Last week, one of the first-ever online poker rooms, PokerRoom.com closed its doors for the last time. PokerRoom has been owned and operated by Bwin, in 2006 when they bought the Ongame Network

An announcement by bwin last month said it would be closing down the site for good. All existing players were told the "the option to play poker on PokerRoom…will be disabled on Tuesday, April 14th." PokerRoom players were given the option of cashing out or transferring their accounts over to bwin poker with a number of special bonuses being offered to entice players to transfer and play at bwin.

PokerRoom dates back to the 20th Century. The site was launched by Swedish poker players Oskar Hörnell and Claes Lidell in 1999, when online poker was still in the embryonic stages. They saw the potential for poker on the internet, and Oskar brought in his brother Karl, a computer programmer, to help design the software. With their combined know-how, the three men soon had the fledgling poker site up and running.

In 2003, the breakthrough year for online poker that saw Chris Moneymaker win the WSOP Main Event and kick off the poker boom, the site revamped its software and expanded its hold'em-only offerings to also spread Omaha, Omaha hi/lo, and seven-card stud. Within the next few years, PokerRoom grew to be one of the most popular online poker rooms and became a part of the Ongame Network (then known as the PokerNetwork), establishing itself as Ongame's most recognizable poker site.

At its peak, PokerRoom was one of the world's leading poker sites, boasting a huge player base and a superior reputation. One of the first sites to offer a Mac-compatible client, along with Linux and mobile phone applications, it was also known for excellent, innovative software. PokerRoom was truly a pioneer in the world of online poker.

Accounding to a recent report in the Sunday Times, Mitch Garber the former CEO of PartyGaming is about to take a job a Harrah's, which owns the World Series of Poker. The new company will be formed to house its WSOP brand and internet operations.

The timing appears to be perfert for both parties. Garber's current contract with PartyGaming owners of Party Poker officially ends in May, and Congressman Barney Frank is scheduled to introduce in the new couple of weeks a new Gambling Regulation and Advertisement Enforcement Act (H.R. 2046), which aims to setup a legal and regulatory framework for online gambling.

Frank's is also attempting to repeal the Unlawful Internet Gambling and Enforcement Act (UIGEA) which is gathering more momentum

The appointment of Garber to run the online arm of Harrah's would suggest that we are moving closer to legalizing online poker in the U.S. And the obvious leverage of the WSOP-brand as an online poker room seems an obvious next step

Back in September 2007, Mitch Garber in an interview with the The Financial Times suggested he would be open to an approached by a major player in Las Vegas. Watch this space for more news.

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Back in December 2008, bwin, the world's leading online gaming company, and the Division on Addictions at the Cambridge Health Alliance, a Harvard Medical School Teaching Affiliate, signed an agreement for research collaboration for five years. This follows an already three year relationship testing and developing gaming initiatives to provide customers with responsible gaming information and tools.

The research objective was to use scientific evidence to create the safest possible online gaming environment by implementing the findings of the world's largest longitudinal study.

The research has produced the first ever epidemiological analysis of actual gaming behaviour after studying a sample of 3,445 online poker players over the span of 2 years. The research initiative has found that online gaming offers no greater problem gambling potential than offline gaming, and that responsible gaming measures do have an impact on players’ behaviour.

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You will often hear bad online poker players comenting that online poker sites are fixed simply because the amount of high cards, bad beats etc.. are too frequent to be randomly selected. However as we all know this will seem the case simply becasue of the volume of hands  being played are so much greater than in a game of live poker.
 
The clever men in white coats have come up with an answer! Founder and CEO of Gioia Gaming Systems, Gene Gioia, has been recognised by the awarding body for his Cut N’ Shuffle and Game Check products. These revolutionary new programs allow players to actually cut, shuffle and deal their own deck of cards in an online casino.

GGS thinks that it can make a revolutionary impact on online poker. More and more people find themselves mistrusting online poker sites. While many of them are simply blaming their own bad play on conspiracy theories or failing to understand the ups and downs of poker, it is worrying that so many are taken in.

Gene Gioia’s new system will put an end to this – if players can see the deck being shuffled, cut and dealt (as they would in a friendly home game) then hopefully they will be reassured at the integrity of their favourite online poker site.

Bad news for the online poker community in Norway

A Norwegian bill attempting to block payments to online gambling sites, including online poker, modeled after the United States' controversial Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, was passed into law earlier this week.

The passage occurred despite calls from that country's banking officials, as in the US, that the law will be unenforceable.

Norway is not an official member of the European Union, though Norway is a part of the unified European Economic Area, leaving it subject to some EU trade policies.

The EU has criticized Norway's stance, suggesting that the move is designed to protect Norway's state-run gambling operation, Norske Tipping.