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…

The world’s largest online poker discussion forum, TwoPlusTwo, has again seen its virtual defenses breached. The site’s operators have confirmed that the forum was hacked at some point late in 2016, with the personal data then being offered for sale elsewhere on the Internet. The hacking and theft of the personal information was discovered by prominent British poker pro Max Silver, who disclosed the probable leak on Twitter as well as on the TwoPlusTwo forum itself. Silver reported hearing about the leak from a friend. The hack included the theft of email addresses, IP addresses, birthday, last login date, registered…

Finnish company RAY and Austria’s win2day have agreed a deal to share cross-border poker liquidity on Playtech’s online poker-powered network. Under the agreement, which Playtech described as an industry-first, the two firms will launch a joint network using liquidity from both player bases, with customers of each brand able to access omni-channel poker products on the Playtech network. Playtech said the deal represents the first time that two regulated entities have joined forces to share cross-border poker liquidity. The Finnish Ministry of Interior has approved the liquidity sharing agreement, with RAY previously limited to offering its online poker service to…

The popular perception of poker includes a strange contradiction of luminous casinos and darkened backrooms. In the seventies and eighties, it was either a game you played beneath bright casino lights, surrounded by strangers and croupiers, or one in the privacy of a friend’s living room on a Friday night. In either case, poker was somewhat an exclusive club of expert players, pros, and close-knit groups of friends and coworkers. The game didn’t really gain much traction with the wider public until the early nineties, when the internet became more accessible and events like the World Series of Poker (WSOP)…

Momentum to get online poker legalized and regulated within the state of California has fallen by the wayside thanks to the legislative session ending Wednesday. Yet again, poker players have to wait until next year. There was serious progress made in 2016, as California lawmakers figured out a way to appease the racing industry and the tribes on one front by giving the former a nearly $60 million annual subsidy in exchange for not being eligible for online poker licenses. That deal was hashed out early in the year. California’s tracks already offer online wagering, the only form of online…

Former Full Tilt Poker executive Howard Lederer issued an apology for the events that led to the poker site failing to have funds on hand to pay all its players in the wake of 2011’s Black Friday. Lederer, in part, said “I take full responsibility for Full Tilt’s failure to protect player deposits leading up to Black Friday.” In the wake of its domain being seized by the U.S. Department of Justice in April of 2011, Full Tilt was not able to refund all account balances because of a failure to segregate operational and player funds. PokerStars went on to…