This week, John Campos' misdemeanor guilty plea was finally accepted while the AGCC announced that a license application from a Full Tilt subsidiary will be held in public. Check out these stories and more in this week's edition of the Industry Update. Campos Plea Deal Accepted: U.S. District Court Judge Lewis Kaplan has officially accepted a guilty plea from John Campos, Vice President of SunFirst Bank, which helped process payments for two of three poker sites indicted on Black Friday. There was originally delay in the acceptance of the guilty plea as the judge raised concerns about the leniency of the deal by prosecutors. Full Tilt Poker Update: Over the last week there has been significant signs that Full Tilt Poker is gearing up for relaunch. Positives indications for a launch include the establishment of Full Tilt Poker companies in Ireland and Malta, changes in the Full Tilt Poker website and additional job postings on a Irish job services company. In other Full Tilt Poker news, the AGCC has announced they will hold a public hearing to review the license application of Orinic Limited on May 3rd. Orinic Limited, a subsidiary of Full Tilt, avoided a revoking of their license last year and recently applied for a category 2 license to offer online gambling. Massachusetts Considering Online Poker: Massachusetts State Representative Daniel Winslow plans to make a push for an online poker amendment to a state budget bill next week. Winslow stated "Massachusetts already has decided to legalize gaming, so we should consider all options to maximize revenue and create new jobs." The bill would not make it cheap for a operator to offer online poker in the state. To receive a license, an operator would have to fork over $10 million and pay a tax of 25%. PokerScout Traffic Update: Online poker traffic dropped 1.8% for the week and has down been down for 9 out of the last 10 weeks. In their one year recap of Black Friday, PokerScout reported that 90% of US players have stopped playing online poker, helping to contribute to a 32% loss in overall traffic during the last year. Jottings: Barney Frank not optimistic for federal regulation in 2012...Black Friday Mastermind Preet Bharara Named to Time Top 100...William Hill Nevada gaming license delayed...European Gaming and Betting Association Publishes Manifesto...William Hill and Ladbrokes see poker slump
Several offers have launched on the PAS network over the last few months, but arguably none more interesting than Muchos Poker, a poker room we first featured on this blog just a couple weeks ago. There are several things to like about Muchos Poker, but we can pretty much summarize them by breaking it down like this: --6 poker rooms in one site (more rumored on the way). Convenience. Convenience. Convenience. Players not only have access to six poker rooms immediately, but Muchos Poker makes transfers between networks a breeze. --Top level deals on each network (Rakeback + Bonus/VIP or Bonus/VIP) --On Demand Rakeback/Rewards We think all PAS publishers should be giving this room a serious look. But if you need another reason to promote Muchos Poker, how about a custom landing page? As a special offer to PAS publishers, Muchos Poker will create a custom message for your Muchos Poker landing page. If you are interested please contact Seb with the subject "Muchos Poker Landing Page" along with your preferred message. To start promoting Muchos Poker, request a campaign from the PAS publisher admin. Revenue-share requests are usually processed within 72 hours.
If you have high volume Party Poker players, take notice of the latest promotion for the poker room's top players. Starting April 23rd and running through May 13th, Party Poker will offer the VIP 500 Club, an opt-in promotion that will allow Palladium VIP players to receive instant prizes for their play during the promo period. Like the Gladiator and other similar monthly cash-game promotions, the VIP 500 Club should prove quite appealing to your high volume players. VIP 500 Club Prizes For every 500 Party Points that a player earns (the equivalent of $250 in rake), a Palladium player will receive an instant prize card that will yield one of the following prizes:$5-$500 cash$25-$100 poker bonus100-500 Loyalty Points BonusiPad 2 or iPodSuper high generating players will receive $1,000 in cash and 5,000 in points. Unfortunately, to qualify for this special prize, a player will need to collect 50 cards. That's the equivalent of $15,000 in rake, a milestone that few players will reach. Don't Forget to Opt-In To participate in the VIP 500 Club, Palladium players will need to opt-in to the promotion via the Party Poker site. To qualify for the Palladium status, a player needs to earn 9,000 Party Points per quarter, the equivalent of $1,500 in rake per month. The 500 VIP promotion will appeal mostly to ring game players, due to a relatively high Party Point requirements. Tournament players should take a look at this month's PokerFest II, starting a day earlier on April 22nd and giving away over $3.5 million prize pools over 47 events.
For over six months, the online poker community has had to endure countless rumors, speculation and deadlines (that came and went) regarding the future of Full Tilt Poker. The tide finally looks to be changing in the last couple weeks with tangible developments including Pocket Kings job postings and an Alderney license filing. Over the last two days, yet more activity has come to light from the 2+2 online poker community, including the establishment of a new Laurent Tapie Full Tilt company and new activity on the Full Tilt Poker website. To add credibility to the developments and rumors, ESPN's Andrew Feldmen has posted via Twitter that he has been told "there is going to be a major development shortly." A summary of the latest Full Tilt Poker activity includes: New Full Tilt Limited: It has come to light that Laurent Tapie has been appointed director and secretary in New Full Tilt Poker Limited, a company incorporated on February 14th. According to the Pokerfuse report, the company was originally started with capital of €1 million. The new company is listed as a "software consultancy and supply" firm. Activity on the Full Tilt Poker Website: Keen-eyed players have noticed that fulltiltpoker.eu has undergone minor changes over the last few days. Specifically, the number of players "online now" was briefly changed to 411 before going back to the regular "System Update" message. Could Full Tilt Poker be testing the site? New Malta Company: An estute 2+2 poster noted that two Full Tilt Poker companies have been registered in Malta on April 11th. The names of the companies are Full Tilt Holding Ltd. and New Full Tilt Ltd. Both companies are located in Sliema, Malta. More Job Postings: Pocket Kings posted for a handful of customer service related jobs a couple weeks ago. They now appear to seeking graphic designers in a contract role. The position is availlable for 2 months with a potential to extend to a third month. Other positions include a fraud operations analyst, cashier operations analyst and payment security analyst. The fact that this recent activity appears to coming together at the same is credible cause of optimism, which by the way would be extremely welcomed by an industry eager for genuinely good news. Of course, even if Full Tilt Poker were to launch in the next couple months, there would still be many questions to answer. Many Europeans and industry observers will wonder if Full Tilt Poker can still be relevant one year after Black Friday. Meanwhile, US players are dying to know what will happen to their funds now that the ball will be in the Department of Justice's court. And of course, Affiliates are curious to see if they will be compensated for existing players and if they will be part of the picture after a relaunch.
Today marks the one-year anniversary of Black Friday. In this week's Weekly Industry Update we will take a look at this milestone along with news from Full Tilt Poker, Cake Poker and Merge Gaming. Remembering Black Friday It's hard to believe it's been a full year since the events of Black Friday. There is little doubt affiliates and U.S. players will always remember where they were when they heard the news that the three largest poker sites had been effectively shut down to U.S. players in that single day. One year later, the industry is still shaken up and feeling the effects. PokerStars recovered quickly has went on to thrive. Ultimate Bet and Absolute Poker are likely gone forever with players and affiliates unlikely to recover anything significant. Meanwhile Fulll Tilt Poker players and affilaites continue to hope the Full Tilt Poker sale goes through and players are reimbursed for their missing funds. As expected, the one year anniversary has brought a flood of retrospectives. PokerNews posted a timeline of Black Friday and related events. PokerFuse conducted a great interview with the PPA's Patrick Fleming. CardPlayer also posted a piece on the victims of Black Friday. Full Tilt Poker Update: As Full Tilt Poker appears to gear up for a relaunch, another class-action suit has been filed against Full Tilt Poker directors Howard Lederer and Chris Ferguson. The lawsuit alleges that Lederer and Ferguson "exercised unlawful dominion and control over player funds in Full Tilt Poker accounts." The suit seeks a court order requiring Ferguson and Lederer to refund players as well as punitive damages. Cake and Merge Gaming Ban new Utah Accounts: Late last month, Utah passed a law that banned online poker in the state. The governor of Utah has even lobbied against federal online poker legislation. As a result of recent actions by Utah, Cake Poker and Merge Gaming have decided to no longer accept new accounts from the state. Existing members are still allowed to play, however. The move comes a few weeks after Bovada decided to make the same decision. At the time of this writing, Utah players can only create accounts at BetOnline, Intertops, Winning Poker and YouWager. PokerScout Traffic Update: Online poker traffic snapped an eight-week losing streak by gaining 2.8% last week according to PokerScout. Five out of the top 10 sites saw 5% upswings or more. Ipoker has overtaken Party Poker as the #2 network in the world. Jottings: April's US Online Poker Processing Report Released...AGA is calling for UIGEA strengthening...UB and Absolute Poker nearing resolution with DOJ?...Unibet acquires Bet24...UK proposes criminal penalties for illegal operators...Quad Jacks interview with Joe Brennan Jr., says federal online poker "not in cards"...Italy regulated market slides...Card Player summary on the Black Friday guilty pleas...Spanish Association of Digital eGaming Reveals List of Members
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