On Tuesday the New York Senate Finance Committee passed Sen. John Bonacic’s online poker bill, S 3898. The committee passed by a voice vote without debate or discussion. The bill now advances to the full Senate for consideration. Two Senate committees passed the proposal this year. The Senate Racing, Gaming and Wagering Committee Bonacic chairs unanimously approved the bill back in February. The Senate’s budget also included online poker before the New York Assembly stripped it out. New York’s online poker’s chances have been tough to handicap over the past two years. Last year, supporters of legal online poker were…

Nevada poker revenue held steady in March, despite a meaningful decline in the total number of poker rooms and tables compared to 2016, according to Nevada gaming regulators. While poker rooms in Nevada may be shrinking in number and size, they also appear to be becoming more efficient. In March 2016, the Nevada Gaming Control Board reported 71 total poker rooms and 655 poker tables in the state. This year, the number of poker rooms dipped to 66 (a seven-percent decline) with total tables falling even further, down to 596 (a nine percent drop). Over a long timeframe, the decline…

The matter of advancement of AI poker (or artificial intelligence) is one that has long been an exciting topic for tech engineers and enthusiasts. Furthermore, in recent times, we have actually started to witness real developments in this field, making AI a reality instead of a science fiction fantasy. AI has been pitted against human intelligence in a number of different tasks, situations and games to find out how it will react to these challenges, with one of the latest examples of this testing being a game of poker in which AI was playing against human beings. Earlier this year,…

California Assemblyman Reggie Jones-Sawyer told Online Poker Report that his bill to legalize and regulate online poker will not be moving this year. However, he will continue to work on the issue in an effort to repair the trust between gambling interests and legislators that disintegrated at the end of last session. In an interview at his district office in Los Angeles, Jones-Sawyer described 2016 as a year to heal, take a step back and regroup without the possibility of a bill going forward raising tensions. “Obviously, we’re not going to put anything across the desk now,” Jones-Sawyer said. “If…

PokerStars has moved to expand its range of Spin & Go services with the launch of new Omaha versions of the game. Pot Limit Omaha games will feature buy-in levels of $1, $3, $7 and $15 and run under the lottery-style Sit-and-Go format. Players will start with 500 chips and enter a randomly drawn prize pool worth between two and 10,000 times their buy-in. “Omaha is a highly enjoyable poker variant and was quite high up on our players’ request list to deliver it as a Spin & Go,” PokerStars’ director of poker operations and innovation, Severin Rasset, said. More…

The global online cardroom and casino PokerStars has announced the preliminary schedule for its Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP) and has guaranteed the series for a total of $55 million USD in prize winnings. This year’s SCOOP is the biggest and longest, running across 3 weeks from 30th April to 23rd May. With a total of fifty–seven events in the series there’s an opportunity for all players who fancy their chances of getting rich in 2017! PokerStars has confirmed that this year’s SCOOP will be the most accessible Spring Championship yet, offering buy-ins starting low at $5.50 to $530 for high. In…

The US Department of Justice announced on Monday that class action settlement company Garden City Group (GCG) will monitor the process for the compensation of Absolute Poker players who were not able to withdraw their funds from the online poker room after it was faced with a civil action for money laundering, illegal gambling provision, and other allegations back in 2011. Here it is important to note that GCG had previously been charged with overseeing the repayment process of affected Full Tilt Poker players. Up to now, the amount of $118 million has been returned to their rightful owners. However,…

NBC Sports Group is putting down chips on the poker felt. The NBCUniversal sports media division struck an agreement with Poker Central to present Poker Central programming across its TV and digital platforms. The move comes after Poker Central in late 2016 pulled the plug on its own linear network, after garnering only limited distribution. Poker Central programming will debut on NBCSN (formerly called NBC Sports Network) on Monday nights as soon as summer with the Super High Roller Bowl, set to run May 28-31 in Las Vegas, along with other high-stakes poker events. In addition, NBCSports.com and the NBC…