Card Player – Illinois is one of the states in the thick of online poker discussions. Some there briefly flirted with a plan for the state lottery to get into the online casino games business, but those ideas quietly faded. As anticipated, discussions have resurfaced early this year. This week, John Pappas, who is at the helm of the Poker Players Alliance, testified in front of an Illinois Senate Committee on the topic of online gaming authorization. Pappas and his group are one of the strongest advocates for online poker in the U.S. The PPA boasts 1.2 million members. Pappas,…

iGaming Business – The Florida Senate Gaming Committee has left online poker out of an expansive gaming reform bill despite calls to introduce a regulated market in the US state. According to the Onlinepokerreport.com website, the Senate Proposed Bill 7052 was released on February 24 in an attempt to reform and update the state’s gaming industry. Potential changes in the bill include the creation of a gaming control board, as well as increased authority, control and enforcement over gaming by the regulatory body. The bill also proposed authorising the governor to renegotiate the gaming compact with the Seminoles Native American…

After 1,050 days, more agonizing to some than others, more than 27,500 American poker players are finally seeing their Full Tilt Poker money in their bank accounts. The Department of Justice made Black Friday a day of infamy in the poker industry, but on this Friday, we’re one step closer to the end of a dark chapter in the history of the game. The Garden City Group, hired by the Department of Justice to manage remission payments to those who had money on FTP, made $76 million in payments early Friday morning. Players who received their money today were those…

Card Player – On Monday, the firm in charge of assisting the government with compensating victims of the old Full Tilt Poker released an update to its website. Garden City Group said that the first round of payments will come tomorrow, Feb. 28, 2014, in the form of ACH deposits. Friday’s payments will be for those who filled out all the paperwork correctly and have undisputed claims. In other words, what they thought they were owed and what GCG said they were owed matched up. Americans have been without access to the funds since April 2011. As for others who…

Poker News – Ever since he first introduced legislation to license and regulate Internet gambling in New Jersey in 2010, New Jersey State Sen. Ray Lesniak has prophesied of the Garden State being at the center of the emerging industry in the United States — the Silicon Valley of online wagering. That explains his frustration Tuesday when he heard that Delaware and Nevada had taken the first step to create an interstate online poker network, announcing an agreement to combine poker player pools. Delaware and New Jersey seem to make the more natural partners. They are neighbors, and they both…

iGaming Business – The Autonomous Administration of the State Monopolies (AAMS) Italian gaming authority has reported that the country’s regulated online poker market is continuing to decline. According to the Pokerfuse.com website, wagers in poker cash games during January 2014 grossed €12.2 billion ($16.7 billion), a drop of 20% on the previous year and a fall of 50% on January 2012. In addition, tournament revenues also declined by 26% in comparison with January 2013. Pokerstars Italy remains the most successful operator in the country as it generates 52.8% of all cash game revenue. It also holds a 54% share of…