Under the terms of the new certification, which comes for the Italian Monopolies of State (AAMS), real money poker tournaments for players in Italy were made available back on February 25th and these tournaments now are available with buy-ins that range between the amounts of €0.50 to €100.

Angeli Bufalini, who is the PokerStars Italian Country Manager, recently stated,

The online poker phenomenon has seen a huge growth recently and with the launch of PokerStars.it we aim to recreate in Italy the success that PokerStars has achieved worldwide. This is thanks to our industry renowned software and security which guarantees players a high level poker experience and support 24 hours a day.

These special events in Italy will be offered over the next several weeks in a in a multi-phase expansion.

Chad Dern, Milwaukee’s Best Light marketing director, stated,

Poker continues to enjoy growth both as a leisure activity and as a televised sporting event, so we want to make sure Milwaukee’s Best Light is the beer of choice whether fans are playing or watching at home. When we look at opportunities for developing alliances that make the most sense for this brand and help us connect with the right audience, the World Series of Poker is simply the best.

Since Milwaukee’s Best Light will be the official WSOP sponsor in 2009 and 2010 the beer can use the WSOP logo on their packaging as well as on all promotional activities. The beer will be advertised significantly at the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, where the 2-month WSOP tournament is held.

FSN Executive Vice President George Greenberg recently stated,

The World Poker Tour has a loyal and passionate fan base that has made the WPT one of the most popular programs on FSN. We’re thrilled to be airing Season 8 and look forward to another great year of WPT championship poker.

The World Poker Tour, which films the tournaments they hold will premier throughout North America, will consist of 26 episodes of one-hour each from the events of Season VIII. Under FSN’s broadcast license they own exclusive rights to show the episodes in the U.S. through their national sport cable network. The airing times of the episodes will be released at a later time.

FSN started to air the inaugural Season I of the WPT to very high ratings last year and then they followed with an exclusive broadcast of the new Season VII episodes, which were shown every Sunday evening.

Steven Lipscomb, WPT Founder, President and CEO stated,

Fox Sports Net and News Corporation have far exceeded our partnership expectations and we are thrilled to continue growing our strategic relationship. Airing our eighth season on the nation’s prime sports network truly underscores the force behind the WPT brand and poker as a televised sport.

FleetStreetGames.com (FSG), which started in February of last year, offered players from the world over the opportunity to enter many poker tournaments every month for a monthly fee. However, with the slumping economy, FSG was not able to raise their second-round of funding and within a few months of their launch of real-money play the website was forced to close down.

PokerStars.com and FSG have made a deal where PokerStars will take over all balances from FSG players, therefore making sure that there are no FSG players that are left out in the cold. FSG players are invited to transfer their old balances onto PokerStars. Also, PokerStars will be hosting a freeroll series of poker tournaments for FSG players in order to welcome them to PokerStars.

Dan Goldman, President and CEO of Fleet Street Games, LLC recently stated,

Many FSG players will, I am sure, already be familiar with PokerStars. It is, as I know from long personal experience, the best all-round online poker site in the world and although we are obviously extremely disappointed that we couldn’t make a go of FSG in the present economic climate, we are thrilled that we have been able to secure such a great new home for our players.

Ladbrokes had formally licensed the software of Microgaming, however they ran as a stand-alone entity before the move. They expect that they will see an increase in interest from players. Also, Ladbrokes will continue to hold various promotions, which only are held by Ladbrokes, such as the Ladbrokes Poker Million Dollar Rake Race. This race is where a $1 million is paid out each month and then shared between 3,000 players at Ladbrokes Poker, as every single month each winner will get the amount of $20,000. Other Ladbrokes events are the upcoming series of Joining Forces tournaments and their Vegas Dream promotion. As part of the new look, with Microgaming software, software enhancements will take effect.

Edward Ihre, who is the Ladbrokes Poker MD, recently stated,

The heart and soul of Ladbrokes Poker will remain – with some necessary enhancements to boost its vitality. As such, players can rest assured that the unrivaled security, reliability and trust that is synonymous with the Ladbrokes brand will continue to be of the utmost priority in our delivery and commitment to our customers.” Ladbrokes Poker is known and respected worldwide and is indeed an on-line poker institution, we intend to retain the character whilst bringing together even more players. We’ll provide a greater range of game types and levels to play at and for the first time ever will have games available in both US dollars and Euros.

CAP became well known, as they gave the online gambling industry a forum where affiliates that had issues could expose possible scams of the Internet casino industry. Now, CAP has become one of the sites exposed and they are asking for mercy.

Jolly recently stated, “I would like to encourage everyone, both members and non-members of CAP, to encourage GPWA, Michael Corfman, Jay Todd, APCW, and whoever else is participating in these attacks against the CAP community to STOP causing this unneeded distraction in our industry. It will hurt you PERSONALLY if Lou is no longer a part of CAP and able to provide the assistance and guidance he has since CAP’s inception.”

The words he used are a bit strange, as the word “attack” is used in describing what is currently being done to CAP. However, there have been recent reports that have come out that have a person making the claim that Jolly and his partner have been the party that has actually been doing the attacking. That person has claimed that CAP’s co-owners have hacked into several accounts of theirs.

The person making the claims not only made the allegations, but he says he has proof of the actions. The computer used for the account hacking was directly traced back to Fabiono and Jolly. This recent allegation comes after it has been proven that CAP owners had a partnership with Cardspike, which is a rogue Internet poker room.

For a summary of events read this post on the GPWA Forums.

The countries in the Balkans, which are Turkey, Greece, Slovenia, Croatia, Romania, Bulgaria, and Montenegro, currently have a quite large market size and many experts confirm that the markets in the Balkans have a great potential for growth.

In 2007 the total gambling market in the Balkan region was 4.5 billion Euros, after payouts, according to the latest study from MECN. The total figure for both turnovers and wagers came to the figure of 25 billion Euros. Sports gambling is currently legal in many of the Balkan countries and online gambling may be next.

ChipMeUp is one of the leading poker staking websites, which allows players to by a percentage of their poker play from certain tournaments, both live and online, that are held around the world. The subscription to join is free of charge, as there is only a small listing fee that is involved when players put up a piece of your poker play. Recently ChipMeUp partnered up with the Asian Poker Tour’s Poker Pack, which resulted in a collaboration that saw 6 well known professional poker players sell a piece of their play at the 2009 Aussie Millions tournament.

It has been reported by PokerSiteScout.com that IPN saw an increase of 14% in daily players compared to the previous quarter. Also, the site reported a 22% increase in maximum concurrent players as well as a 28% increase in registrations per day to make them the fastest growing independent network in 2008 in Europe.

Chief Executive Officer for Boss Media Rahul Parekh stated,

I’m delighted with our progress. Following the acquisition of Boss Media by GTech in the second quarter of 2008, we recognised that we had some challenges and opportunities to address. While we still have more work ahead of us, we’re heading firmly in the right direction.

The increased growth in the network has been fueled by more players that has been supported by the launch of one of their €1 million guaranteed tournament along with their Bad Beat Jackpot, which currently has a pot of €200,000. Boss Media was also one of the first networks to launch their own poker network for players in Italy by partnering up with Lottomatica Scomesse, which is a leading gaming operator. This partnership saw Boss Media, which is based in Stockholm, become the only supplier in Europe for 4 poker networks and they have in excess of 100,000 players that use their software daily.

The case received assistance from the Poker Players Alliance (PPA), as officials from the organization gave evidence that poker is a skill game and because of that could not be seen as gambling under state law of Colorado. Colorado law specifically exempts “bona fide contests of skill.” Todd Taylor, the defense attorney in the case, presented testimony by University of Denver statistics professor Robert Hannum, which asserted that poker has a high element of skill and that fact was a huge factor in the jury’s decision of not guilty for the defendants.