It’s been an exciting week in the Nevada online market for sure, but the really big news this week has been coming out of the state’s brick & mortar gaming industry.
Obviously the biggest news has been the continued story lines developing at the 2014 World Series of Poker, where one of the game’s legends just picked up his 10th career bracelet, and will be going for #11 in the $1,000,000 buy-in Big One for One Drop tournament that began on Sunday.
We’ll fill you in on both of these stories and do our best to get you caught up on all the latest action from the WSOP below.
But the WSOP isn’t the only big story in this week’s Nevada Online poker Review, as we’ll fill you in on the latest potential legal troubles to besiege Sheldon Adelson (as he’s being investigated by another one of those pesky three-letter government agencies), who was inducted into the Women in Poker Hall of Fame, what Nevada online poker players can expect to find at Ultimate Poker after their latest software overhaul, and a whole lot more.
Adelson getting unwanted attention from IRS
Sheldon Adelson is no stranger to battling with the US government. The casino mogul and multi-billionaire has been on the wrong end of a $47 million settlement stemming from a money laundering investigation; has had to deal with bribery accusations in Macau; and now it appears the IRS is heading over to Macau to do some more snooping and look into more potential incidents of money laundering between Adelson’s foreign and domestic casinos.
All of this comes amid the backdrop of Adelson’s crusade against online gambling, where not unsurprisingly the Adelson faction has stopped using money laundering as one of their talking points. Money laundering (and the potential to fund 9/11 attacks) was initially the bread & butter argument used by Adelson’s Coalition to Stop Internet Gambling, but these have now been replaced with underage gambling claims.
One Drop the redux
Grab your seats and get ready for the biggest spectacle in poker as the biannual $1,000,000 buy-in Big One for One Drop tournament is about to begin.
This time around the tournament will be capped at 56 seats (in 2012 the inaugural event was capped at 48 players), and the entry list is a veritable who’s who in the poker world, along with some very successful businessmen who have an affinity for the game and are ok with putting up $1 million of their own money.
One player who bought into the tournament is 2012 champ Greg Merson, who posted some pics of his buy-in and the receipt for a $1,000,000 entry fee that appeared in the Washington Post. Jean Robert Bellande also famously took a selfie with his buy-in as well:
Here is a full list of this year’s entrants at the break on Sunday evening:
- Sam Trickett
- Tom Hall
- Vanessa Selbst
- Brian Rast
- Scott Seiver
- Dan Smith
- Guy Laliberté
- Phil Ivey
- Noah Schwartz
- Phil Galfond
- Rono Lo
- Erik Seidel
- Daniel Negreanu
- Niklas Heinecker
- Brandon Steven
- Bill Klein
- Paul Newey
- John Juanda
- Tobias Reinkemeier
- Tony Gregg
- Cary Katz
- Gabe Kaplan
- Christoph Volgelsang
- Daniel Colman
- John Morgan
- Connor Drinan
- Daniel Cates
- Rick Salomon
- Igor Kurganov
- Jason Mercier
- Greg Merson
- Doug Polk
- Isaac Haxton
- Antonio Esfandiari
- Jean-Robert Bellande
- Erick Lindgren
- Max Altergott
- Stanley Choi
- David Sands
- Talal Shakerchi
- David Einhorn
#WSOP2014 Updates
Ivey wins #10
On Friday night Phil Ivey won his 10th World Series of Poker bracelet, becoming just the fourth player to hit double digits in WSOP bracelets – Johnny Chan, Doyle Brunson, and Phil Hellmuth are the others. In the process, he also won a substantial prop bet for himself and Daniel Negreanu, as the two had been betting big with anyone and everyone that one of them would win a bracelet this year.
Chad Brown gets a special honor
Poker pro Chad Brown is currently in hospice care fighting cancer, and despite Chad’s valiant fight the outlook is not good.
Chad’s widely considered to be top-top in the poker world and the World Series of Poker did the absolute right thing by awarding him with his first and final WSOP bracelet on Saturday. A fitting tribute to a great player that you can see in the video below.
Today we honored @DowntownChad Brown w/ an honorary bracelet. A class act who embodies everything good about the game pic.twitter.com/fadlZFqmF6
— WSOP (@WSOP) June 28, 2014
WiPHoF adds two more
The Women in Poker Hall of Fame added two more names to their list of honorees, as Allyn Jaffrey-Shulman and Deborah Giardina were inducted this past week in a ceremony at the Golden Nugget.
Here is a look at the ladies that have been honored since the WiPHoF was founded in 2008.
- The Class of 2008 – Marsha Waggoner, Susie Isaacs, Linda Johnson, and Barbara Enright
- The Class of 2009 – Cyndi Violette, Jan Fisher, and June Field
- The Class of 2010 – Kathy Liebert, Jen Harman, and Billie Brown
- The Class of 2011 – Kristy Gazes, Margie Heintz, and Phyllis Caro
- The Class of 2012 – JJ Liu and Kathy Raymond
- The Class of 2013 – No one inducted
- The Class of 2014 – Deborah Giardina and Allyn Jaffrey-Shulman
Traffic trends in Nevada
After watching cash game traffic tick up as high as 150 players at WSOP.com the Nevada market has reverse course over the past week, with WSOP.com dipping back down to about 130-140 average cash game players according to www.pokerscout.com.
However, Ultimate Poker, with a slew of new promotions, has been on the rise, and is now back to within nearly 50% of WSOP.com’s traffic, with average cash game traffic of roughly 60 players.
At one point just a week ago WSOP.com was outpacing Ultimate Poker 150 to 50.
The word on the street
Ultimate Poker gets a much needed software upgrade
Welcome to the 21st century Nevada…
As part of a massive software upgrade Ultimate Poker players in Nevada can now have their geolocation verified in two different ways: The conventional cellphone triangulation, or as they are doing in New Jersey, the more precise wi-fi verification, which should help players who were experiencing disconnects due to poor cell connection or if their phone battery died.
Other new features in the Ultimate Poker Software include the addition of the following features:
- Hand history
- Player notes
- Time bank
- Tournament re-buy and add-on displays in the lobby
- Auto bonusing
- Waitlists
