The World Series of Poker is the major poker event of the year for gamblers worldwide. As the WSOP 2008 comes nearer, gamblers are playing against each other and the poker pros. The list of gamblers that will be playing at the Rio Casino Resort in Las Vegas is already filled. These players are the ones who have won a lot of tournaments, got millions of dollars, they are really the best. If you have never heard about these men, it is time for you to meet them in order to know whom you’re facing.

Phil Hellmuth began playing since the 1988 WSOP and has 11 bracelets, the most quantity compared to other players. Cashing 63 times he won over $5.6 million.

Allen Cunningham has won over $6.5 million since 2004. He holds five bracelets and was voted the 2005 WSOP Player of the Year.

Erik Seidel has won since 1992; he won over $3.7 million and owns 8 WSOP bracelets. In 2005 he won the $2,000 No Limit HoldeEm tournaments, he managed to beat 1,402 players in 2005 and he won $5,000 lowball event of 2007.

Lastly there is Phil Ivey cashed out ten times since 2004, he won $2.8 million dollars. Ivey has five WSOP bracelets. He won three of his five bracelets in 2002.

There are a group of other gamblers whom a newbie should keep a sharp eye out for, those who won at least two bracelets. Scott Fischman, Jeff Madsen, Bill Chen, Rafi Amit, Ted Forrest, Mark Seif, Scott Clements, Barry Greenstein, and Tom Schneider, 2007 Player of the Year, are going to attend this year event.

Betfair, the world’s largest online betting exchange, lost Rorie Devine, the company’s Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and without a doubt this loss will affect the company somehow. Devine has developed the Betfair technology team for the past 5 years, but he’s leaving Betfair this month.

Before moving into the internet casino gambling industry Devine worked with the European leading financial institutions. So he brought to the Betfair casinos his great knowledge of internet technology. Devine has helped the online casinos company to become one of the leading brand names in the online gambling and betting industry in Europe.

The company hasn’t announced yet a replacement for Chief Technology Officer position. Betfair is planning to ask a head-hunting agency to find an appropriate replacement for this position. David Yu, the gambling group’s CEO, reported about a lot of developments and achievements of the company for the past five years due to the technology team of Devine. Yu said, “Devine transformed our technology team from a raising start-up to the company with one of the most successful online businesses.

Devine also instituted new procedures and policies inside the online casino gambling and betting company that help keep its continued success. Yu said that processes and rigour introduced by Devine caused the company’s site to become more stable, and perform better than ever. Besides under his leadership the department has grown exceptionally with headcount tripling and addition of many new products to their portfolio.

There is no information of which company Devine is going to join.

The A4U Awards has released its shortlist for 2008 event in June in order to reward innovation and excellence in affiliate marketing. The competition will be held in 16 categories. Income Access, the top independent online gaming affiliate network providing affiliate management services and software, has become a nominee in the Gaming and Casino Category.

Nicky Senyard, CEO of Income Access noted that they are excited that their company has been nominated for this award, together with other outstanding nominees.” He said “For 7 years, we have been working to build fruitful relationships in the gaming affiliate marketing community, so we are glad to get this recognition.”

The A4U Awards that are designed to reflect everything in the affiliate marketing industry reward the affiliate marketing community members for the excellence in the marketing industry. There are sixteen categories grouped into two separate clusters: nine Industry Awards, and seven Publishers’ and Community’s Choice Awards.

In the beginning it was open to nominations from throughout the affiliate marketing industry, and then an equitable panel of experienced affiliate marketing professionals shortlisted nominations in the Industry Awards categories. They chose nominees evaluating their innovation, fulfillment of purposes, creativeness, commercial impact and general effectiveness. A set criteria and a scoring system of 200 points were used to choose nominees.

Nicky Senyard said, “The awards are expected to be an exciting night for the affiliate marketing community”. “The nomination process itself is important. It is helping to improve the industry.”

The event will take place on 5th June, 2008, at the Park Lane Hotel in London.

The online poker gambling industry seems to work through a new big cheating scandal. In August, 2007 the cheating scandal was burst out at Absolute Poker, and although at first the site asserted that the cheating claims did not take place, finally the site admitted that an Absolute employee cheated hundreds of thousands in winnings out of poker players. That scandal drew to a close at the beginning of this year, and some weeks later a cheating scandal at Ultimate Bet, Absolute’s sister site, was uncovered by poker players.

The things have developed at the same scenario, at first Ultimate Bet stated that the cheating claims were invalid, but then the casino poker gambler went on claiming that some gamblers in the high-stakes tourneys were with a false edge over other gamblers. After several months of denial, the two online casinos players are demanding that Ultimate Bet take measures concerning the cheating.

The online gambling community has conducted their own nonofficial investigation of the Ultimate Bet scandal, and though charges won’t be brought from this investigation, many people are convinced that the Ultimate Bet employee used the same cheating tactics.

The fact that alarms more and more and a lot of online poker players have noted it is that the merely 2 companies in the whole online casino gambling industry with such scandals are owned by Tokwiro Enterprises ENRG and both of them are licensed by the Kahnawake Gaming Commission. These facts would provide valuable clues with regard to why the cheating claims go on.

Charlie McCreevy, the European Commissioner, has travelled for some weeks. The European Commission and McCreevy have pursued the member-nations of the EU which have state-run casino gambling monopolies. Recently McCreevy had a discussion with a representative for Greece about the Greek gambling market opening. The meeting seemed to be a success. Greece is said to be on its way to meet the EU requirements of free trade and movement policies. After this meeting McCreevy went to Malta, one of the leading licensing jurisdictions in the international online casinos industry.

During this visit McCreevy assured the online gambling companies of the country that the European Commission has moved a lot in their attempts to open up the EU market. Malta has the strictest online gambling licensing regulations in the world, so the online casinos that operate out of Malta are among the safest sites on the Internet. McCreevy praised the Malta Gaming Authority for its standards and professionalism, especially taking into consideration that a lot of Maltese gaming sites face the ongoing monopolies in Europe.

Tonio Fenech, the Finance Minister of Malta, gave his comments on the presence of the internet-based casino gambling monopolies, he said that it is a protectionist approach to permit monopolies and limit competition. McCreevy’s visit to Malta emphasized that the Commission is doing everything to end the monopolies as quickly as possible and promote a non-discriminatory online casino gambling industry in Europe. Malta is forcing the European Commission to make good on latest threats in order to report the EU member countries violating policies to the ECJ.

Soon the US casino gamblers will be able to play online again or as close as they can to it since TableMax, the popular Caribbean Stud Poker game has lately got GLI certification.

As one of the most popular table games that have ever been introduced to the online casino gambling market, it’s undoubtedly an important addition to the TableMax game set. This certification goes after the recent progressive Blackjack certification of the company that is also a great success in the casino gambling market. TableMax has submitted to the GLI plenty of its other casino games such as Draw Poker, Caribbean Draw Poker, and Bonus Blackjack in order to get certifications. It also has submitted the highly successful Texas Holdem Bonus Poker that has swept over the casino gambling market as the swiftest added felt-based proprietary table game in history.

Stephen Crystal, the TableMax CEO said that this news was pleasant to the company. He stated that Caribbean Stud Poker helps to reinvigorate more traditional casino table games, and such a popular game in combination with an extraordinary progressive jackpot, is becoming a winning combo for both operators and gamblers alike.

Caribbean Stud Poker uses the electronic table game platform of the company. This platform makes a multi-casino and multi-table network available for the players. The representatives of TableMax assert that it’s the best opportunity to play online progressive slots for casino gambling players.

Likewise Microgaming offers a progressive CyberStud Poker, the game that is extremely popular by online gamblers.

Recently it has been announced by America Online (AOL) that their site, Games.com, is going to give 6 lucky poker gamblers seats to the WSOP Main Event that will be held in Las Vegas. The giant Internet Corporation that is based in the USA offers a free, online No Limit Texas Holdem poker tournament to their players on their Games.com’s World Series of Poker hub. From now till 15June, 2008, gamblers can play in order to win one of the seats.

The six best gamblers who qualify can win a seat to No Limit Texas Holdem World Championship that will take place on 2July, 2008. AOL provides travel and accommodations for winners in addition to the seat at the WSOP tables. As cash gaming in the USA has been limited because of the state’s restrictions AOL gives this chance for free.

Greg Mills, the director of AOL, stated that free-play online poker is one of the most popular categories on Games.com. He added “We’re excited to keep our exclusive agreement with Harrah’s License Company, LLC the WSOP owner to offer players an opportunity to win a seat at the table with Poker pros. And playing their cards properly, they could win millions.”

Similar to many other qualifiers AOL’s tournaments will run during the next 6 weeks. Every day gamblers have an opportunity to win in the free qualifying tourneys, and then it will let them play in a Sunday tournament, ‘Winner-Takes-All’. The winning players receive a free entry pass to the WSOP, accommodations and travelling from any place in the USA to the 2008 WSOP No Limit Texas Holdem Championship. The championship is taking place at the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino, Las Vegas and begins on 3 July.

These days the leading online casino software provider, CryptoLogic, is expanding its business, and has signed a new deal with Maharaja Gaming, the leading online casino company. This contract gives exclusive right to Cryptologic as online software provider for Maharaja Club, one of the biggest online casino sites for Southeast Asian communities in Britain. The deal also allows CryptoLogic to prove their abilities on the online gaming market of Asia.

CryptoLogic knows about the opportunities and the advantages that the contract with Maharaja Gaming can bring, if they do everything right. In the nearest future CryptoLogic is planning to work on expanding Maharaja Club’s online casino offerings with a new internet casino and poker sites. Moreover the sites will present ten of the most popular and top quality CryptoLogic games by this autumn. And this is just the beginning. The two top companies are planning more thrilling surprises for online players.

At the moment Maharaja Gaming has over 25 thousand players, and they believe the members of Maharaja Club would grow rapidly, along with the Asian markets liberalization. CryptoLogic would like to take an active part in this expansion, and has great expectations to the co-operation with the online casino provider for the Asian gaming market. Cryptologic is not the only who satisfied with the deal, Maharaja Gaming is also pleased with the contract with one of the best software developers. Both companies have high expectations and think that the mutual benefits from this co-operation will help them to occupy a leading position in the gaming market of Asia.

A judge of King County has disappointed a lot of poker gamblers when he supported the state’s ban against online casino gambling and poker rooms. This case might have hugely assisted online poker advocates in the fight against the ban, and lawyer Lee Rousso is eager to continue the fight all the up to the US Supreme Court if he has to.

The original Washington state amendment that came into force in 1973 prohibited the “receipt or transmission of gambling information” through telephone, radio, and telegraph. In the year 2006, they added Internet to the amendment. And if before the amendment violation was considered to be a gross misdemeanor nowadays it is a felony. Any person found guilty of gambling online might be subject to having the personal property seized.

In 2007 Rousso, the Poker Players Alliance head, filed a lawsuit hoping that this amendment would be declared unconstitutional. He stated that the law discriminated against internet interstate businesses and that the ban protected Washington State’s land-based casinos and card rooms’ profits. Rousso said that a Senator in whose district there were above mentioned casinos and card rooms sponsored the bill.

Mary Roberts, State Court Judge dismissed Ruosso’s complaint by saying that there was nothing in the law protecting the traditional casinos and card rooms interests at the cost of interstate commercial interests. She stated that she had made her decision basing on the state’s history of gambling prohibition. Ruosso replied that the law was hypocritical. Then he added, “We’re going to win this battle… someday.”

Recently a national survey in Canada analyzed the players’ interests. It’s revealed that younger Canadian gamblers play technology driven games rather than more traditional games. In accordance with the article that was published in the Montreal Gazette a third part of Canadians said that now they were gambling considerably less than thirty years ago. In contrast to this a great number of under 35 players said that they are gambling much more since the internet casinos and technology platforms for online games appeared. In spite of the noticeable rise in younger Canadian players of internet gambling games, the industry isn’t able to make use of the market yet because of legal restrictions that outlaw gambling online.

The Chairman of Harris/Decima, Allan Gregg said clearly “Sadly for Canadian lottery jurisdictions, this younger group approves the technology driven gambling of the future.” additionally, he stated that 56% of Canadian citizens who are from 18 to 35 years old believed that internet sportsbetting, online poker and other internet-based gambling games are acceptable gambling forms. Likewise, they also prefer interactive lottery games, interactive TV gambling and the lottery tickets purchase through mobile devices to land-based gambling.

More than 3 thousand Canadians took place in this lately conducted survey. The survey showed that in fact only a small number of older players preferred virtual sports betting; 20% of the players aged over 55 and 35% of the players who are over 35. In spite of legal restrictions, there’s now as much as $400 million being produced every year by young Canadian players through foreign jurisdictions.