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Poker machine robberies

The police force in New Zealand is currently investigating into the involvement of three suspects in a mass of poker machine robberies in the North Island, Hamilton. The three suspected men have been arrested yesterday and placed in jail behind two bars in their locality.

Money was repeatedly stolen from poker machines and the police are now investigating the men’s involvement in another almost 60 poker machine robberies throughout the North Island. This theft has been reported mostly in the Waikato and King Country areas.

The three suspects are Charles Runga, aged 33, Harley Randall, aged 29, and Patrick Marra, aged 24. They all appeared in the New Plymouth District Court yesterday and were sent in custody until the 29th of May.

The Taranaki Daily News has reported that there has been a considerable amount of similar burglaries. This theft has been specifically targeted to the poker machines throughout the North Island in the past three or four years. This information was backed up by a statement of Grant Coward, the New Plymouth Police Detective Senior Sergeant.

Coward followed to say that the three men were “considered suspects” in these robberies, and the police allege that they have hit five bars around New Plymouth in the recent months. Through the investigations, the police have so far recovered a full $1300 in $2 coins.

Addict Harry Kakavas talks about secret listening device

News from Kakavas’s $30 million Supreme Court fight with Crown Casino is that of a full ten hours of secret tape recordings, which were handed to Justice David Harper. Kakavas is in the process of suing Crown Casino for the $20.5 million that he lost in a 14-month binge at Baccarat between June 2005 and August 2006, also to include damages incurred.

is also suing Mr Williams who allegedly had devised a plan to get him back with extra cash incentives and use of his own luxury jet. Williams is the son of casino developer Lloyd Williams, and Crown Global CEO Rowen Craigie.

Kakavas had already signed a self-exclusion order which meant he was banned from the casino life-long and had told the court he owed more than $20 million to friends and $4.9 million to the Australian Tax Office before that. The latter said he raised most of his gambling funds when he mortgaged properties owned by his successful Gold Coast real estate business.

Then revelations showed he also owed $5 million to casinos in Las Vegas, $1 million to Crown and $1 million to the Atlantas casino in the Bahamas. He said that the Crown Casino extended his credit to $1 million owed to Crown during his final visit to the casino in 2006. “Mr Williams said to me that the $1 million was no big deal for Crown. He told me not to feel hurried or pressured to pay it back.”

Kakavas’ attorneys have in fact revealed that in late 2006 he wore a hidden listening device during a number of conversations with the Crown chiefs. The tape transcripts were not read to the court after the Crown’s counsel Neil Young, QC objected, saying he requests that the tapes are checked by an independent expert to determine whether they had been “edited, stopped or started”. These tapes reveal separate talks with senior Crown executives John Williams, Howard Aldridge, Richard Doggart and Bill Horman. When asked why he chose to use a recording device, Mr Kakavas said, “I formed the view that Crown would be less than truthful.”

Crown Casino seems to have been given access to the tapes more than a year ago and had never previously raised concerns after having listened to the entire material. The hearing will continue this Tuesday.

New Poker Show to Air on NBC

Poker After Dark fans and game show lovers alike will love the new poker show to air later this summer on NBC. Screening for the new Face the Ace will start this summer. The show will be hosted by Steve Schirripa and will first air on August 1st, 2009 at 9:00 p.m. and will move to a Saturday afternoon time slot in September. Seven episodes have been promised, but hopefully the show will be a hit and turn into a long-running show like Poker After Dark has. Both shows are produced by Poker Productions.

The host, Schirripa, is a well-known actor, best known for his role as Bobby Baccalieri on HBO’s hit show Sopranos. Prior to his acting career, though, Baccalieri had a career in the Vegas gambling industry, serving as entertainment director at the Riviera Hotel & Casino Las Vegas.

What makes Face the Ace enticing to the game show sector is the aspect of the show that allows the lucky contestant to pick a door. Behind four doors are successful and well-known poker professionals that will sit across from the contestant at a heads-up no-limit Hold’em game. If the challenger wins, he can opt to walk away with the pot or choose another door and face another poker pro. A second win will afford the player the opportunity to win a $1 million pot or walk away with nothing if he loses it all.

Jerry Petry, Executive VP for NBC Universal Incorporated, says “There’s nothing like it on the air right now. This will attract the core poker fans who watch it on our network but will also open it up to a new audience of people who like game shows and aren’t necessarily poker fans going in.”

Following the heels of recent popular game shows of chance like Deal or No Deal, Face the Ace has a very good chance of reeling in a very large audience following, especially since the rounds can go pretty fast, keeping the not-so-much-poker-loving watchers entertained as the show cycles through new players. For your chance to get on the show, you can qualify at Full Tilt Poker, as two FT players will appear on each show. Full Tilt Poker is a partner in the production of the new show, which is good for both parties. Full Tilt will bring in a large portion of the audience, while getting a lot of televised advertisement on NBC at the same time.

Gambler blames casino for $14.7M loss due to liqour

Terrance Watanabe, a high-stakes gambler is currently accusing several casinos in Vegas of pumping him up with booze and even painkillers just to keep him at the tables. His reason for the accusation is that he is defending himself after not paying up a full $14.7 million of gambling debts. All this was reported by the Las Vegas Sun.

Watanabe, originally from Nebraska has been arraigned for stealing and false-check charges originating from his gambling losses of $12 million at Caesars Palace and $2.7 million at the Rio. All these losses where done during a three-month period back in 2007. Watanabe’s rich background comes from his father’s Omaha-based wholesale novelty importing business.

The lawyer of Watanabe had sent the prosecutors a seven-page letter in which he explains how his client was in no coherent state at the time and being completely “incapable of forming the criminal intent”. This was done in an aim to avoid paying his gambling debts and the attorney followed to decline any comments about this letter. The attorney also added to say that in addition to the $14.7 million, Watanabe had lost a further $112 million at Harrah’s casino the same year.

Gary Thompson who is the spokesman for Harrah’s Entertainment also refused to make any comments upon these allegations. He followed to say that the company has a long-standing guiding principle of not commenting on lawful matters.

Expekt.com Signs Scotty Nguyen As New Poker Ambassador

Scotty Nguyen, world champion poker legend will be the new exclusive poker ambassador for Expekt.com online gaming company, as indicated in a contract that took effect May 15th, 2009.

“This will be fun, baby. I am looking forward to working with Expekt.com and make their successful poker even more popular,” says Scotty Nguyen.

“The Prince of Poker” has won more than $10 million in various poker tournaments and is one of the most famous poker players in the world, many recognizing his face from televised poker tournaments.

When asked what exactly he will be doing in his position at Expekt.com, Nguyen claimed, “I will, for example, do an exclusive video blog twice a month, plus write a column once a month where I will focus on poker strategy. Overall, I will be the face of Expekt.com Poker and play WSOP and more live tournaments in the late summer and autumn. It will be great fun, baby.”

Nguyen, 46, was born in Vietnam. He won the title of World Champion of Poker in 1998 as the winner of the WSOP Main Event. He is one of the strongest and longest lasting poker players to ever play the game. Currently, he is the only poker player in the world to win both the Main Event of WSOP and the WSOP $50K HORSE events. Winning the HORSE tournament in the 2008 WSOP, gave him a title that many believe shows who is the actual best all-around poker player in the world, conquering the most challenging of poker tournament structures.

Dan Vikman, Expekt.com’s PR manager, says, “We are really looking forward to working with Scotty. He is the prince of poker and our poker customers have an exciting 2009 to look forward to with Scotty onboard.”

Most recently, Nguyen won first place in the LA Poker Classic HORSE tournament with a $339K+ payday.

Gambling addict suing casino for $50 Million

A millionaire gambling addict is currently suing the Crown Casino for a grand $50 million. The Casino is allegedly being sued for designing a scheme to tempt the millionaire gambling addict back to their casino venue.

The millionaire is Gold Coast property developer Harry Kakavas who lost $20 million at the said casino. The case is being heard by the Victorian Supreme Court. Kakavas’ lawyers are arguing that the casino lured him back and even used their private jet to fly him back and forth to Queensland. They offered him new cash incentives of up to $50,000 in “lucky money” deals.

In fact, Kakavas himself was subject to an interstate exclusion order, but the casino management illegally permitted that he returned to their casino where they followed to treat him like an international VIP. Kakavas was making up to $300,000 bets per hand, which is usually never allowed. Crown Casino even extended him more than $3.5 million in credit during the time.

The casino allowed this even though they knew he was a pathological gambler. The trial is not over, but still ongoing and the lawyers of Crown Casino lawyers are denying most of the above allegations.

Poker Pro wins $300K at the World Series of Golf

The World Series of Golf in Las Vegas was won by 33-year-old Jody Garaventa from Raleigh, North Carolina. He is a professional poker player and also an 11-handicap amateur golfer. Last Thursday he won over Kevin Dumont on after 20 holes, including two playoffs. Jody managed to turn his $10,000 buy-in into the amazing $300,000 prize win he took home. Runner-up Dumont is a 53-year-old bar owner from near Pittsburgh the second prize of $100,000.

There were 125 players to start with at the beginning of the tournament on Tuesday and the rules were loosely based on poker patterns in the no-limit Texas Hold ‘em poker. In fact, the game rules were quite unique with the players betting on their strokes with poker chips and getting winning chips when they finish holes in fewer strokes or even by forcing opponents to fold.

NBC to Launch Online Poker Room

The terrestrial network of NBC television – America’s National Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) has just launched a new addition to its existing network. They are in fact offering a free-to-play online poker room that gives the competitors a chance to win cash and prizes. This will be done through the NBCSports.com portal and will be performed using software from Zen Gaming, the online poker turnkey solutions provider.

This new addition is also giving the players a chance to win authentic NBC Sports gear together with the ultimate prize of a seat to the big event. This seat that costs $20,000 buy-in to the 2010 National Heads-Up Poker Championships.

Jon Miller from NBC Sports, commented, ‘Poker has been a growth area in our broadcast schedule over the last few years and we have always sought to bring a complimentary online component to our audience,’ ‘We feel we have brought a new level of engagement opportunity to our online audience by providing them an opportunity to enjoy free poker, connect with our on-air programming and interactively engage with our sponsors and advertisers.’

This new poker service offers single and multi-table Texas Hold’em tournaments which will be scheduled every 30 minutes. The ten best players will qualify every consecutive week for an online final. The final will be held in February and will be giving out the ultimate prize of a seat at the 2010 National Heads-Up Poker Championships as a final prize. This event will be held in March at the world-famous Caesars Palace Hotel and Casino.

HollywoodPoker.com achieves White Label

Hollywood Poker.com has been granted a white label and is now setting its goals to become the most recent addition to the UK online poker market. With their operations set in Gibraltar, this white label status means that they can now advertise legally in the UK and expand their operations there. This exclusive and high end market site, owned by the Vista Global group, attracts thousands of players on a daily basis.

Hollywood Poker.com is boasting huge promotions, pots and tournaments and currently challenging their players to participate in their virtual poker games against real celebrities such as James Woods and Vince Van Patten. These two celebrities are in fact regulars on the site.

“The hugely successful and popular site is localised in over eight languages while its popular games and tournaments can be viewed in over a dozen European languages including Dutch, French, German, Italian, Spanish and Swedish” is a statement issued by the company.

The statement followed, “Vista Global’s aggressive efforts in bringing HollywoodPoker.com’s unique brand of poker to new players across globe is coming to fruition as it leverages on strategic alliances that include marketing and affiliate tie-ups in virtually every European market.”

Poker Professional Accused of Making Terrible Deal

A professional poker player received a life-long message after he allegedly messed a company out of a hefty sum of money over the movie “Deal”

News from the Gambling Times, Inc. claim that the movie’s executive producer and poker player, Scott Lazar had promised his company a highly end product placement during the film in exchange for a $50,000 investment. The movie starred Burt Reynolds and Shannon Elizabeth.

But it seems that the lawsuit, filed in L.A. County Superior Court didn’t exist at all.

In the meantime, Lazor is being sued for $1,000,000 in damages even though the actual film DEAL only made $78,000 WORLDWIDE when it was screened during 2008.

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