill, the IGRCP&EA, will regulate and license online poker operators, effectively allowing the US Government to tax the many billions of annual online poker revenue that is currently being spent online. A licensing process will allow the US to control which poker rooms get to operate in the US market, and, on a side note, makes clear the reason that Party Poker founding member Dikshit has been negotiating with the DOJ before now when others have chosen not to.

The proposed licensing procedure will be useful to dis-allow any poker room that has operated in the US market while the UIGEA was in effect, such as Poker Stars. We can only speculate at this time as to whether a room like Poker Stars would seek a license under the new law.

The ‘teeth’ of this bill, as to how it will block non-licensed operators fromt he US market, is not clear yet, but presumably will include financial measures and possibly IP blocking measures.

All in all, licensing and regulation were always going to be on the cards for the online poker industry. This is still a relatively young online business, but the ‘Wild West’ days are coming to an end, and, as with all legitimate businesses, regulation is the only way forward. Hopefully, in this case, the regulations will be practicable, equitable, and enforceable.

CNET online news reported on May 1st that the state authorities has issued a 7 page blacklist of gambling sites to internet providers and instructed them to block their customers access.

These instructions came from the Department of Public Safety, and are supposedly based on the grounds that gambling is illegal in Minnesota. They also seem to ignore any first amendment rights to free speech.

This move is not unique. It has been tried – and failed – before.

The list of sites runs to about two hundred which is hardly comprehensive. It includes such big names as Bodog Poker but not Poker Stars, and also includes many online casinos. It also includes sites that do not accept players from America, such as CD Poker.

Given the almost haphazard composition of the blacklist, this move by the Minnesota Department of Public Safety is hard to take seriously. When you consider that a similar move from Pennsylvania some years back was overturned on appeal to the Supreme Court, there must be some other consideration behind this.

It would be pointless to speculate what that reason could be. Whatever it is will come out eventually. The important thing to note here is that this move has not, and could not, have any real impact on online gambling in Minnesota.

Any savvy internet gambler that wishes to continue playing at a site on that list will find it very easy to do so. And savvy internet gamblers already know this. The thrust of this news story will serve only to alienate further those non-gambling citizens of Minnesota, and create an unnecessary workload on ISPs and gambling sites, while doing nothing to stop online gambling in the State.

That leaves us with a choice of conclusions; we can either conclude that all of the above is already known to the fine free-speech hating public safety officials of Minnesota, and they are therefore doing this in order to further some other, unknown, end, or we can conclude that they are morons.

Having said that, I suppose taht both the above conclusions could be true.

Let’s wait and see.

Just because a poker site has got a great bonus, or other attractive offer, is not enough reason to lump your cash in there without a second thought.

Before a poker room closes, or, worse still, goes under, there are always rumors about it on the internet. Sometimes a simple search on the name of the poker room with ‘problems’ after it can reveal lots of useful information.

Reading poker review sites can be a good way to get an idea about the trustworthiness of any particular poker room too. So long as you can trust the reviewers. Although it is fair to say that when a poker room folds, the affiliates are at much at rick of losing out, if not more so than the players.

Even so, many affiliates will simply put up any old review on their site and move on to the next room. You should read at least two reviews before deciding on a poker room.

And do that ‘problem’ search – it can save you a lot of money!

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