Месяц: Ноябрь 2015

For the fourth consecutive year, Arizona Charlie’s Casinos will spread holiday cheer to Las Vegas families with the return of its highly successful “Feed a Family” program (Pictured: Arizona Charlie’s team assembling the boxes of food for donation last year).
Now through Dec. 15, ace | PLAY card members have the opportunity to contribute their points toward providing families in need with delicious meals during the season of giving.
“The success of our ‘Feed a Family’ program is due to the incredible kindness of our ace | PLAY card members and the willingness of Arizona Charlie’s employees to spend time giving back to our community,” said Alex Rangel, Arizona Charlie’s Casinos Director of Marketing. “We are grateful to have the opportunity to help provide those in need with the delicious holiday meal they deserve.”

For every 12,000 ace | PLAY points contributed, Arizona Charlie’s will provide boxes filled with holiday meal classics to the Southern Nevada Regional Housing Authority. The boxes contain enough to feed families of four and include items such as a 12-pound turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, pie and more. Each individual box is packed by Arizona Charlie’s employees that donate their time in November and December to assemble the packages. The meals are distributed for both the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays.
Last year, almost 1.1 million points were contributed by ace | PLAY members towards the program. Employees also did their part to help make up the difference and contributed so that the “Feed a Family” program was able to provide holiday meals for 100 families throughout the community. This program continues to be successful because of the generosity of our guests and Arizona Charlie’s employees.

Canada is often on the forefront of many things, but we have to remember that they can also be on the tail end of things! Check out their love for hockey, which is sweeping the rest of North America as well right now and Europe and Asia too. They’re an awesome country with a lot going for them.
We say this because only now is Canada getting on board with online slots games, and online slots games have been super popular among Americans, British, French and Spanish people for many years now. Other from other countries have also been very interested in online slots games around the world.
Internet Gaming Gains Canadian Ground

So why are internet games gaining such ground in Canada? For one thing, Canadians are looking for new ways to make money. It’s certainly not always easy when the economy is rather struggling.
A lot of Canadian citizens feel that when they get started they are overwhelmed, but only after a few times playing or a few days or weeks, they truly get the hang of it. If you choose the right sites to get started on, you will really notice that you can make a lot of money right off the bat.
With that money, there are endless amounts of things that you can do as a Canadian as well. Canadians love to travel, for example, so they often end up spending a lot of the money that they save on traveling to places that are warmer than their chilly country. For example, a lot of people from Canada end up heading down to Florida in the United States or the Bahamas or Barbados where it’s warmer. In Europe, they go to Italy or Spain.
These trips cost money, however, and Canadians are surely looking for ways that they can earn extra money in their spare time. This is where the slots games come in very handy for them. Canadians are loving these online games!
Are You a Canadian Who Is Interested?
If you are a Canadian who is interested in online slots games of any kind, you might be interested in actually getting started today. If so, you can play free Canadian slots games right now and you can find lots more info here. There is a ton to learn as you get started, but rest assured that it’s quite simple.
As you start out with online gaming, there are a few things to keep in mind. First of all, look for sites where you can play for free. In addition, try to remember that you should start slow with your bets. You don’t want to get ahead of yourself as you are just learning.
Next, look for bonuses and promotions where you play. There are a number of key sites that will cater to Canadians specifically, and they will help new players out. In other words, if you have just signed up with a site, all you need to do is open an account with an initial deposit and you can actually make back up to double the amount you deposited.
These promos and bonuses are called new player bonuses, and they can make you a ton of money to get you started. After all, you’re in this to make some extra cash!
Canada is a wonderful country full of wonderful people, and they are definitely 1st world. They have all the same types of businesses and commerce as the rest of the 1st world, but it is only now that they are seeing the light where online gambling and gaming is concerned. There’s a lot of fun to be had here by way of slots games and table games both. You should definitely check these games out if you are a resident of the country of Canada and are looking for ways to make some extra money. It can do you a lot of good and you will be joining the United States and other countries in this fun online gaming world!

Gambling fans will be pleased to hear about the launch of a brand new online casino, Online-casino-poker.biz, which as the name suggests specialises in online slots.

The casino carries games from a huge number of developers including 1x2gaming, iGaming2Go, Microgaming, NextGen Gaming and more. Of course there are a huge number of slots, both video and classic, with many linked to huge progressive jackpots. In addition members can play a good selection of casino games, video poker games and scratch cards.

New members can enjoy a 100% welcome bonus of up to £200 together with ten free spins on Foxin Wins slot. There are then a number of daily promotions to take advantage of including cashback, deposit bonuses and more. The casino is available in English and is licensed in Malta and the United Kingdom.

SAN DIEGO - Everyone who supports legalizing Internet poker says the biggest reason behind the push is so it's safe for Californians to play.

As poker superstar Daniel Negreanu points out, "The current environment we have is unregulated poker. It's just not something that is going to go away."

California poker professional Maria Ho believes a lot of card players would feel better seeing online poker legalized and regulated.

"People were against online poker from the side of 'Can I trust the sites I play on?' But once they're regulated, I think that would put a lot of people's minds at ease," she said.

Josh Rubinstein, chief operating officer of the Del Mar Thoroughfare Club, expressed a lot of the concerns poker players might have.

"If people feel they are being cheated online, there's nowhere for them to go, right? There's no protection board," Rubinstein said.

That's why Steve Stallings, a council member of the Rincon tribe, says the state should take action now.

"Do we want to wait until the one big rip-off happens in poker being played illegally in California? Or do we want to get ahead of that?" Stalling said.

But there's another big question. Even if poker is legalized and regulated, will the games actually be safe?

"I can tell you: myself, I wouldn't play poker online," said Stephen Cobb, a top expert at San Diego-based ESET, one of the top security companies.

"Using a computer as an intermediary in a card game is really risky," he explained, pointing out that just this past September, ESET discovered a major Trojan horse targeted at people playing on the world's biggest poker site, PokerStars.com.

"We found malicious code," Cobb said, "which takes a shot of your hand from the game and shares it to somebody who's got that information who can bet against you knowing what you've got, which, as I understand poker, is not good."

So hackers found a way to see your cards while they're playing against you.

Cobb continued, "If you want to take a cynical look at it: if you're playing poker through an interface on a computer, how do you know what's on the other end? How are you assured of a fair game?"

Cobb said the risk involves each player's own computer security, as opposed to problems with the company's poker software. But, he said, there could be problems on that side, too, even with some of the features of online poker pro-regulation forces are promoting.

For example, poker sites say they can keep underage kids from gambling. That notion was brought up by industry expert Steve "Chops" Preiss.

"One of the great controls of regulated poker online," he explained, "is that there are systems in place to ensure that you do not see under-age gambling, or kids that are 15 years old getting their parent's credit card and depositing on the sites."

Cobb scoffed at that notion, laughing and saying, "That technology I would invest in."

Cobb said it's like anything else online: a talented hacker of any age will find a way in. The includes getting in through so-called "geo locks," the software that would guarantee that only Californians can play California sites, which is important since poker is still illegal to play online in 47 states.

Cobb isn't recommending against legalizing online poker, but he thinks it's important for all players to realize the danger.

"If people are going to participate in an activity, it's best to make it legal, best to make it regulated," he agreed.

But, he continued, "That won't in itself, though, eliminate the risk."

India has a massive underground sports betting industry which focuses mostly on the game of cricket, which many term as the biggest religion in India. Online gambling is permitted in a few states and the most popular game is currently rummy. Online poker is slowly gaining popularity and India’s biggest online poker website Adda52.com is looking to aggressively promote poker and build a large database of players in the sub-continent.

Adda52.com recently launched the biggest online poker tournament in India and had over 800 players register for the tournament. One of the prizes that Adda52.com decided to offer was a chance to meet some of Bollywood’s A list celebrities who have a massive fan following all over India. The website decided to fly the top 5 poker players to Mumbai and meet with the stars of Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Bajirao Mastani, a movie that is expected to be the best film in 2015.

The film stars some of Bollywood’s biggest celebrities featuring Ranveer Singh, Priyanka Chopra and Deepika Padukone and is expected to be released on the 18th of December. Priyanka and Deepika are considered to be two of the most beautiful women in India and Ranveer is amongst the top 5 male actors in Bollywood. This is not the first time that Adda52.com has collaborated with Bollywood to promote online poker.

The website initially ran a similar promotion in 2014 when it made deals with two Bollywood movies in Action Jackson and Mary Kom. The website flew the top 5 online poker players in 2014 to meet with the stars of these two movies and the promotion was well received amongst Adda52.com’s poker players and hence the company decided to run a similar promotion in 2015.

In a statement, Anuj Gupta, Founder & CEO of Adda52.com said “After the overwhelming response we received from our poker patrons for Mary Kom and Action Jackson, we knew that we needed another association with a Bollywood movie. We were looking for the right fit and with Ranveer Singh and Bajirao Mastani, we knew we found it”.

The race for the top 5 online poker players in 2015 will concluded on the 13th of December and the players who made the top 5 and qualified for this Bollywood promotion will be announced. Adda52.com currently offers three different poker variants in Pot Limit Omaha, No Limit Texas Hold’em and Omaha Hi/Lo at various levels.

IN 2003, an accountant with little poker expertise and the auspicious name of Chris Moneymaker won the main event at the World Series of Poker, in Las Vegas, taking home two and a half million dollars in prize money. His path to victory was televised on ESPN, which had revamped its coverage of the competition that year to create a sleek and accessible package that resembled the network’s major-league sports broadcasts. Hordes of amateur players witnessed one of their own vanquishing a field that included many of the world’s top professionals, and when the final hand was complete, many suddenly wondered whether, with a bit of luck, they, too, could do the same.

The poker boom that followed Moneymaker’s victory played out in cardrooms across the country, but mostly it took place online. Lured by simple cash-transfer mechanisms and convenient access to games, millions of players flooded onto sites like PartyPoker, Full Tilt Poker, and UltimateBet. According to estimates Nate Silver compiled on the Times’s Web site, the number of Internet-poker accounts doubled every year from 2003 to 2006, turning several sites into billion-dollar enterprises and inflating winnings. But then, on April 15, 2011, the Justice Department unsealed an indictment that accused the three largest Internet-poker companies serving American customers of violating the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act. The government alleged that PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, and Absolute Poker, all of which were based outside of the U.S., had conspired to commit bank fraud and wire fraud in order to evade restrictions on the processing of deposits originating Stateside. The indictment led the three companies to abandon the U.S. market, effectively ending Americans’ ability to play online poker easily and relatively securely.

Practically overnight, the poker economy began to unravel. Other popular sites, wary of legal action, stopped offering real-money games for U.S. players. (A few such sites remain, but with greatly reduced player bases and scant regulatory oversight.) Networks cut back on televised poker competitions, which had relied heavily on Internet-poker companies for advertising. Player pools and profits dwindled. According to data compiled by PokerScout, which tracks online-poker traffic, the global market has fallen off by more than half since the day of the indictment, which the gambling community dubbed “Black Friday.” The industry was left limping along uncertainly, searching for ways to reignite interest in a game that now exists on the cultural and legal fringes of society.

Recently, however, poker has found an unlikely glimmer of hope: the live-video-streaming service Twitch. When Amazon acquired the company, last year, for nearly a billion dollars, the site was regarded as a platform used almost exclusively for people to watch other people play video games. But in the past few months, a share of Twitch’s massive audience—a hundred million users visit the site every month—has been gravitating rapidly toward online-poker broadcasts.

The catalyst for this movement is Jason Somerville, a twenty-eight-year-old professional player from Long Island. Last October, under the moniker jcarverpoker, he began broadcasting his real-money Internet-poker sessions on Twitch, shooting them, in order to avoid legal restrictions, from an outpost in Toronto. So far, his channel has attracted close to nine million views and almost a hundred and forty thousand followers. On September 7th, nearly forty thousand concurrent users watched him compete for a prize pool of 1.2 million dollars during the World Championship of Online Poker, making him for a time the most viewed streamer across the entire platform.

Like many of today’s poker professionals, Somerville became seriously interested in the game during the post-Moneymaker boom, when he stumbled across a televised tournament. “I was instantly transfixed by the possibility of playing a game for money,” he told me. “I had never really considered the prospect of out-deciding people for cash.” He soon immersed himself in strategy and online play, eventually deciding to leave school and pursue his passion full time. He now plays in many of the biggest tournaments and cash games in the world, both live and online. In 2011, he placed first in a thousand-dollar buy-in event at the World Series of Poker, winning nearly half a million dollars. To date, he has amassed earnings of more than six million dollars in tournament play.

Somerville began making poker videos as a way of giving back to his peers, posting the clips in an online forum for a small audience of enthusiasts. In 2013, he launched “Run It UP!,” a YouTube series depicting his attempts to parlay fifty dollars into ten thousand. Playful and instructive, the videos soon developed an avid fan base. The following year—as part of an effort, perhaps, to diversify its content in advance of the entry by YouTube and other tech giants to the video-game-streaming market—Twitch asked him to become its flagship poker streamer.

The appeal of sitting down in front of a computer to watch someone else sit in front of a computer and play cards is not immediately obvious. Somerville himself describes most poker videos as “sedative alternatives.” On his stream, a portion of the screen shows what he’s seeing on his computer, while another, smaller portion shows him looking at his monitor and giving commentary. TV networks generally create dramatic poker-game narratives in post-production—mostly by editing out all but the most exciting action. With live streams, the burden rests almost entirely on the player’s abilities and personality.

“As someone who watched a ton of poker videos, particularly poker-training videos, I was always shocked at how bad they were from a performance point of view,” Somerville said. On Twitch, he plays the consummate host-cum-tour-guide: inclusive, knowledgeable, and relentlessly entertaining. The key element of his broadcasts, which regularly run longer than seven hours, are his inexhaustible monologues, during which he cheerfully expounds on everything from basic poker strategy to his social life to the opaque world of professional gambling. He also responds candidly to questions that viewers submit via Twitch’s chat box. This interactivity, Somerville said, “allows you to get more inside my head. From both a learning point of view and an entertainment point of view, that’s so much better.”

If the market is to return to any semblance of its pre-2011 levels, the change is likely to occur slowly. More than half of Somerville’s audience is in the U.S., but it still represents only a tiny fraction of Twitch traffic. A number of big industry players are intrigued, though. Since his stream’s debut, Somerville has signed partnership deals with PokerStars, the world’s largest online cardroom, and DraftKings, the hugely popular (and controversial) daily fantasy-sports site. Meanwhile, Poker Central, a new streaming service dedicated exclusively to poker coverage, which also has a cable-television network in the works, has started to host original content on Twitch. Some see a future in which the platform replicates, albeit to a lesser degree, what traditional media did for poker a decade ago. “The first poker boom came, in part, from television teaching the game to people,” Eric Hollreiser, the head of corporate communications for PokerStars, told me. “Twitch represents the next-generation opportunity to have that channel of communication with consumers.”

Much will depend, too, on the tortuous journey of Internet-poker legislation. Currently, only players in Nevada, Delaware, and New Jersey have access to state-licensed, real-money Internet-poker sites. But I. Nelson Rose, a professor at Whittier Law School and an expert on gambling laws, told me that it’s only a matter of time before other states, particularly those facing troublesome deficits, begin to embrace online poker as a source of tax revenue. “There is now so much legal gambling in this country that legalizing one more form, like Internet poker, is no big deal politically,” Rose said. If legal online poker were to arrive broadly in the U.S., Twitch’s poker brand could expand rapidly, attracting a slew of advertisers eager to reach a new generation of potential players.

And if that came pass, Twitch stands to help Somerville play the same popularizing role that Moneymaker did, but with the added degree of relatability that the platform promotes. As Chris Grove, a gaming-industry analyst, told me, streamers on Twitch “occupy a weird space between friend and celebrity.” When Somerville broadcasts his triumphs at the poker table, he is, to many, simultaneously a peer and an icon. “People who watch that want to go out and try to do that, too,” Grove said. “And the fact that they can be so close to the person that they’re emulating only makes them want to do it even more.”

Of course, they can only get so close. “Most people aren’t going to know what it’s like to lose a hundred thousand dollars in a day,” Somerville told me. “I’ve been there, done that a bunch of times.”