Big News for Poker

March 11, 2009

It has been an exciting month for poker – it has been in the news a lot. For example Harrah’s has announced that they and the World Series of Poker have decided to extend the World Series of Poker Schedule for 2009. Instead of 55 events, there will be 57 this year. One of the additions is a $40,000 “High Rollers” event that is sure to be a crowd pleaser – and will take place in late May at the Series’ opening weekend.

Then there is the fact that the attempts by Kentucky to seize poker and online gambling domain names were thwarted by the courts. Governor Steve Beshear had attempted to take control of the sites saying that they were dangerous in their state, but the state disagreed saying that they did not have jurisdiction over the internet. Kentucky has filed an appeal, and it could go to the Supreme Court.

How about the start of the eleventh Full Tilt Online Poker Series? It launched again last month and has a 25 event schedule that runs two weeks. The winner will take home somewhere around $20 million when all is said and done – not too shabby for the time spent trying to win.

Las Vegas saw the addition of deep stack poker series – as the Venetian and Caesars Palace both added the poker events to their offerings. Both have done well so far, but it is too early to tell if these are keepers or not. It was an attempt to bring in more money, and it may be a good move.

Speaking of more money, Playtech was pleased to announce that in a year where so many companies are going broke they did very well for themselves – showing a profit while many others showed a loss.