POKER CRAZE SWEETENING THE POTS FOR CITY'S HIDDEN CARD HOUSES

POKER CRAZE SWEETENING THE POTS FOR CITY'S HIDDEN CARD HOUSES ALONG the streets of New York at almost any hour of any day — above nail salons, next to Star bucks and under corporate offices — there are hard-core gamblers dropping wads of cash in the city's secret poker parlors. The Texas hold 'em poker craze has hit Gotham's gambling underworld, with six clubs opening in just the past six months. The Post went inside the shady and sometimes thrilling underground scene to talk to players and managers whose livelihoods depend on the flip of a card. As they chase tournaments and cash games, cops and prosecutors are never far behind. Oblivious office workers grab a hot dog on a Midtown street, while upstairs in rented rooms, high-rollers called "whales" and free-spending amateurs called "fish" loose their bankrolls, stake other players and argue over a newbie's lucky fortune on the "turn." There are professional players practicing for Vegas, Hollywood actors getting their gambling fix, superstar ballplayers blowing off steam, Internet-poker whiz kids trying their hand at real live games, and respected old-timers with nicknames like Mike "Falafel" and Johnny "Noodles" beating down hood-wearing punks on "trips" — slang for three of a kind. At some joints, you can enter the cheapest game with $10 in chips and bet as low as a buck. In the richest cash games, high-rollers "buy in" for $10,000 and sweat out six-figure pots. "I've been playing in clubs for years, I think they're good for the city — they represent a long tradition of gambling houses that should be respected," said world-class backgammon player and poker prodigy Abe "The Brooklyn Kid" Mosseri. The multimillionaire from Midwood cut his teeth playing the illegal club circuit for over 10 years before he became a television star on the World Poker Tour. "Now, every Tom, Dick and Harry wants to open up a club and cash in," said Mosseri, 31. "It's just a matter of which ones survive and which ones don't." The longest-running poker club in the city opened three years ago — before Bravo, the Travel Channel and ESPN started televising tournaments, triggering a national fascination with poker. At 4 a.m. on a Saturday, almost every seat at 14 tables is filled. Muted televisions in almost every corner play the fights and NBA and baseball reruns. "It may be Friday night, but it could be any night to these guys," says one tattooed man wearing a trucker cap as he waits for a "$4/$8" game to open up. The dollar amounts allude to the small and big bets forced on two respective players in each hand. This club is certainly no glamour hall — it's all about the gambling. The bare, beige walls reflect blinding fluorescent lights. A brunette waitress wearing a red oriental dress and chopsticks in her hair hands out cans of Coke, cups of tea and chocolate biscuits for $1 chip tips. An Asian man is asleep in a room no bigger than an elevator, set aside for smokers and cut off by a plastic curtain. At a $10/$20 no-limit table, a man who looks like he came straight from work dressed in a navy suit moves "all-in" with about $550 in chips. A college kid matches his stack of chips, jumps up and flips his cards — two aces. "Suck my d - - -!" yells the gloating frat boy just before gathering up $2,000 in winnings after "the flop." (In hold 'em, the flop refers to the first three "community" cards dealt face-up after the initial two cards are given face-down to each player. The fourth card, also an upside community card, is called "the turn" and the final card, also up, is called "the river." Players make bets before the flop, turn and before and after the river.) "What's it feel like to have my c - - - in your mouth?" the kid screams. Shocked players at other tables peel their eyes away from their game to see the commotion. Most shake their heads in disgust — "What a monkey," comments an online whiz kid at the next-door table.

WFSB Poker the hot game at Foxwoods

WFSB Poker the hot game at Foxwoods MASHANTUCKET (AP) -- It's just another day at Foxwoods Resort Casino and the wait for a seat at a poker table is well over an hour. All 81 tables, all 810 seats at New England's only poker room, are filled. "Look around. This place is packed," says Mark Whittaker, a home theater installer from Ashland, Mass., who drove an hour and a half to play Texas Hold 'Em but is playing Omaha instead because of the wait. "And it's what, noon on a Wednesday?" Not too long ago, many gaming executives considered rooms like this to be wasted space. The games are too long and the casino's cut is too small to make poker anything but a dud for the bottom line. But poker's resurgence, driven by televised championships, celebrity tournaments and online games, has changed the equation. While it remains a game of incredibly small profits, destination hotels have stopped comparing poker to slot machines and are seeing it as a must-have amenity like boxing, concerts and shows. At Foxwoods, executives plan to add more tables and have made poker part of a marketing strategy to quintuple convention and group sales in the coming years. Last month, executives added a poker brochure to their convention packets. "It's the hot thing right now, and they'll ask for it: 'Can we set up a poker tournament?"' said Joan Esneault, executive director of resort sales. "Maybe they have a reception on one side of the room and a gaming lesson or an actual tournament on the other side." Even casinos that folded their poker operations are getting back into the game. In Las Vegas, the Golden Nugget, Harrah's, and the Imperial Palace have reopened poker rooms and the MGM Grand has plans to do so this spring. With cable stations seemingly running games around the clock and poker stars becoming sports celebrities, jumping into the game might seem an easy business decision. After all, Nevada poker revenue is up 38 percent and the average table earns 67 percent more than a decade ago. But despite its popularity, the balance sheets show that poker remains a gamble. It steadily accounts for less than 1 percent of Nevada gaming revenue. With just five slot machines, a casino can match a poker table's earnings without paying a dealer or a support staff. Indian casinos typically are not required to report table game revenues, but experts say the numbers are comparable. Casinos are again offering poker for the same reason they build giant pyramids and exploding volcanos, hire go-go dancers and hand out complimentary meal tickets. "It's not a profitable game," said Sylke Finnegan, spokeswoman for the Golden Nugget, which last year dealt its first poker hands in nearly two decades. "But they want the whole Las Vegas experience. They want to see a show and eat at some of the best restaurants in the world. Why not go to Las Vegas and play poker?" Casino consultants have noticed the philosophical shift. "It just never paid to invest in poker because the return was limited," said Paul Girvan, director of the Innovation Group, a Louisiana consulting firm. "Now what's been discovered is, with its popularity, poker has the ability to draw people into the casino that might not otherwise be there." If a basement poker player visits a casino, spends three hours at a table while his wife plays the slots, has dinner and leaves, poker has done its job. If he tries other games or gets a hotel room, even better. Not everyone buys into that strategy. Mohegan Sun, just a few miles from Foxwoods, closed its poker room 18 months ago and filled it with slots. Today, with fewer machines, its slot revenue regularly exceeds Foxwoods and its chief executive says he has no regrets. But poker rooms are opening faster than they're closing. Twenty-five Nevada casinos have joined the game in just over two years. At the Imperial Palace, executives aren't even pitching their new poker room to the people who play big pots and make more money for the house. Their low-stakes games attract tourists and beginners and create brand loyalty. "If you offer that amenity, you will increase your appeal to a broader customer base," said David Strow, spokesman for Harrah's Entertainment, which recently purchased the rights to the World Series of Poker. "Many of them are not going to stop just at poker. You'll see an indirect increase casino revenues overall."

RakeBacks.com Offers Revolutionary New Poker Rake Back Plans to All Online Poker Players

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Gambling Bill set to pass this week

Gambling Bill set to pass this week Insiders predict the UK Gambling Bill will become law this week, but the government will be forced to make major concessions to safeguard the remote gaming section of the bill with just one Las Vegas style land-based casino now expected to be approved. If the bill passes it will introduce a regulated regime for online casino and poker gaming in the UK for the first time. And there is widespread belief that cross-party agreement on the need to regulate the egaming industry had been a deciding factor in forcing the legislation through. The bill has already passed in the House of Commons but it still needs to pass a House of Lords vote, where the government’s opposition has a majority. However, time is running out for the bill with Prime Minister Tony Blair announcing today that Parliament will be dissolved on 11 April to prepare for a general election on May 5. And the pressure to pass the long awaited bill before the 11 April deadline now looks like it has forced the government into backing down from plans for eight so-called supercasinos. If the government is forced into allowing just one supercasino it will be seen as a major political embarrassment, but it will mean the remote gaming sections of the bill survive intact. The government has already made several important changes to the remote gaming section bill, with several key amendments facing a Lords vote this week. One of the most important amendments would allow UK operators to remain members of poker networks, with the government no longer pushing for all egaming equipment to be based in the UK. New amendments will allow the Gambling Commission to take a case by case approach to deciding which items of gambling equipment can be located outside Great Britain. Another series of amendments will allow the government the “flexibility to judge which equipment can be located off-shore”. If the amendments pass it will be a significant victory for the online gaming sector, which has lobbied heavily to get the bill changed.

Multi-player interactive Poker on mobile phone

Multi-player interactive Poker on mobile phone Gaming software company MobileGamingNow, Inc. is launching an interactive, multi-player mobile phone gaming for poker. Called the Mobile Gaming Platform, the software creates a turnkey gaming platform for poker to be played on a mobile phone. The first game available on MGN's platform is the popular Texas Holdem. On MGN Mobile Poker, up to six players per table can play against each other on mobile handsets by downloading the game to a mobile phone, installing it and logging into the game. The company is now working to license the game, based on Texas Holdem, to operators. According to the research service PokerPulse, more than 1.88 million poker players made real money wagers online in February, 2005 with nearly US$200 million being wagered every day. For the year 2005, commissions or rakes from online poker will total US$1 billion. In 2003, overall Internet gaming wagers totaled nearly US$5.7 billion and according to industry analysts Christiansen Capital Advisors, and wagers are expected to grow to more than US$18 billion by the year 2010.