Cash in is down significantly and online poker players are trying to get money online. The players are not aware that their funds are not being deposited using credit cards. They will still be billed for the transactions because their deposits still go through. There is an issue that the gaming company never receives the funds as they are intercepted. The processor that is used by the company has its account with MasterCard closed and they are fined for it, which goes directly to the gaming company.

Rumor has it that MasterCard blocked internet gambling transactions by auditing thousands of transactions manually, looking at coded declines and subsequent approved transactions. The reason is unknown as to why MasterCard blocked the transactions.

Players are directed to methods such as e-wallets whenever their cards are declined. Online pokers cannot use debit card to deposit on their accounts with MasterCard because it does not run debit cards. Visa or the banks can run debit cards.

This step Harrah’s is taking in controlling Planet Hollywood would save a lot of job when possible at the same time put a stop to Planet Hollywood in failing and file bankruptcy as explained by Dennis Neilander, Gaming Control Board Chairman.

The Nevada Gaming Commission is expected to grant it’s final approval in favor of Harrah’s control over Planet Hollywood on Feb. 18 of this year. By this time, Harrah’s will employ Planet Hollywood’s employees. According to its executives, Harrah’s will hold on to the 2,300 existing staff members of Planet Hollywood. This is around 95 percent of Planet Hollywood’s employees. Harrah’s also owns Bally’s and Paris Las Vegas casinos and Marilyn Winn, president of both casinos will also be the new president of Planet Hollywood.

The total revenue of Party Gaming was $13.2 million for the year 2009. It showed an increase of 32% compare to the profits last 2008 that was only about $100.4 million but showed an increase of 17% in the 3rd quarter of the year 2009.

Party Gaming reached a total of $446.2 million revenues for the year but drops 6% from their profit last 2008 due to the World Poker Tour that they purchased in 2009. Along with their announcement of their total revenues, they also announce its new Chief Operating Officer, Per Widerström. This new executive has been in the online gaming industry for the longest time already and had been the Chief Executive Officer and Director of Mangas Gaming Malta, Limited.

Widerström has also previous jobs as the head position at Expekt.com Ltd and Telenor Mobile Sweden and was a Vice President and COO at Kyivstar GSM. In addition, he was the one-time Director of Operational Marketing and Business Development with Coca-Cola.

Sheldon Adelson, Las Vegas Sands CEO has been very busy for the past few days and for being hired as a Tallahassee lobbyist. He has made a lot of important contributions in Florida in regard to the pro-casino political campaigns.

Recent reports confirmed that Ft. Lauderdale legislator Ellyn Bogdanoff left with the plan of the expansion despite his early disagreement on the expansion of the State. He seems to side to the other side now.

The poker gaming industry has been looking for different markets to help them survive the stress they are undergoing for the meantime. Stress was brought about by the major investments that gaming industry has provided in places like Las Vegas and Macau.

In recent times, Miami has been attracting more and more companies to invest in their state. Miami is becoming on the target market of other big companies who wanted to invest in a different state. Big companies are targeting Miami in order for them to increase their stock values due to Miami’s economy at this point.

Everyone is wondering the logic behinds Jon Kyl protest considering the financial crisis in the society. It shows that Kyl’s political temper tantrum has again slows down the action at the federal level. Taking into consideration the Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner that was left without any support of political appointees from the policies on the dollar and international reform.

On the other hand, Anurag Dikshit sold his share in one of the top online gambling sites. Dikshit was the former Partygaming PLC founder and his final move of selling his assets drop the stocks of Partygaming by 5.4 percent in London according to the Bloomberg report.

Anurag Dikshit made 105 million pounds off the deal when he sold his assets to 270 pence per share to institutional investors. Compared to other Partygaming founders, Anurag Dikshit travelled back to United States to pay $300 million fine after pleading guilty to illegal Internet gambling.

Brunson, ten-time World Series of Poker bracelet winner made a comment to President Barrack Obama made from his twitter account. In response, he received a barrage of Tweets in response to his post that say “The Democrats say ‘give Obama time.’ Us Republicans [sic] agree, 25 to life seems appropriate!”

Some persons commented on Brunson’s post that it was stemmed from racially motivated feelings towards the President. However, after a couple of hours, Brunson made a new statement that his post has nothing to do with the color of the skin of the President. He also added that he may not like the 1st year of ruling of Obama but this has nothing to do with his physical features.

As of the moment, Brunson appears to be laid off the political Tweets for a while. The Full Tilt Red Pro and the 2006 WSOP Player of the Year Jeff Madsen disagreed with the Tweets of the poker legend.

The deal from the Commerce Casino together with the Bicycle club is being worked out by the Morongo to pursue the online poker in California. According to the Morongo’s spokesperson, Patrick Dorinson, they have been asking added support from different tribes to pursue with the deal that fell apart due to the issues that risen that it was rush through the legislative process.

One of the most influential groups, California Tribal Business Alliance has shown their disagreement in the proposal. They claim that it could violate the exclusivity clauses in gaming compacts with the casino tribes.

There are around 1.4 million Californians enjoying poker in an online poker via offshore websites. The proposal seems to gather potential revenue streams for the state and the Senate Governmental Organization Committee will take up all the questions about this online poker on the 9th of February.
Invitations have been distributed and speakers for February 9 are all ready to support the hearing. However, the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIEGA) prohibits the use of credit cards and all fund transfer for the illegal online gambling except for the intrastate internet gambling.

Unabomber Poker was launched by the Cake Power Network that features the top pro Phil Laak. Phil was famous with its nickname “The Unabomber” because of his attire at the poker tables. In this room, Laak will be feature in action on their network and through a blog that is available in the site. Along with their launching of new online poker room, they also announce their seven additional network poker rooms that includes the 7Win Poker, Redback Poker, Amsterdam Poker, Safari Poker, Dimeline., Rags2Riches Poker and the Burro Poker.

The Cake Poker Tournament is one of the top ten online poker networks in the industry and includes 55 online poker sites with an average of 2,100 real money ring game players. Unabomber Poker offers a lot of amenities to all their players and even allows their players to earn Gold Chips and Gold Cards that they can use in exchange for cash, merchandise, or free play in the online tournaments. This newly launched network will also participate in the monthly event of Cake Power Network with $250,000 guaranteed.

Aussie Millions made its debut at the Crown as the Australian Poker championship last 1997 and still continues to grow year after year. Today, this tournament generates multi-million dollar prize pool that draws the attention of all professional poker players. Last year, approximately 681 poker players join the event that guaranteed a $2million first-place prize pool. More and more loyal players want to take the big shots on the Aussie Millions this year to gain big payouts.

Steward Scott an Australian resident takes home $1,865,724 for winning the first price of last year’s competition. It was also last year that million-dollar buy-in cash was featured and was played by popular names in the poker industry like Tom “Durrr” Dwan and Patrick Antonius.

Speculations about this year‘s event will gather 2,000 poker players from the entire nation to play for the Crown tournament floor over the course of 20-event tournament and 800 players are expected to play for the $10,500 main event .

Representative Peter King as the former Chairman and a current ranking Republican on the Homeland Security Committee will give his support that will provide ease concerning the Congress. He wants to stress out that online poker does not offer such benefits like serving as a facilitator of money laundering and terrorist activities. Peter King’s stands as a senior member of the Republican Party, he can bring other Republicans to stand beside him supporting the official legislation of online poker.

King also supports Barney Frank’s bill that counter balances the claims of Representative Spencer Bachus that focused on the money-laundering possibilities of online poker. He also stressed that he did not notice any homeland security or threats for the regulation of the online poker.

With a good reputation and a good understanding in the issue, Peter King as well as his position in the Homeland Security Committee can make a strong stand in regulating the internet poker as legal and fight against allegations in regards to money laundering and fraud.