The world’s largest online poker website, PokerStars, has signed a 12-month sponsorship agreement with the Spanish Basketball Federation, just a few months before the 2010 FIBA World Championship scheduled to take place in Turkey in August this year.

PokerStars branding will be seen throughout Spain’s preparation for the world championships and during the upcoming competition, and promotions will see players given the opportunity to win tickets to warm-up games and the championship tournament through various tournaments on the online poker site.

“Our client PokerStars is very proud to become a sponsor of the Federación Española de Baloncesto,” said Juanjo Marquez, a spokesman for the company in Spain.

“Being a global brand, this is a significant opportunity to join a leading sport. P

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England’s poor performance has resulted in huge revenues for the English bookmakers.

Simon English of the London Evening Standard: "Here’s the usual plot for the World Cup: England get hugely hyped by the press, fans and players before they go on to perform indifferently in all but one game, which they still contrive to lose. They crash out amid tears from everyone – except the betting industry, which tries hard not to cry with laughter."

England was heavily bet on to beat the USA in their first 2010 World Cup game.  That one ended in a draw.  And certainly the British were not going to lose to Algeria following the initial draw.  Well, the England-Algeria game ended – not just with another draw – but with a scoreless draw.

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Virgin Casino has announced the launch of the City of Gold which is a new slot game from NextGen Gaming. The ancient Aztec themed game featured five reels with twenty paylines with access to wild and scatter symbols in addition to a bonus feature.

Players will be able to take in extra winnings through the wiles and scatter symbols and free spins bonus feature. The wild symbol is the temple which will substitute all other symbols with the exception of the scatter to complete winning combinations. A great free game feature is triggered when three or more scattered archways appear. 15 free games are awarded where all prizes are tripled!

In addition to this, another new game that’s launching this week is Reel Grand Prix by Dynamite idea. T

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Lexus Only 500 of the new Lexus sports cars will be produced, and that has gamblers hoping they can get their hands on one of the priceless automobiles. With the new car already sold out, it will take some maneuvering to gain control of one of these cars.

The new two-seat LFA has been touted by Lexus as being a sports car of the future. It pushes the envelope for a brand that has led the way in luxury automobiles, but even though it is different than the normal Lexus, it comes with some of the same safety and comfort features that buyers seek.

The majority of the 500 cars that were sold were done so in Europe. Read the full post …

Police in Manila, Philippines have busted an illegal online gambling operation in which live dealers interacted with Internet players of casino games. Seven arrests – three Filipino women croupiers and four Koreans – were reported by the police, who raided a Manila video streaming apartment equipped with gambling tables and hi-tech streaming equipment which connected to mainly South Korean punters over the internet.

Bank wires were used to deposit and pay out winnings, the police chief inspector in charge of a special task force revealed to reporters.

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Veteran online gambling software provider Microgaming has announced the submission of three significant operator applications to the National Regulatory Authority of the French online gambling market the ARJEL, two of which are in collaboration with 888 Holdings plc.

Roger Raatgever, CEO, Microgaming said: “At Microgaming we stay ahead of the market and are delighted to announce that following the recent signing of a joint venture with 888, we have combined our efforts and successfully submitted operator license applications to the ARJEL.

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The Cereus online poker network, which includes UB.com and AbsolutePoker.com has quickly regained its number 6 position back after dropping for a brief time to number 9.  They even cracked the top 5 for a brief period over the weekend.  Their 7 day average was within 50 real cash players of Ongame in the number 5 position. 

The rebound occurred quickly after implementation of the SSL Client-Server encryption. 

Earlier this month Cereus experienced a security glitch that may have caused many players to stay away as a precaution until online poke room could address the issue.  They did so rather quickly.

"We can confirm that SSL is now being used everywhere for CEREUS. The

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Execs at PartyGaming received some pretty hefty bonuses in the form of stock options worth $78 million, this despite the fact that the share price value lost around 76 percent over the past year.

PartyGaming CEO Mitch Garber’s pay package comes to 18.5 million pounds. The cost of wages for the chief financial officer came to nearly 6 million pounds in 2006, Haaretz reports.

The company explained its decision to reward its top brass, despite the poor showing of its stock, on the dropping value of their pay package because of the share price’s slide.

Garber’s pay package, for example, was once worth $40 million pounds.

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In her continuing quest to save the world with a deck of cards, Team UB pro Annie Duke will be hosting a celebrity poker tournament on Thursday night in support of After-School All-Stars, a charity committed to keeping at-risk youth off the streets, out of gangs, and away from drugs, alcohol and other temptations. The tournament gets underway at Commerce Casino in Los Angeles on Thursday, May 20th at 7:30pm.

Slated to play in the charity poker tournament are a number of Hollywood celebrities including Oscar-nominated actor Don Cheadle, funnyman Brad Garrett, and David Zayas of Showtime’s Dexter.

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Leading online poker room FullTiltPoker.com has announced the addition of New York native Andrew ‘LuckyChewy’ Lichtenberger to its Red Pro team of sponsored professional players.

The 22-year-old has become the 135th Red Pro member after first appearing on the poker community’s radar at last year’s World Series Of Poker (WSOP) where he cashed in five events including a second-place finish in the $5,000 no-limit hold’em shoot-out for $215,403.

In addition, the East Northport resident also took home $500,557 after bowing out in 18th spot in the main event of 2009’s Las Vegas spectacular and received a large amount of coverage on ESPN.

“I became a FullTiltPoker.com Red Pro today so now I stand out in the chat box,” read a blog posted by Lichtenberger.

“Hopefully, I get both my avatar and first commercial soon.”

Following last year’s WSOP, Lichtenberger has continued to post impressive results including a tenth place finish during the North American Poker Tour’s Venetian main event for $44,195. Read the full post …