European Poker Tour Busy
The cancellation of the Deauville leg of the
European Poker Tour (
EPT) and introduction of new legs in Dortmund, Germany and Warsaw, Poland has resulted in a hectic schedule during March.
The
EPT schedule now reads:
Dortmund - March 8-11 - €5,000 buy-in
Warsaw - March 14-17 - €4,000 buy-in (approximately)
Monte Carlo - March 28-April 1 - €10,000 buy-in
Broadway Charity Effort
Birmingham's Broadway Casino and its staff raised more than £7,500 for four worthy causes recently. Amongst the fundraising effort was £3,000 accumulated in £25 registration fees taken from its December tournament. It went to Heartlands Hospital's neonatal unit for premature babies.
Gambling is Good - It's Official
A senior figure in mathematics has suggested that activities associated with gambling should be introduced into schools to make the teaching of the subject more relevant and improve pupils' numerical skills.
Professor Alastair Gillespie, chairman of the Scottish Mathematical Council, believes that tasks such as tossing coins, rolling dice, and cutting cards would capture the attention of pupils and help them learn the basics of maths.
He stated, "There are classic problems with probability that would be more easily understood if some gambling activities were deployed. Probability is to do with calculating the likelihood of something happening."
Gillespie's suggestions have prompted criticism that following this route could worsen gambling problems amongst young adults. Critics are concerned that adopting this strategy could be interpreted as maths being associated with, and legitimising, gambling in the minds of impressionable young people.
He argues that young people would be less likely to gamble, whether on a lottery or fruit machine, if they better understood the odds stacked against them.
"Young people are the engines of tomorrow's economy and the providers of future public services. They must be equipped with the skills necessary for the modern world. Maths is about problem-solving, and almost each facet of modern life demands a basic understanding of the subject."
Nuts About Poker
An entrepreneur who set up a poker league to boost the pub trade on quiet nights says interest in the competition has gone through the roof since he won a TV business reality series.
Steve Bellis was awarded £65,000 by the business experts on
BBC2's Dragons' Den for a 20-percent stake in his Nuts Poker League, a card player's alternative to pub quiz and darts nights.
Bellis said that before he appeared on the programme, the league had about 50 pubs, but this has doubled since he won the show last summer. It has hosted 4,600 individual players.
However, it has not all been smooth sailing for the Wrexham-based Nuts Poker League, with four Shropshire pubs dropping out of the league after West Mercia licence officers told Shropshire pub landlords they needed a permit to play poker-league games.
Bellis has hit out at the move to "ban" his game from pubs - Nuts Poker League members play only for points to qualify for regional finals with prizes, after all - and claimed it could force poker players underground, into crime.
"I have spoken to numerous licensing authorities, and they said they don't see any problem at all with what we do," he said. "There has never been any trouble at any of our venues."
However, West Mercia Police's licensing officer Tony Mantle has confirmed that he has written to Shropshire pubs, telling them they needed a Section 6 Permit under the Gaming Act 1968, adding that if the pubs did not obtain a licence, they were acting illegally.
Card Counter
Recently, "Queen of Memory" Miki Lee Yuk-kuen showed how to memorise a sequence of 383 pictured cards in an attempt to set a new world record.
If accepted by Guinness record-keepers, Lee's stunt will eclipse the existing record of 225 items held by an Indian boy.
"I am trying to show that memory is knowledge, and knowledge can change your fate," said the 31-year-old chairwoman of the Hong Kong Memory Study Association.
Lee explained that her memory was literally photographic; she exploits the right hemisphere of her brain, which is responsible for storing pictures, relating various objects to her familiar mental images. It's simple, really!
Pammie's Busted Out of the Poker Business
Baywatch babe Pamela Anderson, who recently filed for divorce from hubby Kid Rock, has shut down her Internet poker business, Pamelapoker.com.
She told her official website: "I made a mistake, getting involved in something I know nothing about for a quick buck."
It has been reported that Pammie's marriage to Kid Rock was so short-lived that they are now arguing over who will get custody of the wedding cake!
Party Time for Party Folk
PartyGaming bosses celebrated a £38 million late Christmas present after the online poker giant drew up new bumper incentive packages designed to persuade them to stay with the beleaguered firm.
The controversial "golden handcuffs" deal reportedly infuriated some larger investors in the company which has seen £4 billion wiped from the firm's value in less than six months as a result of the U.S. Unlawful Internet Gaming Enforcement Act.
PartyGaming claimed the incentives were put in place at the behest of the firm's main City backers, who want to hold on to the expertise of boss Mitch Garber and finance director Martin Weigold. Because of the catastrophic drop in the stock price, Garber and his team have seen much of the value wiped from their original share-option packages.
Garber is in line to receive free shares and bonuses worth in excess of £15 million if he simply stays with PartyGaming until May 2009. There is no other performance criteria.
This is on top of the £3.1 million he got upon joining PartyGaming, a £510,000 annual salary and 7 million shares he has already been given. Weigold has been awarded 17.78 million share options, worth more than £5 million. Another 50 million free shares - worth more than £15 million - have been granted to "key employees."
Meanwhile, PartyPoker has shed 945 staff members since the U.S. UIGE Act, and Brian Larcombe has quit as PartyGaming's senior independent director, little more than 12 months into the job.
Separately, PartyGaming has purchased the online gaming assets of rival Empire, and additional purchases are thought likely.
Consolidation Continues
Software provider CryptoLogic Inc., through its wholly owned WagerLogic subsidiary, has signed an agreement to purchase the poker brand and related assets of Parbet.com, a popular Scandinavian online poker room.
CryptoLogic companies will license the Parbet assets, poker software, payment processing services, and multilingual customer support and services to a private Maltese online gaming company that will operate Parbet.com.
The purchase agreement includes all rights to the Parbet brand name and associated domain names, plus customer lists, databases, and players' cash on deposit.
Under the agreement, WagerLogic will pay €9 million for the brand and assets, and, potentially, additional amounts up to a maximum amount of €4 million, dependent on improved performance of the assets over a six-month earn-out period.
Other poker sites on the CryptoLogic network include the recently launched DTDPoker.com, williamhillpoker.com, interpoker.com, sunpoker.com, pokerplex.com, classicpoker.com, ukbettingpoker.co.uk, and littlewoodspoker.com.
Bid Inquiry
The Office of Fair Trading has launched a competition inquiry into BSkyB's offer for 365 Media Group (ex-UKbetting).
Hill Looks Toward Italy
William Hill has been cleared by the European Commission to take up its joint venture with Spanish-based gambling group Codere in relation to the Italian sector.
The UK bookmaking company has been busy in recent months, having also launched a Spanish-speaking site and signed a three-year
extension to its agreement with software provider CryptoLogic.
Poker Top Term
The Lycos 50's annual list of the top 50 search terms saw "poker" generate more interest than any other subject in 2006.
Making its first appearance in 2004 when listed 10th, poker was the fourth most popular search with Lycos in 2005. Last year, search activity for "poker" jumped an additional 434 percent, trumping both Pamela Anderson and Paris Hilton, to claim the top spot in 2006.
The Lycos 50 Top 10 Search Terms for 2006 were:
CryptoLogic Inks Deal
CryptoLogic Inc., a leading software developer to the global Internet gaming industry, has announced an exclusive three-year contract to be the software provider for www.DTDPoker.com, the online home of the new UK-based poker club, DUSK TILL DAWN. CryptoLogic's poker software launched the new site recently.
DUSK TILL DAWN has generated considerable buzz, and once its doors open in Nottingham in April 2007, it will be the largest live poker venue in Europe. The company has also applied to be the first fully licensed dedicated poker facility in the UK.
Licensed through well-known subsidiary WagerLogic Limited, the CryptoLogic-developed software will give DTDPoker.com players access to the world's largest shared poker network that excludes the U.S. This means that players will always find the game they want, in the currency they want, at the stakes and level they want - anytime.
Professional Poker Tour Suspended
Word Poker Tour Enterprises has announced that its freeroll
Professional Poker Tourhas been put on ice.
A short statement from the
WPToffices read: "Our efforts to secure a broadcast partner for the
PPTcontinue. However, no agreement has been reached to date. So, to our regret, we must suspend the
PPTtournament schedule at this time."
