From June 29 through July 1, an invite-only poker cash game will be filmed at ARIA inside the Bristlecone Ballroom in the convention center. The no-limit hold’em cash game, called Super High Roller Cash Game, will be played eight handed at $400/$800/$200 stakes and require players to buy-in for a minimum of $250,000 with no maximum.
“This high-stakes, exciting game will mix legendary poker players with non-pros and will be televised on the world’s only 24/7 poker TV channel,” said Poker Central PR Director Sandra Yucara, who also revealed that the show will air on Poker Central TV in November.
The show is expected to attract some of the biggest names in the game – Ben Lamb and Phil Hellmuth are two rumored to play — but Yucara was only willing to confirm one player – Antonio Esfandiari.
“I’m excited to play,” Esfandiari told PokerNews. “High Stakes Poker was, I think, the most popular poker TV shows in the history of poker TV shows, and in a way this feels like HSP. It’s a televised cash game with decent sized blinds and an ante, and so I think there should be a lot of action. Given that, I’m pretty excited to play, but I’m also pretty excited for poker, to sort of bring back the big TV cash game.”
The cash game will be filmed by POKER PROductions, but it is not a reboot of the classic poker TV show High Stakes Poker.
“We are indeed contracted to shoot a cash game but it is not High Stakes Poker,” POKER PROductions President Mori Eskandani clarified when reached by PokerNews. “That show belongs to GSN, and they are the only ones who can reboot it. The new cash game is called Super High Roller Cash Game.”
ARIA is waiving all fees to maximize the value to players. Interestingly, players are not allowed to wear sunglasses.
Finally, the PokerNews Live Reporting Team will be on hand to capture all the cash game in our live blog, so be sure to tune in next week to see who plays and wins the Super High Roller Cash Game.
This week’s installment of Inside Gaming reports on the reintroduction of an anti-online gambling bill into the U.S. Senate, a big month for Nevada casinos, the AGA’s plan to conduct a check that casinos are complying with anti-money laundering requirements, and a big new partnership for the daily fantasy sports site, DraftKings.
Graham Introduces Senate Version of Anti-Online Gambling Bill
As he had previously announced he would do, this week Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) reintroduced into the U.S. Senate a version of the Restoration of American’s Wire Act (RAWA), the bill designed to prohibit nearly all forms of online gambling (including poker) throughout the U.S.
The Senate bill (available here) largely resembles the one introduced in the House earlier this year by Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT). The bill has been heavily lobbied for by billionaire Sheldon Adelson, chairman and CEO of the Las Vegas Sands Corporation and chief donor to GOP campaigns.
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) is a co-sponsor of the senate bill along with Graham. In April, Rubio announced his intention to run for president in 2016, while Graham similarly launched his presidential campaign earlier this month.
John Pappas, Executive Director of the Poker Players Alliance, responded negatively both to the bill and to the South Carolina senator’s timing for introducing it in the wake of the horrific mass shooting at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston.
“As the eyes of the nation are focused on South Carolina following the recent tragic event, I think I speak for most Americans when I express profound disappointment in Senator Graham for choosing this time to advance a bill for the sole benefit of a billionaire political donor,” said Pappas.
Big Month for Nevada, Exceeds $1 Billion Gaming Revenue for May
May was a big month for casinos in Nevada, the first time in two-and-a-half years the Silver State took in over $1 billion in gaming revenue, as the Las Vegas Review-Journal reports this morning.
According to the Nevada Gaming Control Board’s monthly gaming revenue report, casinos in Nevada took in $1.003 billion in revenue during May, up 3.3% year-over-year, the first 10-figure revenue month for Nevada since December 2013. Casinos on the Strip also last month enjoyed an increase of 1.4% over May 2014, earning $601.2 million in revenue.
Breaking down the numbers further, Howard Stutz notes how the increases were mostly the result of increased play at table games and slots and not via the high-stakes baccarat games, with the latter actually showing a decline in revenue of 36.1% in May.
The Floyd Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao welterweight title fight kicked the month off well for its host, the MGM Grand, and other casinos up and down the strip. The Rock in Rio music festival that took place over two weekends on the Strip also helped boost casinos’ patronage.
For more number-crunching regarding Nevada’s May uptick, visit the LVRJ.
AGA Calls for Industry Compliance Audit of U.S. Casinos
The Wall Street Journal reported this week that the American Gaming Association will be conducting “a sector-wide assessment to see how gambling houses are rooting out money launderers.”
The AGA has commissioned an outside auditor to produce the assessment in anticipation of an international evaluation to be conducted in 2016 by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an intergovernmental body charged with setting standards and promoting implementation of measures to combat money laundering, terrorist financing, and other threats to the international financial system.
The assessment, says the AGA, will “calculate vulnerability and risk related to casinos — and develop a compelling way to contextualize the money laundering risk presented by the casino sector through comparison to other regulated industries.”
Writing for the WSJ’s “Risk & Compliance Journal” blog, Joel Schectman notes how “in FATF’s last report on U.S. anti-money laundering efforts in 2006, evaluators called on the U.S. to toughen its [anti-money laundering] compliance requirements on casinos,” calling in particular for all casinos “to conduct customer due diligence” in addition to checking for identification.
As reported here in February, Trump Entertainment agreed to pay a $10 million civil penalty assessed by the U.S. Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network after the Trump Taj Mahal admitted to having willfully violated federally-mandated requirements for reporting and record-keeping between 2010 and 2012.
Find out more about the AGA’s requested audit at the WSJ.
DraftKings Lands Exclusive Marketing Deal with ESPN
On Saturday the World Series of Poker will be kicking off another new event, Event #55: $1,500 DraftKings 50/50 No-Limit Hold’em, a tournament that will be unique for the WSOP in two ways. For one, 50% of those who enter the tournament will be cashing in it. Secondly, as the name suggests, the event is sponsored by DraftKings, Inc., the fast-growing daily fantasy sports company whose prominence has grown considerably of late, including having established a heavy presence at the WSOP this summer.
This week came news of another big marketing deal for the Boston-based company. On Wednesday it was announced that DraftKings and ESPN have reached an exclusive agreement to make DraftKings “the official daily fantasy sports offering across ESPN’s platforms.”
“ESPN and DraftKings share a history of innovating and advancing fantasy sports to serve this passionate fan base,” said ESPN President and Co-Chairman of Disney Media Networks John Skipper in a press release about the agreement. “DraftKings is a dynamic company — deeply connected to its fans — and we’re excited to have them on board as our official daily fantasy sports offering.”
DraftKings CEO Jason Robins was similiarly enthusiastic. “We are thrilled to be working closely with ESPN,” said Robins. “Together we will provide fans with the most robust, diverse and comprehensive fantasy sports experience.”
As Skipper notes, ESPN has been involved in providing a wide variety of fantasy sports-related content dating back two decades to the mid-1990s (not long after the launch of its website). Meanwhile DraftKings launched in 2012 and within three years has begun to challenge industry-leader FanDuel, Inc. (launched in 2009) in the daily fantasy sports market.
The DraftKings-ESPN agreement did not include an investment from Disney Co., parent company of ESPN, reports betaBoston, who quotes “a person familiar with the matter” telling how DraftKings “is still negotiating to raise about $250 million from investors… in the same ballpark as the amount Disney had discussed pumping into DraftKings” according to a Wall Street Journal report. However, Adam Krejcik, a digital games analyst, is quoted confirming “there’s no shortage of willing investors” in DraftKings at the moment.
Since, poker has became the talk of my existence, as well as, Phil Ivey. I am pretty upset that he fails, expectations are always high for a player of his caliber. In this case, we can’t be mad or upset of his performance. After many bracelets and wsop experience, tides always change. I hope it all works out for Phil Ivey and the end results in another bracelet soon. Check it out!
Day 33 of the 2015 World Series of Poker was a memorable one. Phil Ivey finally showed up to the dance, while the $111,111 High Roller for ONE DROP kicked off. Toss in four bracelets being awarded and it was a busy day. Here are the highlights:
Colman Leads After Day 1 in $111,111 High Roller for ONE DROP; Ivey Falls
In 2012, the Big One for ONE DROP changed the poker landscape by offering a $1-million buy-in tournament, the biggest in poker history. It was such a massive affair that it was deemed too much to hold every year. Instead, a plan was instituted to hold it every other year, and in between to offer the $111,111 High Roller for ONE DROP.
In 2013, the inaugural $111,111 High Roller for ONE DROP attracted 166 players and was eventually won by Tony Gregg for $4,830,619. Attendance was down a bit for the second edition of the tournament, but still 135 players turned up to create a $14,249,925 prize pool, which will be distributed to the top 16 players with the eventual winner set to take home $3,989,985.
The man best positioned to make a run at it after 14 levels of play on Day 1 is last year’s Big One for ONE DROP champ Daniel Colman, who bagged up the top stack among the 46 surviving players with 1.955 million. Others still in contention include Sorel Mizzi (1.935 million), Phil Hellmuth (1.395 million), and Ben “Bttech86” Tollerene (1.08 million), just to name a few.
Top 10 Day 1 Chip Counts
Place
Player
Count
1
Daniel Colman
1,955,000
2
Sorel Mizzi
1,935,000
3
Andrew Lichtenberger
1,770,000
4
Sergey Lebedev
1,590,000
5
Andrew Robl
1,585,000
6
Christoph Vogelsang
1,435,000
7
Phil Hellmuth
1,395,000
8
Tobias Reinkemeier
1,285,000
9
Darren Elias
1,180,000
10
James Calderaro
1,165,000
The story of the day was the 2015 WSOP debut of Phil Ivey, who had finally arrived from Macau. Poker fans eager to see if Ivey would make an appearance this summer, and he delivered, which was something he talked about in this PokerNews interview.
Unfortunately for Ivey, his stay was short and not so sweet. Early on, Ivey clashed with Brian Hastings, who has won two bracelets this summer, and saw his stack take a hit as a result. In one hand, there was approximately 175,000 in the pot and a board reading when Ivey bet 100,000 from the small blind. Hastings proceeded to move all in, and Ivey hit the tank debating what to do with the 145,000 he had behind.
“Late reg is still open for the $1K,” Hastings joked. Ivey didn’t seem to find it funny, and after about five minutes released his hand. According to updates from the event, Ivey later fell in Level 11 (5,000/10,000/1,000) after action folded to him on the button and he shoved his last 113,000. Chris Klodnicki then three-bet all in over the top from the small blind, which inspired the big to fold.
Ivey:
Klodnicki:
The flop paired Ivey, but it did him little good as Ivey also paired his ace. The turn left Ivey drawing dead, and he headed for the exit even before the was put out on the river.
Others who fell on Day 1 were the original Big One for ONE DROP champ Antonio Esfandiari; reigning WSOP Main Event champ Martin Jacobson; 2012 WSOP champ Greg Merson; two-time WSOP Player of the Year Daniel Negreanu; and the defending champ, Gregg, who fell after running pocket sevens into Hastings’ nines.
The tournament, which raised more than $750,000 for the ONE DROP charity, will recommence at 1:00 p.m. local time on Monday with the plan to play down to a winner; however, a third day may be added if necessary.
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when Ivey bet 100,000 from the small blind. Hastings proceeded to move all in, and Ivey hit the tank debating what to do with the 145,000 he had behind.
flop paired Ivey, but it did him little good as Ivey also paired his ace. The 
turn left Ivey drawing dead, and he headed for the exit even before the 
was put out on the river.
xtremepoker2x 