Organizers of the 2018 World Series of Poker have announced that this year’s main event is the second biggest of all time with a huge field of 7,874 players taking their seat at the Rio All-Suites Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas this week. The impressive figure comfortably beats the 7,221 who took part last year and is eclipsed only by the famous 2006 event which saw Jamie Gold defeat a monster field of 8,773 players. The 2018 WSOP main event kicked off on Monday with the 7,874 entries creating a prize pool of more than US$74 million, including US$8.8…

New York Assemblyman Gary Pretlow says he was eight Democrats away from getting the online poker bill put to a vote last week at the end of the state’s legislative session. While admitting that “we didn’t really look at it” in the final weeks as New York online poker took a back seat to a more urgent sports betting bill that also didn’t pass, Pretlow attested that he had a commitment from 68 Democrats that they would support A 5250. Officially, the bill finished with 51 Assembly members signed on as supporters, including 47 Democrats and four Republicans. Another assertion…

World Poker Tour Transforms Season XVII The World Poker Tour is moving all televised final matches for Season XVII to the eSports Arena at the Luxor Casino & Hotel in Las Vegas. Vegas was the original home of the WPT, and the recently completed eSports Arena will host the finals in style. At a cost of over 20 million dollars, the arena boasts a Hype Tunnel, incredible lighting, and a spectacular viewing experience. The format of the eight televised Main Tour poker events and the Tournament of Champion will be changed to allow a three to six-week hiatus between the…

Online poker in New York is turning into the legislative version of Robert Louis Stevenson’s literary masterpiece, the Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. After a couple of close calls in each of the last two years, Albany lawmakers don’t seem to know if they’re coming or going in 2018. And depending on who you ask, online poker efforts have either taken a step forward or a step backward in 2018. On the one hand you have first-term Assemblyman Clyde Vanel, who appears to be spearheading the current online poker effort in the Assembly. “The budget effort didn’t…

The Current State of Poker in New Jersey Online poker in New Jersey continues its bull run with impressive earnings in the first half of 2018. Two weeks after month end, New Jersey casinos and online poker rooms release their GGR (Gross Gambling Revenue). The total Internet gambling win by month makes for interesting reading. Online poker revenues in March 2018 topped out at $1,966,366, significantly higher than February poker revenues of $1,772,988. In January 2018, poker revenues were strong, from the holiday season overflow at $1,950,696. These GGR figures were released by the NJ Division of Gaming Enforcement (DGE)….

It took Chris Ferguson about seven years to issue a 42-second video apology for the Full Tilt Poker fiasco. Hopefully he wasn’t working on writing it the entire time. Regardless of his motivations, the poker community responded harshly to his attempt at reconciliation. This summer will mark Ferguson’s third year back at the World Series of Poker, after he took several summers off after the Full Tilt scandal. The government said that Ferguson allocated himself $85 million in distributions for his work at the poker site, while about $160 million in U.S. player deposits went missing after the platform shut…