Feb 20
Poker Pro’s and Celebrities to Battle for Charity
This weekend will see a number of poker professional players locking horns with some of the big name poker playing celebrities in the world, all in aid of charity.
The game will take place when the World Poker Tour’s Celebrity Invitational event that will be played at the well known Commerce Casino in Los Angeles on February 20, 2010.
The tournament will be held over 2 days, starting February 20th until February 21st and the proceeding that will be raised by the poker tournament will be going to Chrysalis, a charity who looks to help disadvantaged and homeless people, granting them employment possibilities.
The organisers have invited a total of 100 poker playing stars to take part in the tournament, and so far they have had confirmations from the likes of TV host Ricki Lake and actress/poker player Shannon Elizabeth.
Poker professionals who have also confirmed that they will be attending the event are also offering a large reputation include Phil “The Unabomber” Laak, Antonio “The Magician” Esfandiari, Howard Lederer and Erik Seidel.
The poker tournament will begin with a red carpet entrance with an hours cocktail party before the tournament starts at 8.00pm.
The buy in for the tournament has been set to $200 and will feature a re-buy status, allowing players the chance to claw their way back into the tournament should they be eliminated.
With so many big name professional poker players attending the tournament there should be a large amount of interest in the game, with celebrities looking to take the limelight by defeating players who make their living playing the game.
Feb 12
Online poker rooms and players where left with a bitter taste in their mouths after major credit card company MasterCard moved to block gambling transactions by online poker rooms and online casinos.
The move caused uproar within the poker community, with players saying that they needed to add additional funding into their accounts in order to be able to play tournaments and games that they had being planning to play.
The move means that there are a large number of players who will be searching for new ways to fund their accounts, with major online poker rooms Pokerstars and Full Tilt Poker not accepting the likes of Paypal deposits.
It seems that its not only players who aren’t happy about the decision to block payments to the sites via their credit cards, funding of accounts has been dropping due to the move and so the online poker rooms are also looking for answers from the credit card company.
With the move to block the transactions it could soon be time for a number of dedicated online poker players to say goodbye to their MasterCard as they look to transfer their funds to another company that are willing to allow the deposits to be made.
With the news coming to light very recently, it will be interesting to see whether there are a number of other credit card companies that follow MasterCard’s example, more than likely pushing players to having to create eWallet accounts in order to deposit. Ewalletxpress andUseMyWallet are 2 very easy online e-wallets.
Although it will initially mean that players are having to create new accounts with the eWallet companies, it will also increase their security due to the privacy that one of these accounts offers. There are no personal details passed onto 3rd party companies and so large risk elements are eliminated.
Online E-wallets are much safer and easier to use than credit cards!
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The UIGEA (Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act) was passed by the House and Senate in September 2006 and George Bush signed this act into a law in October 2006. The Safe Port Act was a bill to improve security of the United States Ports. The UIGEA was added to the Safe Port Act at the last minute. The UIGEA does not prohibit online gambling! It outlaws financial institutions from transacting with online gambling companies. The UIGEA did not ban online gambling, instead it banned gambling financial transactions. The problem is that the UIGEA is so vague that banks have found it impossible to enforce.