Steve Ruddock
For poker players and fans it’s getting close to the 2013 World Series of Poker (WSOP) which means for most of us, “it’s the most wonderful time of the year; they’ll be music and dancing…” I’ll stop there and spare you the torment of having a Christmas song stuck in your head in May, so let’s just get going with what’s going on in the poker world in our weekly look Around Online Poker as we head into the WSOP.
The first thing on this week’s agenda is a look at the recent revelations by the iPoker Network that they are finding US players still playing on the network (which hasn’t allowed US players since 2006) with the help of affiliates. We’ll also take a look at the expanding mobile options available to Ladbrokes players, and we’ll finish up by looking at the possibility of a real-money WSOP.com being ready for the WSOP.
iPoker making concentrated effort to stop verification abuses
Player-to-Player transfers have been in the poker headlines quite a bit lately (see also Lock Poker), and we now have some concrete reasons as to why iPoker rooms like Ladbrokes, Poker 770, and Bet 365 suspended P2P transfers recently.
According to PokerFuse.com, iPoker is requesting all of their skins verify the physical location of their players that originated with the affiliate iPokerVIP. These checks are known as “Know Your Customer” checks and are used to determine a physical address for players. Apparently there are widespread abuses taking place at iPoker, with players from banned countries like the US playing on the network (most likely using a VPN) and getting around the verification checks the network uses at the withdrawal phase by transferring their winnings to an affiliate/friend that lives in a licensed locale.
It seems that the investigation is centered on two major affiliates for iPoker, Muchos Poker and Poker VIP, both of whom have been named publicly. Muchos Poker has issued a statement declaring their innocence and stating that they are working with iPoker to solve any issues, but so far there hasn’t been a response from Poker VIP.
iPoker has given its skins until May 20th (yesterday) to run KYC checks on their players from PokerVIP; any accounts not verified by this date are likely to be frozen by iPoker until a legitimate verification check is conducted.
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Ladbrokes launches new Mobile Platform
PlayTech which provides the online gaming software for all iPoker rooms including the popular UK sportsbook/Casino/Poker-Room Ladbrokes has recently announced the creation of a new mobile platform for online games. Not all iPoker rooms will support the new mobile platform, but among the rooms that have adopted the next-gen technology is Ladbrokes.
The new Ladbrokes Poker mobile client is available for iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Nokia, and other select providers. To get started you’ll simply need to text either “Casino” or “Sports”, and iPoker will then SMS you details on how to get started –at this time online poker is not available for Mobile users but fear not, it’s in the works.
You can find more information on Ladbrokes Mobile here: http://mobilebetting.ladbrokes.com/en
Will 888 and Caesars have WSOP.com online for the WSOP?
It’s hard to imagine that Caesars Entertainment and their partner in the Nevada market, 888 Holdings, wouldn’t have their online poker room, WSOP.com, up and running for the 2013 World Series of Poker considering Las Vegas will be flooded with thousands of poker players over the course of the 2013 WSOP, but it’s starting to look more and more like this will in fact be the case.
On the recent WSOP Conference Call the poker media was informed that despite some dubious claims to the contrary the WSOP.com website would not be launched in the coming days, but they do plan on having the real-money online poker room ready for the summer, which would unfortunately be a little too late to cash in on the surge of poker players at the WSOP.
According to Seth Palansky, the Vice President of Corporate Communications for Caesars, “We’re hard at work completing the necessary steps as required to bring it to market. We can’t confirm an exact launch date, but we know it will be this summer. The reality for us is, when we have it right and have all the appropriate signoffs, we’ll be ready to go…”
There could very well be a silver-lining to launching after the WSOP concludes, and that would be to avoid a massive drop in traffic. If the WSOP.com was online during the tournament series it would likely see a good deal of traffic, giving people a false sense of what to expect from WSOP.com, since traffic would inevitably fall off a cliff at the conclusion of the series.
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