Card Player – Professional gambler Phil Ivey has admitted to playing with an unusual advantage in a game of punto banco at a London casino last year. Ivey took the property for $12.1 million, but it refused to pay after suspecting something shady had happened. The Daily Mail reported Saturday that court documents show Ivey has said he was able to read the cards, but maintains that it was the casino’s fault for allowing the opportunity to arise and that what he did isn’t considered cheating. He still wants his money. The flaws in the cards reportedly occurred during the…

iGaming Business – Barrière Poker has decided to bring its commercial activities to an end in France’s regulated online poker market but will continue working in a B2B capacity as it seeks to utilise to the technical platform it has developed over the last three years. The company’s consumer-facing site barrierepoker.fr will close down on 30 September, the group said it had not been able to compete with many of the sites who had been operating in France prior to the market regulating in 2010. The company, a joint venture between French lottery operator Française des jeux and casino group…

Gambling 911 – The claims administrator overseeing payouts for former Full Tilt Poker customers announced Tuesday that pros and employees will be excluded from the process. The Garden City Group circulated an email late Monday evening, which prompted a reply from Poker Players Alliance Regional Director Rich “TheEngineer” Muny via his Facebook page. “I received this from someone who received this from Garden City Group. I phoned GCG and they neither confirmed nor denied it.” The payout process is due to commence on September 16 (2013) for all eligible customers. From PocketFive.com, which first reported the news: The list started…

Meghan McCain, daughter of U.S. Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona), says her dad used to be paranoid about gambling, but since The Washington Post posted a picture of him playing poker on his smartphone during a September 3 U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations hearing on Syria, he is ready to let his pro-gaming flag fly. “Now, he’s really empowered because he loves to gamble,” said Meghan McCain during her September 10 appearance on Access Hollywood Live, when asked about the photo. “When he used to go to Las Vegas, people would take iPhone pictures of him, and he got very…

Las Vegas Weekly – In recent years the poker rooms at Gold Coast, Tuscany and Fitzgeralds (now the D) have all closed. Last month, the M Resort closed its 14-table room. Most recently Circus Circus closed its five-table poker room. What the heck is going on? For years journalists have questioned whether the poker bubble has burst. The World Series of Poker’s main event drew more players in 2006 (8,773) than in 2010 (7,319) and 2013 (6,352). And cable TV is no longer flooded with poker TV shows 24/7. Perhaps the biggest change to hit the Vegas poker world is…

Las Vegas Review Journal – State gaming regulators gave preliminary approval Thursday to a marketing agreement between Golden Gaming and Gibraltar-based 888 Holdings in which the tavern operator could deliver its customers as online poker players to a website that includes Treasure Island. Under terms of the exclusive marketing agreement, Golden Gaming can sign up customers from its three Pahrump casinos and its 40 wholly owned statewide taverns operations to play online poker on a planned website that will be operated by 888 Holdings. Golden Gaming would share in a percentage of the gaming revenues with Treasure Island and 888…

The road to Nevada online poker to residents of other states is long and tortuous and gaming regulators took a step in that journey Wednesday when the state Gaming Control Board conducted a workshop meeting on a proposal for companies to offer progressive jackpots across state lines. The state’s largest slot machine manufacturers — International Game Technology and Bally Technologies — petitioned the Nevada Gaming Commission to amend regulations to allow multi-jurisdictional progressive prizes. Gaming Control Board Chairman A.G. Burnett concurred that adoption of the amendments to the regulation could be viewed as a first step toward developing online poker…

Tight Poker – Carbon Poker has turned out to be the first US friendly online poker room to offer real money mobile poker services to US players. So far, none of the online poker sites accepting US players have launched real money mobile poker apps for US residents. The beta version of the app was launched in February, and in early August, a group of volunteers from TwoPlusTwo Forum agreed to give it a beta test. Since the app is web-based, it is compatible with all mobile devices although Ryan, a representative for Carbon Poker, said that the online poker…