Fox News – Two men have pleaded guilty to operating high-stakes illegal New York City poker games with pots regularly reaching tens of thousands of dollars. Prosecutors say Kirill Rapoport pleaded guilty Friday to conducting an illegal poker game. They say William Barbalat pleaded guilty Wednesday to traveling in interstate commerce in aid of operating an illegal poker game. A defense attorney says Barbalat accepts responsibility but has no ties to organized crime. Rapoport’s attorney hasn’t responded to a message seeking comment. The men were among 34 people accused in April of being part of a scheme by two Russian-American…

Gambling Online Magazine – British politician Stuart Wheeler has become embroiled in a row over comments made regarding the competitive capabilities of women. Wheeler who represents the UK Independence Party and acts as treasurer for the right-wing fringe party commented that in pursuits such as “chess, bridge and poker – women come absolutely nowhere”. The comments were made an article Wheeler recently wrote in the Daily Telegraph debating the subject of female quotas in top company boardrooms. “Business is very, very competitive and you should take the performance of women in another competitive area, which is sport where [men] have…

Poker News Daily – A week ago, we reported that the Garden City Group (GCG), the organization that was chosen by the U.S Department of Justice (DoJ) to handle the disbursement of Full Tilt Poker funds, expected to be able to give players a firm date on when the claims process would commence by the end of last week. The claims administrator remained true to its word, announcing Friday that things will get started in about a month. On the official Full Tilt Poker claims website (fulltiltpokerclaims.com), GCG indicated that the start date for the U.S. player claims process will be…

From Online-Casinos.com – Canada and the United States of America are different in so many ways but are also share many common elements. They have different government styles with the Canadian parliamentary system modeled after the British and the American political system which has a President and a House of Representatives in Washington. Canada has one tenth of the population at 31 million but a little more land than the States. The US has many differing laws in various states similar to Canada which has different laws in their various provinces. The laws pertaining to online gambling and online poker…

Poker Update – The acceptance, regulation and legitimisation of poker has been occurring throughout some Asian nations in recent years, while debate on the game has hotted up in others. Generally, however, there has been a trend towards poker being rightfully viewed as more than just ‘gambling’. This has been seen by the growing number of large scale poker event being held in countries like the Philippines, Macau and South Korea, as well as recent political statements in Japan and Taiwan for poker and gaming in general. But could you really ever imagine the possibility of a WPT Tokyo or…

From Card Player – The state of Michigan is cracking down on charity poker games, as well as other types of casino-style fundraisers, because officials think there is misconduct. The state reportedly has issued citations for a host of violations, as the rules governing such games have gotten stricter with time. According to MLive; “Starting in September, poker rooms will be limited to hosting three charities per day with maximum chip sales of $45,000. Some poker rooms had been running six charities with chips sales of up to $90,000. Events also must be wrapped up by 12 a.m. instead of…