PokerStars.net Million Dollar Challenge, the hottest new poker game show on television, left audiences stunned back in October when South Carolina priest Father Andrew Trapp knocked off NBA Champion John Salley, Team PokerStars.net Pro Vanessa Rousso and Team PokerStars.net Pro, and four-time World Series of Poker bracelet winner Daniel Negreanu to win $100,000 and a chance to come back earlier this month for a crack at the $1,000,000 grand prize.

Fr. Trapp lost in the final round of Fox TV’s “PokerStars.net Million Dollar Challenge” which aired on Dec. 27; but he was able to take home $100,000 in winnings. The winner was a 9-11 first responder at the World Trade Center.

Known as “Father Rambo” for his passionate paintball play, the poker priest pulled out all the stops, at one point holding rosary beads while in a big hand against Salley. Then after dispensing of the former Detroit Pistons Bad Boy, Trapp then shocked Rousso, before taking home the six-figure prize when poker star Negreanu misread the strength of Trapp’s cards.

Trapp immediately donated all of his winnings to the St. Michael’s Church in Garden City, SC, where he serves as associate pastor. His goal was to win the million dollar grand prize to help St. Michael’s build a new church, which is currently $1.5 million dollars short of its goal.

In an interview with the Sun News Trapp said, “I think I represented the church well and the priesthood well, which was my main goal…I think my parishioners will be proud of me.”

Facebook is a popular online social networking site where people can keep in touch with friends, find old friends and network with people in their career field. The site is also bombarded with various advertisements which keep the site in business. Facebook recently announced they are taking the necessary steps to remove gambling advertising from their website.

Facebook will be removing all forms of online gambling advertising including: bingo, sportsbooks, poker and casinos. Oddly enough Facebook has many applications that are casino games that people can play, though they are free for members to enjoy.

However Facebook is not only banning online gambling advertisements. The social networking site released a list of around twenty topics that will be banned. This includes spy cameras, firearms, tobacco, gambling uncertified pharmaceuticals, pyramid schemes and nudity, among many others.

The goal of Facebook banning these topics of advertisement is to protect their online community by implementing this censorship, according to a recent press release. According to one report, an executive of Facebook found that Bing was providing underage Facebook users were being provided with x-rated content. To prevent this from happening in the future, the site has decided to block all forms of adult entertainment from Facebook.

Even though the site is blocking the advertisements, businesses including online casino operators will be able to create groups, fan pages and Facebook pages to be able to stay in contact with fans and players. It will be interesting to see if Facebook will take further measures to ban online gambling content or if these recent changes will be the only changes made.

Internet-based poker games can be subject to manipulation, a top Federal Bureau of Investigation official said.

“There are several ways to cheat at online poker, none of which are legal,” Shawn Henry, assistant director for the FBI’s cyber division, wrote in a letter to Representative Spencer Bachus of Alabama.

“Technology exists to manipulate online poker games in that it would only take two or three players working in unison to defeat the other players who are not part of the team,” Henry wrote. “The online poker vendors could detect this activity and put in place safeguards to discourage cheating, although it is unclear what the incentive would be for the vendor.”

Bachus, the top Republican on the House Financial Services Committee, released the Nov. 13 letter today at a hearing on Internet gambling.

Committee Chairman Barney Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat, has introduced legislation to reverse a 2006 law that makes it a crime for financial institutions to process online gambling transactions.

On Nov. 27, the Federal Reserve and the Treasury gave U.S. financial companies six more months, until June 1, to comply with the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act.

At today’s hearing on the bill, technology and gambling industry executives said their technology can protect against identity theft, thwart money laundering and block minors from gambling online.

‘Wild West’

“Today’s illegal online gambling is a Wild West affair,” said Michael Brodsky, executive chairman of Burbank, California- based Youbet.com Inc., which accepts online wagers on horse racing. Internet betting on horse and dog racing is legal in many states.

“The only way to put any controls on Internet gambling is to legalize it and regulate it,” Brodsky said.

Youbet.com said last month that it would be acquired by Churchill Downs Inc., of Louisville, Kentucky, which hosts the Kentucky Derby, in a cash-and-stock transaction then valued at about $126.8 million.

Frank said he would begin to advance the legislation when Congress returns next year. He called a ban on Internet gambling a “threat to liberty.”

“It is unwise for the government to tell people how they can spend their money,” Frank said.

Regulating Industry

WiredSafety, a non-profit education group funded in part by a coalition of online poker players, released a study today rebutting claims that online gambling is unsafe. The report by Malcolm Sparrow, a professor at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, said a regulated industry would offer better protection than prohibition.

“Online banking is the exact same form of commerce as online gambling,” said John Pappas, executive director of the Washington-based Poker Players Alliance, a coalition that favors legalization and regulation of Internet wagering.

“Online gambling is financial commerce over the Internet,” Pappas said in an interview. “Financial commerce over the Internet occurs every day and it’s regulated.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Lorraine Woellert in Washington at lwoellert@bloomberg.net.

A new Forsa study of German online gambling commissioned by the Association of Information Technology, Telecommunications and New Media (Bitkom) has shown that attempts to ban online gambling in order to protect state monopolies have only slightly dampened demand from German Internet punters.

Survey results released this week and published by Techfieber.de show that some 2 million German adults use the Internet for some form of betting, whether it be for lotteries, sports bets or poker. In a similar study last year, the number was 2.2 million.

Breaking the numbers down by gender, slightly more than 1.7 million German men, and 300 000 women, gambled online during the year under review.

Lottery wagering was the most popular form of gambling, played by 59 percent of Internet punters, with poker second at 22 percent and sportsbetting third at 18 percent. The figures are relatively unchanged from last year, when 700 000 wagered on the lotteries, 430 000 favoured online poker and online casino games, and 500 000 bet online on sports events, with 96 percent of those betting on Bundesliga matches and every sixth punter gambling on large football events.

Women mainly favoured the lotteries, with 64 percent of female gamblers making up this segment, compared with only 57 percent of men.

Across the 1 000 strong sample, Euro 20 a month was the dominant betting budget, claimed by two thirds of respondents, whilst the remaining third spent more than this.

Bitkom executive Achim Berg said the study again confirms the popularity of online gambling in Germany, and called upon the German states to consider a modernisation of the country’s gambling laws at their next meeting in March 2010.

“The current betting scandal in football has clearly demonstrated [that] the German ban only paves the way for a thriving black market,” said Berg, calling for a state licensing regime embracing Internet gambling providers. “We must ensure that the same high standards apply for both public and private providers,” he concluded.

The latest Research and Markets study of the German market predicts that it will grow from the current Euro 2.2 billion a year to approaching Euro 5 billion a year by 2010.

Twice in the past, the world’s largest online poker site, PokerStars has set out to host the world’s largest online poker tournament and both times, they were able to do just that.

Back in December 2008, the first time PokerStars set out to do this, they rounded up 35,000 of their customers to take part in the successful attempt. Then, in July 2009, they set out to do so again, and that time were able to get over 65,000 players, representing an astonishing 155 countries. Their attempt, sanctioned by none other than the Guinness Book of World Records figured to stand for quite a long time. That was true until the powers that be at PokerStars decided they wanted to shatter there own record, further cementing their place in the online poker world.

The record setting attempt is scheduled for Sunday, December 27th at 2:45 PM and is boasting a prize pool of $300,000 guaranteed with a top prize guarantee of $50,000. It is being reported that the top 30,000 will finish in the money of the $1 buy in no limit hold em tournament.

In a statement released by PokerStars, Team Leader Bryan Slick said,

“There is a real thrill when the tournament begins and everyone realizes just how many people are taking part from all over the world.”

Players are already able to register for the historic event. Download PokerStars and play in the historic event!

Source:  www.aintluck.com

by Julio Rodriguez

By Sean Gibson for POKER NEWS DAILY | Posted on December 23, 2009

With the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) looming overhead and watchdog groups trying their best to curb internet gaming, many felt that the online poker industry would do nothing but regress in 2009. However, the opposite proved to be true.

Those same pundits used the weak global economy as the proverbial “nail in the coffin” and all but predicted that the online poker industry would collapse by the end of the year.  Now that we’ve reached the conclusion of 2009, we can clearly see that these so-called experts were completely wrong in their assessments.  Poker News Daily sat down with Dan Stewart, manager of PokerScout.com, to discuss the online poker industry trends of 2009.  PokerScout.com is a traffic reporting website that has kept records for all of the major sites.

Poker News Daily: Who was the big winner in terms of gaining market share in 2009? Has the market grown or shrunk during the year?

Dan Stewart: The big winner for the year was Full Tilt Poker, doubling in size and increasing its market share from 15% to 23%.  The market has grown 35% in 2009.  A large part of that growth came in the second half of the year since summer is traditionally a slow time for online poker.

PND:  We’ve noticed solid growth from Full Tilt Poker. Has the site’s increase in traffic closed the gap between Full Tilt and PokerStars?

Dan Stewart: Full Tilt Poker has gone from 40% of the size of PokerStars at the beginning of the year to 65% now.

PND:  It seems like there’s a decent-sized gap between the 12 major online poker networks and #13 (Svenska Spel).  Is there any site or network on PokerScout.com ranked 13th or lower that is on its way up and might become a major player in 2010?

Dan Stewart: Of the sites ranked below 12th, only “win2day” has managed to grow at a rate equal to the overall market.  All of the other sites are either shrinking or growing slower than the market.

PND: What can you make of the rumors about a potential bwin - Party Gaming merger? If they did merge, where would that put their network in terms of traffic worldwide?

Dan Stewart: It’s hard to say exactly how a potential merger would play out and how much overlap there is between customer bases.  However, if you just add the two player pools together, the combined entity would easily move into third place ahead of iPoker.

PND: Can you talk a little bit about industry consolidation?

Dan Stewart: There is definitely a critical mass effect at work.  The sites that have the most players attract the most players because they offer more action around the clock.  Already, the top two sites (Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars) have about 60% market share.  However, the effect is slow to work and there are still at least 15 sites and networks with enough players to remain healthy.  Unless there is a wave of consolidation, players outside the U.S. will likely have a large number of viable options for years to come.

PND: We’ve talked about winners in 2009. Who are the big losers of the year?

Dan Stewart: In a growing market, “loser” is a relative term.  Many of the non-U.S. sites have had a hard time keeping up with the growth of the market overall.  In terms of actual player loss, the biggest loser has been Svenska Spel, down 9% for the year.  Svenska Spel is run by the Swedish government and they may have been handicapped by some internal disagreement as to how aggressively the government should be promoting online poker.

PND: What’s in the future for PokerScout in 2010?

Dan Stewart: There are some exciting new features coming in January.  The traffic report will be expanding and we’ll be partnering with one or more rakeback providers to offer great rakeback deals to our visitors.

We would like to thank Dan Stewart and PokerScout.com for their very insightful information and data.  If you wish to read more detailed reports about online poker traffic, be sure to visit PokerScout.com.

By Rocco Havel

PokerStars ever-growing roster of sponsored pros can be spotted at any stop on the European, Asia Pacific and Latin America Poker Tours, but the new slew of the site’s Team Pros will be doing all their playing from the comfort of their own home.

PokerStars recently revealed the names of the 23 players selected to represent the site as part of its new Team PokerStars Online. The group of nearly two dozen people was handpicked from over 2,000 applicants and is comprised of 20 men and three women from all over the world. Some of the names may be new to poker fans, but there are a few on the list that are more recognizable.

Perhaps the most familiar to the casual poker fan is Nichoel Peppe. Girlfriend of fellow poker pro Tad Jurgens, Peppe was featured prominently in the ESPN coverage of the 2009 World Series of Poker Main Event. Peppe made a deep run in this year’s Main Event before busting out in 75th place. She was also the penultimate woman remaining in the tournament, while 27th place finisher Leo Margets earned the honor of last woman left in the field. She will play as part of Team PokerStars online under the screenname “NicP.

Online poker enthusiasts may also be familiar with Steve “stevesbets” Jacobs. He took down the 2008 World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) $25,000 buy-in Heads-Up Championship. Jacobs defeated Team PokerStars pro Bertrand “ElKY” Grospellier heads-up for the bracelet and earned $560,000 for the win. That win makes up the bulk of his nearly $700,000 in online tournament winnings on PokerStars and he has almost $100,000 in winnings on Full Tilt Poker as well.

Thomas “Boku87” Boekhoff had a relationship with the online poker room prior to the announcement of Team PokerStars Online, so it makes plenty of sense that he was one of the 23 names to make the first cut. Boekhoff achieved notoriety in the online poker world earlier this year when he turned $100 into $10,000 in 15 days as part of a prop bet. Dubbed the “Boku Challenge”, Boekhoff’s bet earned him more than $25,000 in betting profits, plus the $10,000 he won playing online. PokerStars was so impressed by Boekhoff’s feat that they invited him to replicate it, this time attempting to turn $5 into $100,000 in the span of a year. He is in the midst of this year-long challenge right now and blogs about his efforts to meet his six figure goal on the poker room’s official site.

Other players who are part of the online team are Grayson “spacegravy” Physioc, Sebastian “Seb86” Sebac and Anders “Donald” Berg. PokerStars announced these 23 players were only the first batch of online Team Pros and there are plans in the works to add more players to the roster in 2010.

So you are having fun one fine day, playing in a loose, profitable no-limit hold’em game at your favorite online poker room (let’s call it PokerABC). Everything is moving along as usual when, all of a sudden, you see this message in the chat box:

Dealer: PokerABC is having a giveaway today! The first two players from this table who visit the website http://giveaway-PokerABC.com/ will be awarded with $100!

Wow! You hurriedly type the URL into your web browser and…holy cow…you won! All you have to do now is enter your poker room screen name and password so they can get you your money.

Stop.

Sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it? It is. By entering your password on that website, you are giving some crook unfettered access to your online poker account and, in turn, your bankroll.

The key to this scam is making the message look real. Normally, a player cannot type a message that says it’s from the Dealer. After all, it will still begin with the player’s screen name. The person who typed the above message just faked it. The chat box at most online poker rooms is small; it can only fit a few lines of text. So, what the scammer does is enter a line of garbage characters first, followed by a blank line or two and then the scam message. Because the message is several lines long, the first few lines get pushed off the top of the chat box, leaving only the scam message visible. And because the first few lines disappear, so does the originator’s screen name. Thus, all people see is that a “Dealer” typed it.

If you were to scroll up to see older text, you would see something like this:

EvilScammer (Observer): ========================================

That’s the text that isolates the scam message.

While the scam may look legit to the novice player, if you just remember a few things, you can protect yourself. First, know that most online poker rooms present official messages in a different color than text typed by players. There is no way for a scammer to fake colored text. Second, any special promotion will be found directly on the online poker room’s website. If you read about an interesting offer, go right to the official poker room site and find it there. Avoid the fake URL altogether. Third, never type your password into any website except for the online poker room’s official site – the poker room does not need this information to deposit prize winnings into your account. Fourth, and finally, always be cynical. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

The online poker rooms are working on putting an end to this scam. Most have eliminated the ability of players who are not at the table to chat. Almost every scammer you will see is simply an observer, not seated at the table. This is because none actually intend to play. They just open fake accounts so they can get access to the tables and then go around pasting the scam messages in text boxes. It would take a lot more time and become a lot more obvious if they sat down, tried the scam, then got up. Of course, colored chat text is already in place and is a very easy tip-off as to the legitimacy of a message.

The best step you, as a player, can take to stop this scam is to report the offenders to the online poker room’s administrators. Often, all of the accounts that spam these messages are related in some way, and the more information the poker room can have to weed them out, the better.