Alberta is exploring a domestic online poker liquidity agreement with Ontario that would let regulated players in the two provinces play at the same tables and enter the same tournaments. The provinces are discussing a memorandum of understanding, but no deal has been finalized and their player pools remain separate.

The Alberta iGaming Corporation confirmed on Oct. 19 that it was “actively looking at shared liquidity pools within Canada.” Chief executive Dan Keene said Alberta and Ontario were working toward an agreement and wanted to complete it quickly.

If implemented, the arrangement could allow operators licensed in both provinces to offer games and tournaments to players from either market. Alberta and Ontario have a combined population of more than 21 million, potentially creating deeper cash-game traffic, more tables at different stakes, and larger tournament fields and prize pools.

Those benefits would not be automatic. Participation would depend on which operators join, how provincial oversight is handled, the technical connections between networks, and the games each operator chooses to offer.

The proposal is a domestic option separate from the Supreme Court of Canada case over international liquidity. The court heard arguments Oct. 7 on Ontario’s plan to let regulated peer-to-peer games, including poker, connect with players outside Canada, then reserved judgment. AiGC has said it will assess international opportunities after the ruling, while the Criminal Code framework means Alberta and Ontario do not necessarily need to wait for that decision to pursue an interprovincial arrangement.

Ontario launched its regulated iGaming market in April 2022, initially requiring peer-to-peer operators to keep Ontario residents in a closed pool. Its August report put peer-to-peer poker wagering at about CA$122 million, just over 1% of the CA$9.74 billion wagered across the province’s regulated iGaming market.

Alberta’s regulated poker market opened Oct. 13, with 888 initially operating a locally regulated room limited to Alberta residents. As we reported Oct. 30, GGPoker withdrew from Alberta’s commercial licensing process after concluding that even a combined Alberta-Ontario pool would be too small for a sustainable top-tier room unless international pooling becomes possible.

That skepticism is shared by Sarne Lightman, managing director of NSUS Group, who said an Alberta-Ontario pool would not materially alter the current situation and would remain too small to compete with the global black market. Even so, a provincial agreement would be a concrete change from the current ring-fenced setup, provided the two regulators can settle operator participation, oversight and network arrangements.

PokerStars’ Big Game on Tour returns to YouTube on Sunday, Nov. 8, with comedian Tony Hinchcliffe joining Doug Polk, Antonio Esfandiari, Esther Taylor, Princess Love and Scott Gaughan at the cash-game table. The five-episode run will air weekly through Dec. 6 on the official PokerStars and PokerStars UK YouTube channels.

PokerExclusive described the Nov. 8 episodes as the second half of Season 3, while PokerNews and Pokerfuse characterized the release as the new Season 3 series. All three reports named the same six-player lineup.

Hinchcliffe, the host of the Kill Tony podcast, will be making his debut on the PokerStars high-stakes show. He and Polk already have some poker-and-comedy history: the two Austin, Texas, residents played a $20,000 heads-up match after meeting at a bar. Hinchcliffe won the first contest in 20 minutes, then proposed a $40,000 rematch against one minute of stand-up comedy.

Polk won the rematch and earned a spot on Kill Tony, where Hinchcliffe called his set the best of the night. Polk has appeared on the comedy show twice. Ahead of their Big Game appearance, Polk said Hinchcliffe was accustomed to performing under pressure and hoped his poker would be less hilarious than his jokes.

Gaughan, a Canadian aspiring comedian who typically hosts corporate comedy game shows, takes the season’s Loose Cannon seat. PokerStars gives the Loose Cannon a $50,000 stake for 150 hands; Gaughan keeps profit above that initial stake if he finishes the session ahead.

The professional contingent comprises heads-up specialist Polk, live-cash-game veteran Esfandiari and mixed-game specialist Taylor. Esfandiari also appeared in Season 2 with Phil Hellmuth and Rob Gronkowski. Princess Love, described as a poker-loving reality star, rounds out a table designed to mix poker professionals, celebrities and the Loose Cannon format.

The WSOP Circuit will make Casino Sanremo in Italy one of the final live routes into WSOP Paradise when its 11-ring festival runs from Nov. 20 through Dec. 1. Each eligible ring winner receives a $5,000 Paradise package, with the Bahamas festival beginning the following day.

The package includes a seat in the $2,750 Circuit Championship Mystery Bounty and accommodation at Baha Mar. That Mystery Bounty opens WSOP Paradise with a $5 million guarantee, while the wider Dec. 2-17 festival has 20 bracelet events and $120 million in guaranteed prize pools.

Sanremo buy-ins range from €300 to €2,500. The schedule opens with the €300 Mini Main Event on Nov. 20, which has four starting flights and plays to a winner on Nov. 22. A €300 Mystery Bounty and €300 Colossus follow, with the Colossus offering six starting flights across the series.

The €2,500 High Roller starts Nov. 25. The €1,500 WSOP Circuit Main Event is the festival’s headline tournament, with four opening flights from Nov. 26-28 before a winner is determined on Dec. 1. Casino Sanremo will also run daily tournaments, satellites and other side events alongside the ring schedule.

The stop is positioned as a live-tournament warm-up before EPT Prague, WSOP Paradise and the WPT World Championship. The Paradise package applies to live and online ring winners, after WSOP clarified that eligible online winners would remain included following criticism of earlier promotional wording.

For players seeking a direct path to Paradise’s $26,000 Super Main Event, GGPoker’s WSOP Express remains a separate online option. As covered in September, the ladder starts with a free daily Step 0 ticket and offers $30,000 Super Passes through its qualifying stages.

A Super Pass covers entry to the $50 million-guaranteed Super Main Event, a 13-night Baha Mar stay and additional benefits. The highest $2,500 Express qualifier has 34 Super Passes in its prize pool, while Step 4 can also be entered with a qualifying ticket or $150 cash.

PokerStars on FanDuel has gone live in Alberta, returning the PokerStars brand to the province as a regulated online poker option. The new room is limited to players physically located in Alberta and does not currently share tables with PokerStars on FanDuel Ontario.

The Alberta platform offers cash games, tournaments and Spin & Go games. It is the province’s second regulated poker room after 888, which launched on Oct. 13.

As reported Oct. 23, PokerStars on FanDuel had told customers the service was coming shortly without committing to a launch date. The launch followed PokerStars’ withdrawal of Alberta players from its international platform a few weeks earlier under the province’s new iGaming rules.

Players must download the new Alberta software or mobile app to play. Old PokerStars international-platform accounts cannot be migrated to PokerStars on FanDuel Alberta, and new customers need a new account for the service. Alberta customers who already have a FanDuel Casino account can use those existing credentials in the poker app rather than opening a separate poker account.

The separate pool reflects the lack of an Ontario-Alberta player-sharing agreement when the room opened. The two provincial governments were working toward an arrangement that could permit shared tables, while the possibility of Alberta operators rejoining an international pool also remained open.

Alberta’s regulated iGaming market opened July 13 after nearly two years of preparation. Alberta Gaming, Liquor and Cannabis regulates the market, while the Alberta iGaming Corporation manages market operations. Operators must register with the regulator and reach an operating agreement with the corporation while meeting requirements on integrity, fairness and player protection.

A larger shared network matters particularly for Alberta because its market is smaller than Ontario’s, making standalone poker licensing less attractive to operators. Flutter, FanDuel’s parent company, has supported international player pooling.

Matt Berkey’s Only Friends poker podcast is set to return Monday, Nov. 9, at 11 a.m. PT, ending an absence of more than 18 months. The show will run Monday through Thursday, giving it four weekly broadcasts rather than its previous five-day weekday schedule.

The return follows the podcast’s April 25, 2025 finale, its 719th episode. Apple Podcasts lists that installment as the final episode, while the farewell broadcast ran for four hours and included Nikki Limo, Jesse Sylvia, Jason Somerville, Ryan Depaulo and Mike Holtz.

Only Friends launched in March 2022 as a Solve For Why production founded by Berkey and streamed daily for three years. It developed from conversations about the hosts’ lives in poker into a regular discussion of poker-community news, high-stakes games, cheating allegations, cryptocurrency and industry controversies. The show won Best Podcast at the 2023 Global Poker Awards.

The original run ended partly after the crew lost its Las Vegas studio space. Berkey later said YouTube’s crackdown on certain gambling-related content also made the timing of the shutdown feel appropriate.

A separate issue has now been resolved. Berkey said a legal battle involving his company was among the reasons the show disappeared, but that it settled over the summer, restoring his full ownership and allowing him to bring the program back on his own terms.

Berkey said he did not believe another show had filled the gap left by Only Friends. He pointed to a superuser scandal, a bot farm on overseas poker sites and other poker developments as material for the returning program.

The expected on-air group includes Berkey, Landon Tice and Melissa Schubert. Conrad Simpson and Jesse are expected to contribute more through call-ins because they no longer live in Las Vegas.

The production will use a different, simplified set and is expected to make greater use of AI, graphics and other production packages. Berkey said the format will otherwise remain similar to the earlier version, with the reduced weekly schedule reflecting his playing commitments.

The Campeonato de España de Poker by PokerStars will decide its 20th-anniversary season at Casino Perelada in Girona from Nov. 25-29. The €500 No-Limit Hold’em Main Event has four starting flights, with the Spanish Poker Champion title still undecided after five completed stops.

The opening Day 1A is scheduled for Casino Barcelona on Nov. 25, while the other Main Event flights and side events take place at Casino Perelada. Players advancing from the Barcelona flight must travel to Girona for Day 2 on Nov. 28.

The final stop will also settle the Mini CEP title. Its €250 event runs Nov. 28-29, alongside a €220 Turbo Bounty and a €115 Turbo Closer.

Julen Palacios brings the Main Event points lead to Girona with 3,430 points, followed by Mehdi Rebai on 3,035 and Jesus Hervas on 2,815. Palacios leads Rebai by 395 points, leaving the overall championship open at the last stop.

The Mini CEP race is led by José María Mesas with 2,240 points. Herber Castañeda is second on 1,883 and Nicolás Perin is third on 1,735; the Mini CEP has drawn more than 2,100 entrants this season.

Nearly 6,000 Main Event entries have been recorded across the circuit’s first five 2026 stops, which set participation records. The most recent Málaga stop drew 1,007 entries, its first field above 1,000, where Daniel Hernández won €65,000 and moved into the overall top 10.

There are live and online routes into the Girona Main Event. Casino Perelada hosts a €115 satellite at 6 p.m. CET on Nov. 23, while Casino Barcelona runs a €115 satellite that night and a €60 qualifier on Nov. 24. PokerStars Spain’s online satellites start from €5 and run through Nov. 21, feeding into a €50 qualifier that guarantees two Main Event seats from Monday through Saturday and five on Sundays.

CoinPoker’s PGT KickOff Online begins Nov. 8, opening a $50 million guaranteed festival that runs through Nov. 30 and starts a six-series PokerGO Tour online schedule. The full partnership carries $250 million in guarantees through November 2027.

As covered last month, the broader circuit will send 50 qualifiers to a $1 million winner-takes-all live final at PokerGO Studio in Las Vegas in January 2028. The KickOff is the first opportunity to begin that qualification race, with seats available through PGT Millionaire Challenges and other qualifying opportunities during the season. Finalists must be at least 21 and complete KYC verification.

Somuchpoker’s published schedule identifies the $530 KickOff Main Event as the festival’s largest single guarantee, at $5 million. It reaches Day 2 on Nov. 30.

Six Highlight Trophy Events account for $9.5 million of the festival guarantee: PGT KickOff, Mystery Million, Sunday Grand PGT Edition, High Stakes Poker, the KickOff Main Event and CoinMasters High Roller. Champions of designated events, including Main Events, receive physical PGT trophies shipped to their homes as well as matching digital trophies in their CoinPoker Trophy Cabinets. Trophy Events are marked in the CoinPoker lobby.

The Mystery Million on Nov. 15 is CoinPoker’s first Mystery Bounty tournament. It has a $530 buy-in, a $1 million guarantee and a possible top bounty of $50,000. In Mystery Bounty events, players receive randomly determined prizes when they eliminate opponents during the bounty stage. A lower-priced PGT Mystery KickOff is also scheduled, with a $55 buy-in and a $200,000 guarantee.

Other highlighted events include the $1,050 Sunday Grand PGT Edition on Nov. 22, which raises the regular Sunday Grand guarantee from $400,000 to $1 million; the $1,050 High Stakes Poker event on Nov. 26, guaranteed at $500,000; and the $1,500 CoinMasters High Roller, which guarantees $1 million and reaches Day 2 on Nov. 30. Satellites and freerolls offer routes into many headline events below their direct buy-ins.

CoinPoker recently introduced Mystery Bounties through its The Next Level software update, which also added customizable private tables, new high-stakes cash games and more than 40 other improvements. Its former VIP Arena has also been rebranded as High Stakes Poker Online, offering cash-game stakes from $50/$100 to $5,000/$10,000.

CoinPoker’s High Stakes Poker Online cash-game section is live with stakes ranging from $50/$100 to $5,000/$10,000. At the top level, the tables carry a reported $400,000 buy-in.

The tables also use a minimum VPIP rule designed to keep games moving. Card Player reported that the policy sets a dynamic benchmark for the number of hands each player should enter, and players judged too tight can be ejected from a table.

The format was introduced through CoinPoker’s “The Next Level” client update, which went live earlier this week. PokerStrategy.com reported on Nov. 2 that the update included High Stakes Poker Online tables under the operator’s PokerGO partnership, alongside new private cash games and software changes.

CoinPoker has rebranded its former VIP Arena as High Stakes Poker Online. The operator describes the section as an online home for PokerGO’s nosebleed cash games, while its Min VPIP Tables format applies to selected cash-game tables rather than the entire site.

The early action included $500/$1,000 heads-up no-limit hold’em during the week. No-limit players led CoinPoker’s weekly profit rankings, while pot-limit Omaha produced the largest individual pots.

GucciNIKE won the week’s biggest hand, a $416,540 PLO pot against Kayhan Mokri. Mokri also featured in the second-largest pot, a $299,540 hand that was the week’s largest no-limit hold’em pot.

Allinyouwin topped the weekly profit list with about $428,000 at the time of writing. LLinusLLove ranked second with roughly $413,000.

The high-stakes rollout is one part of The Next Level, which also added Mystery Bounty tournaments, customizable private tables, CoinMarkets and a series of client updates covering mobile play, multi-tabling, the HUD, notes, bet sizing and sit-out controls. CoinPoker says it has used player feedback to improve the experience since its March software relaunch.

CoinPoker and PokerGO’s PGT KickOff Online festival is set to begin Nov. 8 and run through Nov. 30, with $50 million in guaranteed prize pools.

Daniel Lowery captured his 22nd World Series of Poker Circuit gold ring at Choctaw Durant, winning the $400 no-limit hold’em 40/40/40 event for $28,710. The result moved the 52-year-old Arkansas player into sole possession of second place on the all-time Circuit rings list.

Lowery beat Andrew Chubick heads-up after a field of 449 entries. The 40/40/40 tournament was restricted to players aged 40 and older, with 40,000 starting chips and 40-minute blind levels.

Maurice Hawkins remains the only player ahead of Lowery, holding 26 rings after winning his latest at Choctaw in July. Lowery’s victory broke a tie with Ari Engel, who has 21 rings, and left Lowery four titles behind the record.

As we covered in September, Lowery had reached 21 rings by winning the $400 Big O at Horseshoe Council Bluffs. Engel, who finished third in that event, won his own 21st ring the following day to draw level with Lowery before the Choctaw result separated them again.

The Choctaw title was Lowery’s third Circuit ring of the year. He had also won his 20th ring in a $300 Seniors event at Hard Rock Tulsa, while his Council Bluffs victory began a run in which he made five final tables, won four titles and earned just under $121,000 across six cashes.

That stretch also included two titles at the Arkansas Poker Showdown in October, including the $600 main event. Before the Choctaw result, Lowery had won six Circuit rings over the previous two years.

His stated early goal had been to become the first player to reach 20 rings, but Hawkins got there first. Lowery has said he would like to lead the list at least once, while acknowledging that his full-time job and family commitments limit the volume he can play compared with a full-time Circuit schedule.

The Choctaw Circuit stop continues through Nov. 9, with a $1,100 no-limit hold’em Mini Main Event followed by the $1,700 no-limit hold’em Main Event.

Australian pro Andrew Han won the ₩1.3 million KPC Main Event at the Jeju Poker Festival, taking ₩150 million (about $111,770) after defeating Yifu He heads-up at LES A Casino on Jeju Island on Nov. 1. The victory was Han’s largest career cash to that point.

The tournament drew 747 entries across five starting flights. It carried an ₩880 million guaranteed prize pool, which narrowly held, and its final day lasted 12 hours. He earned ₩102.5 million for second place, while Fabian Gumz collected ₩68 million in third after beginning three-handed play as chip leader.

Gumz’s elimination left Han and He almost even in chips, beginning a heads-up contest that ran for about two hours. On hand 282, He moved all-in holding king-ten and Han called with king-eight. An eight on the flop paired Han, and the remaining cards did not change the result.

Han had entered the final table second in chips after sitting third following Day 1D. Before this result, his best recorded score had been a 12th-place finish worth about $66,500 in the APT Championship Taipei 2025 Main Event.

As we reported Aug. 29, KPC Poker had unified its Jeju brands ahead of the festival. Han, a Melbourne-based player who began travelling the Asian circuit in 2025, had previously won the KPC Mini High Roller Turbo, the GOP Taipei Titan Stack High Roller and the USOP Vietnam Superstack. He also finished 12th in WPT Prime Korea at the previous year’s Jeju Poker Festival.

Speaking after the win, Han said the festival’s structure had improved over its recent editions. He added that he expected to play more high rollers. Han said he now felt more comfortable playing them.

The $5,000 WPT Venetian Las Vegas Fall Championship is the first World Poker Tour event held in the United States to use slide dealing, bringing the Venetian’s new anti-cheating procedure onto a major tournament stage. The championship runs through Nov. 10 with a $2 million guaranteed prize pool, and its final table will be livestreamed on PokerGO from the Venetian Poker Room’s new streaming room.

PokerNews first reported the tournament milestone. Instead of pitching hole cards through the air, dealers slide them across the felt, keeping the cards low and making their undersides harder for opponents or concealed cameras to see. The Venetian had required dealers to abandon traditional pitching and use the new approach last month.

As we reported in October, the Venetian had already adopted slide dealing throughout its Las Vegas poker room. The property, which has 50 tables, replaced traditional felts with smoother speed felts and deals cards directly from a shoe. It became the first major casino on the Las Vegas Strip to make the switch, while South Point had become the first Las Vegas poker room to begin slide dealing earlier this year.

The security case for the change centers on the brief exposure possible when cards travel through the air. Casino.org reported that cards pitched at table height can be glimpsed by hidden cameras, whereas keeping them flush or close to the felt sharply limits that risk. Tommy LaRosa said the method reduces the possibility of exposed cards during the deal and improves player security.

The approach has already appeared at a recent WPT event in Sydney, Australia, where dealing was reported to have gone smoothly without player complaints. But it still has critics in Las Vegas, where some players and poker officials have raised concerns over dealer retraining costs and a possible reduction in hands per hour while staff learn the technique. Others, including Daniel Negreanu, have backed the security benefit.

After Day 1a, Cherish Andrews led the 103-player field and 32 players had bagged for Day 2. Day 1b is scheduled for 11:15 a.m. local time Friday, followed by the final opening flight Saturday.

ACR Poker added its $109 Moneymaker $1M GTD Mystery PKO to the site’s Mystery PKO schedule, putting a $1 million guarantee and a $100,000 top mystery bounty behind a multi-flight event scheduled to run from Nov. 1 through Nov. 22.

The tournament offered nearly 250 Day 1 flights, each with 10-minute levels and a duration of about two hours and 20 minutes. Players could enter multiple flights and carry combined qualifying stacks into Day 2 under the event’s top-up stack format.

Day 2 was scheduled to begin Nov. 22 at 3:05 p.m. ET, with the bounty stage active from its first hand. Each knockout would reveal a mystery prize. Half of a revealed prize would be paid immediately, while the other half would be added to the winner’s progressive bounty.

That split also applied to progressive bounties accumulated by eliminated players. In the case of the $100,000 top bounty, the winner would receive $50,000 at once and have the other $50,000 added to their own bounty.

ACR also used freerolls to award 264 seats into selected $109 starting flights, worth almost $30,000 in total buy-ins.

As we reported Nov. 1, ACR’s preceding Halloween Mystery PKO slate produced $836,930 in prize pools, exceeding its combined $650,000 guarantee. The Moneymaker event joined a schedule that also included the weekly $500,000 guaranteed Turbo Tuesday Mystery PKO.

The Moneymaker launch was announced alongside The Quattro, a separate weekly trio of Mystery PKOs carrying $75,000 in combined guarantees.

Allen Kessler was among 18 players still in contention in the $1,100 H.O.R.S.E. Championship, one of the headline events of the Chainsaw Mixed Series of Poker at Borgata in Atlantic City. The two-day tournament drew 38 entries and was due to award its winner on Friday, Nov. 6.

The field had been cut to fewer than half its starting size, leaving Kessler with a chance to win a title in the series that bears his “Chainsaw” nickname. PokerNews’ tournament update said the final prize pool had not yet been set when it was published.

The H.O.R.S.E. Championship carried a $25,000 guarantee when the Borgata stop was announced in October. As covered in our earlier report, the festival marked the first time Kessler brought the Chainsaw Mixed Series of Poker to Borgata during the Borgata Fall Poker Open.

The Nov. 4-14 series features mixed-game formats alongside the H.O.R.S.E. event, including $600 buy-in tournaments in Omaha, Stud and Triple Draw. The wider Borgata Fall Poker Open had more than $4 million in guarantees.

The next $1,100 championship on the CMSOP schedule is the $35,000-guaranteed T.O.R.S.E. event, which begins Nov. 12. The series is set to close Nov. 14 with a $600 Triple-Triple Draw tournament featuring Ace-5, Deuce-7 and Badugi.

World Poker Tour will give away 81 entries to the $400 ClubWPT Gold Super Gold Million during a Dec. 2 Meet-Up Game at Wynn Las Vegas. The three-hour cash-game session runs from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Encore Poker Room, during the WPT World Championship festival.

The game will offer $1/$2 and $2/$5 No-Limit Hold’em and Pot-Limit Omaha tables. WPT has scheduled appearances by Phil Ivey, Brad Owen, Doug Polk, Ethan “Rampage” Yau, Nikki Limo, Vince Van Patten, Tony Dunst, Matt Kiefer, Jamie Kerstetter, James Leonidas, Mike Holtz and Alex Loveless.

The 81 tournament seats will be distributed in nine randomized drops, roughly 20 minutes apart. Each time, tables will be picked at random and selected players will receive an entry. A player can win no more than two seats; if someone who has already reached that limit is selected again, the additional seat goes into a bomb pot for another player to win.

As we reported in September, the Super Gold Million is a new live-only ClubWPT Gold event on the World Championship schedule, carrying a $3 million guarantee. It runs Dec. 10-14 at Wynn Las Vegas, uses a mystery-bounty format and has four starting flights with unlimited re-entry.

The Meet-Up Game falls within the 25-day WPT World Championship festival, which runs Nov. 27-Dec. 21 and features more than 85 tournaments with more than $20 million in guarantees. Festival buy-ins range from $400 to $25,800, with the Super Gold Million at the bottom of that range.

Nathan Johnson’s election as Texas attorney general gives the state’s poker community a supporter in an office that can influence legal discussions, even though it cannot legalize gambling on its own. The Democrat defeated Republican Mayes Middleton with 52.5% of the vote to Middleton’s 45.8%, according to Yahoo News.

PokerNews characterized Johnson’s pro-gambling and pro-poker record as a potential benefit for Texas card rooms. His campaign also used poker imagery and commentary, including jabs at Middleton’s “poker face.” Middleton, by contrast, supported the current Texas poker model.

The election does not settle the legal status of those rooms. Texas has strict anti-gambling laws, and Texas Penal Code Chapter 47 generally prohibits gambling while Section 47.04 offers a potential defense in specified circumstances. More than 50 poker rooms operate in the state, commonly presenting themselves as social clubs that charge membership and seat or hourly fees rather than taking rake from pots.

That model has left clubs in a legal gray area. The Lodge Card Club, Texas Card House and Champions Club are established Texas venues, but operating as a social club has not insulated rooms from enforcement. The Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission and IRS raided The Lodge in Round Rock on March 10, seizing evidence and freezing assets amid allegations involving organized criminal activity, money laundering, gambling promotion and gambling devices.

The Lodge raid also illustrated the uncertainty around the private-club defense. Investigators alleged that an undercover agent reached its gaming floor without showing identification or membership proof, buying a membership or being stopped. A previous report said the closure was expected to affect more than 200 Lodge employees as well as players with outstanding chips and tournament payouts.

As a state senator, Johnson introduced Senate Joint Resolution 82 in March 2025. The measure would have allowed voters to decide whether to remove constitutional prohibitions on strictly regulated gaming, which could have clarified the rules affecting poker clubs. It died in the Senate State Affairs Committee. Johnson said its passage would not itself have made destination-resort casinos or other gaming legal, but would have removed the constitutional prohibition on gaming “however strictly regulated.”

Johnson supports legalized casinos and sports betting as well as poker, arguing that Texans already travel to Oklahoma casinos such as Choctaw Resort. The attorney general cannot legalize gambling, but could help shape the legal debate over future regulation.

Reporting on campaign contributions differs. PokerNews listed a $4,500 contribution from Texas Sands PAC, while Yahoo News and PlayUSA each reported $120,000 from the PAC, which has ties to the Adelson family and Las Vegas Sands. Johnson defended the donation in a CBS News interview.

Vikki Goodwin defeated incumbent Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who had been a roadblock to casino and expanded-poker bills, and said she wanted to “put it to the people” on poker legislation. Any constitutional amendment would still need approval from two-thirds of each legislative chamber before reaching voters. The Texas Legislature is scheduled to convene in January 2027.

Champions Social Club in Dallas is set to host a Texas Hold’em charity tournament for North Texas men’s-health nonprofit Mankind on Thursday, Nov. 12, at 5 p.m. The $250 event is open to both casual and experienced players, while nonplaying guests can attend for $50.

Mankind provides resources, support and assistance to people facing a health crisis. Its event page describes the tournament as a fun, friendly community event in which play supports men’s-health awareness and men facing health crises.

Eric Chiofalo of 105.3 The Fan will appear as a special guest. The final-table champion’s prize pot is listed at $2,525, and all nine final-table players receive prizes. Listed awards include a LeBron James rookie card, a round of golf at The Tribute in The Colony, Stonebriar Country Club access and a Four Roses Boozy Old Fashioned Basket.

Entry includes two drink tickets, appetizers and heavy hors d’oeuvres, with additional food and beverages available to buy. Players can make rebuys and add-ons for $100 each; they receive five optional $100 coupons that may be used only at the event and are billed afterward.

All attendees must be at least 21. Players and guests also receive a complimentary annual Champions Social Club social membership on arrival. The membership includes 10 guest passes a month, complimentary social events, access to the club’s games library and paid access to hosted events.

The tournament will be held at Champions Social Club, 17776 Dallas Parkway. Registrants who sign up by 5 p.m. on Nov. 10 receive a free general-admission ticket to the CodeLaunch World Championship at Gilley’s Dallas the following evening.

The charity event comes after Champions’ long-running effort to offer poker at its Dallas location. PokerNews reported that the club had been in a dispute with the city since 2021, and that the Dallas Board of Adjustment voted 4-1 in September 2025 to approve its request to host poker games. The club operates as a social club and uses membership and seat fees rather than taking rake from cash-game pots.

Tereza Vernerova won the €600 no-limit hold’em Battle of Malta Autumn Edition Main Event, becoming the first woman to capture the festival’s Main Event title. She outlasted a field of 5,368 entries at Casino Malta and defeated Ofer Tadmor heads-up after a final table that ran for more than 12 hours.

Vernerova collected €162,635 and the Knight Trophy. PokerNews reported that the final three, Vernerova, Tadmor and James Malatynski, agreed to an ICM deal that guaranteed each player more than €124,000, while €22,635 and the trophy remained in play. Malatynski ultimately finished third.

The Main Event generated a €2.4 million prize pool. Before the deal, the listed first prize was €227,835. The final table also included players representing eight different countries.

Vernerova brought a large stack into the closing day. Battle of Malta’s live blog recorded her with 68.75 million chips at the end of Day 4, more than twice Tadmor’s 31.25 million and roughly one-third of all chips in play. Eight players remained at that point, each assured at least €21,150.

Her route to the final table included eliminating Vasileios Tsaknis in 12th place and Alessandro De Michele in 10th, holding pocket kings on both hands. At the final eight, she had 172 big blinds but lost chips when Tadmor made a river straight flush, then regained momentum by doubling through Marios Kapiris with pocket kings.

In the heads-up match, Vernerova took control when she flopped trips against Tadmor’s top two pair in a major pot. She sealed the title by calling Tadmor’s final all-in with trip tens; the turn and river did not improve his hand.

“I think it’s one of the best feelings in my life,” Vernerova said after the win. “I’m very happy to be the first woman champion.” She said she had been nervous going into her first final table of that size, and credited her husband with helping her prepare and supporting her during the tournament.

The victory also earned Vernerova an invitation to join the 2027 Battle of Malta tour, which is planned to visit Barcelona, Bratislava and Tallinn before returning to Malta for a summer edition.

PokerCoaching is offering a Black Friday pass that gives users free access to its training platform through Thursday, Nov. 5. The promotion requires no payment details or manual cancellation, and standard membership options return after the offer ends.

Users can claim the pass by registering with an email address and logging in. PokerCoaching’s pass page says the offer delivers three full days of access and asks users to log in each day during that period. The company describes the access as covering everything in PokerCoaching Premium, while Pokerfuse characterized the pass as access to almost all of the site.

The offer is designed as a chance for players to explore the platform before deciding whether to pay for membership. Poker has become harder to beat, and players looking to move beyond micro stakes need to work away from the tables.

Among the material available is the first two stages of Jonathan Little’s “Complete Cash Game System,” according to Pokerfuse. The course is powered by PeakGTO and focuses on live cash games. Little gathered material for it while playing $1/$3 and $5/$10 games.

The pass page also highlights a broad tournament-training catalog. That includes Little’s “Tournament Masterclass,” covering tournament stages, opponent exploitation and tournament equity; “Crush the WSOP,” focused on preflop, postflop and ICM concepts; and the Advanced Tournament Course, which contains more than 30 hours on subjects including multiway pots, deep stacks, heads-up play, bet sizing and poker tools.

Other featured content includes high-stakes GTO and player-pool adjustment training, plus a hand-review course on Bert “girafganger7” Stevens’ 2023 WSOP Online Main Event victory with GTO specialist Michael Acevedo. The pass page also promotes a course built around Jonathan Little’s PokerGO Cup win, plus courses featuring Shannon Shorr’s WSOP Monster Stack deep run on GGPoker and Aram Zobian’s WSOP Main Event final-table run.

ACR Poker’s Nov. 4 software release added a built-in help tool, refreshed mobile navigation, expanded cash-game filters and new tournament-lobby functionality, while making ScreenShield the default setting across the Winning Poker Network.

The Assistant Client is available on desktop and mobile through a chat window inside the poker client. It can answer questions about software features and settings, including guiding a player through changing the client language, without requiring them to leave the app.

Mobile users now see a reorganized home screen built around Fast Lane, Poker Central and Action Central. Those sections provide routes to tournaments, Hold’em, Omaha, casino and sports offerings.

The cash-game screens also have more filtering options. Players can narrow tables by game type, betting structure, table size, stakes and other table preferences.

For participating tournaments, Spin 2 Get In XL now appears alongside registration information in the lobby. A compact version can remain on screen while a player has a poker table open, although the available offer and amount depend on the specific opportunity displayed.

The release also added an Ace deck design in the Table Design settings, alongside the existing Classic option. Existing two-color, four-color and full-color deck choices, plus card-back selections, remain available.

ScreenShield now switches on automatically for WPN players. The protection is intended to stop covered screen-capture and screen-sharing methods from displaying protected table content, including hole cards, while players can continue to see and play their tables normally.

Players who need to stream, record sessions or share their screen with a coach can turn ScreenShield off in the client settings. The network has said the tool can affect legitimate recording and streaming, and is an added safeguard rather than a solution to every cybersecurity threat.

As we reported earlier today, WPN had said it would make ScreenShield the network default on Nov. 4 after initially applying the protection to selected accounts. WPN previously contacted players whose devices met its criteria for remote-access, screen-control or screen-capture software and activated the feature as a precaution.

The network said its move followed concerns that remote-access tools could expose information visible on a compromised device. It also stressed that detecting such software did not, by itself, establish either a compromised device or cheating.

Before the default rollout, players could request ScreenShield through Support, with activation potentially taking up to 48 hours.

RunGood Poker Series will bring its Golden Expedition to Jamul Casino in San Diego from Nov. 17-22, with 12 ring events led by a $600 Main Event guaranteeing $150,000. The six-day festival is the tour’s second Jamul stop of 2026, following a February Passport Season series that used the same Main Event buy-in, guarantee and three-flight format.

PokerNews detailed a Main Event schedule that begins with a 6 p.m. flight on Friday, Nov. 20. Two further entry flights follow at 11 a.m. and 6 p.m. on Saturday, before surviving players return at noon on Nov. 22 to play the finale. PokerNews will provide live reporting from that final day.

Players can try to qualify before the series rather than pay the full Main Event buy-in. Satellite week starts Nov. 10, when $85 qualifiers guarantee two seats apiece over the first three days. The $145 satellites on Nov. 13 and 14 each guarantee five seats, and more qualifiers are scheduled during the festival itself.

The opening day includes a $200 Ambassador Bounty Ring Event with a $10,000 guarantee. Special guests in the event will carry prize envelopes, with awards ranging from $1,000 cash to RunGood apparel store credit.

A $300 PokerNews PowerStack follows on Wednesday and Thursday with two starting flights and a $25,000 guarantee. Thursday also brings the $300 Tag Team Double Ring Event, which awards two rings. The remaining schedule includes a $200 Double Green Chip Bounty, a $300 Pot-Limit Omaha tournament and a $200 Monster Stack on the final day.

The February Jamul series also featured the $300 PowerStack with a $25,000 guarantee. Jamul’s Main Event has a recent repeat winner: Maksim Tatarintsev won in both November 2024 and 2025, collecting $38,890 for the latter victory.

Jamul is part of RunGood’s 2026 Fall Season, branded Golden Expedition. RunGood says the season uses a new championship-ring design and includes a Player of the Year race powered by The Hendon Mob and the Global Poker Index. The Golden Expedition concludes with the Dream Factory Festival at Thunder Valley Casino Resort in Lincoln, California, from Nov. 27 through Dec. 3, including two invitationals reserved for 2026 ring winners.

Andrew “LuckyChewy” Lichtenberger won Event No. 6 of the PokerGO Tour Sprint on Tuesday, rallying from a nearly 10-to-1 heads-up chip deficit against Alex Foxen to take the $192,000 first prize. The $10,500 no-limit hold’em event drew 60 entries at PokerGO Studio in Las Vegas, building a $600,000 prize pool.

Foxen began heads-up play with the huge advantage after eliminating three of the six final-table players. Lichtenberger doubled with ace-jack against queen-six, then won another key pot with pocket queens against ace-three as the lead changed hands repeatedly.

The deciding hand saw Lichtenberger’s king-six make top pair on a K♣ 10♣ 8♠ 7♣ 3♥ board against Foxen’s ace-seven. Foxen earned $120,000 for second place.

As we reported in October, Lichtenberger had opened the Sprint with a runner-up finish to Chino Rheem after holding the heads-up lead. His Event No. 6 victory was his first of the series and his fourth cash of the week; he had also placed sixth in Event No. 2 and fourth in Event No. 4.

The event paid nine players, with Brock Wilson falling on the money bubble in 10th. Jesse Lonis took third for $84,000, Brandon Wilson finished fourth for $60,000, and Dylan Linde earned $45,000 in fifth. Victoria Livschitz placed sixth for $33,000, while Daniyal Gheba and Neil Warren each received $24,400, and Nicholas Schulte collected $18,000 for ninth.

The win was Lichtenberger’s third title and 11th final-table appearance of 2026, according to Card Player. It added 360 Card Player Player of the Year points, moving him into the top 100, and brought his career tournament earnings above $26 million. It was also his 18th recorded career tournament title.

On the PokerGO Tour table, Lichtenberger received 192 points and rose to 13th in the season-long standings. Foxen moved to third, while Brandon Wilson rose two places to seventh; Sean Winter remained the leader and the top 40 were unchanged. The top 40 qualify for January’s $500,000 PokerGO Tour Championship invitational freeroll.

The final Sprint event was scheduled for Wednesday, Nov. 4.

Lex Veldhuis has joined GGPoker’s GGTeam as Global Streaming Ambassador, with the company announcing the deal Tuesday, Nov. 3. Veldhuis will regularly broadcast his GGPoker play, run exclusive tournaments and promotions for his community, and advocate for poker content creators.

Veldhuis joins a roster that includes Daniel Negreanu and Michael Mizrachi, the 2025 WSOP Main Event champion. He will continue streaming through his Twitch channel, where he has built an audience of about 330,000 followers.

As we reported in August, Veldhuis became a free agent after ending a 17-year PokerStars association. He left PokerStars in January, after which he returned to streaming multi-table tournaments on GGPoker following much of 2025 away from broadcasts.

GGPoker holds a Dutch license, allowing Veldhuis to play from the Netherlands. PokerStars stopped serving Dutch players when the country opened its regulated online market in late 2021, and Veldhuis had commuted to Belgium for close to three years to keep his channel going before stepping back from poker streams in late 2024.

His return carried immediate audience weight. In January, Veldhuis was Twitch’s most-watched poker channel, averaging 2,034 concurrent viewers across roughly 190 hours live. He previously won the Global Poker Awards’ Streamer of the Year award in both 2018 and 2019, while more than 58,000 viewers watched his 2020 SCOOP Main Event stream.

A central part of the ambassador role will be GGPoker’s Streamer Mode. The company describes the tool as a stable streaming environment with exclusive benefits for approved creators. It can automatically conceal hole cards, hide account balances, and provide a panel to manage open tables when multi-tabling.

Streamer Mode supports Twitch, YouTube and Kick. Approved streamers can earn up to 100% cashback on poker played while broadcasting, while the stated baseline eligibility threshold is three months of poker streaming on YouTube or Twitch and an average of at least 40 concurrent viewers.

Veldhuis said he had played exclusively on GGPoker over the past year and had been impressed by its software and tournament sizes. He called the site a natural fit for himself and his community, while Negreanu described him as “an absolute titan in the poker streaming world.”

Texas Card House Houston has added an extra security guard on duty around the clock after at least four Houston-area poker rooms were robbed in roughly a month. The club was not among the venues reported hit, but kept the added guard in place to protect players, staff and the business while investigations continued.

PokerNews reported the security change, describing a run of recent robberies that appeared to be a serial-robbery situation. Police had not confirmed that the cases were connected, however, and no arrests had been reported as of the latest coverage.

The most recent reported incident was at Capri Poker Club in Webster, about 25 miles from downtown Houston. More than a dozen armed robbers entered the 20-table room and demanded money. Reports differ on the timing of that robbery: PokerNews placed it about a week before its report, while Legal US Poker Sites described it as occurring in late October.

Spades Poker House in Baytown and Empire Poker Club were also among the rooms targeted. Capri said surveillance video appeared to show someone who may have been involved in the Spades robbery, creating a possible link between those two cases, but authorities had not verified any connection.

The latest incidents came after earlier security concerns involving Houston poker players, though they were a different type of crime. In 2025, authorities said a suspect crew could be tied to as many as 20 follow-home robberies involving poker-room patrons, including at least 17 linked to Lucky J’s Social Club. Four men were arrested after a 70-year-old Lucky J’s patron was followed home and attacked.

Texas Card House has also faced a separate robbery attempt at a north Harris County location in 2023. A security officer was shot seven times during a gun battle and survived; no customers were injured.

Capri Poker Club plans to move around the start of 2027 because its lease is ending, not because of the robbery.

Asian Poker Tour Online finished Nov. 2 with 70,165 entries across its 20 Trophy Events, while 15 of those tournaments set new APTO records. The more-than-three-week Natural8 festival ended with its $800 Main Event becoming the richest tournament in the online series’ history.

The Main Event drew 7,173 entries across 40 Day 1 flights, up 26.2% from a year earlier. Its $5.45 million prize pool cleared the $5 million guarantee, and Austria’s “Elgringo123” won $729,241, the largest first-place payout awarded in an APTO event.

Laos’ “PeterNeverLu” finished second for $562,166, while Belarus’ “Y Simanchuk” took third and $433,512. The 2025 Main Event had attracted 5,680 entries and created a $4.32 million prize pool.

As we covered in October, the Oct. 11-Nov. 2 festival had been built around $40 million in guarantees, a 60% increase from the prior year’s $25 million schedule. The Asian Poker Tour and Natural8 organized the series, which offered Trophy Event buy-ins from $56 to $5,000.

The Mini Main Event drew 19,229 entries across 38 Day 1 flights, the largest field in the tournament’s four-year history. The $80 event, whose buy-in had been reduced from $100, created a $1.42 million prize pool against a $1 million guarantee and surpassed its 2025 field of 15,150 entries by 26.92%.

Belarusian Dmitry Chertkov won the Mini Main Event for $169,487 after beating Taiwan’s “Paul8151” heads-up.

Other late-series records included the Korea National Cup, which moved to a bounty format and drew 2,063 entries, 31.82% more than the previous year. The Sunday Super Stack attracted 2,471 entries and generated a record $568,330 prize pool, with turnout up 14.88% year over year.

After 14 Trophy Events, 11 had already set new benchmarks, including each of Events No. 11 through No. 14. Three of the final four events also established APTO milestones, taking the final record total to 15. Each Trophy Event winner received a $10,000 seat in the APT Championship Main Event in Taipei.

The Hoagie Holiday Poker Classic is set for Saturday, Nov. 14, with a $170 No-Limit Hold’em Monster Stack tournament that directs part of every entry to a South Jersey holiday-food program. The one-night event is scheduled to begin at 5:15 p.m., although it remains pending approval from the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board.

Keith Becker and Anthony “Hoagie” Cicali, both BetRivers Poker Ambassadors, will host the tournament. The City Pulse described it as a charity competition combining cash prizes, giveaways and holiday giving.

Each $170 buy-in includes a $30 contribution to the Riverside Turners Club’s Give A Christmas program. The initiative provides holiday food baskets to families across South Jersey, with proceeds from the poker classic intended to help buy food and other necessities for those deliveries.

The Riverside Turners Club is based in Riverside, New Jersey, where Cicali has local ties. Joanne Samero organizes Give A Christmas with club members and volunteers. Cicali has been involved in the regulated online gaming industry since 2015, while Becker is a Pennsylvania-based poker player and content creator who has been involved in live events, poker streams and promotions.

Players will receive 85,000 chips to start and play 20-minute blind levels. Entrants must be at least 21. Potential Philadelphia Eagles ticket giveaways, along with other prizes and bonuses, are expected during the event.

The tournament is set for the Rivers Poker Room at Rivers Casino Philadelphia, 1001 N. Delaware Ave. in Philadelphia.

CSCcardGREEN took the official CoinMillion title after striking a heads-up deal with reveur in CoinPoker’s latest $215 event. The two-day tournament drew 4,766 entries from 3,588 unique players, and the deal made it the fourth heads-up settlement across the flagship’s nine editions.

The event had originally listed a $104,182 first prize. Instead, CSCcardGREEN collected $91,035 as champion and reveur received $87,821 for second place. Both finalists were on their second entries of the tournament.

The result highlights how often the large-field event has ended in a negotiated finish. Card Player said the prospect of six-figure top prizes can make players more inclined to secure extra money rather than play on for the full advertised first prize. Eighth-place finisher ILOVEMILFs earned $10,779.

The latest field was slightly smaller than the 4,891 entries recorded for the Oct. 18 CoinMillion, when Kgbseven beat whalefish heads-up without a deal and won $120,500. That event was the first after CoinPoker made the tournament a permanent weekly fixture.

CoinPoker describes CoinMillion as a $215, $1 million-guaranteed weekly tournament. It begins on Sunday and resumes Monday for the surviving players, with a 100,000-chip starting stack, 10-minute blind levels and late registration available through Level 19. The final table plays seven-handed, and CoinPoker says each champion receives physical and digital trophies.

Players can also reach the event through satellites starting at $5.50, alongside daily freerolls and step qualifiers.

Hamid Izadi defended his World Series of Poker Circuit Southern Indiana Main Event title at Caesars Southern Indiana, beating a 282-entry field for $93,060. The Marietta, Georgia-based professional collected his 11th WSOP Circuit gold ring and fourth Circuit Main Event victory.

The $1,700 event paid 43 places. Card Player reported a $427,230 prize pool, while SpadePoker put the figure at $427,330. Either figure was below the $512,070 prize pool generated by the 338-entry Southern Indiana Main Event Izadi won in September 2025.

That previous victory was worth $111,979 and gave Izadi his ninth Circuit ring and second Main Event title. His first Circuit Main Event win came at Pompano Beach in 2024.

Izadi began the final day with nine players left and the chip lead, which he maintained through the tournament. Robert “Skinny” Hankins finished second for $63,040, and Brad Albrinck took third for $43,680.

The heads-up match paired Izadi with Hankins, a close friend who had won the same Southern Indiana tournament a decade earlier. Izadi entered the match with a slight lead and extended it before ending the event when his ace-ten beat Hankins’ ace-six on an A-diamond, K-diamond, 7-heart, K-spade, 7-club board, with Izadi’s kicker playing.

The result put Izadi alongside Maurice Hawkins as the only players with four WSOP Circuit Main Event titles. Hawkins still leads the overall Circuit ring race with 26, compared with Izadi’s 11; Poker.org reported that only 15 players had reached 11 rings at that point.

Izadi said the responsibility of defending the title made him more careful because he expected rivals to target him. He said he avoided certain players during the tournament and applied pressure when necessary, while crediting family support for enabling him to play.

The win lifted Izadi’s career tournament earnings to nearly $3.2 million. It also earned 456 Card Player Player of the Year points, moving him to 85th in the 2026 race with four titles and 10 final tables. Izadi said he planned to take 10 days off at Thanksgiving before playing Main Events at Choctaw, Chicago Elgin and Cherokee.

Sam Soverel has claimed PGT Sprint Event No. 5, beating David Coleman heads-up to win $195,200 and secure a record-extending 18th PokerGO Tour title. The $10,500 no-limit hold’em tournament was Soverel’s fifth PGT victory of 2026.

The event drew 61 entries and created a $610,000 prize pool, with nine players paid. Coleman earned $122,000 for second place after Soverel began their heads-up match with a 4:1 chip advantage.

The contest ended on the second heads-up hand. Coleman held A-10 against Soverel’s 8-7, but a seven on the river gave Soverel the winning pair.

Jeremy Becker finished fifth for $45,750 after Soverel made a flush on the river against Becker’s top pair, top kicker. Kuan Han Lee took third for $85,400, while Nick Seward earned $61,000 in fourth.

As we reported in October, Soverel’s 17th PGT title came in the PGT PLO Series mystery bounty event. This latest result added 195 PGT leaderboard points and moved him into eighth place in the 2026 standings.

Card Player reported that Soverel now has more than $1.7 million in high-stakes-tour earnings from 22 cashes this year. The win also delivered 360 Card Player Player of the Year points, lifting his total to 2,912 from 10 qualifying final tables.

PGT Sprint events are single-day tournaments held at PokerGO Studio in Las Vegas. The season’s top 40 players on the PGT leaderboard, along with some dream-seat winners, are eligible for the $500,000 PGT Championship, which is set for Jan. 11-12, 2027.

Fernando “JNandez” Habegger has released “100 Essential Tips to Master Pot-Limit Omaha,” a 376-page PLO strategy book published by D+B Publishing. It is Habegger’s second book on the four-card game, following “Mastering Small Stakes Pot-Limit Omaha.”

The new title is built around 100 strategic tips, covering stack size, position, blockers, hand structure, equity, ranges and stack-to-pot ratio. Its chapters first address the components of a PLO hand, then apply them in hands running from preflop through the river.

Rather than present a fixed set of rules or formulas to memorize, the book aims to teach the decision-making behind PLO spots. Readers are asked to work through quizzes based on realistic situations and compare decisions with different holdings in similar scenarios, an approach intended to show how a choice affects an entire range.

A Poker.org extract illustrated that approach through positional decisions. It identifies several marginal hands that should be folded in early position but can become opens nearer the button, where acting last gives players more information, more control over pot size and better chances to realize equity.

The publisher says the book is for both No-Limit Hold’em players moving into PLO and regular PLO players looking to improve their strategic base and table decisions. PLO’s four hole cards and rapidly shifting equities can make the game complicated even for experienced players.

Habegger is a PLO specialist and the leading coach at PLOMastermind.com. He began playing poker in 2006, switched from No-Limit Hold’em to PLO toward the end of 2010, and launched PLO Mastermind in April 2018 under the JNandezPoker.com name. D+B Publishing describes him as a high-stakes professional who has trained hundreds of PLO players.

His tournament results include more than $1 million in lifetime live earnings, according to The Hendon Mob figures cited by PokerNews. He finished second in the 2023 WSOP Online $5,000 NLH/PLO event for about $330,000 and was runner-up in a $10,000 PLO event at the 2025 PGT PLO Series II for $181,400.

Jonathan Little wrote the foreword. The book is available in paperback and ebook formats, priced at $24.95 through D+B Publishing and $29.99 on Amazon.

ACR Poker will run its next Online Super Series from Nov. 8 through Nov. 24 with a $20 million guaranteed prize pool and a new two-track schedule. The festival splits its daily action into a Day Series and an Evening Series, each with its own leaderboard.

PokerListings reported that the Day Series will comprise 77 tournaments, generally starting between 10:15 a.m. ET and 2:05 p.m. ET. The events are intended for European players and those who prefer daytime poker, and will be marked red in the tournament lobby.

The 66-event Evening Series is aimed at U.S. residents and evening players, with usual start times from 4 p.m. ET to 8 p.m. ET. Those events will be shown in purple. Some will carry an American flag and count toward an additional weekly U.S. leaderboard, while players can compete on multiple leaderboards at once.

The schedule includes four Main Events. Satellites for each Main Event will be available for most of the month through the relevant Day 1 tournament lobbies.

One of the headline events is the $109 OSS #1 Moneymaker MB PKO, a multi-flight tournament honoring ACR Pro Chris Moneymaker, the 2003 WSOP Main Event champion. It guarantees $1 million and uses ACR Poker’s new Mystery PKO format, which combines random mystery-bounty knockout rewards with the progressive accumulation of a bounty on each player.

Flights for the Moneymaker event begin daily and continue through Nov. 22. Day 2 starts at 3:05 p.m. ET that day.

The announcement follows ACR Poker’s Halloween Mystery PKO slate, which concluded Nov. 1, as we reported in October. Earlier in the year, the May OSS ran 171 tournaments with more than $20 million guaranteed, according to SomuchPoker, including four listed Main Events with combined guarantees of $4.25 million.

ACR Poker has added a weekly Turbo Tuesday deposit offer for new players, awarding three Turbo Tournament Tickets after a qualifying Tuesday deposit of at least $20. Players must register before depositing and enter the code TURBO in the designated bonus field.

The package is marketed as $50 in tickets, but its listed denominations are $11, $16.50 and $25, for a combined value of $52.50, according to PokerStrategy. The tickets can be used in eligible Turbo tournaments at ACR Poker.

The offer runs during Tuesday in each eligible player’s local time zone rather than a single worldwide time window. Standard supported deposit methods qualify, while players using peer-to-peer transfers must arrange eligibility with ACR in advance. The promotion is restricted to eligible new players in available markets and remains subject to its terms and conditions.

ACR positioned the deposit bonus alongside its Tuesday Turbo tournament schedule, which has more than 40 faster-paced events across the day. The featured window runs roughly from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. ET, and each dedicated Turbo Tuesday tournament has late registration of no more than two hours.

As we reported Oct. 27, the weekly schedule is anchored by a $630 Mystery PKO carrying a $500,000 guarantee. Its Day 2 begins every Tuesday at 1:30 p.m. ET, following 16 Day 1 flights running from Wednesday through Tuesday.

The Mystery PKO has a $50,000 top Mystery Bounty. When that prize is drawn, $25,000 is paid immediately and the remaining $25,000 becomes part of the winner’s visible Progressive Bounty; later knockouts split an opponent’s accumulated bounty between an immediate payout and the eliminator’s own bounty.

GGPoker has abandoned plans for an Alberta online poker launch while the province keeps its market ring-fenced, saying it will return to the table only if rules allow players to share liquidity internationally.

The operator registered with Alberta Gaming, Liquor and Cannabis, but did not pursue the full commercial licence needed to launch. In comments first reported by Pokerfuse, GGPoker said Alberta’s standalone market was not large enough to make a top-tier poker room commercially sustainable.

The decision is a reversal from the progress outlined in our August report, when GGPoker’s registration put it a step closer to an Alberta launch but left the licensing and liquidity questions unresolved.

Alberta’s licensed poker sites can currently serve only players physically located in the province. GGPoker said even a combined Alberta-Ontario pool would not provide the scale it needs, despite Ontario being the only other Canadian regulated commercial iGaming market using a ring-fenced model.

Alberta is about one-third the size of Ontario’s market. Ontario has a population of 16 million, while Alberta has roughly one-third as many people. Alberta’s market size is an important factor in the prospects for online poker operators establishing themselves in the province.

GGPoker told Poker Industry PRO that international shared liquidity is the “only proven model” that can protect players, create a competitive market and maximize tax revenue. It said it would “eagerly reconsider” Alberta should a framework permitting that model be adopted.

There is no Alberta-Ontario combined pool in place. According to USPoker, AiGC CEO Dan Keene has confirmed that the two provinces are working toward a memorandum of understanding to combine their player pools, but GGPoker’s position is that this would still fall short without international access.

The wider legal question remains unresolved. The Ontario Court of Appeal ruled in November 2025 that Ontario could permit its players to compete against international participants if the province retained full operational control. Appeals from lottery operators in British Columbia and Manitoba brought the issue to the Supreme Court of Canada, which heard arguments Oct. 7 on Ontario’s proposed international poker and daily fantasy sports pooling. The court reserved its decision, with no release timetable given.

Alberta’s poker market has nevertheless begun to take shape. 888poker became the province’s first regulated poker room on Oct. 13, with an Alberta-only player pool. PokerStars on FanDuel has also said it will return to Alberta, though it has not announced a launch date.

CoinPoker has released “The Next Level,” a broad update to its poker client that adds Mystery Bounty tournaments, customizable private cash tables, PokerGO-branded High Stakes Poker Online, CoinMarkets prediction markets and a new referral program.

The release went live Nov. 2 and is CoinPoker’s second significant product overhaul of 2026, following the March migration to new software across its desktop, mobile and browser platforms. That earlier update brought new backend infrastructure, a built-in HUD and expanded game formats; The Next Level adds a rebuilt mobile experience and more than 40 further changes based on player feedback.

Mystery Bounties are the headline tournament addition. Once an event reaches its bounty stage, knockouts can produce randomly assigned prizes ranging from standard bounties to larger Gold Bounties. PokerListings noted that regular Mystery Bounty tournaments were not yet listed in the main tournament lobby when it reviewed the update.

The format is due to feature heavily in the PGT KickOff Online series, which starts Nov. 8 with $50 million in guaranteed prizes. Nine Mystery Bounty events have been scheduled, starting at $44. The $530 Mystery Million on Nov. 15 carries a $1 million guarantee and a $50,000 top Gold Bounty.

High Stakes Poker Online replaces CoinPoker’s former VIP Arena with PokerGO branding. Games begin at $50/$100 and run as high as $5,000/$10,000 across the offering. The tables use a 5% rake, with a 0.05-big-blind heads-up Battle Cap in no-limit hold’em and pot-limit Omaha.

CoinPoker has also added features intended to favour more active high-stakes players, including fast-tracked seating to avoid queues, the ability to take profits off a stack without leaving the table, and enhanced rewards. Minimum-VPIP tables are intended to discourage overly tight play.

CoinPoker’s relationship with PokerGO was already visible in the operator’s presenting sponsorship of an August High Stakes Poker livestream run, as covered in August.

Private Tables allow players to set up cash games, select stakes, game type, table size, seat allocation and Bomb Pot settings, then decide who receives seats. The feature supports Texas Hold’em, Pot-Limit Omaha, Short Deck and Bomb Pots. A Must Show setting can require the winning player to reveal hole cards, including after a successful bluff.

CoinMarkets places prediction markets inside the poker client. Users can take Yes or No positions on sports, cryptocurrency and poker-related outcomes, trade against other users and set their own price. There are no trading fees, but CoinPoker applies a flat 5% fee to profits; players can also cash out a position before settlement.

The Refer a Friend program pays commissions to both the person making a referral and the invited player. CoinPoker advertises potential commissions of up to $30,000 through a tiered weekly model that can return up to 12.5% of rake generated by referrals.

The rest of the update focuses on day-to-day play. It includes better multi-tabling controls, player tags, mouse-wheel bet sizing, card-squeeze effects, refreshed animations and easier entry to CoinPoker’s Uniques side games. Desktop players can sit out at the next big blind or across multiple tables at once, and can move the HUD and notes away from the table. The personal HUD also adds profit-and-loss tracking.

Scott Stewart won the $1,700 WSOP Circuit Lake Tahoe Main Event, defeating Tyler Parker heads-up for $125,279 and his ninth Circuit ring. Parker collected $85,336 as runner-up.

Poker.org’s live coverage listed 435 entries remaining at the start of the reported final level. Stewart took control in the decisive heads-up hand when Parker moved all in on the river for 2.785 million effective chips.

Before calling, Stewart deliberated with a bottle of whiskey at the table and said, “Let’s see if the whiskey speaks to me one more time.” His nines full of sixes beat Parker’s queen-high bluff, leaving Stewart with an overwhelming lead before he closed out the title.

Jarod Minghini, Stewart’s best friend and the 2022 Lake Tahoe Main Event winner, was present for the celebration. Stewart said the two became like brothers after he supported Minghini through the death of Minghini’s brother, Bobby; Minghini said, “We’ve been brothers ever since.”

Their shared Lake Tahoe history runs through the 2022 final table. Minghini began that final day with nearly 6 million chips and seven players left, while Stewart had fewer than 2 million. Minghini eliminated Stewart in the first half hour and went on to win the Harvey’s Lake Tahoe Main Event for $153,368.

Bobby Minghini died about two weeks before Jarod won that 2022 event. Jarod entered the tournament saying he would win it for his brother, then dedicated the victory to him. He later created the Bobby Minghini Foundation to support underprivileged children in skiing and snowboarding, and planned to donate 30% of his winnings to it.

Stewart’s Lake Tahoe win followed a rapid rise in his Circuit-ring count. PokerNews reported that he won his seventh ring in a $600 No-Limit Hold’em 6-Max event at Thunder Valley, then captured his eighth four days later in the $400 Finale. His seventh ring came a month and a day after his $2.5 million WPT World Championship victory.

Rivers Casino Des Plaines paid a $659,942 bad beat jackpot after a 10-high straight flush lost to a higher straight flush in a $1/$3 no-limit hold’em cash game. The jackpot’s biggest beneficiary was the player whose hand lost: that player received $329,974.70, or half of the $659,941.70 prize pool.

The winning player collected $164,985, plus the pot. The other six players who were dealt into the hand each received $27,497, sharing the remaining 25% of the jackpot.

SpadePoker described the losing hand as 7♦6♦ on a board of 8♦, 6♣, 4♣, 10♦ and 9♦. That made a 6-to-10 straight flush. The winner held J♦Q♦ for the higher 8-to-queen straight flush.

Rivers’ rules require the losing hand to be at least quad tens and require both players to use both hole cards. A bad beat jackpot is a poker-room promotion paid when a qualifying premium hand loses to an even stronger hand; the losing player receives the largest portion under Rivers’ structure.

A CardPlayer account agreed on the jackpot total, payout split and straight-flush-over-straight-flush result, but included a conflicting description of the losing player’s cards and board. The SpadePoker version supplies a complete hand sequence consistent with the stated 10-high losing straight flush.

The payout followed another major Rivers bad beat milestone in August 2022, when its Pittsburgh sister property paid a $1.226 million jackpot at $1/$3 no-limit hold’em tables. That hand saw Benjamin Flanagan’s quad aces lose to Raymond Broderson’s royal flush.

After the Des Plaines jackpot was paid, the room’s bad beat prize pool reset to $250,683.60.

Ethan “Rampage” Yau finished $176,200 down on Hustler Casino Live’s Oct. 30 broadcast after his pocket kings were beaten by Dumbledore’s runner-runner trips in a $321,100 pot. Dumbledore went on to book the session’s biggest win, $389,200.

The hand came late in a $100-$200 game with two straddles. CardPlayer reported that Peter Wang limped from the big blind with 8♠7♥ before Dumbledore raised the first straddle to $4,000 with A♥10♠. Yau, holding K♥K♦ in the second straddle, reraised to $15,000; Wang folded and Dumbledore called.

The 7♣6♦2♣ flop missed Dumbledore, and Yau checked back his overpair. The 10♦ turn gave Dumbledore top pair. He bet $20,000, Yau called, and the pot reached $71,100.

The 10♥ river gave Dumbledore running trips. He then overbet $125,000, sending Yau into a long decision with his kings. “What happens when you have as strong of a hand as possible, but it feels bad?” Yau said before calling.

Dumbledore showed trips and collected the $321,100 pot, taking his stack above $627,000. More than $2 million was on the table when the stream ended.

The result was a sharp reversal from Yau’s strong Hustler Casino Live run earlier in the year. PokerNews reported in June that he had made more than $1.3 million across three recent appearances, including a $707,000 win on June 19. Yau, a two-time World Series of Poker bracelet winner and regular in high-stakes livestreams, was the second-biggest loser in the Oct. 30 game.

RunGood Poker Series will bring its Golden Expedition season to The OG Clubhouse in Oak Grove, Kentucky, for a six-day festival from Nov. 17-22. The stop has 10 championship-ring events, with buy-ins beginning at $120, and is led by a $600 Main Event carrying a $100,000 guaranteed prize pool.

The Main Event guarantee applies to the tournament’s overall prize pool, rather than a promised first-place payout. It has four starting flights: 5 p.m. on Nov. 19 and Nov. 20, then 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. on Nov. 21. Survivors return at noon on Nov. 22 to play to a winner.

This is another Kentucky destination on the Golden Expedition schedule, following RunGood’s September stop at The Barrel Social Club in Franklin, which we covered in August. The Oak Grove venue was among six destinations added to the tour’s 2026 Fall Season.

The series opens Nov. 17 with a $300 Seniors Ring Event, a $300 Series Opener with a $10,000 guarantee and a $300 Tag Team event. A $120 Flip & Go Ring Event is also available on demand that day.

The $300 PokerNews PowerStack follows on Nov. 18, with noon and 5 p.m. starting flights and a $20,000 guarantee. Its final begins at noon on Nov. 19, alongside a $300 One-Day No-Limit Hold’em ring event with a $10,000 guarantee.

Supporting ring events include a $400 Pot-Limit Omaha tournament with a $10,000 guarantee on Nov. 20, a $250 Women’s Championship with a $5,000 guarantee on Nov. 21, and a $300 Black Chip Bounty on the final day. The Nov. 22 schedule also includes a $250 Closer Ring Event.

Players can qualify for the Main Event through $150 Mega Satellites on Nov. 19 and 20, or $100 Flip & Go satellites offered on demand over the weekend. The Flip & Go satellite awards a Main Event seat to one in eight entrants, with $100 cash prizes for the second- and third-best hands. A separate $300 package satellite is scheduled for Nov. 16; one in five players wins a package containing seats to the Main Event, Series Opener and PowerStack, plus $50 cash.

PokerNews will provide live Main Event reporting from the opening flights through the Nov. 22 final table. Players can also earn points toward the 2026/27 RunGood Player of the Year race and the PokerNews PowerStack Leaderboard.

The Golden Expedition Fall Season is scheduled to conclude with the Dream Factory Festival at Thunder Valley Casino Resort in Lincoln, California, from Nov. 27 through Dec. 3, including two invitational events for 2026 RunGood ring winners.

ACR Poker’s three Halloween Special Mystery PKO tournaments finished Nov. 1 with $836,930 in combined prize pools, beating their combined $650,000 guarantees by $186,930.

The $109 edition accounted for the largest share, drawing 5,623 entries and building a $562,300 pool, $62,300 above its guarantee. Ilvoirien won after a final-table deal, collecting $55,642 in regular prize money and bounties.

The biggest individual return in that event went to third-place finisher 777bob1k, who collected $75,325 including bounties, more than either of the top two finishers received.

The $33 tournament drew 6,019 entries and produced a $180,570 prize pool, well above its $100,000 guarantee. DasZiel won the event for $27,604 including bounties.

At the lowest buy-in, the $5.50 tournament attracted 18,812 entries and generated a $94,060 pool against a $50,000 guarantee. Xnumber1CHIPSX took the title and $12,830 including bounties.

As we reported Nov. 1, the multi-flight events had already sent hundreds of qualifying stacks into their Day 2 bounty stages before the final flights closed. The Halloween Specials began Oct. 18 and served as the debut for Mystery PKO on the Winning Poker Network.

The format combines hidden mystery prizes with visible progressive bounties. When a player eliminates an opponent during the bounty phase, half of the revealed mystery prize is paid immediately and half is added to the eliminator’s progressive bounty. Any bounty already accumulated by the eliminated player is split the same way.

No bounty rewards were available during Day 1, and every Day 2 player began with no accumulated progressive bounty, regardless of the stack they carried forward. ACR Poker described Mystery PKO as exclusive to the Winning Poker Network.

Ontario’s regulated iGaming market generated CA$416.3 million in gross gaming revenue in September, up 26.2% from a year earlier and 5% from CA$396.3 million in August. Total wagering reached CA$9.71 billion, a 13.6% year-over-year increase.

Betting News reported that stronger casino and sports-betting results helped drive Ontario’s September performance. Ontario’s 20% revenue-sharing model returned about CA$83 million to the provincial government from operator revenue during the month.

Online casino remained the market’s largest segment, producing CA$340.8 million in revenue, or roughly 82% of the total. Casino revenue rose 22.7% year over year, while its wagering volume accounted for about 88% of the province’s September handle.

Sports betting generated CA$69.1 million in revenue from about CA$1.07 billion in wagers. Its 47.3% annual revenue increase outpaced casino’s growth rate.

Peer-to-peer poker contributed about CA$6.4 million in revenue, with players wagering approximately CA$130 million on regulated platforms. Ontario and Alberta have explored a potential shared-liquidity arrangement, which could increase tournament participation and game availability by combining their player pools.

Active player accounts rose to a monthly record of about 1.41 million, up 20.1% from September 2025 and 16.8% from August. The account total does not equate to the same number of individual players, since customers can hold accounts with multiple licensed operators. New approvals for Betsafe, BetMaster and Loonie Casino also pointed to continued competition among Ontario operators.

The September performance followed a strong third year for the province’s open market. iGaming Ontario recorded $82.7 billion in wagers and $3.2 billion in gross gaming revenue from April 1, 2024, through March 31, 2025, when 49 operators ran 84 gaming sites. Over that period, poker produced $66 million in revenue from $1.7 billion in wagers, with revenue unchanged from the prior market year.

The monthly figures cover eligible games offered through operating agreements with iGaming Ontario. They exclude OLG’s iGaming offering and pari-mutuel horse-racing wagers, and remain unaudited and subject to adjustment.

Battle of Malta will stage its first Barcelona edition at Casino Barcelona from Jan. 20-24, 2027, taking the festival to Spain through a partnership between Casino Malta and the Barcelona venue.

PokerNews reported that the new stop follows the Battle of Slovakia at Card Casino Bratislava. Casino Malta General Manager Slawomir Switalski called the Barcelona launch a significant milestone in the operator’s international growth strategy and said the partnership reflected an ambition to bring the festival to more leading European casino destinations.

The Jan. 20-24 festival will be led by a €600 Main Event. Players will receive 40,000 chips, with the standard opening days using 40-minute levels from 100/100 blinds, giving entrants 400 big blinds at the start. A turbo Day 1d will instead use 20-minute levels.

The regular Day 1 structure includes a 20-minute break after Level 4 and a 45-minute dinner break after Level 8. Registration closes after Level 11; players entering at the last possible point, before Level 12, will have 16 big blinds.

Day 2 begins at 5 p.m. on Jan. 23 and is set for 11 levels of 50 minutes. The final day starts at 4 p.m. on Jan. 24, when levels extend to one hour until a champion is crowned.

Casino Barcelona General Manager Xavier Ballena said hosting the festival fitted the venue’s aim of becoming a destination for prestigious international poker events. Casino Barcelona’s Sixers Poker Series opened in October, as covered in our earlier report.

The expansion arrives while the Malta stop is drawing large fields. At the time of the Barcelona announcement, the €600 Battle of Malta Autumn Edition had reached 5,368 entries, generating a prize pool of about €2.4 million and a top prize of €227,835.

BetRivers Poker has put Mystery Bounty tournaments live in its client for players in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Delaware and West Virginia, with the first event set to start Wednesday, Nov. 4, at 3:05 p.m. ET. The opening test tournament carries a $5 buy-in, a $400 guarantee and puts 50% of its prize pool into the Mystery Bounty pool.

As we reported Oct. 27, BetRivers had initially aimed to add the format that day. The rollout arrived several days later while the operator completed regulatory requirements across all four states.

The format will be offered across buy-in levels alongside BetRivers’ existing Progressive Knockout tournaments. In a Mystery Bounty event, the bounty phase starts once the tournament reaches the money. Players who eliminate opponents then draw prizes from the remaining prize pool, with the value hidden until the knockout is completed and revealed at the table.

BetRivers also displays the average bounty after each knockout and uses target markers to identify covered all-in opponents. The tables include visual cues, animations, sound effects and a live pay table showing the bounty prizes still available.

The standard structure splits roughly half of each entry fee to the regular prize pool and half to bounties. That setup gives players a route to a potentially large payout before the final table, since bounty values are assigned at random.

The launch makes BetRivers the third regulated U.S. online poker operator offering Mystery Bounties, after WSOP Online and PokerStars on FanDuel. Earlier coverage described the games as the first regulated online Mystery Bounty offering in Delaware and West Virginia, where BetRivers is the only online poker operator.

The addition coincided with BetRivers’ second-anniversary celebrations, whose Anniversary Week ran from Oct. 27 through Nov. 1.

Bo Hoebe won the €1,500 WSOP Circuit Madrid Main Event at Casino Gran Vía, defeating Nacho Barbero heads-up for €207,000, his second Circuit ring and a $5,000 WSOP Paradise package.

The tournament generated a €1.16 million prize pool from 918 entries, with Barbero taking €130,000 as runner-up. Tom-Aksel Bedell earned €90,000 in third and Cristobal Ochoa Aguilera received €63,000 for fourth. One PokerNews tournament-page recap lists 916 entries, but the event report and other coverage put the field at 918.

As we reported Nov. 1, the Main Event reached its nine-handed final table with Hoebe holding roughly one quarter of the chips in play. He started that day with 12.26 million chips, while Barbero was the short stack on 2.43 million.

Barbero quickly reversed that position, moving from last to first during the opening two levels. His early run included a double-up with ace-queen against Fausto Munz’s ace-jack, before he eliminated Munz in eighth and Cesar Montanes Alonso in seventh.

The Argentine then built a 3:1 lead once play reached heads-up, but Hoebe doubled twice to retake control. In the deciding hand, Hoebe held queen-ten suited against Barbero’s king-deuce. The A-Q-2-2-Q board gave both players a full house, but Hoebe’s queens full beat Barbero’s deuces full.

Hoebe described the win as “a dream come true.” He said he had begun Day 2 with 30 big blinds and returned to poker in Madrid after taking a nine-month break, prompted in part by having spent two or three years grinding alone.

The result was Hoebe’s second Circuit title after a €36,999 ring win in 2023. He also won another tournament for €51,000 in the same month that year.

There is a naming discrepancy in the coverage: PokerNews identifies the champion as Bo Hoebe, while SpadePoker calls the winner Jay Hoebe. Both reports agree on the result, prize, runner-up and final hand.

Madrid was the first WSOP Circuit stop in Spain. The tour’s next listed stop is Middelkerke, Belgium, from Nov. 6-15, followed by Sanremo, Italy, from Nov. 20-30.

Flutter moved Paddy Power Poker from the iPoker network to the PokerStars Network on Oct. 28, giving Paddy Power customers access to PokerStars’ shared player pool. Paddy Power was the second Flutter-owned poker brand to make the switch this year, after Betfair’s August migration.

Players received only one day’s warning before the Paddy Power move, according to US Poker. The change left Sky Poker as the only Flutter poker brand still operating on iPoker.

Betfair left iPoker on Aug. 13 and was rebranded as PokerStars on Betfair. The old PokerStars UK client was then shut down in October, moving its customers onto the Betfair-branded route; in Ireland, Betfair Poker closed and directed players to PokerStars’ dot-com network.

The latest migration advances Flutter’s plan to consolidate PokerStars, Paddy Power, Betfair and Sky Poker on one online poker network while preserving separate brand identities. Pokerfuse reported that Sky Poker was expected to be the final Flutter brand to join.

As covered in September, the PokerStars Network was opened as a business-to-business proposition, allowing outside operators to use PokerStars software, shared liquidity, tournament products and game-integrity infrastructure while retaining their own brands. Partners can also use PokerStars-branded offerings including the Sunday Million, Spin & Go and the European Poker Tour.

PokerStars had operated primarily as a poker brand for 25 years before opening the platform to third parties. The new network competes with iPoker and GGPoker for external operator partnerships, while each added brand expands the shared player base available to partners.

Flutter has already used the model in Italy, where Sisal and SNAI retained their identities while sharing liquidity with PokerStars. Sisal said its poker revenue rose by more than 50% after its migration, and the combined PokerStars, Sisal and SNAI network has consistently held more than 55% of Italy’s online poker market.

Pokerfuse said broader network participation could increase traffic without PokerStars relying entirely on its own customer acquisition. If Sky Poker completes its expected move, all four Flutter brands would operate on the PokerStars Network while continuing to trade under their existing names.

Global Poker has extended the inactivity window before unused Sweeps Coins expire from 60 days to 90 days. The change gives players 30 additional days to log in before an unused balance is removed.

The revised policy appears in version 30.0 of Global Poker’s Terms and Conditions, dated Oct. 30, according to Gambling911.com. The countdown is based on a player’s last login, rather than the date on which the Sweeps Coins were awarded.

For example, an account holding 100 Sweeps Coins whose player last logged in on Nov. 1 would have faced expiration around Dec. 31 under the former 60-day rule. If that account remains inactive, the 90-day rule pushes the illustrative expiration date to about Jan. 30, 2027.

The longer expiration period applies in Global Poker’s eligible markets, rather than being limited to Oklahoma. On the same day it updated the terms, Global Poker also excluded Oklahoma residents from sweepstakes participation ahead of the state’s Nov. 1 restrictions.

Global Poker is described as the largest online sweepstakes poker room. Its sister sites include Chumba and LuckyLand. Sweepstakes and social casino platforms let users play casino-style games with virtual currency, with additional real-money purchases available after free-play currency is exhausted.

Nicolette Shea lost a $60,100 pot on Hustler Casino Live after celebrating a flopped set of tens before the hand was complete, only for “AI Guy” to hit the lone remaining queen on the river. Shea left the $100/$200 cash game immediately afterward and ended the session down just shy of $30,000.

Card Player reported that Mariano Grandoli opened to $2,000 from the hijack with A-diamond Q-diamond while a straddle was in play. Shea moved all in for $19,500 on the button holding 10-heart 10-diamond, and AI Guy called from the small blind with Q-heart Q-club. Grandoli also called, covering Shea.

The J-spade 10-club 3-heart flop gave Shea a set. With further flop action still pending, she celebrated, prompting commentator David Tuchman to say, “Oh my god. You can’t do that.” Shea replied to a producer away from the table: “I can cheer for myself.”

AI Guy then bet, while Grandoli folded after Shea’s reaction had made her hand strength apparent. AI Guy acknowledged, “I’m obviously losing,” and said he did not want to run the hand twice if Shea held a set. Grandoli’s fold of the Q-diamond reduced AI Guy’s possible winning cards from two queens to one.

The 7-diamond turn kept Shea ahead in the $60,100 pot. But the Q-spade arrived on the river, giving AI Guy the case queen and a higher set. Tuchman called it “The case queen!” and described the outcome as poker karma.

Highroll Poker’s livestream tracker lists Shea’s first recorded session as Sept. 4 and shows seven recorded episodes totaling 28 hours. It puts her recorded livestream results at a net loss of $37,010, while cautioning that the figures exclude off-stream action and are not a complete measure of lifetime cash-game results.

The session’s biggest winner was a player known as Dumbledore, who finished up $389,200. Hustler Casino Live is an unscripted, unedited cash-game show produced in the high-limit Crystal Room at Hustler Casino in Gardena, California, where Tuchman is among its guest commentators.

GGPoker brought back its Flip & Go Millionaire in November, offering a $1 million guaranteed No-Limit Hold’em prize pool for $11 entries. The multi-flight tournament began its Stage 1 schedule on Nov. 1 and gave players daily chances to qualify for the concluding Go Stage through Nov. 11.

The format is designed to get players to the money quickly rather than requiring them to play a conventional tournament’s early levels. Pokerfuse reported the November schedule, while PokerListings detailed the underlying Flip&Go mechanics.

Each Flip Stage begins with players receiving three hole cards and discarding one. Once every player has two cards, the table goes all-in until one player remains. That table winner reaches the paid portion of the event and moves on to standard No-Limit Hold’em play in the Go Stage.

The Millionaire format also lets players build a larger stack through repeat success. Players who won more than one Flip Stage accumulated those qualifying stacks, and all chips from the Flip Stages were combined when the Go Stage began on Nov. 11.

The flights used the same fast structure and included a Flip Bonus, which increased a player’s starting stack for completing one of four specified combinations in the Flip Stage. Day 2 began with an average stack of about 400 big blinds, with blinds rising every eight minutes.

The event was positioned as a lower-cost option for players who do not have time for lengthy tournament sessions. Its winner receives a winner’s badge that remains active on the player’s account for one year.

The Flip & Go Millionaire was included in GGPoker’s wider November Giveaway, which offered promotional prizes and extra rewards across formats and buy-in levels.

The Major Series of Poker: The Tour will open its MSPT Riverside Festival on Tuesday, Nov. 3, at Riverside Casino & Golf Resort in Riverside, Iowa. The six-day stop runs through Sunday, Nov. 8, and is topped by a $1,110 Main Event with a $300,000 guaranteed prize pool.

The Main Event has three starting flights, on Thursday, Nov. 5, Friday, Nov. 6, and Saturday, Nov. 7. Poker Exclusive reported the festival schedule, including 30,000-chip starting stacks and 40-minute levels for each opening flight.

Players may re-enter without limit until the start of Level 13. Survivors from the three flights combine for Day 2 on Sunday, when play begins at 11 a.m.; everyone returning for that session is already in the money.

The winner also receives a $3,500 seat in the MSPT Championship at Seminole Hard Rock in Hollywood, Florida. That championship runs Nov. 27 through Dec. 2, and its Main Event carries a $2 million guarantee.

Riverside’s festival schedule includes eight Gold Card events alongside the Main Event. It starts with a $250 Ultimate Stack no-limit hold’em tournament on Tuesday, followed by $300 and $250 Monster Stack events on Wednesday.

A $300 Seniors no-limit hold’em event for players 50 and older is set for Thursday. The remaining side-event slate includes a $250 Monster Stack on Saturday, then a $300 event for players 40 and older and another $300 Monster Stack on Sunday.

Players have also been able to pursue Main Event seats through satellites beginning in October and continuing during festival week. The $70 Milestone Satellites feed into $265 qualifiers, where one $1,110 Main Event seat is awarded for every five entrants; other $265 satellites offer direct routes to the Main Event.

The tour, formerly called the Mid-States Poker Tour, made three Riverside visits during 2025. Its $1,110 Riverside Main Event last November drew 591 entries across three starting flights, with 64 players returning for Day 2.

Indiana’s Anthony Kastelic won that event for $115,559 after 12 hours of play. Aaron Johnson and Kou Vang, both MSPT Hall of Famers, and former MSPT champion Max Havlish joined him in the final four.

The WSOP Circuit Madrid Main Event has reached its nine-handed final table at Casino Gran Vía, with Jay Hoebe holding a commanding lead in the €1,500 event. The 918-entry field built a €1.16 million prize pool, and every remaining player has locked up €14,200.

Hoebe bagged 12.26 million chips, or 102 big blinds and roughly a quarter of all chips in play. Cesar Montanes Alonso sits second with 6.53 million, while Tom-Aksel Bedell is third on 5.52 million. The winner receives €207,000, a WSOP Circuit ring and a $5,000 WSOP Paradise package.

According to PokerNews’ live reporting, Hoebe took control late on Day 2 when he doubled through Luca Zapatero Martin after making a river full house against a straight. He added further pots afterward, while Zapatero finished the day with 4.45 million.

Fausto Munz returns with 5.17 million, followed by Zapatero, Aliaksandr Shylko on 3.74 million, Per Hildebrand on 3.16 million and Cristobal Ochoa Aguilera on 2.63 million. Shylko led for much of Day 2 but finished with about 30 big blinds.

Nacho Barbero, who began Day 2 as chip leader, is the short stack with 2.43 million, or about 20 big blinds. As we reported Saturday, Barbero had carried the overall lead into Day 2 after the four starting flights; he fell below 10 big blinds before a late double-up with a straight kept him alive.

The final table was scheduled to resume Sunday at Level 27, with 13 minutes left at 60,000/120,000 blinds and a 120,000 big blind ante. Levels were set at 60 minutes until a champion is decided, with the delayed livestream available in Spanish on PokerRed and in French on Texapoker.

The title will make its winner the first WSOP Circuit Main Event champion on Spanish soil. The Madrid festival, the Circuit’s first stop in Spain, runs through Nov. 2 and features 11 ring events.