This week traffic at all the poker sites might be predictably lower as the sun continues to shine. People healthily topping up their tans rather than emptying their wallets or the wallets of others at the virtual tables, however there is still poker news worth a mention …
Full Tilt US Player Repayments Soon
Well that’s the good news headline they want you to hear anyway, the reality on the ground when US players finally get paid sometime maybe in about a year or so might likely be not as rosy.
On the plus side the Garden City Group who have been appointed to handle the repayment claims have finally figured out what the numbers are and that reimbursements will be based on the player balances on April 15, 2011.
That all sounds fine and dandy until they start mumbling about maybe not being able to refund the total amount to players.
WTF ?
So the US gov’t have made off with close to $550m and they can’t guarantee they will pay back the roughly $150m they owe players ???
You’ve got to be kidding, let’s just hope they’re making some kind of sick joke because personally I fail to see how a government can take over half a billion dollars under very dubious interpretation of a dubious law and then somehow be unsure they can come up with $150m owed to US players in right and proper settlement –
By my maths they should have $350m left over, it’s not freaking rocket science people – PokerStars paid out the non US Full Tilt players within 3 months of taking over.
InterTops Catches Revolution Chip Dumping
Intertops, the good guys stuck on less than good Revolution Network, are now auditing ALL wins on their site.
This is due to a massive (yet predictable) increase in chip dumping by players from other (crappy slow / no-paying) Revolution skins over to accounts on the quick paying Intertops site.
Getting money off the revolution network is proving so slow as to be none existent and money held on Lock and other revolution skins is currently traded at only 30 cents on the dollar.
The brief window of opportunity for chip dumping over to the healthy Intertops cashier was trading at 90 cents on the dollar in well known forums.
It is totally understandable on the players side, they are sick and tired of slow or no payments from Revolution skins like Lock / Cake / Juicy Stakes etc due to Lock / Revolution’s probable liquidity issues (it’s not just a US cashier thing).
However effectively chip dumping money from Revolutions “no pay cashier” into the very reliable Intertops separate cashier system isn’t a workable solution for Intertops as they would be effectively bankrolling Revolutions problems and frankly why should they.
I’m just glad we stopped promoting Revolution skins months ago and warned forum members to get cash out as quickly as possible if they could.
Zynga Gives Up On Real Money Poker in US ?
In yet more “non news” Zynga have sort of announced that they are not planning to pursue real money poker in the US.
Depending on who and what you read on this, it’s either the story of the century declaring that Zynga Poker have officially turned their back on ever having a real money poker site or that they’ve just lost interest in the idea of running around getting state licences for themselves when they could just as easily licence Zynga out to someone else.
The thing is their software sucks beyond suckiness and ultimately their gzillion strong player base are play money players and likely not worth that much to anyone other than Zynga.
The UK experiment of Zynga real money poker on Party skin is likely proving more than enough proof that Zynga Poker and PokerStars are about as similar as apples and armchairs.
Come on guys – Don’t be down, on the upside you are somehow capable of extracting buckets of real cash from people in exchange for virtual credits to build virtual farms and play games winning virtual not real money – That is a pretty cool trick in anyone’s book – Just update your poker software and stick at what your good at.
Nevada’s 10 Millionth Hand Dealt at Ultimate Gaming
Ultimate Gaming the Nevada only legal poker room is celebrating dealing it’s 10 millionth hand in a pokerstars 10 billionth hand style with over $20k in prizes.
Although we preferred the fanfare over their first hand being dealt
In a somewhat scary old 2007 post on CardChat I found here that somehow players on the winning table of the 10 billionth hand didn’t even know about the promotion. Then to further add to their retarded-ness after being explained what was happening – they folded …
Yes folded away any chance at winning 100k if they had won the hand – (ok thay had $10k in the bag for sitting there) but really there just isn’t any helping some people.
PlayTech Buys PokerStrategy.com
In industry news pokerstrategy.com the behermoth of an affiliate strategy site has been sold to PlayTech the software developers behind the iPoker Network for $49m which was a bargain or a fortune too much depending on who you listen to.
One thing for sure is that no sooner had the deal been done than management in-fighting began as Dominik Kofert sold his share to co-founder Enrique Guzman who then announced a bunch of management lay-offs.
Online Tournaments, Promotions & Events
FTOPS XXIII starts this Sunday with a total of 39 events with a total guaranteed prize pool of $8 million … check it out
August is PokerStars VIP month, in short you can get your VIP level quicker than before. There are also cash prizes on offer, plus free tickets to the World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) … check it out
Carbon Poker have launched the run-up to the 6th Poker Maximus VI with over $3m guaranteed in 85 events over 15 days starting on Sunday 8th September to 22nd September. Start playing in the satellites and freeroll qualifiers now.
In other (Almost) News
We like Daniel Negreanu: Albert Einstein “Overrated” and this Phil Laak Diagnosed with Phil Laak’s Disease and have been watching “Casino Wars – Cheats, cheating & scams”
Casino Wars – Cheats, Cheating & Scams
