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Although online poker is a gold mine of data, until now nobody knows where the players and their money come from. It seems that the knowledge about the online poker market has not been able to keep up with the speed of its evolution in the past years. This paper is the first to shed light on this matter. We use data of 4,591,342 poker identities from the Online Poker Database of the University of Hamburg (OPD-UHH) collected over a six months period from 09/2009 to 03/2010. We find that the USA is still by far the biggest market with 1,428,823 active players and 650.5 million US$ net revenues in 2009. However, with regard to the number of internet users in a country Hungary is the biggest relative market: One out of 57 Hungarians with internet access plays online poker for real money. The two main drivers of the proportion of online poker players per internet users are GDP per capita and culture. Using the data from the OPD-UHH, future research will be able to break down the market also on a regional level within countries and to examine inter and intra country differences in the playing habits of online poker players.

Robbie Williams FunPoker is the new home for free fun poker! Our online poker room is the place where poker players and Robbie Williams fans play each other to score great prizes and create the craziest avatars! So get your poker face on for free online poker tournaments and perfect your Holdem Poker skills. This is NOT a Gambling Offer. Players can only play for fun money

Nearly 130,000 Australians are playing illegal internet poker games, with United States operators raking in $68 million in one year, according to new research. Online casino games, including poker, are currently illegal in Australia. But in May the federal government released an interim review of interactive gaming laws that recommended legalising internet poker games, as part of overall liberalising of industry. Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/illegal-online-poker-is-costing-australians-68m-20120705-21kdg.html#ixzz1znVbSn89

"Renowned online poker site PokerStars has just launched a new survey related to online casino gaming and sports betting. The survey might indicate the poker company's intention to expand into other areas of the online gambling market. Just recently, online poker site PokerStars has launched a new survey that was mailed to all of its online poker players. The survey asks poker players various questions related to online casino gaming and sports betting. One of the questions of the survey is whether or not the player in question was engaged in an online casino or online sports betting activity during the recent past. If the answer to this question was yes, then a list will appear from which the player will have to select the brands where he or she has been playing in the past. "

Related Articles Will Facebook and Zynga Embarrass Analysts? New Stock Coverage: Facebook Makes Enemies, Fair Weather Acquaintances, and Best Friends Forever Amarin Corporation and Ericsson Among Most Active Stocks in Pre-Market Today on the Nasdaq More by Inspin.com Winning More NFL Bets in 2012 Delaware Moving Closer to Legalized Online Gambling? 9 Basketball Betting Tips That Can Increase Your Winning Percentage 2-3% What's the Buzz? 30 top traders on these stocks and more      ZNGA   5.02  (+1.41%)       WYNN   96.75  (-3.87%)  With the legalization of online gambling activities quickly sweeping through the nation, some of the top sportsbooks and the leading play-for-free poker companies could be in positions to make a move into the real money sweepstakes. Zynga (ZNGA), which runs a very popular brand of free poker over social networks, has seen its poker brand grow by leaps and bounds over the last year. It's no coincidence that over that same time, various scandals surrounding UltimateBet and Full Tilt Poker have reduced the number of options for players to play paid poker. Many of those people have turned to Zynga to get their fix. Read more: http://www.minyanville.com/special-features/sports-business/articles/ZNGA-zynga-onling-gambling-social-media/7/12/2012/id/42334#ixzz20SepThWh

NEARLY 130,000 Australians are playing illegal internet poker games, with US operators raking in $68 million in one year, according to new research. Online casino games, including poker, are illegal in Australia but in May the federal government released an interim review of interactive gaming laws that recommended legalising internet poker as part of overall liberalising of the industry. Other casino games would remain banned.

Full Tilt Poker CEO Raymond Bitar says he will do "whatever is required" to return millions of dollars to online poker players who lost access to their cash after the site was closed down by the government. Bitar, 40, was arrested on Monday at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, according to Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara. Bitar was charged last year with gambling, bank fraud and money laundering in connection with the operation of Full Tilt Poker.

A federal judge ruled Tuesday that poker is more a game of skill than chance and cannot be prosecuted under a law created to stop organized crime families from making millions of dollars from gambling. The decision by Judge Jack Weinstein in Brooklyn was embraced by advocates of card games pushing to legalize Internet poker in the United States. The judge relied extensively on the findings of a defense expert who analyzed online poker games.

Mark Pincus, chief executive of Zynga, said in a conference call with analysts today that the company will launch its first real-money online gambling poker game in the first half of 2013. The game will likely be launched outside the U.S., since real-money online gambling is still illegal in the vast majority of states. There are regulatory roadblocks in many countries, but Europe is pretty open. Pincus said the launch will be subject to online gambling regulatory reviews. Zynga's non-real-money poker game, Zynga Poker, accounted for 18 percent of revenue. In that game, users purchase poker chips with real money, but they cannot cash out any winnings

When California State Senator Roderick Wright attempted to legalize online poker with SB 1463, he sold it as a way to help patch up California's busted budget , which is indeed in dire trouble. Surprisingly, the strongest resistance came not from the ever-more-irrelevant anti-gambling moralists, but from powerful pro-gaming special interests clinging to lucrative state-granted privilege.   "There's no way that we can do something that might be the death knell for our industry," says David Quintana, lobbyist for the California Tribal Business Alliance, which opposes any form of online poker legalization on the grounds that it could negatively affect the economic activity of California's Indian tribes. 

""Because the poker played on the defendant's premises is not predominately a game of chance, it is not gambling" as defined in the federal law, the judge wrote in a lengthy decision that traced the history of poker and of federal effort to combat illegal gambling."

Zynga has announced the release in early 2013 of its poker application that will involve real-money gaming. Over the past year, Zynga has struggled to keep its foothold in the mobile gaming market as new entrants have entered the industry. Zynga's solution: real-money poker, which is set to launch in the first half of 2013 in international markets. Zynga's latest quarterly earnings report - its sales of $332.5 million missed the $343.1 million mark that Bloomberg had forecasted - sent the company's stocks plummeting as low as $3.03 per share on Wednesday. At the end of today's trading Zynga's stock price sat at $3.17 per share, but has dropped even further in after-hours trading. During the earnings conference call, Zynga CEO, Mark Pincus blamed Zynga's second quarter shortcomings on Facebook. Changes to Facebook's algorithm apparently surfaces fewer games, thereby decreasing the frequency with which Facebook users discover Zynga games.

Many people await the day when online poker is fully licensed and regulated in the US, but visions of 2005 or anytime pre-Black Friday are likely to bring disappointment. Even worse is the unwillingness to accept anything less than what we had before.

First, the main objective is to promote poker as a game of skill, a mind-sport, and to take it away from just being associated with casinos and gambling. USPF members love poker, we love the possibilities of the game, the way it can be used to hone one's mental muscle, and how it can be applied as a teaching tool. The idea is that we are going to be a sports federation … we weill sanction events, rank players, organize or own events.

CLUBS should be the sole operator of online casino games if they are legalised, with the community-benefit model of pokies revenue flowing to local clubs to be applied, the pokies lobby says. Online casino games, including poker, are at present illegal, but a recent interim review of interactive gambling laws recommends a liberalisation of online gambling, with online poker hosted by Australian companies to be trialled over five years. Other casino-style games would remain banned. Conservative estimates show at least 130,000 are playing online poker on overseas websites despite the current law.

"PokerStars has signed Gerry Dee, a comedian best known for his role on CBC's Mr. D. Dee will be representing the PokerStars.net site, which is a free play option. Dee will be representing the poker room in special television commercials as well as during live poker tournaments. In the deal, PokerStars will also be the title sponsor of Dee's comedy tour titled The Gerry Dee Comedy Tour."

"First, a little background. The great game of poker is an American pastime that has been enjoyed by presidents, Supreme Court justices and many members of Congress through the years. Today, millions of Americans play for recreation and, in some cases, for their primary or secondary income. "

"Although social gaming juggernaut Zynga was reportedly 'leading the race' in a bidding war for online poker provider Ongame Network just a few months ago, Amaya Gaming Group has ended up winning it. The Montreal, Canada-headquartered gaming company this morning announced that it has acquired Ongame from Internet gambling powerhouse Bwin.party for 25 million euros (just south of $32.2 million)."

"Zynga Inc. (Nasdaq: ZNGA) has lost Laurence Toney, the general manager of Zynga Poker, one the gaming company's oldest and most successful digital products."