Dan Cates Wins Alpha8 Johannesburg ($500,000)

New Jersey Gambling Data Points to Complementarity Rather than Cannibalization

The two biggest land-based casino operators in New Jersey - Ceasars and the Borgata - are also the most successful in the online gaming market and are in the best position to dispell the cannibalization fears spurred on by Sheldon Adelson's campaign against Internet gambling.

In its public messages, Sheldon Adelson’s Coalition to Stop Internet Gambling has been playing on some of the worst fears and concerns of Americans. The communications are executed in the best prohibition-era or totalitarian-propaganda style and the regulation of online gambling is compared to allowing heroin use or giving free rein to terrorism. Regulated online gambling would allegedly facilitate money-laundering and serve the interests of organized crime, all at at the expense of the young, the poor, and the elderly.

The messages of the Coalition to Stop Internet are reminiscent of the prohibition campaign

Albeit in a low-key manner, one argument that is always present - and which some suspect is central to Adelson’s own motivation - is that Internet gambling “destroys jobs” and would have a devastating effect on the 300,000 Americans working in the casino industry. Never mind that this is refuted by statistics and research in the European countries where online gambling has been regulated for many years.

"The online gaming sector is growing but its growth is not taking place at the detriment of the land based sector." http://www.egba.eu/pdf/EGBA_FS_MarketReality.pdf

Fortunately America now has its own data-generating test markets for regulated online gambling and poker in particular. New Jersey is very valuable in this respect with the - lucrative! - involvement of the major brick-and-mortar casinos - Ceasars and the Borgata. Because of the short time period, the body of evidence may as yet be too thin to convince the opponents of regulation but the data confirm the very different product and player profiles for online and land-based gambling.

Keith Smith, president and CEO of #BoydGaming (the company that operates the #Borgata and shares ownership with #MGM) recently commented on Borgata’s market-leading figures in New Jersey:

“These results also once again demonstrate online gaming’s potential to expand our business. Online gaming is growing our database, creating a long-term opportunity to market Borgata to an entirely new group of customers.”

Borgata COO Tom Ballance confirms Internet gambling is not a threat to land-based casinos. "When we match up databases, the great majority of players who were playing online have not been to Borgata in well over a year. And the vast majority have made fewer than two trips in the past year. So it's a different customer."

Splash Your Bitcoins

With the cryptocurrency being all over the media since a few months, it is no surprise to learn that it'd been endorsed by the tech savvy poker community a long time ago.

I must say I've been into Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies for a while now. I've used it for online games (Linden dollars, ever heard about that?), or for more urgent and meaningful reasons. It proved the eprfect tool while raising funds for NGOs in troubled countries and sending funds to some IT freelancers in developping areas while avoiding Western Union ruinous fees. I've bought Bitcoins at a 2$ rate, sold some at 120$, and the (very) few ones I've been able to keep since are cherished and well preserved. So would I use these for playing poker online? Well...

After Black Friday, there were few alternatives left for US players to join online cash games. Bitcoins (now known as BTC) then raised a few eyebrows - and little interest at first - in the poker community with innovative features allowing easy and fast deposits and cashouts, but were shortly fully adopted by a growing part of the community.

It is an urban legend that BTC are fully anonymous - it’s a bit more complicated not to be traceable on the web - but this modern tale proved to be very attractive for many poker players around the world in search (for whatever reasons) of privacy, and also allowed a few US players not to have to move to cope with the canadian Winter.

Since then, BTC value has been hurled through the roof by a goldrush-like craze during 2013, making it almost a gamble in itself to keep your bankroll in this currency - a thing poker players can take easily. And it proved to be a winning one for early entrants: an e-wallet with about 100BTC (about 1300$) early January could have offered a six digit sum if cashed out late November. Since then volatility and lawmakers (especially in China) have tamed down a bit the hopes of many investors, but the regular use of the currency hasn’t been slowing at all.

Satoschi Poker and Seals With Clubs are the two main operators of the moment with several hundred players live online. Expect downsides with software glitches and bugs being too often reported, plus poor customer support and clumsy cashout management. Mind, not a very different experience from the other small online cardrooms. Though no FBI raid and shutdown are to be expected anytime soon, things remain fragile.

Many BTC poker sites have come and go along the years, some of them being scams or having been hacked. At the time this article was written, Seals With Clubs website was down and its user database hacked a few weeks earlier, a classic on commercial website accepting bitcoins. Satochi seems to be the one standing best the test of time and hackers exploits, but for how long. Best advice is to stick to the most well-known operators and listen to the community.

As an online player, there are for now no known risks others than being scammed by playing with Bitcoins, as most countries still have no legal framework on the matter and no proper tax regulation as well. BTC commercial use is still an adventure, so to join in and help can be as much fun as winning a few bucks more at poker.

So: would I risk my beloved Bitcoins on offshore poker operators websites? Probably not. Would I choose to cashout my winnings on a regular online poker room were the option be offered? Definitely (though I would even prefer physical gold, but it's another story). That is the next big step for the BTC community in order to convert newcomers in the safest and most straightforward mode.

Resources: PokerNews Guide To Bitcoin, Pt1, Pt2, Pt3

Poker In Asia: The Art Of War (Redux)

Asia will never cease to amaze by its unrivaled craze for gambling. Thanks to superstition as much as the strong social pressure in many eastern societies, gambling is the way to make your mind work and have some fun while hoping for a life changing gain.

As an industry, asian gambling has now offered the continent its new richest man Lui Che-woo, Macau’s biggest tycoon with his company Galaxy Entertainment doubling its revenue in 2013. The wave of fresh cash hitting China’s new millionaires its growing middle-class has allowed many to fly to Macau and Singapore’s resorts to heavily spend their money. Asians tourists can be met as well in many high-end casinos around Europe and in the US, Chinese now leading the pack of avid gamblers on the floors from Las Vegas to Monte-Carlo.

Macau is beating revenue records every quarters for the last two years.

In the poker community, many of them are too often seen as some fresh fishes and many pros are making the trip to Far East in hope of lucrative tournaments with mind blowing sums and cash games with lunatics local businessmen. But don’t get fooled, there is a long tradition of poker in asian countries and pro players originating from Viet-Nam or Hong-Kong have already proven that they travel well to beat the top Western players. Their young guns - such as Hong Kong’s native @Winfred Yu - are used to tensed nosebleeds cash games and handle gigantic stakes with ease.

The main limitation to a real growth of the player field depth is related to the poor state of online poker on the whole continent. A Japanese remake of Chris Moneymaker's rise to stardom could inspire millions of asian teenagers, and the wind could furiously blow to the East. Singapore is now the main hub for online gambling in the zone - under threat of a new restrictive legal framework - but coming regulations in the Philippines, Viet-Nam or Malaysia on that matter are far from being defined. China’s internet being what it is, the biggest hope is to see Japan loosen a bit it’s regulations and at least allow its citizens to access foreign operators. So #Macau is clearly the place of choice with its coming regulations that will define the shape of asian online gambling for the years to come.

Still, the main threat to Asia booming game industry is not a shortage in Greyhound dogs but the global economy. The current surge of money and the colossal investments forecasted for new resorts from South Korea to Viet-Nam will quickly dry up if things slow down, and there is only a finite field of players and liquidity available. Hence, online gaming - and more specifically virtual card rooms - are the fittest to survive a potential meltdown of the economy while providing much welcomed tax revenues may things go wrong.

Deep stacked, the asian way. 

Not that online gambling and poker are far from being unknown on the continent but depositing and cashing out remains a tough task, even after you’ve managed to find a decent offshore operator. Counting countries among the most connected in the world (Japan, South Korea), with financial and game hubs such as Hong-Kong, Macau and Singapore plus (once again) growing economies of the size of the Philippines and the South East asian zone, the potential is mind boggling. But many investors may well loose more than there buyin.

Some reading: 40 Poker Tips From Sun Tzu’s Art of War

And the biggest losers are...

Ranking per nation of the biggest players per capita (and losers). Extensive article of The Economist about gambling $440 billion industry. http://goo.gl/LQfqSW

Is Timex Staredown Bad Etiquette?

Is a bovine glassy look your next best trick? It’s been one of the side topics during the past 2014 Aussie Millions: how rude is it to stare at your opponent.

The now famous “Timex Staredown” and its official ambassador @Mike McDonald have been a matter of debate recently, and quite a few players have been complaining of what they consider a lack of etiquette.

Staring is an old weapon in the aggressive player’s arsenal, and it is no secret that some can be heavily destabilized by such a (cheap?) trick. @Dan Smith has been publicly dismissing this practice, but a question remains: is he making his point about what level of etiquette he is expecting from direct opponents, or just showing a terrible weakness? If you can’t bear being stared at, one wonders how you’ll manage a chat box quacking at each of your move for hours, or worse: being watched by millions, may you access to the final table.

Will Dan Smith ask for the cameras to be turned off and the audience to turn its back to the table at the next tournament final? Probably not. But is he the only one feeling weird when being stared at? Believing the following video, sure not!

NJ Online Operators: Leaders, Followers and Pokerstars

Thanks to the online gambling bill signed by now troubled Governor Christie in 2013, only the 11 existing brick-and-mortar casinos were allowed to run online poker sites. It implies that the likes of @Borgata, Ceasars and Trump Plaza are fighting hard for what is still a newborn and limited market, but the current NJ experiment is way more than a local tycoons brawl.

Ceasar’s backed 888poker has been making the news recently with goofy PR stunts (offering some NFL Player $88,800 to change his name), plus offers (80% rakebacks until March) that would make you think again about moving in The Garden State. Will #888poker reignite the rakeback war that hurt so many operators in the golden years of online poker?

For now it is more of a desperate move by one of the weakest operators to attract players and raise awareness, but it certainly doesn't go unnoticed. Results are yet to be seen, with the growing field of players - over 150'000 by early January and growing -  acclaiming @PartyPoker.com and WSOP.com, with both sites dominating the local industry revenue as of January.  

Though Borgata/Partypoker’s lead has encountered technical difficulties that may have frustrated many players, it is a strong advantage for one of the oldest online poker brands before the real competition begins. PokerStars will have to iron some legal glitches involving owner Isai Scheinberg and some "unresolved Federal indictment" before entering the place, a recurring situation for the world’s biggest online operator and a major setback in this tight race.

But with a yearly forecast guessed to be anywhere between 40m and 80m in 2014 for online poker alone, PokerStars would be a strong boost to the New Jersey Tax Authority great hopes and would seriously rock the already heavy boat of current online poker operators.

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I've got one more person to introduce today, please give a warm welcome to @Nick RKH that will help us improve #RankingHero everyday!

Nick
Be it through freeskiing, skeleton or streetluging, @Nick RKH has learned to play high stakes (with his own health) from a very early age. He mainly spent the last decade managing sports or arty events and working for fine spirits companies and sport organizations in Switzerland and Central Europe. He's come to poker by helping friends setting up small tournaments around the Geneva Lake and supporting the growing live scene in the area at that time.