Recent Poker News
Australian Online Gambling Ban – Blacklist Revealed
Posted by Admin on Thu, 19th March, 2009
Pokershark.com.au has recently reported that the Australian Government has banned online gambling. We have seen this list and reported that gambling sites such as PokerStars, Full Tilt, Pacific Poker and many more were on this list.
In an article published by the Sydney Morning Herald it can now be confirmed that this “Blacklist” has flagged over 10,000 sites to ban. These range from a wide range of harmful material including but not limited to; child porn, online poker sites, YouTube links, regular gay and straight porn sites, Wikipedia entries, euthanasia sites, websites of fringe religions such as satanic sites, fetish sites, Christian sites and as bizarre as it sounds it also includes a QLD dentist.
The blacklist that was leaked by Wikileaks.org but that list has since been taken down. Julian Assange from Wikileaks has been reported as saying these secret censorship systems are “invariably corrupt” and referred to the Thailand Cersorship list. This list was made to stop child pornography but ended up being 1200 sites that were criticising the royal family. he also went on to say “History shows that secret censorship systems, whatever their original intent, are invariably corrupted into anti-democratic behaviour.”
The blacklist that ACMA (Australian Communications and Media Authority) has produced will be provided to makers of internet filtering software so parents can install it on their computers.
Stay tuned for more to come on this astonishing development on online gambling in Australia.
Australian Government Bans Online Gambling
Posted by Admin on Thu, 19th March, 2009
In shocking news today it has been announced that the Australian Government is enforcing law to ISP ban online gambling sites. This means that Australians will NOT be able to gamble online anymore. This has been done by the Australian Communications Authority (ACMA) who initially made the Interactive Gambling Act 2001 (The IGA).
It can only be described as a desperate attempt by the Australian Labor Party to earn more revenue, this disastrous decision will be felt b y thousands of people across the country. No longer will Australian gamblers be able to log on and place a bet on sport, play at an online poker site or casino.
This law that is being enforced was originally made to protect Australians from paedophiles and sexually related, illegal material. Here are some of the issues that the ACMA was made to protect:
- depictions of child sexual abuse;
- depictions of bestiality;
- material containing excessive violence or sexual violence;
- material containing detailed instruction in crime, violence or drug use;
- real depictions of actual sexual activity;
- depictions of simulated sexual activity which are not subject to a restricted access system
This law has subsequently placed Australian online gamblers in the same category as this filth. It is an outrage to say the least. It has been reported that the ACMA has made a blacklist of potential ‘harmful’ sites. On this list surprisingly were only online poker sites. These included PokerStars, Full Tilt, Pacific Poker, BetFair, PokerNews and many more.
What this means for Australians is that we can no longer play at these online poker sites. Not only that, Australian gambling websites that promote these rooms will be fined $11,000 for each site. This has serious legal and financial implications.
The exact nature of the GIA has never been fully understood because of the relaxed and broad nature of it. The rules were never enforced and there have been no real problems in being able to gamble online. What we can read though is what the ACMA says in its guidelines:
The IGA makes it an offence to provide, or advertise, certain interactive gambling services. ACMA is responsible for investigating formal complaints made under the IGA in relation to prohibited internet gambling content.
Prohibited internet gambling content is content that can be accessed, or is available for access, by customers of a prohibited internet gambling service.
A prohibited internet gambling service is a gambling service provided in the course of carrying on a business to customers using an internet carriage service, and an individual physically present in Australia is capable of becoming a customer of the service.
If ACMA receives a complaint about prohibited internet gambling content that is hosted in Australia, ACMA will refer the matter to the Australian Federal Police.
If prohibited internet gambling content is hosted outside Australia, ACMA will notify the content to makers of the approved Family Friendly Filters listed in Schedule 1 to the Interactive Gambling Act Industry Code.
We will be keeping a close eye on this and keep you up to date with any further developments. It seems as though we have travelled back to the dark ages and are losing our freedoms. This law is violating Australian’s rights.
Aussie Stewart Scott Wins 2009 Aussie Millons
Posted by Admin on Thu, 12th March, 2009
Aussie Stewart Scott has won the 2009 Aussie Millions after outlasting 681 players. The man that hails from Norther NSW survived a gruelling 12 hour final table to claim victory and first place prize of $2 million AUD.
Scott finished Day 4 on the top of the leader board and never looked back throughout the final table. There were times when he was challenged for the chip lead but he never surrendered it. When 2005 WSOP Main Event winner and fellow Australian poker player Joe Hachem announced “I think it’s about time an Aussie took home the title, get your acts together!” it must have seemed like a distant hope. Scott played solid poker throughout though and thoroughly deserved his win.
Going into the final table here were the chip stacks:
- Seat 1: Zach Gruneberg – 1,355,000
- Seat 2: Barny Boatman – 349,000
- Seat 3: Elliot Smith – 1,120,000
- Seat 4: Richard Ashby – 658,000
- Seat 5: Stewart Scott – 4,520,000
- Seat 6: Peter Rho – 2,420,000
- Seat 7: Rajkumar Ramakrishnan – 2,050,000
- Seat 8: Sam Capra – 1,161,000
Scott admitted in an interview after the tournament that his nerves did start to get the better of him with about 4 players left. Hands were getting harder and harder to win and there was a lot of money at stake. Congratulations to Australian poker player Stewart Scott for becoming the first Aussie in to win this prestigious tournament.
Here all the final places and earnings of each player:
- Stewart Scott – $2 million
- Peter Rho – $1 million
- Elliott Smith – $700,000
- Rajkumar Ramakrishnan – $400,000
- Sam Capra – $300,000
- Zach Gruneberg – $210,000
- Richard Ashby – $150,000
- Barny Boatman – $100,000
World’s Biggest Poker Tournament Huge Success
Posted by Admin on Sun, 4th January, 2009
PokerStars has added another notch to their belt as the best online poker room as they provided their poker players with the world’s largest tournament, all at the low buy-in of $11+$1 and setting a Guinness World Record in the process. There were 35,000 competitors with PokerStars adding the extra money into the prize pool to give out a whopping 500k in prizes. 1st place was able to take 30k while 2nd place took a handy 20k.
An unprecedented 8750 players made the money, allowing for many of the players to take something away from the event that lasted for around 9 and a half hours.
PokerStars certainly look to be turning up the heat on their competitors in the online poker market. On the same morning they also held a massive Sunday tournament that had a prize pool of $3.2 million for the $215 buy-in. Things only look to be getting bigger and better over there, as the team keep putting on these displays without a hitch. Perhaps the only disappointing thing about the tourney with 35k entries was that it was capped and was full the night before. Many players missed out which would have made it an even bigger event.
We have been in contact with the team over at PokerStars and they have assured us that in the very near future they will be holding a similar event that won’t be capped so everyone can have a chance at playing. They said that the reasoning behind capping it was because of the way it was structured and they couldn’t change it.
From all reports, it was a great tourney that was well run and enjoyable for all. Here all the final standings of the event:
- stan34powa – $30,000
- meiky777 – $20,000
- rumred14 – $15,000
- Goldman007 – $10,000
- Nekochan48 – $7,500
- gustave44 – $5,000
- n0ideahh – $3,500
- alepolice – $2,500
- ONE_TIMEE – $2,000
- FuFish – $1,500
Make sure you get your PokerStars marketing code.