Gambling Articles

>> The following gambling articles are courtesy of Gambling Online Magazine.

Republican Reinstate Anti-Gambling Language in their Platform 15 Sep 2008 at 12:26pm
The celebration of poker players and fans was short-lived as the Republicans have reinstated anti-gambling language in the platform.

On Tuesday the Republicans announced plans to eliminate anti-gambling language present in both their 2000 and 2004 platforms to attract more mainstream voters. This decision was following comments posted on the Republican?s online platform website in opposition to the anti-gambling language by poker enthusiasts and over 160 poker players including 2004 World Series of Poker winner Greg Raymer.

Yesterday, subsequent to the conservatives in the party voicing their disagreement with the removal of the anti gambling language, the Republicans have since overturned their decision to remove the prohibition of online gambling from their draft platform and have reinstated the anti gambling language in their official platform. The platform akin to the 2000 and 2004 platform reads, ?Millions of Americans suffer from problem or pathological gambling that can destroy families. We support legislation prohibiting gambling over the Internet or in student athletics by student athletes who are participating in competitive sports.?

What appeared to be a step forward for the online gaming community has now been brought to a standstill. With the reinstating on the anti gambling language in their platform, the Republicans now risk losing a substantial amount of voters.

Georgia Adumata

Poker Players More Likely to Vote for Obama A survey of 1,639 US poker players has revealed that they intend to vote for the US democratic candidate Barak Obama two-to-one over republican candidate John McCain.

The survey, conducted by DuplicatePoker.com, revealed that 1,167 of the players surveyed felt that Obama was a stronger candidate than McCain. Both of the candidates are known to play poker, and being a strong poker player is considered to have a link with success in the world of business and politics as the best poker players are able to size up their opponents very quickly and calculate the best way to play them.

The survey also discovered the deciding factors for poker players on their presidential vote. The strongest factor was named as the economy followed by the parties? vision for America and the war in Iraq. As well as this, poker players believe that women and blacks will be the two most decisive voter segments in the upcoming elections. The majority of players also said that race would not be a factor in the upcoming elections.

Daniel Flamberg, chief marketing officer for DuplicatePoker said, ?These results are interesting for three reasons. First, they are a gut check for the new presidential slates as we begin the home stretch run. Next, the middle class male voters are going to play an important role in every swing state. And finally, poker players are particularly good at zeroing in on a winner.?

The survey was conducted online from September 2 to 4. The respondents represented 32 different states and were all US citizens. Eighty-seven were men between the ages of 18-54 with an average salary of $77,000. The average respondent was a college graduate who plays poker online at least two times a week.

WPT Canada Television Series Premiere 1 Sep 2008 at 11:29am
Rogers Sportsnet is beginning broadcasts of the WPT Canada as part of a four-part series making it the first ever Canada Specific WPT. The show will be hosted by Canadian Sports Presenter Jim Van Horne as well as professional poker player ?Cowboy? Kenna James.

The shows will be broadcast as four one-hour long episodes, which will be shown on Sportsnet East, Sportsnet Ontario, Sportsnet West and Sportsnet Pacific. The series will show highlights from the WPT Coast to Coast Championships, a nine-day tournament series featuring seven different poker events all held at The River Rock Casino in Vancouver. The tournament had almost 2,000 players all competing for a part of the $1.6 million prize pool and a WPT Canada title.

Viewers can see amateur poker players attempt to knock out professionals such as, Brad ?Yukon? Booth, Jody Trainer and ?Cowboy? Kenna Jones to win a cash bounty from them.

Although the series didn?t reach the number of players anticipated, which reduced the prize pool from $2.4m to $1.6m, it was still a success says Steve Lipscomb, WPT Founder. ?The sport of poker has been long growing in Canada, fostering poker fans and creating world class poker professionals,? he said.

The first episode will be aired today and then the second will be shown on September 10. The other episodes will be showing the Coast to Coast Championship main event final table where the first prize will be $224,100.

Danielle Almond

LAUNCH OF OBAMA BINGO WEBSITE FOR CHARITY 29 Aug 2008 at 8:25am
Two entrepreneurs from Denver, Jaxon Repp and Kevin Joseph have launched a non-profit online bingo website (www.obama-bingo.com) yesterday. The purpose of the site is to combine politics and bingo to raise money for charity.

The site is charging $10 dollars each for a 25 square bingo card. Each square contains words from Barack Obama?s previous speeches for example, ?McCain? or ?Iraq.? Obama?s convention speech today will be captured and synchronised with the online bingo website.

The rules of regular bingo apply and the first player to get five squares in a row will be pronounced the winner and all the net proceeds will go to the winners chosen charity out of 581 listed charities. If no one wins the proceeds will be evenly distributed to each of the charities. Some of the charities include the Make A Wish Foundation, American Breast Cancer Foundation and Oxfam America amongst others.

Jaxon Repp, one of the developers of the game said, ?With enough visibility driving traffic to Obama-Bingo.com, tens of thousands of dollars could be donated to one of the selected charitable organizations. It's our hope that Obama supporters will participate in the game and do some good in the world at the same time.?

The winner will be announced within one hour after the close of Obama?s speech tonight.

Georgia Adumata

APAT World Championship of Amateur Poker Starts Today Today the Grosvenor Victoria Casino in London begins its hosting of the Amateur Poker Association Tour?s World Championship of Amateur Poker. The tournament will start at 2.30 pm today playing with a field maximum of 70 leading up to the climactic main event at the weekend.

Players include James Mitchell, who recently became a finalist at GUKPT Luton, as well as Danny Palmer, also known as ?danny73? who cashed in at the WSOP Main Event 2007 and Jonathan Woodfield who came 13th in the WSOP Razz event 2007. The championship will include one-day events in Omaha, Razz and Stud as well as a 200-runner no limit hold?em championship that will take place over two days.

The event is sponsored by Blue Square Poker, which makes it the only place to qualify online for APAT live tournaments. The first place winner of the main hold?em event can take home a £3,500 payment, engraved World Amateur Championship cup, gold medal, Grosvenor UK Poker Tour Grand Final package, 18 ranking points and significant media exposure. The Grosvenor UK Poker Tour Grand Final package will include expenses paid entry worth around $8,000.

The APAT allows non-professional poker players the opportunity to take part in a deep-stacked and well-structured tournament at a small cost compared to most poker tournaments. The tour is in its second year and was won by Simon Turton last year.

Danielle Almond