Mazen Abdallah Leads 333 Players into WPT Seminole Rock ‘N’ Roll Poker Open Day 2

Mazen Abdallah snatched the chip lead late into Day 1B to lead 333 hopefuls into WPT Seminole Rock ‘N’ Roll Poker Open’s next stage

Poker action is heating up at Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Hollywood where the latest edition of the WPT Seminole Rock ‘N’ Roll Poker Open is currently taking place. The two starting flights of the $3,500 event are now complete and figures show that 333 survived through Days 1A and 1B to advance into the second day of action at the host casino.

This year’s WPT Seminole Rock ‘N’ Roll Poker Open drew a record-breaking field of 898 entries, of whom 417 registered through Day 1A and the other 481 came into the event through Day 1B.

Mazen Abdallah, a player from Houston, Texas, will lead the remaining survivors into today’s Day 2. The player accumulated a stack of 469,500 on Day 1B to come atop the temporary leaderboard. Abdallah was also the only player to pass the 400,000 mark. He secured his chip lead late into the day. The player eliminated two fellow contenders on two consecutive hands to multiply his stack and emerge as the chip leader.

If Abdallah makes it to the paid positions, he will secure his largest ever cash from a live tournament. Speaking of money, the event’s field smashed the $2 million guarantee to generate a prize pool of $2,873,600. The money will be split into payouts for the top 113 finishers, min-cashes sitting at $5,845. The bubble is on pace to burst at some point today.

The six final tablists will each secure a min-cash of $103,310. And awaiting the champion is a top prize of $504,820 as well as a seat into the season-ending WPT Tournament of Champions.

Notables Still in the Race for the Title

No other player passed the 400,000 mark on Day 1B and no other player even passed the 300,000 mark. However, there were a number of notables who made it through the day, including Caufman Talley, Vinny Pahuja, Jeff Trudeau, and Nick Yunis. All four bagged more than 250,000 worth in chips at the end of the second starting flights.

They will be joined by the likes of Day 1A chip leader Ajay Gnanasambanthan, and former WPT champions Anthony Zinno, Phil Laak, Jonathan Jaffe, and Sam Panzica, who all locked a seat into Day 2 through the tournament’s first starting flight.

Day 2 of the tournament is scheduled to take place today starting at noon local time. The remaining players will play ten 60-minute levels, during which the money bubble is expected to burst. The Action Clock will be introduced one table from the bubble to add extra thrill to those battling for the WPT Seminole Rock ‘N’ Roll Poker Open title at the host casino.

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Sports Betting Arrives in Rhode Island in Historic Year for US Gambling Industry

Rhode Island becomes eighth state to offer legal sports wagering in an eventful week for the US betting industry

Sports betting is coming to Rhode Island starting Monday, November 26, at Twin River Casino in Lincoln. The state will thus become the nation’s eighth one to be offering legal sports gambling and New England’s first one in a landmark year for the US gambling industry.

The Rhode Island General Assembly enacted a sports betting law back in June, and legal wagering services were expected to commence by October. However, delays of different nature pushed back the start of sports betting to the end of November.

The announcement about the official start of sports betting in Rhode Island arrived as the latest big news in an eventful week for US sports betting. Pennsylvania’s first wagering facility opened doors a few days ago. A new sportsbook was launched in West Virginia, as well. The state’s first legal betting operations commenced in late August.

Twin River Casino officials have previously said that the property will begin offering sports betting to its customers around Thanksgiving. As it can be seen they have almost lived up to that promise.

Sports betting operations will commence at the casino at 3 pm local time on Monday, when House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello, Senate President Dominick Ruggerio, and Twin River Worldwide Holdings Chairman John Taylor Jr. will place a ceremonial first bet.

Wagering services will initially be provided at a temporary facility on the third floor of the casino complex. Officials have called that temporary facility Phase 1. Customers will be serviced there while the main sportsbook is under development.

At first, gambling customers will be able to place wagers on US-based games. International competitions such as English Premier League and other European leagues are expected to be added later. Patti Doyle, a spokeswoman for Twin River Casino, has also said that “more exotic” bets will also be available in the betting lounge at a later date.

Under Rhode Island’s newly adopted sports betting law, gamblers will only be able to wager at physical sportsbooks. Online and mobile betting were not included in the state’s sports gambling framework.

Estimated Economic Impact

According to estimates, the state will collect $11.5 million in tax revenue from sports betting through the end of the fiscal year on June 30. The above-mentioned amount is significantly less than the original projection for tax revenue of $23.5 million that was based on the previously announced October 1 launch of Twin River Casino’s sports betting operation. The state expects to get $27.3 million in tax revenue next fiscal year.

Under Rhode Island gambling laws, legal sports betting operations are taxed at 51% on betting revenue.

According to projections, Rhode Island’s two Twin River casinos will annually handle $814 million in wagers. Twin River Casino in Tiverton is expected to launch its sportsbook sometime in December. The Tiverton casino complex opened doors to the public on September 1. Aside from an 85,000-square-foot gaming floor, it also features an 84-room, three-story hotel, and multiple entertainment options.

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Atlantic City casino profits tumble after new venues launch

Atlantic City casinos posted double-digit profit declines in the third quarter of 2018, as the market’s two new gaming venues cut into the other seven’s bottom lines.

Figures released Friday by the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement (DGE) show Atlantic City’s nine casinos generated net revenue of $920m in the three months ending September 30, a 17.8% rise over the same period last year. For the year-to-date, revenue is up 6.4% to $2.2b.

However, the gross operating profit of these nine venues totaled $213.7m in Q3, a 15.3% year-on-year decline. The figure is only slightly better on the year-to-date front, in which profits fell 9.3% to $508.7m.

The late-June openings of two new AC venues – Hard Rock Atlantic City and the Ocean Resort Casino – clearly impacted the Q3 figures, as the two properties generated combined revenue of $178.5m. Their profits were miniscule — $8.2m for Hard Rock and $1.4m for ORC – as startup costs will have kept a lid on black ink.

Of the ‘original’ seven properties, none of them posted revenue gains in Q3, while only two reported increased profits. The Golden Nugget’s profits were up 6.6% to $13.6m, although this was at least partially due to the property’s market-leading online casino operation. The other profit gainer, Bally’s, barely qualified for that designation, rising only 0.5% to $18.4m.

In percentage terms, the Tropicana suffered the biggest profit decline, falling 31.1% to $31.8m, while the market-leading Borgata was down 21.7% to $63.2m.

Even the online-only operations of Caesars Interactive Entertainment New Jersey and Resorts Digital were in negative profit territory in Q3. Actually, seriously negative, as CIENJ’s revenue fell 10.5% while profit tumbled 69.4%. Resorts Digital fared even worse, with revenue down 51.4% and profit sliding 83.3%, even as the state’s overall online market continued to post solid numbers during the period.

The numbers are a far cry from Q3 2017’s results, which saw profit shoot up 17.6% despite a modest revenue dip, and that dip was due to the soon-to-be-closed Trump Taj Mahal reducing its operations as its closing date drew nearer.

At the time, the fact that AC’s market had seen five casinos close in rapid succession was described as the market’s ‘right-sizing,’ although that narrative suffered a hiccup when Q1 2018’s profits fell 11.7%. However, Q1 saw the region suffer a string of winter storms that kept customers at home, a phenomenon that clearly wasn’t at play in Q3. Moreover, Q2’s profit decline was a more modest 4.6%.

While the market’s hotel occupancy over the first nine months of 2018 was down 5.1 points to 84.1%, at least part of the profit decline is likely due to all operators having to step up their marketing game in the wake of shiny new competition.

The question that hung over the launch of AC’s new properties was whether they could grow the overall financial pie or just nibble away at the seven ‘original’ properties’ slices. Revenue is clearly growing, although some of that growth is goosed by the state’s new legal sports betting options, and it remains to be seen whether the market as a whole will continue to suffer from having two extra mouths to feed.

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Kevin Gerhart Wins Debut WSOP Circuit Gold Ring at Planet Hollywood

A Pot-Limit Omaha expert takes down the only PLO event on the schedule of the WSOP Circuit Planet Hollywood stop

Pot-Limit Omaha specialist Kevin Gerhart has won earlier this week his first WSOP Circuit gold ring by taking down namely a PLO tournament at Planet Hollywood. The player, who hails from Ohio but now resides in Las Vegas, emerged victorious in the $400 Pot-Limit Omaha Re-Entry for a cash prize of $10,493 and the gold piece.

The two-day tournament saw 106 entries register to create a prize pool of $34,980. The final 12 players received a share of that prize pool.

Gerhart was one of the four players who bagged chips at the end of Day 1 of the event to progress into its second day. The eventual winner had the third largest stack at the time Day 2 action kicked off. However, he told WSOP Circuit staff after his victory that he had had a feeling that it would be him and the start-of-the-day chip leader, Mesha Zakharov, who would play the heads-up. The two players indeed ran into each other at the tournament’s finale to determine who would take home the gold ring and the first-place prize. Zakharov was too going for his first gold ring from the series, but it was not meant for him this time and he had to settle for a second-place finish.

Pot-Limit Omaha Specialist

Pot-Limit Omaha is Gerhart’s favorite poker game and he has been playing it a lot over the past several years. The player told WSOP staff that he has been trying to play as many PLO tournaments as possible. He won a PLO tournament and finished runner-up in another one in the months prior to his victory at Planet Hollywood.

The player attributes his success in that particular game to his good feel for PLO as well as to the fact that most of his opponents are less experienced. Gerhart went on to say that it is much harder to find information on PLO than it is on No-Limit Hold’em.

Of his plans for the rest of the Planet Hollywood series, the brand new WSOP Circuit champion said that he had originally intended to play the Main Event over the weekend, but after his triumph, he decided to try to snatch a bit more points for the Casino Championship race by playing a few more tournaments. The player who accumulates the most points by the end of the stop will secure a seat into the season-ending $1 million guaranteed Global Casino Championship.

However, Gerhart will have to play No-Limit Hold’em tournaments until the end of the Planet Hollwood series, as its schedule does not include any other Pot-Limit Omaha events. It is to be seen how the player will cope and whether he is just as good in No-Limit Hold’em as he is in the poker game he loves so much.

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Throwback: Phil Ivey vs Tom Dwan on Million-Dollar Pot

David Tuchman, who specializes in sports commentating for football and poker, recalls the awesome moments he witnessed as he commentated on a remarkable hand between Phil Ivey and Tom Dwan. It was in the Full Tilt Poker Million Dollar Cash Game around nine years ago that there were only three men, namely Phil Ivey, Tom Dwan and Patrik Antonius battling it out at a poker table as midnight drew near. David Tuchman, renowned poker commentator, fondly described his personal experience about the [...]