MyPokerCard Mastercard Geared to Online Poker
June 13, 2010
Posted by admin in : General , 5comments
Mastercard has stepped into the online poker market with their new gold MyPokerCard. It is a prepaid Mastercard that does not require you to register your bank account or credit card details online. Some of the other great features are it guarantees your purchase 100% and since you do not register any account information it gives you complete privacy on your online purchases. One down fall however it is is not available to players in the United States….yet.
Though currently marketed as MyPokerCard it is more than that and can be used for any online transaction. Since its structure is prepaid, everyone can get one and UK users can reload £500 per day and use the card on any online site that accepts Mastercard. According to MyPokerCard:
Over 500,000 cards have been issued to date and been proven to be the safest and most convenient way of making purchases online without risking your credit card details online.
This UK based company also offers several options to reload your card. The fastest way to get money on the card is by using your debit card. If that is not an option you can also pay by cash. If you opt for this MyPokerCard will send you a letter and you can then take it to a UK Post Office and pay there. Whichever option you choose, the card will be in your hands within 3-5 days after it is loaded.
There are several other benefits of having this Gold Mastercard. The first is you can set your own limits to how much you can gamble. Unlike an open ended credit line or high balance credit card, with this card you can only gamble what you put on it. Therefore there is no risk of payments going up as interest rates change or damaging your credit history.
You will also get fraud protection with this card. You can track your spending with the card online or even get text messages about your account. According to MyPokerCard, if by chance anyone gets a hold of your card and makes unauthorized purchases, they will replace your card and the money on it as long as their requirements are met.
Not only can you reload your card at over 12,000 locations across the UK but you can also get your winnings transferred directly back to the card. This allows you to spend those winnings however you wish anywhere that accepts Mastercard.
According to a Pokers News Daily article,
A MyPokerCard spokesman stated that the card could become available soon for worldwide use. “Currently, the MyPokerCard is available for residents of the U.K., but we are looking to expand to the worldwide market.”
If this card makes it to the U.S. it could be a very useful tool for players to fund and play without divulging personal financial information.
Competition Set for 7th Member of Brunson 10 Poker Team
June 4, 2010
Posted by admin in : General , 4comments
So what do you do when you’re a successful poker player, a living legend and respected by almost everyone who plays the game? Well, in your Doyle Brunson, you pick the future legends from a stable of talented young poker players.
Doyle is picking the Brunson 10 at Doylesroom.com. This will be a group of you players that Doyle believes will be legends in the making. He is handpicking this team and currently 6 positions are taken. The lucky 6 are: Zachary Clark (CrazyZach), Amit Makhija ( Amak316), Dani Stern (Ansky), Chris Moorman (Moorman1), Alex Kamberis (AJKHoosier1), and Steve Gross (gboro780).
Who will be #7? Will, the quest is on. The Fourth Competitor for the number 7 spot on the Brunson 10 was announced and it will be Michael Martin. Martin has proven himself as not only a fine online poker player but also a strong player at live events as well. Amassing over $4 million in poker winnings, He has won the 2008 EPT London Main Event and the EPT Grand Final Main Event a few months before that. Martin will be joining Daniel Kelly, Doc Sands and Faraz Jaka is a competition at this year’s WSOP to win the coveted spot.
How this will work is that each player will compete at this year’s WSOP in Vegas. Each will earn points every time they cash in a WSOP event. The player sitting on top of the Brunson 10 Become a Legend Leaderboard will become the 7th member on the Doyle Brunson Pro team.
During this year’s WSOP, keep an eye out for the Brunson 10 and check the updated leader board at doylesroom.com to see how tight the competition is.
New Secure Software for Online Poker Rooms
May 18, 2010
Posted by admin in : General , 3comments
Yesterday in a press release, Tokwiro Enterprises announced their new version of the Cereus software for Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet that uses the Open SSL encryption to secure all Client-Server communication. PokerTableRating, which brought the security issue to the attention of Tokwiro a few days ago, has also confirmed the SSL is operating as it should.
The previous issue which involved the online poker network, operated by Cereus and owned by Tokwiro Enterprises, using XOR encryption and not the standard SSL protocol for network transmissions. When we first wrote about the story (here) COO Paul Leggett blogged that “we plan to have this issue resolved within a matter of hours”, of course it took a little longer than that but we must give a nod to the Tokwiro Enterprises for the much improved handling of this breach over the last one.
COO Paul Leggett added,
“Our priority is our players, and providing them with a secure online poker environment. The implementation of the Open SSL standard achieves this for our players, and we will continue to conduct rigorous verification tests and submit to third party audits to ensure our entire operation is secure. We are communicating openly with PTR, our players, and the rest of the poker community to prove ourselves as a company that is safe to play at, and that we are serious about security.”
22 Congressman Sign PPA Petition
May 17, 2010
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To a lot of online poker players, dark clouds are on the horizon as June 1st, the day the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act regulations go into effect, is fast approaching. The Poker Players Alliance is still fighting though and has petitioned the U.S. Treasury Department and Federal Reserve Board to clarify the definition of illegal gambling so that it does not include peer to peer games based on skill like poker.
The petition looks to address two issues in the Act that was passed almost 4 years ago and is finally coming up for enforcement. One request asks that there be an amendment to the regulation that would state that the “bet or wager” term currently being used would not include “certain peer-to-peer games where the outcome is determined predominantly by the skill of the players, such as poker, chess, bridge, mah-jong, and backgammon.”
It also asked for clarification concerning pari-mutuel animal racing that is not affected at all by the passing of the UIGEA and is still lawful under the Interstate Horseracing Act that was passed in 1978. The petition is being sent to Timothy Geithner and Ben Bernanke but before it landed on their desk, 22 members of Congress also signed the petition.
John Pappas(PPA Executive Director) said, “The PPA is grateful for the support of the 22 members of Congress who wrote Secretary Geithner and Chairman Bernanke in support of our petition to exempt peer-to-peer gaming from the UIGEA regulations. We are still strongly supporting legislative efforts to license and regulate online poker and provide the consumer protections that the UIGEA will not, and are hopeful of the passage of bills like (Barney) Frank’s HR 2267, but believe our petition is the best bet to address the short-term issues facing online poker.”
Here is a list of Congressman who signed the petition: Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.), Dan Maffei (D-N.Y.), Linda Sanchez (D-Calif.), Paul Hodes (D-N.H.), Tom Perriello (D-Va.), Jim Moran (D-Va.), Ciro Rodriguez (D-Tex.), Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), Steve Israel (D-N.Y.), Phil Hare (D-Ill.), John Larson (D-Conn.), John Yarmuth (D-Ky.), Joe Courtney (D-Conn.), Shelley Berkley (D-Nev.), Jim Himes (D-Conn.), Bill Delahunt (D-Mass.), Ron Klein (D-Fla.), John Conyers (D-Mich.), Dina Titus (D-Nev.), Peter Welch (D-Vt.), Ed Perlmutter (D-Colo.) and Bobby Scott (D-Va.).
New Security Concerns with Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet
May 9, 2010
Posted by Staff Writer in : General , 4comments
Just about the time that one of the biggest news stories that hit online poker concerning Absolute Poker and a few months later Ultimate Bet had about died down and concerns may have been laid to rest about software issues and cheating, there are new concerns that broke this week concerning security at these two sites.
After the first scandal broke Tokwiro Enterprises, owners of this Cereus online poker network spent millions cleaning up for licensing jurisdiction fines and player compensation. Add another couple years trying to rebuild a reputation that took a heavy hit and getting players back and you can see why this most have come as a shock to owners to possible have to do this all over again.
This time, like last, the issue was found by the online community, the portal Poker Table Ratings. Like last time the portal sent a warning to players and contacted Tokiro. It seems Cereus was using XOR encryption and not the standard SSL protocol for network transmissions.
Unlike last time however, Tokwire responded almost immediately. COO Paul Leggett blogged:
“One hour ago, I learned about an article posted today on Poker Table Ratings (PTR) regarding an issue with the local encryption that we use on the Cereus Poker Network.
For those of you not familiar with the issue, PTR was able to crack our local encryption method.
I wanted to blog to make sure our players and the poker community know how seriously we take this issue.I would like to start by reminding everyone that someone would have to have the technical capabilities to crack the encryption method we currently use and they would also have to hack into your local network in order to gain access to sensitive [player gaming] data. We are currently working on implementing a new encryption method and we expect to have it live in a matter of hours.”
Leggett publically thanked Poker Table Ratings and went on to say how embarrassing it was that this flaw was not caught by IT staff as well as the countless audits that have been done throughout the last two years.
Also in a move that was not followed up on last time these poker sites got into trouble, Legget said
“We will continue to update you on this issue but we will not rest until it is fixed and as I stated earlier, we plan to have this issue resolved within a matter of hours.”
Only time will tell.
