Cape man pursues glory in World Series of Poker starting Sunday

From The Press of Atlantic City

“I came in on the third day and wiped off a table and left it too wet,” Cannuli, now 23, said with a laugh. “My dad (also named Tom) got really mad at me, so I walked out and decided to dedicate myself to being a poker player. I started with $400 playing online, and by the end of that summer, I had turned it into $200,000. I haven’t worked another job in my life.” 

Now, the 2010 Lower Cape May Regional High School graduate is on the brink of poker stardom. He’s among nine players at the final table for the World Series of Poker’s No-Limit Hold’em Main Event at the Rio All Suites Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. 

The tournament, which began in July with more than 6,400 players, will determine its 2015 champion today through Tuesday. ESPN and ESPN2 will provide live TV coverage. 

The winner will earn more than $7.68 million and a coveted WSOP bracelet.

New lawsuit in Borgata poker scandal

From The Press of Atlantic City

ATLANTIC CITY – An alleged cheating scandal during the 2014 Winter Open poker tournament at the Borgata casino has led to a second lawsuit.

Six poker players have filed a lawsuit, alleging that the casino did not properly monitor and run the tournament and that the payout to remaining players after the tournament was halted was insufficient.

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The suit alleges that Lusardi was able to enter fake chips into play because the casino had moved some tables to an overflow room that was not properly monitored.

A state investigation found that Borgata properly monitored the tournament and was not at fault. 

Read the rest of the story here.

Big summer ahead for Bally's new WSOP-themed poker room

From Casino City Times:

Early on a Thursday afternoon in late April, the new World Series of Poker room at Bally's Atlantic City's Wild Wild West casino felt a bit empty. The 42-table room, which also features a large section for tournaments and an additional, closed-off "high limit" area, had six live cash games running. It was quiet.

To its credit, the WSOP room has remained fluid since it opened in late February.

"The traffic's been pretty steady," said Dan Morelli, who manages poker for Caesars Entertainment's Atlantic City properties. "We don't go dark at all, and our weekend tournaments are starting to gain some traction."

Check out the rest of the Casino City Times story here.

It would be nice to see the poker scene in Atlantic City come back to life, but a number of rooms have shut down over the last year, and the Pennsylvania market has taken a big chunk out of Atlantic City. Summers may be good because there are more people in AC, but it's hard to think that the casinos will ever bounce back.

Kevin Stammen wins WPT Championship

From the Borgata Blog:

Kevin Stammen took home his biggest payday ever winning the WPT Championship and $1.3 million. Stammen, of Coldwater, Ohio and no stranger to the Borgata Poker Room, runs his total tournament winnings to $3.6 million.

To see the full story and the final table, click here.

Borgata to host 2014 WPT Championship

From Tight Poker:

The World Poker Tour (WPT) 2014 Championship will be played at Atlantic City for the first time. For the past 12 years, the Las Vegas based Bellagio casino used to host it, but this year, it will be played in New Jersey’s Borgata Hotel Casino and Spa.

Tom Ballance, president of the Borgata, said: “With online gaming and the popularity of the Borgata brand, the center of gravity of poker is moving to New Jersey.” The WPT’s decision to shift venues does indicate that Atlantic City has become more popular after the Garden State legalized online gambling in Nov 2013. Most of the gambling companies that sponsor professional live poker events have partnered with land casinos in Atlantic City. Party Poker is the host of the WPT 2014 Championship event, and Bwin.party, which is a partner of Borgata’s online gambling site, owns the company. 

Read the rest of the story from Tight Poker here.

AP: Borgata to use new hi-tech chips

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) — A cheating scandal at an Atlantic City casino poker tournament has led to new security measures being put in place, including high-tech chips.

The Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa tells The Associated Press it is using new chips for its Spring Open poker tournament.

They are more intricate, have more colors, and include an authentication element that can be checked using ultraviolet light.

Borgata vice president Joe Lupo tells the AP the changes are "very expensive but very necessary."
The casino was forced to suspend an event at its Winter Open in January after suspicions that someone introduced counterfeit chips.

A North Carolina man was arrested on charges including theft and rigging a public contest.

An investigation continues, and $1.5 million in prize money is still on hold.

WSOP National Championships to be played at Bally's Atlantic City

From Poker News:

The World Series of Poker Circuit, currently in its 10th season, will culminate at the new WSOP-branded Bally’s Atlantic City poker room from May 22-24, 2014 with the fourth-annual National Championship. The tournament will be recorded for future broadcast on ESPN, and will also award a WSOP gold bracelet to the winner.   

Read more from Poker News:

Ante Up: We need to stand strong for poker world

From Ante Up:

That’s part of the game, and it’s part of why we love it so much.
But in the “poker industry,” there is no room for lies or deception. Not even if we cleverly describe them as “bluffs.”
This new year is barely two months old, and we’ve seen counterfeit chips introduced to a major Atlantic City tournament, a poker personality sentenced to probation for what police say was fishing dealer tips out of a toke box with chopsticks and top Scandinavian players’ laptops stolen and infected with a virus that exposes their hole cards online.
We urge the poker community — all of us — to strongly and publicly condemn crimes like these. Doing anything otherwise is a threat to the future of the game we love.
Most us want to see the game of poker expand. We want to see it expand online beyond the three states that allow it. But we face a chorus of opposition that says the game can’t be trusted.

Read the full article from Ante Up here.

Borgata Spring Poker Open and WPT Championship dates

From BorgataPokerBlog.comhttp://www.borgatapokerblog.com/2014/02/borgata-spring-poker-open-and-wpt.html

The 2014 Borgata Spring Poker Open has its official dates and will run from April 8 to April 26 in the Borgata Poker Room and Borgata’s other tournament facilities.

The full schedule, including the 2014 Spring Poker Open Championship Tournament, has yet to be finalized, but we wanted to get the early word out.

This year’s Borgata Spring Open also marks a first as the World Poker Tour Championship—separate from the Spring Open Championship—will be played at Borgata April 21-26.

The $15,000 + $400 WPT event carries a $5 Million guarantee—the first prize-pool guarantee ever for a WPT Championship.

Borgata online poker to host $50K guaranteed tourneys

The Borgata announced it will host $50K guaranteed tournaments every Sunday at BorgataPoker.com.

The $50K is now held at 5pm Sundays and we’ve changed the blind structure. Levels are 20 minutes and the starting stack is 10K.

Online poker seems to be picking up in New Jersey -- perhaps getting Garden State residents back to prime days of online poker.

Will you playing in this tournament?

Read more about the BorgataPoker.com tournament here.

Borgata poker tourney suspended on suspicion of counterfeit chips

ATLANTIC CITY — A poker tournament at Atlantic City’s Borgata casino has been suspended while state casino regulators investigate whether someone used counterfeit chips.

Joe Lupo, the casino’s senior vice president, says its first tournament has been suspended for 24 hours as the state Division of Gaming Enforcement investigates.

Read the full story from the Associated Press.

Caesars AC may not host WSOPC National championship: Ante Up

Ante Up is reporting that Caesars in Atlantic City may not host the WSOP Circuit National Championship that was scheduled in May.

Caesars Atlantic City, which closed its poker room just before the start of 2014, will not host its usual World Series of Poker Circuit stop in the spring. But this also means the location of the WSOPC National Championship, which was scheduled to be at Caesars AC in May, is in doubt.

Read the full story from Ante Up here.

Golden Nugget poker rake-free in January

The Golden Nugget will be going rake-free in its poker room through the end of January, according to NorthJersey.com.

“This isn’t a gimmick,” om Pohlman, executive vice president and general manager of Golden Nugget Atlantic City, told NorthJersey.com. “We want to give everyone a chance to come down and see the new room, and discover why they should be playing poker here.”

Borgata COO says Internet gaming not a threat to casinos

Borgata COO Tom Ballance appeared on CNBC's Squawk Box to discuss online gaming in New Jersey.

Internet betting is not a threat to brick-and-mortar casinos, Ballance argued. "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."

There's also a different demographic for the online gambler, he contended. "It skews more male than the conventional brick-and-mortar customer."

Answering critics who say Internet gaming makes it too easy to bet since gamblers don't have to leave their homes, Ballance said: "Online we actually have more controls. ... You don't extend credit online. You've got to fund your account somehow ... through your checking account or through a credit card."

Read the rest of the story and watch the video here.

76ers, Devils sign online gaming deal

From the Associated Press:

NEWARK, N.J. -- The Philadelphia 76ers of the NBA and the New Jersey Devils of the NHL have become the first major U.S.-based professional teams to sign a sponsorship deal with an online gambling company.

Scott O'Neil, the chief executive of the Josh Harris-owned teams, and Norbert Teufelberger, the chief executive of bwin.party digital entertainment that operates PartyPoker, confirmed the multi-year agreement in a statement Wednesday night.

Read the rest of the article on ESPN here.

PokerStars: Atlantic Club Casino closing could have been avoidable

The sale and shutdown of The Atlantic Club Casino was announced last week. The casino opened in 1980, but it’s going to shutter its doors on Jan. 13.

PokerStars worked last year to buy the casino for $15 million, but the casino owners canceled it in April when it did not get approval quickly enough.

Eric Hollreiser, Head of Corporate Communications for PokerStars, comments on the situation on the company's blog on Tuesday.

It's always sad when hard-working people lose their jobs, especially during the holiday season. This is particularly sad, though, because it simply didn't have to happen.

At this time last year, PokerStars reached an agreement that would secure a new future for the casino, save the jobs of 1,800 employees and inject new blood, new technology and new finances into the Atlantic City casino economy.

It was a leap of faith and commitment of significant investment for PokerStars to do this considering there was not yet an online bill in New Jersey and we faced a challenging regulatory approval process. Nevertheless, in good faith we immediately began funding the Atlantic Club operations, which provided the current owners with a lifeline and secured jobs in the dark days following Hurricane Sandy and the seasonally slow winter months.

As spring approached, the economic prospects for the Atlantic Club appeared to brighten even more with the newly-enacted iGaming legislation and the promise of summer tourism business on the horizon. That's when the casino's then-owners gambled with their employees' future. In hopes that the improved economic picture could lead to more rewards for them they walked away from our contract rather than wait another few months for the regulatory approval process to be completed.

Now, the Atlantic Club will be stripped for parts and its employees will be put out onto the boardwalk in search of new jobs in 2014.

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PokerStars does not share the vulture-like management practices that led to the coming job losses and disappointment of thousands of people in New Jersey with the closure of the Atlantic Club. Instead, PokerStars will continue to pursue our goals and remain confident that we will have a strong presence and positive economic impact in the American market in 2014, whether that is in New Jersey or another state seeking the benefits of being home to a world-class online gaming company.

You can read the rest of the post here.

More than 125,000 sign up for online gaming in New Jersey

One quarter of a million online gambling accounts have been created in New Jersey, Poker News reported.

The number of online gambling accounts in New Jersey has surpassed 125,000 according to data released by the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement (DGE) on Sunday. The official number of accounts reported by the DGE was 126,231, an increase of 16,285 over the previous week.
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"We have seen a steady and continual increase in site traffic since November 21 due to the outreach of the casino operators,” said DGE Director David Rebuck. “We are encouraged by their marketing efforts and are optimistic for the future of New Jersey’s Internet gaming industry.”
While seven of the 12 licensed casinos in Atlantic City are offering online poker, two have been dominating the market in the first full month of business. According to PokerScout.com, partypoker owns more than 50% of the market share, averaging 240 real-money cash game players over the past seven days. Caesars Interactive Entertainment's World Series of Poker-branded site, powered by 888 Holdings, had a seven-day average of 150 players, while the All American Poker Network (80 players) and Ultimate Poker (18 players) make up the rest of the market.

View the full article from Poker News here.

Borgata announces dates for Winter Poker Open

Press release

BORGATA ANNOUNCES 2014 BORGATA WINTER POKER OPEN

Televised World Poker Tour (WPT) Championship Event to Feature Guaranteed $3 Million Prize Pool Borgatapoker.com Offering Online Qualifiers and Satellites to Support 18-Day Tournament

ATLANTIC CITY, NJ (December 19, 2013) – Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa announced today details of its ninth annual Borgata Winter Poker Open tournament series, beginning on January 14 and concluding with the televised WPT Borgata Winter Poker Open Championship event, January 26-31. This year’s Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (re-entry) Championship is a $3,500 buy-in with 30,000 in starting chips and a guaranteed $3 million prize pool. “Borgata is delighted to continue its relationship with World Poker Tour (WPT) as we host the second of three televised tournaments throughout Season XII,” said Borgata Senior Vice President of Operations Joe Lupo. “Our strong partnership with WPT coupled with the onset of online gaming including the launch of borgatapoker.com make for an extremely exciting 2014.” Borgata’s new online poker site Borgatapoker.com will compliment the upcoming tournament series by offering players the chance to compete for qualifiers into next month’s Borgata Winter Poker Open. On January 12 at 4 p.m., borgatapoker.com will host a 50-seat guarantee with the winner awarded entry into the $560 Big Stack No Limit Hold’em opening event on January 14, which boasts a $2 million guaranteed prize pool. Online players will also have the opportunity for just $1 to qualify for the WPT $3 Million Guaranteed event on January 26, a package worth $5,000! Last year saw 27-year-old poker pro Andy Hwang outlast an immense field of 1,042 participants to take home over $730,000 and add his name to the distinguished list of Borgata Winter Poker Open Champions including Joshua Mancuso (2012), Vadim Shlez (2011), Jeffrey Madsen (2010), Steven Weinstein (2009), Gavin Griffin (2008), John Hennigan (2007) and Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi (2006). The 18-day series, held in the Event Center, will feature 53 unique tournaments such as No Limit Hold’em, H.O.R.S.E, Six-Max, Deep Stack, Seniors and Ladies No Limit Hold’em, and Omaha events. The 2013 Borgata Winter Poker Open saw the largest opening-event turnout in the history of East Coast poker – a record-breaking 3,871 participants entered for the chance to win $1.9 million in prize money. Online promotion to win a seat to the championship runs from December 23 – January 23 with the winner announced January 24. Online reservations for Borgata Winter Poker Open Main events are available 24 hours a day starting now through Friday, January 10 by visitingtheborgata.com. To view the event schedule or for more information visit theborgata.com and follow all of the action on Twitter @BorgataPoker. About Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa Located at Renaissance Pointe in Atlantic City, Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa features 2,000 guest rooms and suites; 161,000 square feet of gaming; 182 gaming tables; 3,475 slot machines; an 80+ table poker room; 11 retail boutiques; 6 acclaimed fine dining restaurants by renowned chefs; 6 casual dining options; a 54,000 square foot spa; 70,000 square feet of event space; 4 signature nightlife experiences; and parking for 7,100 cars. The resort also features Atlantic City’s first cosmopolitan hotel experience, The Water Club at Borgata, with 800 guest rooms and suites; a 36,000 square foot spa; 18,000 square feet of meeting space; 6 designer retail boutiques; and 5 heated indoor and outdoor pools. For more information on Borgata or to obtain a copy of this press release, please visit theborgata.com or follow Borgata on twitter.com/BorgataAC

Golden Nugget has poker again

The Golden Nugget has re-opened its poker room, according to a report on NorthJersey.com.

The 10-table room opened on Dec. 26 at noon.

According to Bravo Poker Live, the Golden Nugget room will have a high-hand winner’s wheels, and several games including $1-$1 No Limit Hold ‘Em, $1-$3 NLHE and $3-$6-$9 Limit Hold ‘Em.

Bravo Poker Live also says there are no tables going on this time. 

Revel closing its poker room

From US Poker:

Revel announced over the weekend that it will close its poker room by August 15, 2013.  It may close earlier if all promotional money is paid out before that date.  The struggling Atlantic City casino posted this announcement at the Two Plus Two forum over the weekend.

Read the full story on US Poker here.

NorthJersey.com had a statement from Revel:

“After careful consideration and in an effort to further improve the overall operating performance of Revel Casino Hotel, management has made the decision to close our poker room operations effective August, 2013.”

“Offering poker as an amenity on the property will be considered in the future as a component of an overall strategy related to our online opportunities. We have a very talented team of professionals who work in poker operations and we are actively working to place as many as we can in other areas.”

Read the full story on NorthJersey.com here.