- PokerStars successfully jumped through the soft-launch hoops of its real money online poker site last week.
- Last week a seizure warrant in a District Court in Philadelphia was filed claiming that offshore poker site 5Dimes had been using Amazon gift cards to “launder” money to its US players.
- Partypoker’s efforts to improve its weekly MTT schedule continue with the announcement this weekend of “Pure Poker Wednesdays.”
PokerStars and New Jersey
The focus of the last week in online poker news has been, of course, New Jersey.
PokerStars successfully jumped through the soft-launch hoops of its real money online poker site last week, dealing its first poker hands to New Jersey residents last Wednesday and slowly ramping up to a full two day period at the weekend.
While there were some expected teething problems on Day 1, these have been mostly resolved, and the response from both the industry and players has been positive.
Over the last week we have learned a lot about what PokerStars will be offering in New Jersey, including its initial marketing plan (low key), signup bonuses (competitive) and weekly tournament schedule (taking more than one leaf from party’s playbook). It is spreading more game variants than its competitors, with Spin and Gos in the lobby and Badugi, Stud and O8 games offered.
The first cash game numbers are now being tracked from independent monitor PokerScout, and are available live on the Poker Industry PRO Data platform.. It is too early to draw any conclusions, but be assured we will have more analysis of these first figures later in the week.
