Canada

Last month, Casino de Montreal opened the largest completely automated poker room in the world. With 25 PokerPro tables, the new poker room is by far the single largest poker room with only automatic tables. Now the folks at Casino de Montreal have hosted the world’s largest multi-table poker tournament ever run on solely automated poker tables. The entire tournament was run with only four staff members, who spent a good deal of time with little or nothing to do.

The $225 buy-in tournament was sold-out two weeks in advance, with a record 240 players vying for a piece of the prize pool.

“Running a tournament of this magnitude is what we always envisioned for PokerPro. We are pleased with the success of this tournament and proud of our partnership with Casino de Montreal,”

says Chris Halligan, CEO of PokerTek, manufacturer of the PokerPro tables.

“The Québécois players have embraced automated poker, as validated by the response to this tournament.”

Currently, Casino de Montreal’s 100% PokerPro room offers cash games, daily Sit-and- Go tournaments, plus weekly and monthly multi-table tournaments.

It makes sense that you don't advertise a product in a market where you cannot sell the product. But if you live in single restricted market you might never even know that another, perhaps better, product exists.

Due to various governmental interventions the ability to play online poker is restricted in many countries. The United States, of course, has had the UIGEA law for over a year. France continues to limited access to its internet public, as does Turkey, Sweden and several other EU countries. The UK has some bizarre advertising regulations based on where you put your servers and there are the still unclear but heavily controlled or banned practices in China, India, Indonesia and the rest of the Far East. Governments in South America and Africa are each devising more or less restrictive regulations to control how citizens there will access the "free" internet.

So if you live in one of these restricted locations (and you do!) not only are you prevented from playing poker on some of your favorite sites, you will not even know that many new poker sites are appearing everyday. Contrary to the common perception in heavily regulated areas, the choices for online poker are increasing worldwide not decreasing.

The first Japanese Poker Tournament is set for June. Finally, Japan will have its own poker tournament. The All-Japan Poker Championship Committee has announced the first annual All-Japan Poker Championship (AJPC).

The no-limit Texas hold’em event will take place June 2 and 3 in Tokyo, Japan. The winner of the AJPC will receive an entry into the 2007 World Series of Poker, as well as travel expenses to and accommodations in Las Vegas. A portion of the sponsorship funds will be donated to charity.

The Dusk Till Dawn poker club is about to open in the U.K. in Nottingham to be specific. With £4 million already spent building Europe's biggest poker club (46 tables) and another £3m plunged into a 15-year lease, entrepreneur and club owner Robert Yong believes:

"We will be making Nottingham one of the world's biggest poker centres."

With poker professional Dave Colclough as the club's ambassador and over 3,600 club members before even opening the doors, it would seem they are well on their way. Dusk Til Dawn should open by mid-summer.

The World Poker Tour and Grup Peralada, the largest casino group in Spain, have announced an agreement to bring the first ever WPT stop in Spain to the Casino Barcelona. The event has been added to the Tour line-up in October 2007.

Steve Lipscomb, President of World Poker Tour Enterprises said:

“This is a very important move for us as we continue to expand our business in the European market."

Oliver Zugel, CEO of Grup Peralada´s Casino Division said:

“This agreement further reinforces our leading position in poker and will create a new standard for premium, televised poker events in Europe and lay the groundwork for an Iberian tour involving other leading casinos in Spain and Portugal.”

As I write this blog, Guy Laliberte, the "richest man in Canada" has just finished 4th in the Five Diamond World Poker Tour Championship in Las Vegas. Guy, the co-founder of "Cirque du Soleil," is playing in only his third tournament after picking up the game less than 18 months ago. Perhaps he was visiting the five "Cirque" shows now playing in Las Vegas and just stopped by the Bellagio to win $696,220.

You know how I hate writers and reporters who make up information or conclusions based on zero knowledge of poker. Here are a couple of juicy examples from a Canadian news report.

McMaster University marketing guru Marvin Ryder says cable networks were left scrambling for winter sporting events and filled broadcast time during the 2004-2005 NHL lockout with televised poker. Televised poker drew up to three times the audience of the NHL and established tournament, casino, online and home poker as a North American "phenomenon," says Ryder.

I love the logic here, without the NHL labor problems there would be no poker boom. But the numbers in this next one are even better.

Televised poker has probably reached its saturation point now, he said, but the World Series of Poker this past year drew 37,000 applicants willing to pay $10,000 each to play.

Now I know the series was big this year but I think I remember Jamie Gold finishing first in a field of 8,773. Maybe 37,000 "applied" but didn't pass the written exam.

And I do so love statistics:

67 per cent of those interviewed believe that playing poker in casinos or bars is a problem.

Of those 67 percent, 38 percent play any two cards.

Incomplete full-of-holes article.

As Dan noted, Canadian police recently busted up four underground poker rooms in Ottawa. They've got a slightly different reason than US police might have for such busts - those underground games are actually cutting into government profits.

I'll be at Fallsview Resort Casino the week after next for the first-ever WPT stop in Canada, and while reading over a WPT-provided guide on media regulations I noticed the first two sentences read thusly:

In the province of Ontario, all casinos are owned by Ontario Lottery and Gaming (OLG) and regulated by the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO). Both OLG and the AGCO are entities of the Government of Ontario.

It really is a different world up there, eh?