Monthly Archives: June 2015

Thrill Poker Live with Microgaming; First Operator on MPN India

ISLE OF MAN – Thrill Poker is live with Microgaming Poker; they are the first operator to go live on the new MPN India.

Established in 2013, Thrill Poker is one of the foremost providers of online poker to the Indian market. Their team boasts a cumulative 45 years of experience in the online gaming and lotteries business in Europe.

Dedicated to providing a best-in-class poker offering, Thrill Poker has joined forces with Microgaming, and has migrated all of its existing traffic to the Microgaming platform.

“Online and offline poker in India is growing massively in popularity. We wanted to build an offering which was market-leading, secure, and robust in order to provide the best possible poker experience to Indian players”, said Aditya Oberoi, Director at Thrill Poker. “That’s why we chose to partner with Microgaming, the industry’s software expert.”

You Will Fail. De-Risking Online Poker Startups.

Everybody knows that starting a business is not an easy task. The risk of failure is huge. Starting an online poker site business is no different.

Every now and then I hear a story. Or I get approached. Someone had a brilliant idea! Let’s start an online poker room!

It is 99.99% of the time an incredibly stupid idea.

Over the last year I have spent my time working on the fringes of the poker and gambling industries. Working for groups nobody has heard of. Groups that are planning a sneak attack into the market. Respected groups of legitimate venture capitalists and planners. Groups that pay well.

WSOP Weekend Review: Wang & Petrangelo Win Gold; Hollywood Plays a Starring Role

Lee Davy brings you a weekly round-up of news from the 46th Annual World Series of Poker including gold bracelet victories for Michael Wang & Nick Petrangelo, and a starring role from James Woods.

In the past few years, Michael Wang has been knocking on the door. On Saturday, he kicked it down. His victory in Event #2: $5,000 No-Limit Hold’em (NLHE) wasn’t impressive because he defeated 422 players, or that the final table was stacked with some of the world’s best known faces. It was impressive because most of them were in scintillating form.

Bryn Kenney, Artur Koren, Jason Wheeler, and Byron Kaverman are experiencing a renaissance of late. Add the powerful combination of Greg Merson, Amir Lehavot and Joe Ebanks into that equation, and you are you are going to have to work hard to earn your coin.

But Wang was also in fine form. He came eighth in the A$1,650 8-Game Dealer’s Choice at the 2014 World Series of Poker Asia Pacific (WSOP- APAC), he bubbled the final table of the Season XIII World Poker Tour Borgata Winter Open, and finished third in the Irish Open this year.

Roberto Romanello: A Break From Poker; a Deal With Matchbook; and Getting Owned in The Colossus

Lee Davy sits down with the European Poker Tour & World Poker Tour champion, Roberto Romanello, to talk about his absence from the game, his new deal with Matchbook, and getting owned in The Colossus.

In Oct 2014, I wrote an article for PokerStrategy. I stuck my neck out and said that Roberto Romanello will become the next Triple Crown winner.

Then he vanished.

We didn’t see the Welsh Wizard in a single event throughout the whole of 2015. So when I saw him go deep in Event #2: $5,000 No-Limit Hold’em (NLHE) – where he eventually finished in 56th – I felt good. My reputation had been restored.

Flaccid FA Cup Final; FIFA Fraud and Ferdinand Finished

Lee Davy brings you the three biggest news stories of the football world this weekend, including one of the most one-sided FA Cup Finals you will see in living memory, a FIFA indictment, and Rio Ferdinand announcing his decision to retire from football.

If you were a Martian, the thought of watching an Arsenal v Aston Villa FA Cup Final may have piqued your interest. Arsenal were looking to win two FA Cups on the spin, and become the most successful FA Cup team in the tournament’s history, and Aston Villa had won the FA Cup seven times.

Martians don’t exist.

Anyone who knows football knew that this was going to be nothing but a whitewash. Villa, could easily have gone down this year, and quite how they ended up on the grand stage is beyond me. Tim Sherwood has done a job, but he will have his hands full next season, there is no doubt about that.

Echo Entertainment boss frustrated by delays in approving Genting investment

The CEO of Australian casino operator Echo Entertainment wants to know what’s the freaking holdup in regulators approving Genting Hong Kong’s bid to boost its Echo stake.

It’s been nearly two years since Genting Bhd boss Lim Kok Thay confirmed that his firm’s Hong Kong offshoot had applied for the right to boost its Echo stake from its current 6.6% to as much as 25%. By comparison, when Echo rival Crown Resorts applied for a similar right back in 2012, its request was approved in less than 15 months, only to see Crown dump its entire Echo holdings shortly thereafter.

Last week, an Independent Liquor and Gaming Authority (ILGA) spokesman told Australian media that the delay was down to Genting “making significant new investments in jurisdictions where the Authority has had little prior contact and the regulatory regimen is relatively weak.” The spokesman said these investments had required “new lines of investigation” but promised that the ILGA was working as hard as it could to wrap things up.

This ‘hurry up and wait’ approach isn’t sitting well with Echo CEO Matt Bekier (not pictured), who said he’d “lost all credibility with trying to predict when a decision is coming.” That said, Bekier said he continued to watch the deliberations unfold “with great interest.”

Tom Holke Wins Eureka5 Hamburg Main Event

Tom Holke has won the Eureka5 Hamburg Main Event after defeating his compatriot Alexander Lemme in heads-up action at the Spielbank Schenefeld Casino in Hamburg.

Tom Holke is the newest Eureka Poker Tour champion.

[Image Credit: PokerNews]

The 44-year old from Berlin defeated his fellow countryman Alexander Lemme in a short but sweet heads-up encounter that lasted a mere 12-hands, to round off a great start to Eureka life on German soil.