Weekly Roundup February 12 2016
Partypoker Dumps Withdrawal Fees
Partypoker announced this week that it would end withdrawal fees on ewallet withdrawals effective immediately. All Neteller, Skrill and Webmoney cashouts will be processed without Partypoker taking a cut. The decision was made based on player feedback. This is part of its “Poker for the People” campaign.
Partypoker Reenters Gray Markets
Partypoker left dozens of markets over the past few years where online poker was not specifically legal. New management decided to roll back this decision by reentering 21 markets this week. The countries where previously banned players may give real money action are Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Venezuela, Finland, Serbia, Latvia, Lithuania, Armenia, Hungary, Macedonia, Hong Kong, South Korea, Liberia, Lebanon, Somalia, Zimbabwe and China.
MPN Improves Sit and Go Structures
MPN announced some major changes to its sit and gos. Players will now start with 2,000 chips, as opposed to 1,500 chips. Levels in some tournaments were increased. MPN decided to increase its admin fee on Double Up Sit and Gos. Those fees will go towards added security to help fight collusion at those tables. Players will notice lower admin fees on some other sit and gos in the lobby.
PKR Moving to MPN
In other MPN news, PKR announced that it will move to the fast growing poker network later this year. PKR has been a standalone site since its launch more than 10 years ago. Liquidity on independent sites has become problematic as the industry contracts. PKR will adopt MPN’s software and player pool. An exact date has yet to be announced.
PokerStars Removes Most Heads Up Cash Game Tables
PokerStars announced that effective today, February 12, the site will remove all cash game heads up tables for No Limit Texas Hold’em, Fixed Limit Texas Hold’em and Pot Limit Omaha. Zoom Poker, PokerStars’ fast fold variant, will replace these tables. This will make it so that players can not get bum-hunted as opponents will rotate after every hand. This move affects all limits. Zoom Poker tables already replaced limits of 50/100 and higher.
New Jersey Online Gaming Revenue Breaks Another Record
New Jersey’s regulated online casinos posted a record win in January 2016. The site’s won a combined $14.6 million. That was up 26% from the previous year and 4 percent over the record broken in December 2015.
Casino win was $12.4 million. That was up 35 percent from the previous year. Poker rake was $2.2 million. It was up from the previous month but down six percent from January 2015. Borgata’s partners were the winners in terms of both casino win and poker rake.