The Seminole Hard Rock Casino which is located in Hollywood, Florida, will be hosting the biggest poker tournament ever to be held in the state. The event is a $3,000 entry fee Texas Hold’em tournament. The winner of the tournament may take home prize money that would top the $125,000 mark.

A sum of $600 from each player’s entry fee will go to the casino. This is a particularly high amount compared to other casinos that  charge three to eight percent of the entry fee, whereas here the casino will be charging 20 per cent.

According to the organizers the amount is high as it has to be paid to charity. Seventy percent of the collected amount will go to the charity. There are 210 places for players to take part in the tournament. The money from the tournament is going to the Miami Beach Health Foundation.

Bill Triscol, a South Florida resident who is planning on playing in the tournament “It would not matter to me if the casino was keeping all the money as it is going to charity. The first prize is still a very big amount.”

Online bingo is getting more and more popular within the online gambling world and bingo sites are now appearing at all places as there has been a very good response for them. 

Bingo.com has decided to expand its base of operations outside the United Kingdom. The site has just closed a private placement of 2 million common shares at $.30 per share. It is trying to raise money to begin their expansion operations. The shares were placed by the company with non U.S. residents under Regulation S exemptions.

Tarrnie Williams, CEO of the site said, “The money we have got after the private placement will be used to fund our expansion.” Speaking about the expansion he said, “We will be launching a Spanish version of our website and will allow players to deposit money in different currencies.”

The move to expand has come at a good time for the site. The number of players wanting to play online bingo is growing, and the number of bingo halls are shrinking as there are stringent laws being brought in.

Going online to play bingo is a good alternative, as in the case of online poker, players can now sit at home and enjoy the game.

The online gaming group 888.com has announced that it has upgraded its poker software, changing it to meet its player needs. The upgrade and changes include the addition of new features, gimmicks and table views.

The upgraded software is now available with three table views – the classic view is the old 888 feel; first person view options; a 3D table with avatars; a clear view minus avatars and far more. It has attuned its all-in feature, which is one of the most powerful moves in poker. Though if the feature is used by mistake it can prove to be very costly. So the site has removed this feature button but a player can still use it by using a slider.

888’s Marketing Director Matt Robinson speaking about the upgraded software said, “The new software is our next step in our development. He added, “We wanted to provide them with software that would upgrade their poker experience.”

In another announcement the site has said that it had given away the second Shane Warne prize package. The winner this time was Nathan Perry from New South Wales, who was the lucky winner of the Ultimate Home Game Tournament. The winner along with eight of his friends played with Warne at Perry’s house and were served beer and pizza by a private waitress while playing on a pro-quality table with chips and cards supplied by 888. Shane also signed cricket memorabilia for his fans while at the game.

Speaking about the prize package, Robinson said, “Our Ultimate home game tournaments have become very popular in Australia. They are attracting Poker and Shane Warne fans from all across the country.” He added, “We want to give the fans a chance of a lifetime to play with Shane Warne at the 2008 World Series of Poker.”

Billionairio.com which is a raffle-style numbers game has announced another winner. This time it is a woman living in the United Kingdom.  Sarah Jackson who lives in Stafford was traveling on an Easy Jet flight to Spain when she read the in-flight magazine which featured the company’s challenge “What would you do with a billion dollars?!”

Sarah was keen to show what she could do if she became a millionaire, so she bought a ticket and learnt that she had won €1000 in an opening draw. She is still entitled to win any of the lottery style games latter prizes of €10 000, €1,000,000 & 10,000,000. She is also eligible to win the grand prize of €1 million.

Speaking about her experience, Sarah said, “When I saw the advertisement, I thought I had a billion different options with which I could spend a billion Euros.” She added, “I will start practicing ways of how to spend with the starting €1000.”

The website Billionairio.com offers the biggest prize money offered anywhere and is the first game to offer a player the chance to win a billion euros.

The managing director of the company Joseph Crivici said, “The chance of a player winning the one billion Euros are better then that on any other European state lottery. The chances of a player winning €10 000 at our site are better then 1 in 10,000.” He added, “the chance of a player winning the grand prize of 1 million euros is twice as likely as winning a large state lottery.’

Every ticket has been given an exclusive number and every prize can be won by a single ticket. There are 75 million tickets that are up for sale and each ticket can win five different cash prizes that range from €1000 to the one million euro grand prize.

Online gambling group Bodog has announced the launch of a new online poker tournament, which will be played out this summer and will imitate all the 25 Hold ‘em events of the 2008 World Series of Poker in Las Vegas.

The Bodog Poker ‘Mini Series of Poker’ will take place between May 30 and July 3 in Las Vegas.  At the end of these 25 events, Bodog will host a final tournament that will award three seats for the 2009 World Series of Poker tournament. This will make it the first site to award seats to the 2009 tournament.

The website will be running a Tournament Leader Board through the duration of the 25 tournaments. This leader board will decide which player will take part in the final, 27-player tournament. The top four players on the leader board will qualify automatically.

Players who are placed between 5 to 100 on the Leader Board will vie for one of 18 seats awarded in a Semi-final qualifier that will be held two days before the final. The remaining five seats in the final will be awarded from a wild card draw of players who have taken part at least three Mini Series of Poker tournaments.

The players who finish in the top 3 places at the Mini Series of Poker final will be awarded prizes worth $12,000 for the 2009 World Series of Poker Main Event.

The online casino group Jackpot Factory has announced that newly registered players on its site All Slots Online Casino has won a combined sum of $79,800 in the recently held Free $100,000 Slot Tournament. The win included a sum of $50,000 that was won as a grand prize by a player from Norway.

The tournament that lasted a month was contested by a record number of 1783 players and ended with a grand final. At the end of the tournament the site gave out cash rewards to 300 players. The winner of the tournament Per Magnus S, was awarded a free entry into it just a week before the tournament started.

In a joint statement released by the site and David Brickman who is the Vice President of Player Affairs at Jackpot Factory, ” we would like to congratulate all those people who won cash prizes. Our special congratulations go to Per Magnus.” The statement added, “the tournament was an international success, as it saw participation from players from 50 countries around the world.”

The joint statement went on to say that; “the tournament would be like to be remembered as one where new players did well. New players won almost 80 per cent of the total prize money. It would be interesting for us to see how these new players performed in the next free $100,000 slot tournament.” The winner of the tournament scored 71,065 coins in the final, while Sheila P who came second after scoring 2000 coins less then the winner won $10,000

A nineteen year old construction worker Jonathan Vargas picked the best six numbers of his life and claimed the massive $35.3 million Power ball jackpot that was declared on last Saturday. The worker said that he had three brothers aged 21, 14, 12 respectively and a sister who would be 15 this year. His mother turned 43 this year. All these were the winning ticket numbers. When asked at the press conference about the last number, he said, “I was just lucky, when I chose that number.”

According to the state lottery director of South Carolina, Ernie Passailaigue, there had been many power ball tickets that had been sold in the state that had won money; the construction worker was the only one who lived in the state. The worker studied at the Airport High School in Lexington County. According to the state lottery officials, the winner would take his winning sum in one lump sum payment of $17.3 million, instead of annual payments spread over a period of 29 years.

The winner revealed that he would be leaving his job and buying a house. He had no other big plans, but would be getting in touch with a lawyer and a financial consultant. He added, “I chose the winning numbers while at work, while having a bottle of juice. The expiry date on the bottle was the same date as my birthday and I then decided that my family would bring me luck.”

He went on to say, “I then called up my mother, who gave me the numbers that I wrote on a napkin. I was holding the napkin when I watched the draw.” Though this was the first time he was playing the lottery, his parents stated they had won a sum of $10,000 in a scratch-off game.

The online casino River Belle has announced that it is launching an Adventure Slots Tournament for players who are new to slots games. It has also announced that players will not have to spend a penny to participate in the same. The tournament which started on May 9, 2008 will continue till the end of the month.

The tournament will be run in three distinct phases. During the first phase, which will end on May 18, 2008, there will be daily Adventure Free Roll events. 25 winners on each day of the first phase of the tournament will receive $10 and will automatically qualify for the $5000 Adventure Semi-Final, which will be held between May 19-24.

The 125 winners of the semi final round will be awarded a sum of $20 and will qualify automatically for the $20,000 Adventure Final. The winner of the final will be awarded a sum of $10,000, while 10 players who were placed second will get an award of $1,000.

Speaking about the tournament, Tim Johnson, Chairman of Belle Rock Entertainment which owns River Belle, said “A slot tournament which has a number of players sounds tough for new players. We have created this tournament especially for the newer players.” He added, “The online slot tournaments which have many players are popular with players who have just started playing. Since there is no entry fee players are eligible to win $10,000, without investing a penny.”

Johnson added, “If a player does not qualify in the first round, he can still play in the second round by playing in the Adventure Feeder Tournaments, which have an entry fee of $50. The feeder tournaments will be held between May 19-24 and will send more players to the main tournament.”

The website Online Gambling Insider has made a habit of awarding players with generous prizes every month. The site has made a point of offering its members the best in online gambling, but also goes a step ahead by offering members the right to enter free prize draws. It also offers guarantees for deposits made by players for sums up to $1000 at any of the online gambling sites it stands for.

There were 7 lucky winners during the month of April, one being Geoff B, an Australian who won a Nintendo Wii. After winning, he said, “I was both surprised and happy to know that I had won an award. I am thankful to both Casino Share and Online-Gambling-Insider.com.”

Peter K. from Leeds in the United Kingdom was the winner of an Apple iPod Nano, which was awarded to him by Casino Rewards. He said, “The prize is extremely good and I thank the sites for keeping their promises.” Salonico Boy from Greece was the winner of an Apple iPhone which was awarded to him by the Royal Vegas Casino. Speaking after receiving the award he said, “I am a simple player who loves playing online at the Royal Vegas Casino. I am grateful to the casino for considering me for such a nice gift.”

Ryan D, editor of Online Gambling Insider said, “It’s been another good month for people visiting our site. These seven players were lucky as they visited our site and were awarded great prizes.” He added, “Every month we offer our visitors a number of draws where they can win gifts like a Sony PSP, an Apple iPhone and an iPod Touch, which are awarded only by our site.”

CasinoTropez.com made several lucky people’s weekends much better when they handed out a combined total of over $1 million dollars!

The past weekend saw 3 players hit jackpots on several of CasinoTropez’s slot machines, the biggest win coming for a Frenchman named ‘Yves G’ who ended up walking away with $908,719. Although Yves is a regular, playing almost every week, it only took him 30 minutes of play and a wager of $24.75 to hit the jackpot on the popular Gold Rally eight-line progressive slot. He said he was so shocked by the win he could barely get out of his chair but (once the shock wore off!) said he will spend his winnings on a vacation and a new home. Yves was also quick to point out the great range of games, exciting graphics and excellent customer service were what drew him to Casino Tropez in the first place.

Other lucky jackpots over the past weekend include a $106,539 win on the Dollar Ball Slot and another $81,820 on the Magic Slot progressive. Think CasinoTropez.com sounds like a good place to ‘play that next quarter’? It sure is! Just a few days before these big wins another couple of players won a total of $892,908 on the Lotto Madness and Gold Rally slots!