Poker Beat -- The World Poker Tour appears to have outdone itself again. The tour announced that this week's Legends of Poker tournament at Bicycle Casino (currently underway) will have a record turnout of 839 players and a prize pool of over $4 million--making it the largest ever event on the WPT circuit. The winner will take home $1.1 million. Last year's event, won by Doyle Brunson, featured 667 players and a $3.3 million prize pool. The WPT awarded nearly $70 million to players during season three last year, and the group expects that amount to be exceeded in 2005. Next up on the WPT calendar is the Borgata Poker Open at the Borgata Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City, Sept. 19-22. . . . GreenTiePoker.com is taking a new approach toward tackling the online poker market. The one-month-old virtual poker room is going for the unique look and feel of a men's magazine and in doing so is offering what it calls "Fantasy Tournaments" with prizes like beer for a year and sporting event tickets as well as VIP concierge services a "Virtual Girl" game and a different "Green Tie Girl" every month.
Golden Sponsorship --
es.sportsbook.com en Espanol --Sportbook.com 's online sports book geared for the Hispanic population--announced Monday that it has signed a sponsorship agreement with Golden Boy Promotions and its top attraction, six-time world boxing champion Oscar de la Hoya. Sportsbook.com will be the official online gaming sponsor at six upcoming Golden Boy Promotions events, all of which will be televised on the popular 'Boxeo de Oro' on HBO Latino. The partnership will take effect Thursday with the NABO Bantamweight bout between Johnny Gonzalez and William Gonzalez at the Desert Diamond Casino in Tucson, Arizona.
BeTheNumberOneCracker -- BeTheDealer Casino has put $7,000 in prizes up for grabs in a contest that seeks to find the world's best search engine crackers. The online casino's second Search Engine Optimization contest challenges Webmasters and programmers to optimize their sites' rankings for the phrase "Online Casino BTDino" (a phrase that currently yields no results) on keyword search engines. Webmasters who successfully crack the top 50 listings for this phrase on Feb. 26, 2006 will share the $7,000 prize. Hundreds of webmasters took part earlier this year in the Google Fortuno Winnero Optimization Contest, BeTheDealer's first contest of this nature, which generated over 132,000 (and counting) results for the phrase "Fortuno Winnero."
Quoteworthy -- "The issue of how to achieve compliance with the [Dispute Settlement Body's] recommendations and rulings is thus further complicated by its potential to affect, and be affected by, elements of an already complex legislative debate that has gone unresolved over the past four Congresses."
- Pulled for the United States' submission to the WTO-appointed arbitrator in the country's remote gambling dispute with Antigua & Barbuda. When the WTO's Appellate Body revealed its ruling on the dispute in April 2005, U.S. trade officials called the decision a "victory" that could simply be complied with by "clarify[ing] on narrow issue."