Card Player – After an historic consensus between 13 California tribal groups on online poker in the Golden State, PokerStars and its partner, the Morongo Band of Mission Indians, as well as the Commerce Club, Hawaiian Gardens Casino and the Bicycle Casino, have responded. The latter group is opposed to what has been proposed by the 13 tribal groups. Currently two Internet poker bills sit in the legislature. “We strongly oppose the so-called ‘bad actor’ language that is nothing other than a blatant attempt to provide certain interests with an unfair competitive advantage by arbitrarily locking out trusted iPoker brands,”…

LA Times – In legislative proceedings, the most important words in a debate often are the ones left unmentioned. At a hearing held by a California state assembly committee last month about legalizing online poker, the unspoken term was PokerStars. No hearing witnesses wanted to say outright that they were talking about PokerStars. It’s the largest online poker company in the world, which wants in on the riches to be had if California legalizes Internet card play, but it also has faced federal charges of money laundering and fraud. So the April 23 discussion before the Governmental Organization Committee was…

Poker News – Fast-fold poker is popular on just about every online poker site in the world. Could these games now be in jeopardy in the United States? At the end of April 2014, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) made a decision to issue a patent to the Rational Group for fast-fold poker. The Rational Group is the parent company to both PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker, the latter being the first in the world to offer fast-fold poker. As initially reported by Pokerfuse, on May 20, 2014 the USPTO will issue Patent Number 8,727,850 listed as…

iGaming Business – PokerStars and California’s Morongo Band of Mission Indians and the state’s three largest card rooms – the Commerce Club, the Hawaiian Gardens Casino and the Bicycle Casino, have confirmed their partnership that will see PokerStars supply and operate a California-licensed online poker site once regulation comes into force in the US’s most populous state. News of the agreement between the different parties first came out in late March, its official announcement was made yesterday (Wednesday) to coincide with the hearing organised by California’s Assembly Committee on Governmental Organisation on intra-state online poker regulation. The key issue in…

This Week in Gambling – Nevada doesn’t want them. New Jersey rejected them. So now they’re knocking on California’s door? In an effort to come out of exile, PokerStars is attempting to work a deal with Morongo and some Southern California card clubs that would open the U.S. market to their participation in iGaming. As a reminder, this is the group that refused to shutter its site, even after the enactment of the 2006 Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA), making online gambling illegal. In 2011, the Department of Justice issued orders mandating the site close down, filed a civil…

Despite setback after setback, Europe-based PokerStars won’t give up on its quest to break into the US online gambling market. After failing in Nevada and New Jersey, the new target is California. But odds are PokerStars is once again drawing dead. The company, operated by the Isle of Man-based Rational Group, is linked to three politically powerful Los Angeles-area card rooms and Riverside County’s the well-connected Morongo Band of Mission Indians. The partnership wants to block Internet poker legislation in the state that bans PokerStars from participating in what many believe will be a massive revenue-generating Internet market that would…