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Full Tilt Poker, the world's second biggest online poker provider as of April 15, 2011 has finally released a statement concerning their situation since the DoJ closed the site. FTP basically blamed the U.S. Government and few of its payment processors for their financial problems. As Full Tilt Poker haven't been able to repay their customers since April 15, when the United States Department of Justice seized the domains of PokerStars, UB/AP and Full Tilt Poker. Then, as they were unable to do so, the AGCC (Alderney Gambling Control Commission) suspended their operating license, because they operated contrary to Alderney legislation.

Ever since, Full Tilt Poker remained silent, upsetting their costumers greatly. They tried to communicate with the public through poker forums and their lawyers, withouth much success. Now the company broke the silence releasing a long-awaited statement, which was published by Forbes.com yesterday. You can read the release in its entirety below.

The State of Nevada has proposed bills to regulate online poker within the state.

A few days after California declared that they will not deal with the regulation of online poker in 2011, the State of Nevada has issued bills in connection with online poker on the 24th August.

Among the bills, there is one regulating customer attendance and how to solve the problems concerning technological licenses and data entry. The bills will be refined in public 'workshops', the first of which will be held on the 26th September.

These steps that Nevada has taken can be the premonitory signs of the nationwide legalization of online poker. Mark Lipparelli, Chairman of the Gaming Control Board that has issued the bills mentioned above has briefly shared his thoughts on the topic:

“Internet poker has become a multibillion-dollar business around the world. The technology supporting it, while not perfect, has improved dramatically since introduction. There is no better home for ‘iGaming’ in the U.S. than in Nevada,[...] The Board has successfully regulated the gaming industry for more than 50 years and is clearly best positioned to establish and administer a balanced set of regulations that allows a new form of commerce to begin and upholds our regulatory principles protecting the betting public."

Nevada will strive to offer high-level online games for the players, “giving players as much confidence as possible in the entities and technologies that might eventually gain approval, [...]”

Mr. Lipparelli also mentioned that because they do not yet know what exactly the new laws will contain, they tried to handle regulations as flexibly as possible. They are looking ahead of a long process, and there is great chance that these bills will be modified multiple times.

Hastings has joined the ever-growing group of US online pros that try their luck in live games since Black Friday. He achieved his first live victory at a WPT Regional Summer Splash Side Event.

Brian played side Event #12, a $2,200 buy-in tourney at the World Poker Tour Summer Splash and managed to defeat a field of 391 players. He won $213,877.

More and more senators and casinos support the legalization of online gambling, and it seems that America is desperately in need of a new source of income.

By the end of 2011, the legalization of online poker could finally take place in the US. The support of the Congress and land-based casinos contributes to this, as does the American Government that is seizing every single source of income in today's financial crisis.

Casino Support

The Casino Lobby that reviewed and prevented legalization of online poker seems to have taken a 180 degree turn, and got into fight for legalization.

Gary Loveman, Caesars Entertainment Corporation CEO told press about the unexpected change in an interview in the beginning of August. Loveman emphasized, that the current bizarre laws prohibit American companies to offer online games, however, American citizens can play on sites that are maintained by other countries.

In the Quadjacks interview posted earlier, Daniel Negreanu also talked a bit about his personal life, which seems to have taken a twist since the World Series.

When Mike Matusow and Matt Savage started bullying Daniel, joking around, saying that he was gay, KidPoker assured them that he had no problems concerning his sexuality, and that he had actually just met his new girlfriend.

Daniel Negreanu: "I met my new girlfirend at the World Series. She plays poker too. She just came up, she was just saying hi, 'cause she knew some friends and stuff. So, we just started, you know, hitting it off, and she's super cool. She lives in Budapest, Hungary. She was Miss Earth Hungary in 2008. She's there now, but I'm gonna go visit in a bit. You will like her, Mike. Her name is Krisztina Polgár."

Krisztina Polgár is a Hungarian celebrity. As Daniel said, she won the prestigious beauty contest 'Miss Earth Hungary 2008', which, we can say, after taking a glance at her photos below, is not a title unduly won.

2007 Aussie Millions 2nd finisher Jimmy Fricke claims that every single ace of spades is easily recognisable from its back at the Bellagio.

Jimmy Fricke

US poker pro Jimmy Fricke has recently tweeted that certain cards are marked at the Bellagio, what is more, they are used even in the highest stakes games:

“Every single ace of spades is marked at Bellagio and no one gives a shit at all. I've pointed it out in 10ks and big cash and no one cares,” he wrote.

Renowned international poker action monitoring site Pocketfives.com has introduced a new leaderboard to its database: in addition to the already existing sliding, yearly, monthly and sortable PLBs, now you can observe the race of countries as well.

On the top of the leaderboard, which features 207 countries in total, stands the United States of America, even though US players have been unable to collect points since Black Friday. The runner-up is Canada, while the United Kingdom is the 3rd finisher. Brazil, Germany and Australia follow and the top 10 is complete with Hungary, Russia, Norway and Belgium.

The poker community has been in the past week or so all about the “Girah Scandal” – which is not at all about ’Girah’ any more. The true principles have become Haseeb ‘dogishead’ Qureshi and Daniel ‘Jungleman12’ Cates, the career of both in ruins and not a word they say believed any more. Although it took them this much to eventually come clean, at least finally it seems they did.

Haseeb 'dogishead' Qureshi

In a recent blog post on 2p2, before retiring entirely from poker, or at least saying so, Haseeb ‘dogishead’ Qureshi felt the need to once again, finally clarify everything he had been dishonest about. A few contributions later, Daniel ‘Jungleman12’ Cates also confessed, as a follow-up to his recent interview with Subject: Poker. Some excerpts of interest are as follows.

Google Plus, the latest pretender to Facebook’s throne, has made yet another step in the competition against the social media giant. They have introduced games, undeniably an integral part of the online community experience, and hit big doing so with titles like Angry Birds and Zynga Poker.

Zynga Poker is an online free-to-play poker game with arguably the biggest community among its kind, even surpassing the trademarked WSOP game. It has been speculated that Zynga, the developer of popular online applications like FarmVille, Mafia Wars and Treasure Isle, might be the biggest winner of a future regulation of the US market with its player base consisting of over 36 million users, many of whom possibly willing to become a real money player if Zynga offered such an option.

Bluff Magazine has interviewed the two high stakes players who seem to have the most suspicious relationship with the scammer José ‘Girah’ Macedo. Daniel ‘Jungleman12’ Cates and Haseeb ‘dogishead’ Qureshi were asked a couple of more or less pressing questions and here are some of their answers.

Daniel 'Jungleman12' Cates

Currently there seems to be no end to the recently surfaced Girah Scandal, as 2p2 forum members and the whole poker NVG community continues to unearth and prove newer and newer details by the day and come up with even more conspiracy theories and suspicions. So far, Qureshi has more than once tried to clear his name but apparently he only succeeds in going deeper down with each of his posts and statements, admitting to actions that had been proven and denying others.

Full Tilt Poker reportedly paid the £250,000 license fee to Alderney, which they were reluctant to do so during the July 26 hearing. They also sacked many of their U.S. employees in order to sort out the company. Many sources reported not long ago that Full Tilt Poker has let go of many of its employees. According to such reports, mainly U.S. persons were fired, who worked in their offices since the Black Friday. Pocket Kings Ltd's employees in the Irish headquarters of Full Tilt Poker are still working and receive their salaries, but it is unsure for how long.

18 years old Jose Macedo, the Portuguese Poker Prodigy as he is much better known, confessed that he cheated his coached students during a teamviewer session. He won over $30,000 from them, which he promised to pay back, plus he would give a $30,000 compensation per player. Lock Poker has cut his sponsorship, and he is also out of PokerStrategy's coach team.

Jose Macedo, already a Lock Poker pro was caught cheating this May, when he took down Lock Poker's Pro Challenge, but a few days later, it was discovered that he was multi-accounting; therefore, he was disqualified.

"Jose is young and he has made a big mistake here. We wanted to make sure that regardless of being a Lock Pro he won this fair and square. After doing an audit of his account, we have found that he broke some rules, and that will not be tolerated by Lock," Lock Poker CEO Jennifer Larson stated in a press release.

Of course, 'Girah' admitted to be at fault, and explained himself: "I’m deeply sorry for having broken the rules, but I truly had no intention of circumventing the rules in any way. Though it is no excuse, I want to be fully transparent at this point to let the poker world know what has happened and why. The computer in question was my backer, who logged into my account to check my balance and ended up playing some $25/$50 PLO while I was asleep and lost some money. Though on the merit of my own legitimate play I had enough winnings to win the Bluff Challenge, in light of the way things appear, I fully support and respect Lock’s decision to disqualify me and hand over the challenge to the second place winner." - Macedo told in May.

The Portuguese pro's reputation survived that mishap; his friends, Daniel 'Jungleman12' Cates and Haseeb 'INTERNETPOKERS' Qureshi (who just turned out to be his backer at the Bluff Challenge) were en route to Portugal to live with Macedo, because they were no longer allowed to play online poker in the United States; however, this plan quickly fell apart as news broke yesterday.

Online betting exchange Betfair, in a wave of thorough revision of their sport sponsorship activities, has ended its sponsorship contract with UEFA Champions League 2010/11 winner FC Barcelona and signed four sport stars for brand ambassadors. Marketing magazine reports.

Alasdair Wright, former Head of Marketing and Strategy at BSkyB and Head of Customer Marketing at AOL, was appointed Global Head of Customer Marketing and Loyalty at Betfair two months ago and it is his duty to oversee the marketing activity of the company. Hence the shift from a tendency of deals and contracts with top European soccer clubs, including Manchester United and FC Barcelona, to introducing retired sport aces as brand ambassadors. Nevertheless, Betfair remains the official betting partner of the 'Red Devils.'

The 9-hour-long Friday Night Podcast of Quadjacks saw Daniel Negreanu, Matt Savage, Mike Matusow and Tony G talk extensively about the current issues in poker.

A lot of interesting topics have been discussed, including the WSOP 'No Talking' rule, the Epic Poker League, Full Tilt's current situation and Subject:Poker's article.