GPWA Times - Issue 21 - May 2012

Groupe Bernard Tapie acquisition of Full Tilt Poker falls through By Aaron Todd P oker players whose balances were frozen when Full Tilt Poker closed its doors in the wake of the Black Friday indictments and the subsequent revocation of its license last year have been pinning their hopes on Groupe Bernard Tapie, a French investment group, for months. But in late April, the group bowed out of negotiations with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) when it became clear that the deal would not go through unless GBT paid back all players the money they are owed. “GBT proposed a plan that would have resulted in immediate reinstatement of all ROW [“rest-of-world” – i.e., non- American] player balances, with a right to withdraw those funds over time, based on the size of the player balance and the extent of the player’s playing activity on the re-launched site,” said GBT in a statement. “All players would have been permitted complete withdrawal of their balances, regardless of whether they played on the site, by a date certain, and 94.9 percent of ROW players would have been fully repaid on day 1. DOJ ultimately insisted on full repayment with right of withdrawal within 90 days for all players – a surprise demand made in the 11th hour, after months of good-faith negotiations by GBT.” That demand may be met by a surprising entity, however, as rumors have been spreading rapidly that PokerStars may purchase what was once its biggest competitor. “We’ve had a lot of enquiries and there’s lots of speculation on the forums, so I wanted to address the PokerStars chatter,” said Eric Hollreiser, head of corporate communications for PokerStars, in a blog post on April 24. “As you know, PokerStars is in settlement discussions with the U.S. Department of Justice. As such settlement discussions are always confidential, we are unable to comment on rumors. As soon as we have information to share publicly we will do so.” 7Red selects mobileplatform D UBLIN, Ireland -- Mobile Stakes, the real-money gaming industry’s first cloud-based game streaming platform for online casino games, announced that European online casino operator 7Red will use the Mobile Stakes platform to bring 7Red.com games to the iPad and smartphones. The cloud-based Mobile Stakes platform enables online casinos to take their popular Flash web-based casino and sports betting games directly to mobile devices without any reprogramming or redesign of the game. Using the Mobile Stakes platform, online casino operators can offer their customers a mobile version of all their popular games with the exact same game play, payouts, security and identity protection offered by the online casino. In addition, mobile players get the same signing bonuses, monthly promotions and offers they’d get on the online site. “With Mobile Stakes, online casino operators can finally give their players the mobile freedom they’ve been clamoring for,” said Peter Relan, founder of YouWeb Incubator, which backed Mobile Stakes. “We’re thrilled that 7Red.com’s customers will play their favorite online casino games from the comfort of the home, golf course and spa on tablets and smartphones.” “7Red is committed to giving our customers the best value while playing at the best online casinos and now, mobile casinos, in the industry,” said Ido Raviv, CEO of 7Red. “Without the Mobile Stakes platform, our portfolio of 75 games ranging from blackjack, roulette, video poker and soft games simply could not be brought to the iPad in a short time and with no re- development in HTML5 or native code.” Mobile Stakes technology is also suited for web- and Facebook-based social casino gaming companies that currently do not have real-money gaming offerings. Zynga, the leader in Flash-based social games played on Facebook, recently announced an online casino game while Electronic Arts subsidiary PopCap Games recently released Lucky Gem Casino. Both Zynga and EA accept only virtual currency in their casino- themed games. Webmaster News 5