In 2010, the Kentucky Justice and Public Safety Cabinet brought a lawsuit against Poker Stars, suing the online poker room for $870 million for allegedly operating illegally in the state from 2006.
Franklin Circuit Judge Thomas Wingate ruled in the state’s favor and ordered the online poker room to not only pay the money supposedly lost by 34,000 PokerStars players during that time period, but to also triple the lost revenue in the form of a fine.
PokerStars immediately launched an appeal of the ruling and this week, an Appeals Court ordered the lawsuit to be dropped against its parent group, The Stars Group. The Appeals Court said that the state could not use its current gambling laws as a means to force TSG to pay the fine.
“Allowing a complaint, like the one put forth by the commonwealth, to move forward would lead to an absurd, unjust result,” wrote Judge Glenn Acree. The 3-judge court ruled that Kentucky should not be allowed to sue on behalf of players who lost money to the online poker site, brought after a federal government crackdown in 2010 which soon became known as Black Friday.
“We applaud the decision of the highly respected three-judge panel of the Kentucky Court of Appeals,” said Marlon Goldstein, the executive vice president and chief legal officer of the Stars Group. “The merits of the case prevailed, and we look forward to putting this matter behind us as we sharpen our focus on executing on our growth strategy going forward.”
Microgaming’s famous international poker network, MPN, has brought its excellent platform to yet another European country. In association with Bulgaria’s National Lottery AD, the group launched MPN and this makes it the first time that Microgaming’s poker makes its appearance in the Bulgarian online poker market. The exclusive deal means that the online poker product will be available through National Lottery AD’s 7777.bg site.
National Lottery AD said that the partnership enables the group to continue to diversify its product offering and to deliver entertaining and award-winning poker games to its customers. Milen Ganev, speaking for National Lottery said that he group looks forward to its Bulgarian customers playing on Microgaming’s feature-rich poker solution.
Also commenting was the chief operating officer of Microgaming, Andrew Clucas who said: “This marks a significant step in growing the poker network and reflects our commitment to continued growth and expansion into regulated markets. We are delighted to work with National Lottery AD as their exclusive supplier of poker in Bulgaria.”
The deal between Microgaming Poker Network and National Lottery AD was brokered through Prima Networks Limited.
Microgaming has made it clear in recent years that its main objective is to expand in key regulated markets. Its move into the Bulgarian market is thus in line with one of its most strategic goals.
Mateusz Moolhuizen was crowned as the Greatest Poker Player in the Universe at Microgaming Poker Network’s (MPN’s) biggest Universal Championship of Poker (UCOP) tournament.
This year’s UCOP was the MPN’s biggest series to date offering €1 million guaranteed, 88 events and more than 360 satellites.
Betsson player, Mateusz Moolhuizen, managed to collect 2779.48 points which resulted in the series regular taking the top spot on the UCOP leaderboard and winning the sought-after trophy to become this year’s Greatest Poker Player in the Universe.
Mateusz, who is a regular at the MPN Poker Tour, is the fourth player to win the title of Greatest Poker Player in the Universe. He took home an amount of €3,000 in cash as well as two MPN Poker Tour packages. Each package consisted of entry into the main event and one side event as well as accommodation and travel expenses.
The Betsson player also took the 8th spot of the final table at the MPN Poker Tour @ Battle of Malta Main Event for €30,000.
Alex Scott, Managing Director of Poker at Microgaming, commented that this year’s tournament series was the biggest and most thrilling they have had, building on last year’s event with an impressive €1 million guaranteed. He congratulated Mateusz on taking the coveted title as the Greatest Poker Player in the Universe.
Mateusz Moolhuizen said that UCOP has made poker very exciting for him this year and it was an exhilarating experience. He added that climbing the leaderboards added another layer of anticipation.
Moolhuizen also said that most of all the event was a good excuse to skip some time with his parents in law.
The Microgaming Poker Network Poker Tour (MPNPT) @ Battle of Malta saw players from all over Europe attend the poker tournament which was held at Casino Malta.
The Battle of Malta Main Event attracted 3,816 players who registered from all over including Lebanon, the UK, France, the United States, Denmark, Lithuania and the Netherlands. Play went on for six days and in the end it was local Maltese player Julien Stopoli who beat a great field and came out on top.
The field of 3,816 players was reduced to 9 after 5 days of serious poker action. The top final players at the table were due to walk out with 6 figures and the 5 players left at the table were Julien Stropoli, Maxime Canevet, Erik Ostergaard, Mantas Urbonas and Abdallah Fakhreddine.
The five decided to work out a deal that would see the prize money being broken down for Stropoli to get €118,000, Canevet €169,900, Abdallah €108,500, Ostergaard €139,500 and Ubonas €121,500. The player finishing in first place would receive an additional €50,000 and the player in second place would get another €23,000.
Ostergaard, Stropoli and Canevet were the final three players left at the table. Third place went to Ostergaard and in the end it was Stropoli who finished in first place, taking home a total of €168,500 while Cavevet went home with €192,000.
Had the deal not been made, Canevet would have finished with €170,000 while Stropoli would have taken home a whopping amount of €300,000.
Maltese iGaming solutions innovator Gaming Innovation Group (GiG) has announced that it has entered into a ‘white label’ agreement in terms of which it will provide online casino and poker services to the OneTimePoker brand from operator One Time Marketing Services LLC.
It is anticipated that the deal signed between the parties will go live during the first quarter of next year and will see OneTimePoker making use of its Core platform to offer a poker product powered by the Microgaming Poker Network.
The innovator revealed that the agreement will also see the domain feature its ‘casino in poker’ advance that sees players compete against the house rather than other enthusiasts. According to the developer its in-house Guts brand has offered this innovation since 2015 and that the latest deal will moreover involve the provision of other third-party casino content.
Chief Executive Officer for Gaming Innovation Group Incorporated, Robin Reed, commented that the OneTimePoker arrangement represents the first time an external operator has signed up for the Microgaming Poker Network and seamlessly integrated its Core platform. He also explained that the deal is to see his firm receive fees for providing its services to One Time Marketing Services LLC.
Reed also said that they are delighted to have signed their first poker agreement with OneTimePoker to help further its ambitions. He added that it has made such a positive impact on poker over the years, representing some of the biggest names in the industry in addition to contributing to so many industry publications.