Poker News

New York Online Poker Bill Advances

A bill to legalize and regulate real-money online poker in the Empire State advanced out of the Senate’s Racing, Gaming and Wagering Committee Tuesday. A spokesperson for Sen. John Bonacic, sponsor of the legislation, told Card Player that there wasn’t any discussion on the proposal Tuesday. The legislation had a robust hearing in September. Thanks […]

Macau Gaming Win Falls 21.4 Percent In January

Macau casinos won $2.33 billion from gamblers during the first month of 2016, according to Macau’s Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau. That was a drop of 21.4 percent compared to the same month a year ago. It marked the 20th straight month that gaming win has fallen in the former Portuguese colony. The city’s gaming […]

Crazy Gambling Stories From January

The gambling world can sometimes produce really off-the-wall stories. Every month there are plenty of cases of individuals going to extreme lengths to pay back debts, or of simply bizarre behavior at casino properties around the globe. It can be entertaining and sometimes sad. January was no exception, as there was plenty that happened in […]

MGM To Charge Las Vegas Gamblers For Parking

One of Nevada’s largest casino operators will begin charging for parking this year. MGM Resorts International announced last month that its Las Vegas properties will soon no longer offer free parking for guests, even if they are gambling. The casino giant owns the likes of Bellagio, Mirage, Circus Circus, Mandalay Bay, Luxor, Excalibur, MGM Grand […]

Steve O'Dwyer Wins 2016 Aussie Millions $250k

Steve O’Dwyer cannot be stopped. In 2015 he made 10 final tables and won 4 titles, cashing for more than $4.5 million. In just the first month of 2016 he made four more final tables, capturing two titles and cashing for $2,820,030 along the way. The most recent of those title runs came in the […]

PokerStars' Parent Could Receive Offer From CEO

The CEO of the parent company of the world’s largest poker site intends to make an all-cash offer worth roughly $2.8 billion for the entire company, according to a company press release Monday. Amaya Gaming Group, a publicly traded Canadian gaming giant, would be taken private if a group of investors, led by CEO David […]

Nevada Poker Rooms Take In $118M In 2015

Poker rooms in Nevada raked $118,023,000 in 2015, according to figures released Friday by Silver State gaming regulators. The figure was a 1.57-percent decline compared to 2014’s $119,904,000. Poker revenue was $123,891,000 in 2013. That includes revenue from online poker, which Nevada began in 2013. The all-time high for Nevada poker was the $167,975,000 seen […]

Adelson Proposes $1B NFL Stadium In Las Vegas

You might dislike him for his anti-online poker position, but the man could help bring the National Football League to Las Vegas. Billionaire casino owner Sheldon Adelson has proposed a $1 billion stadium in Las Vegas for a NFL team and has met with the Oakland Raiders, among other teams, to discuss it, according to […]

Ari Engel Wins 2016 Aussie Millions Main Event

The 2016 Aussie Millions $10,600 AUD no-limit hold’em main event drew a healthy field of 732 entries, the fourth largest turnout in the event’s storied history. In the end it came down to an exciting final table that featured three Australians, two top female players and two of the game’s young stars who got their […]

Poker Like I'm Five: Delayed Continuation Bet

When you’ve played poker for years, it’s easy to forget that technical poker speak may as well be a different language. Many players just picked up a deck of cards for the first time and are wondering what the hell a reverse implied range merge against a large stack to pot ratio is. Maybe you […]

Quoss Wins 2016 Aussie Millions $100k Challenge

Fabian Quoss has won the 2016 Aussie Millions $100,000 Challenge, topping a field of 41-entries to win $1,446,480 AUD ($1,024,802 USD). The German poker pro entered the stacked final in the middle of the pack, but was able to survive to four handed play and then knock Connor Drinan out in a flush-over-flush confrontation. Quoss’ […]

Nevada Gaming Win Up 1 Percent In 2015

Casinos in Nevada won $11.1 billion from gamblers in 2015, an increase of 0.9 percent compared to the previous year, according to figures released Friday by gaming regulators. Gaming win on the Las Vegas Strip accounted for $6.35 billion of that figure, down 0.4 percent compared to 2014. The data showing that gaming win was […]

Online Poker: Alex Millar Loses $437,000

British poker pro Alex “Kanu7” Millar lost roughly $430,000 over the past seven days on PokerStars, according to tracking data from HighstakesDB. It was the second week of the year in which he lost a six-figure sum. He’s down more than $500,000 on 2016 so far, after logging nearly 11,700 hands through Friday. Millar is […]

New York Online Poker Bill To Have Hearing

On Tuesday, lawmakers in the Empire State will discuss a bill on the table that would legalize and regulate up to 10 online poker sites. The Senate’s Racing, Gaming and Wagering Committee will discus the legislation that was proposed by State Sen. John Bonacic. A separate proposal was introduced into the State Assembly last week. […]

Poker Hand of the Week: What's Your Play?

Give us your opinion in the comments section below for your chance at winning a six-month Card Player magazine digital subscription. Ask any group of poker players how you played your hand and they’ll come up with dozens of different opinions. That’s just the nature of the game. Each week, Card Player will select a […]

Ray Bitar Marries, Appears Healthy In Photos

Ray Bitar, the former Full Tilt Poker CEO who was able to avoid prison time thanks to heart issues, apparently married late last year, according to various media reports. Wedding pictures of Bitar and his wife were circulating the Internet Thursday. Bitar pleaded guilty in April 2013 to violation of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement […]

Google's AlphaGo AI Beats Go Champion 5-0

Games have been one of the key testing grounds for the development of Artificial Intelligence. The complex but controlled systems are excellent platforms with which to test the limits of an AI. To draw attention to the research the programs are often pitted against human players who are masters of certain games, with chess computer […]

AGA: Americans To Bet $4.2B On Super Bowl

The amount of Super Bowl betting activity nationwide will exceed a third of all gambling revenue seen by Nevada casino’s in 2015, according to the casino industry’s top lobbying group on Capitol Hill. The American Gaming Association said this week that an estimated $4.2 billion in bets on Super Bowl 50 between the Denver Broncos […]

Wynn, Boston Finally End Bitter Casino Fight

An ugly public battle between Wynn Resorts founder Steve Wynn and Boston Mayor Martin Walsh is over, as the city and the casino developer have inked a deal that will send up to $368 million to Boston over the next 15 years. Wynn had previously called Walsh “obviously irresponsible” and had filed a libel lawsuit […]

Q&A: WPT President And CEO Adam Pliska

Adam Pliska was introduced as the President and CEO of the World Poker Tour in 2009, and immediately oversaw a major revamp of the brand that had helped shape the poker boom of the early 2000’s. Due to industry wide changes, Pliska has been at the helm while the WPT evolved from a single tour […]

California Assembly Approves DFS Legislation

Online poker supporters have been trying for years to get a piece of legislation up for a full vote in the California Assembly. A daily fantasy sports bill that cleared the Assembly on Wednesday took less than six months to receive that kind of consideration. Assembly members voted 62-1 in favor of the legislation, proposed […]

NJ Finds Compromise On Atlantic City Takeover

Atlantic City likely won’t be going bankrupt under a new plan announced Tuesday by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. For the past couple of years, officials have been scrambling to help save a city that has witnessed casino win fall from $5.2 billion in 2006 to just $2.56 billion last year. Under the forthcoming legislation, […]

2016 POY Update: Steve O'Dwyer Into Second Place

January is always a very busy month in the Card Player Player of the year race. 2016 has begun much like the years before it, with several massive events quickly setting the stage for the year to come in the POY race. Here is a look at the tournaments that have most affected the overall […]

Macau Gambling-Related Crime Up 21 Percent

Gambling-related crimes in Macau, the only place in China where casinos are legal, are still on the rise. According to Macau Business Daily, Judiciary Police (PJ) Director Chau Wai Kuong said this week that crimes that took place in Macau casinos were up 21 percent in 2015, going from 3,023 cases in 2014 to 3,658 […]

Court: Casino Can Regulate Employee Weight

New Jersey’s highest court won’t hear the so-called “Borgata Babes” case, which involved a group of women challenging the casino’s policy of regulating their weight. By not taking up the case, the state’s Supreme Court affirmed an appeals court ruling in September that said such a policy was lawful. According to the Associated Press, the […]

Poker Dealer Gets Probation For Theft

A former poker dealer at Cleveland’s Horseshoe Casino received 18 months of probation after admitting to stealing $711 worth of chips and cash from the poker room in 2015, according to a report from Cleveland.com. He admitted to siphoning off money from the poker tables and counting it as tips. Randall White, the one-time card […]

WPT Adds $10k Event To Tournament of Champions

In November the World Poker Tour announced that for the first time ever the season-ending WPT Championship would be replaced with a Tournament of Champions, pitting all of the winners from this season, whose buy-in to the tournament was awarded as part of their prize for winning, against champions from previous seasons who would have […]

Embalmed Man Plays Last Poker Game With Friends

A 31-year-old Puerto Rican man with a love for poker who died unexpectedly earlier this month was actually able to sit at one last home game with friends. At the wake of Henry Rosario Martinez in Barceloneta, a town in the northern region of Puerto Rico, friends of the deceased wanted to honor his life […]

U.S. Casino Market To Reach $93B By 2020: Report

Casino gambling in the United States could be a $93 billion market by the year 2020, according to research from Technavio, a leading global technology research and advisory company. Revenues from gaming in casinos are expected to see a “moderate growth rate” over the next four years, the research said. The estimate includes regulated online […]

Poker Strategy With Ed Miller: Slowing Down

Last issue I wrote about how it’s better to look at cash game no-limit hold’em as a war of information rather than to try to follow a complicated set of rules. In this article, I’ll go through one example of how adopting an information paradigm can improve your advantage in small stakes cash games. Let’s […]