It all went down at the Perlada Castle in Barcelona, Spain. After battling more than 2000 players to become a finalist in the $3 million guaranteed event, one man emerged as the winner of 888’s World Poker Crown.

The lucky winner, Jack Hinchey, a plumber from Toronto, Canada beat out fellow Canuck Michael Lawson for 1st place and the $1 million prize pot. Hinchey credits his granddaughter for inspiration throughout the tournament, turning her picture into a locket which he carried with him for luck. He stated that he would be giving notice at his plumbing job and paying for his granddaughters’ college tuition. Hinchey also stated that playing poker in Spain is “a lot better than being in a sewage pit!” Perhaps Hinchey’s turn of luck at poker will spawn a new career as well!

888’s World Poker Crown was broadcast over a live webcast (a first) and showed player’s hole cards as the action played out. In the final hand of the game Lawson held a pair of tens in the hole with Hinchey holding off suit KQ and the flop turning out K-J-6, all hearts. Lawson then went all in but Hinchey called with top pair, hit another king on the river after a blank turn to take home the huge pot!

One resident from the Tampa Bay area has won the $16 million Lotto draw that was held on Saturday night. The winner was lucky as he had invested an extra $1 and his winning sum got bigger by a sum of $10 million.

A second winner was also from the Bay area and won $268,000. He won the sum after he had bought a Fantasy 5 ticket. The winning ticket was sold in Largo. Both the tickets were the sole winners in the draw held on Saturday.

Jay Patel, who is the owner of the store in Bradenton where the Lotto winner bought his ticket was surprised to learn that one of his customers, was the winner. He stated, “ We are surprised as we did not expect that our customer could ever be among the winners.”

The independent, family-run convenience store at 1000 Carlton Arms Blvd sells around 1,000 Lotto tickets a week. Patel added, “ Most of my customers are local and there’s a good chance that the winner is someone I know.”

The lotto winner participated in a new feature that allowed players to bet an extra dollar and add $10 million to the jackpot. The original jackpot sum was $6 million. The extra dollar he bet boosted his win to $16 million.

A local man became a multimillionaire Saturday when he matched all six numbers drawn in Saturday’s Illinois Lotto game, making him the sole winner of a $7 million jackpot.

The winning ticket was purchased at Plaza Liquor Mart on 10th Street in Mount Vernon’s south side. While the lucky winner’s name has not yet been released, store manager Tammy Hopkins said he is “a local - a regular working guy,” she said. “We are so happy for him. We’re thrilled that one of our regulars was a winner.”

The man played his own numbers rather than purchasing a computer-generated “quick pick” ticket, Hopkins said, and came into the store Sunday to get a printout of the winning draw. He didn’t reveal he held the winning ticket until Monday, she said, when he came into the store to fill out a claim form.

State lottery spokeswoman Madonna Duncan said she had not received any information yet about the winning ticket holder.

The liquor store, located on 10th Street on the city’s south side, will receive cash equaling 1 percent of the jackpot. Hopkins said the store’s biggest previous lottery payout was $150,000.

Customers have been flocking to the store since word spread “like wildfire” that a regular hit the jackpot.

“It didn’t take long for word to get out. We were really busy during the first part of the day and I’m sure once more people find out, we’ll be even busier,” she said. “$7 million. Holy cow. Can you believe it?”

Winners can choose to receive a one-time lump sum payment that is about 51 percent of the advertised jackpot amount or they can receive an annuity that is paid in annual installments over a 26-year period.

The online poker room Titan Poker has announced that it has started distributing a sum of $350,000 in cash to its players in its anticipation of reaching the one millionth hand this month. The count down has begun, for it to reach the coveted mark of one million. It started the count down timer when it dealt its 950,000,000th hand.

The web site had distributed a large amount of cash when it reached the 950,000,000th mark and will continue to distribute a large amount of cash till it reaches the one millionth mark. Players from now on will be given the chance of winning sums of money daily, by playing the winning hand. The winning hand is part of two competitions that are being run at the same time, called ‘Countdown Hands’ and ‘Jackpot Hands’. The former takes place once every 200,000 times and players can win up to a sum of $3,500. While in the latter competition, the prize money is $14,000, while the count down is 5,000,000 hands.

The web site has given the players an opportunity to track the progress of the count down to the millionth hand. The web site will be publishing updates on a regular basis as to where the count down has reached. The site is a regular when it comes to awarding its players with cash prizes. At the end of the month, the site will be awarding players the sum of $3,600,000 in its second European Championship of Online Poker. Apart from that it is awarding its player’s seats to the World Series of Poker 2008 in Las Vegas, and the Asian Poker Tour in Manila.

Ten players will be contesting for the 888.com World Poker Crown which was launched yesterday. The tournament will have guaranteed prize money of $3 million, with the winner taking home the $1 million prize.

The online poker tournament lasted 11 hours and the total number of competitors was reduced from 2214 to 10 finalists. These ten finalists will be flown to Barcelona for an offline final table competition that will take place in 10 days. These 10 players include nationals from Canada, Holland, Italy, Poland, and Germany.

They will be treated as VIP’s along the way and at the destination. They will be flown by a helicopter that will take them to the Peralada Castle Resort. They are being given three nights free stay at the 5 star Peralada Hotel. While the winner will walk away with a $1 million prize, the other 9 finalists will vie for a share of $2 million.

Gigi Levy, CEO of the site, said “We believe that our players should enjoy the game. There is no better way for the players to enjoy the game then sending them to a resort in Spain, where they will get a chance in a lifetime to play in a tournament.”

The tournament will be broadcasted live on http://www.worldpokercrown.com/. During the live broadcast members of Pacific Poker, will be given the chance to play in special tournaments that are restricted, which will enable them to win one of the four World Series of Poker prizes that are worth $17,000 each.

The Party Poker Million VI Tournament has begun today, with players setting afoot on the MSC Poesia cruise liner from the Italian City of Venice. The eight day voyage aboard the ship will take them to several destinations across the Mediterranean and the ship will stop at several ports before they return to Venice.

Though most of the action will take place aboard the ship. There are players from 30 different countries who will be taking part in the tournament with most of them having qualified while playing online. Some of the players are Mike McDonald, Andreas Jorbeck, Brazil’s Christian Kruel, Soeren Kongsgaard, Florian Langmann, Alexander Jung and Finland’s Mika Paasonen.

According to a Party Poker Spokesperson, “There is a lot of excitement in the players as this is the first time the tournament is being hosted in Europe.”

He added, “According to our estimates, the total prize money for this tournament will be $1.3 million.”

According to the site, previous editions of the tournament have been held in the Caribbean and have attracted large number of players. The previous list of winners of the tournament includes Kathy Liebert, Howard Lederer, Erick Lindgren, Michael Gracz and Mike Schneider.

The first edition of the tournament was also the first Hold’em tournament which had on offer the first prize sum of $1 million. The tournament also had a series of other firsts that included a combination of direct entries and online qualifiers, the first to hold the final matches on a ship, and the first to see a lady winner in a million dollar tournament. Most of the players taking part in this edition of the tournament are qualifiers, who booked their seats while playing online.

The online poker site Titan Poker has announced that VIP’s will be rewarded during the month of May the chance to win a sum of $30,000.

The total prize money will depend on each person’s VIP level, however; the sum varies from $4,000 to $16,000. The reward will go up as ones VIP level goes up.

During the period between May 4-10, 2008, the site will be monitoring the leaders according to their VIP Levels. The players that finish close to the top in their respective levels will be eligible to win huge cash prizes.

The VIP races will be open to all members of the Titan Poker’s VIP Club. There are 6 different levels and the members can improve their rankings by earning more VIP points when they play.

These races are the latest in a series of promotions offered by the site for its players. In the month of April, the web site had offered 13 of its VIP player’s direct entry in to the Euro city Poker Tour Madrid Open.

Titan Poker is offering many promotions during the month of May and will be hosting the second European Championship of Online Poker towards the end of the month.

The first tournament to be played at Titan Poker will be the two final super satellite tournaments that will decide which players will take part in the Asian Poker Tour in Manila. These two tournaments will take place on May 5 and 12 and the players who pay an entry fee of $250+8 can be eligible to win prizes worth $6000.

Both tournaments will offer players four prize packages that include the entry fee worth $2,500 and money for travel and accomodations at the event.

Players looking for inexpensive ways to qualify for the Asian Poker tour tournament can participate in the continuing daily qualifiers that are run for the super satellite matches. The entry for these qualifiers is $3.30+30¢.

Also on May 4, the site will run a VIP race that will run for a week. The prizes in this race are $30,000. To participate in this race players have to be Diamond, Titanium, Platinum, Gold or Silver VIP players on the site. The site will monitor the top players in each level and the top players will win awards.