Play in the $50,000 Guaranteed Poker Tournament

Your weekends just got a lot more exciting. That's because the payouts at BetOnline Poker's Saturday and Sunday guaranteed poker tournaments are more generous than ever. To be exact at least $90,000 worth of guaranteed cash will be up for grabs every weekend. The schedule looks like this:

Saturday:

 

Time ET	Time CET	Tournament	Buy-in
12pm	6pm	$5,000 (Turbo)	$10+$1 or 1,100 Promo Bucks
4pm	10pm	$10,000	$20+$2 or 2,200 Promo Bucks
7pm	1am	$15,000	$30+$3 or 3,300 Promo Bucks
10pm	4am	$10,000 (Turbo)	$20+$2 or 2,200 Promo Bucks

Sunday:

 

Time ET	Time CET	Tournament	Buy-in
12pm	6pm	$5,000 (Turbo)	$10+$1 or 1,100 Promo Bucks
4pm	10pm	$15,000	$30+$3 or 3,300 Promo Bucks
7pm	1am	$20,000	$40+$4 or 4,400 Promo Bucks
10pm	4am	$10,000 (Turbo)	$20+$2 or 2,200 Promo Bucks

On the last Sunday of the month the $20,000 Guaranteed Poker Tournament is replaced with a $50,000 GT with a buy-in of $90 + $90. Play hard to get your chance of winning the guaranteed $16,000 first place prize. The next Buy in is this Sunday, June 26th at 7 pm ET!

The Main Difference Between Online Poker Bonuses And Poker Rake Back

In internet poker, a poker player has a choice between poker rakeback or poker bonuses. The problem is you can only pick one of the options. All poker players have their own personal preference on which is the best for them. In this article we will examine the benefits of each and which is better for you.

Different kinds of bonuses in poker are:

Initial Deposit Bonuses: Are bonuses given when players make their initial deposit. Ordinarily rooms match the deposit given, when you deposit $100 they will add $100 in your bonus account which is released as you get to the correct amount of accumulated points or raked hands.

Promotions: They are promotions that online poker sites offer at varied times during the year that don't require a deposit. A good example of this is monthly promotions that run on the network. They create a fresh promotion every month for any event or holiday which takes place in that given month. For instance, in December a site runs a Christmas bonus where prizes and money is given to players when they reach specific numbers of comp points.

What exactly is poker rakeback?

To get rake back, a player needs to sign up at a rakeback provider or by contacting the poker site. The room will be unable to offer rake back if you're already tracked to an affiliate who doesn't allow this option. Rakeback is a bonus given to players in which they receive a percentage of the rake they have generated. The money is paid into their account daily, weekly or monthly depending on the room. If you are receiving rakeback you will not be able to participate in promotions or be eligible for deposit bonuses. The percentage of rake back you receive varies on the room once more. Some offer around 25% while others are giving players the entire rake they have generated back to them.

For recreational players, it is advisable to opt for the bonuses. This is because a recreational player will not generate enough rake to make the payments worthwhile. These players enjoy the fun factor more than the competition. They like to participate in the monthly promotions and bonuses offered on the site which is not available if you take the rakeback route.

Rakeback is suggested however to players who play for a living or who play high stakes games. It is obvious you are playing to earn a serious income and chasing bonuses will not interest you as much as collecting an extra sum each week. Also the amount of rakeback you will generate will be worthy of picking up and can even turn a losing month in to a winning month.

There's websites that have done the research for you and provide a list of rakeback sites. Some have negotiated exclusive rakeback deals for players. Shop around on these sites and see which sites offer the best rakeback. Also for US poker players look for a site that offers a list of us poker sites that offer rakeback.

Overall, unless you play poker as a living or play limits above $2/4, it is important to stay away from rakeback and take the bonus route. If you do play limits over the ones stated previously, take rake back and pick up a guaranteed amount of money on a weekly or monthly basis.

Internet Gambling’s Gray Monday may have far more bite than Black Friday

More domain names and gaming operations were seized on Monday May 24th 2011, which we aptly call Gray Monday. This time the market leaders were not the only websites seized but smaller websites also. Even more important is many different sectors in the industry were seized. There were domains seized in online poker, casinos, sports books and even bingo. This may send more of a message through the industry than Black Friday.
The online poker community was hit hard and drastically when the three biggest players in the market had their domain names seized. This sent a shockwave through the industry and millions of poker players were left wondering what happens next. What did happen next was that the three biggest poker rooms soon left the US market and their players were left in limbo. They now had to find a new place to play and their funds were in jeopardy. Although the three poker sites worked out a deal with the Department of Justice to return the players money, no one we have talked to has received any money from them at the time this article was written.

After Black Friday, finally things started to settle down and players found a new poker home and continued to play online. Many thought the Department of Justice had made their point and were going to let things return to normal as much as could be. But with the action on Gray Monday the hammer came down on the industry as a whole. The shock this time is in the form of all sectors of the online gambling market. Homeland Security made the seizures this time and the industry is in disarray. No one seems to be safe whether large or small players in the market. It is just a matter of time to see the reactions to these seizures. Unfortunately, now we may see internet gambling web sites in all sectors start leaving the US market. We have seen some internet sites change their domain names to an international extension as a result of these seizures. They seem to be positioning themselves to be immune from the US government actions by having these domains outside the US.

The sense out there is that no one knows what will happen next and once again the online players may be sent scrambling again. It a watch and see attitude nowadays, but the impact could be far more reaching than Black Friday. As a result, it does not matter how big or small of an gambling operation you are or what sector of internet gambling you’re in, everyone can be touched by the government.

The effects so far are that US poker players have not had to move to different internet sites as of yet, but new sign ups may have to go to a new website address to sign up. Same is true with US casino players, there is no effect yet from Gray Monday other than having a new domain name to register.

The World Series Of Poker Appears Its Thriving, But Look Below The Surface.

The WSOP had yet another record breaking year and remains the industry standard, In 2011, there were a record 75,672 entries when compared to last year's record of 72,966. This year was up 3.7 percent of last year. Also, the prize pool set a record in 2011 with a whooping $191,999,010 dollars compared to last year's previous high of $187,109,850. This was an increase of 2.6 percent. These numbers cause you to think everything is good within the poker world.
By taking a look a little deeper you will see most predictions of the turn out for this years tournament were deeply understated. The fact is they broke records as stated before. So Black Friday did not have the impact some thought it would. Despite thousands of players angry after three of the four sites failed to reimburse them even after the government cleared the way to do so. Many thought players might not be able to afford WSOP buy-ins because of the online poker crackdown. We believe the predictions were a year early. With sponsorship down and fewer fish playing online poker these days the sharks won't make much cash for buy ins. It could just have not been long enough for the losses to kick in.
The tv portion of the tournament has definitely taken a commercial hit. It’s no surprise because the owners of these websites were huge sponsors particularly Poker Stars and Full Tilt Poker. If you have been watching the tournament on television you will see their logos are not on the players either. Even the UFC events don't have these sponsors anymore. If ratings are down this year they can lose more sponsors. One good thing is Godaddy has signed on this year becoming a sponsor and possibly that is a good sign.
The bottom line is next year will be the year to worry about. If poker players cant find online poker sites that accept players in the US, then they could lose interest and take up different hobbies. Even if their desire is to play, but there is no place online, they may get frustrated. In either case the lack of US poker Sites is an issue and the fact these players haven't had there funds returned to them is yet another. The environment over the next year can really get bad.
So how will we fix it and keep the greatest tournament on the planet? That will not be an easy one. Here are a couple thoughts. First, if the government is prosecuting the operators of these poker sites criminally, then they should also pursue the funds being returned to the players just as vigorously. The poker players were not breaking any laws and their funds should be returned. Second, there must be a law that legalizes online poker at the very least if not all of gambling. The law makers should not play politics with this situation. It's about time to get past the Indian gaming lobby and help the players. Until we get US poker sites again the game is in trouble and so is the tournament