Next Wednesday poker and bingo players will be able to donate to two charity organizations – the Earth Action or World for World charities, which are dedicated to environmental conservation and human rights. On this day online casino 888.com will be running its first global charity day. Not only players will be able to donate, employees of the casino will also participate in special activities. The casino itself has pledged to contribute $100,000 to charity.

For contributuion players will have to play their favorite games on October 10 at 888.com’s poker room, Pacific Poker. They will also be able to donate by making a direct contribution on charities’ sites. Players can choose the charity the want to donate to, or they can split their donation between the two.

The officials of the University of Massachusetts are demanding UMasspoker.com operators to take down the site promoting campus gambling and containing links to online poker sites. The site uses the University of Massachusetts name and logo which are the university property and cannot be used without the university’s permission.

The site is operated by students and recent graduates. It provides visitors with information about poker strategy, cash games and tournaments on and off campus. The site contains a link to EmpirePoker.com licensed by the government of Gibraltar, and seven links to other online poker sites. The UMasspoker.com domain name was created and registered in November 2003 and updated last year. The domain name is set to expire Nov. 8, unless it’s updated again.

UMass, as the officials claim, is not looking to prosecute people, but wants the site to be taken down. If not, then UMass will go to court.

Rob Winston, a doctor who is the founder of Laser Away in Rancho Mirage and five offices in Los Angeles, is reported to have won $1.5 million in the Borgata Open poker tournament after knocking out poker star Mike ‘The Mouth’ Matusow at the final table and, finally, Scott Yoon. Winston had the huge advantage in chips with 13,370,000 to Yoon’s 3,445,000.

In addition to the $1,575,280 prize, Winston also won a silver watch and entry into the $25,000 buy-in Season VI WPT World Championship that will take place in April, 2008.

Now, Winston is planning to participate in more WPT events. Thus, Winston plans on playing in Niagara Falls in October, at the Foxwoods Casino in Mashantucket, Conn., in November, and at the Bellagio in December in Las Vegas. He also has an idea of participating in a tournament in Australia in January.

The richest ever poker tournament will take place within the next few months. One million dollars in cash prizes will be given away. The prize pool of the Players Only’s Million Dollar Free Roll Series is divided so that each winner will take away $75,000. Second and third place winners will win $10,000.

The players that have qualified in free rolls and cash satellites through the month will play-off for $75,000 in the first Monthly Final of PlayersOnly.com’s Million Dollar Free Roll Series. There is a chance to win a free seat in Sunday’s final. Those who don’t qualify in time for the weekend’s final can buy-in directly or try again next month.

Free roll qualifiers take place twice a day. Players can also win their seat in monthly finals in cash buy-in satellites (buy-ins as low as $2) held every Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday. The players having Gold Chip loyalty points can play special qualifiers on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. There, the buy-ins are ten Gold Chips. The alternative to that is a direct buy-in for $50 at the final table.

25 players are said to make it to the final free.

To get more tournament details, go to http://www.playersonly.com/1million/.

Having inspected the premises, a magistrate has finally granted the Nottingham based poker club belonging to Dusk Till Dawn a license as a poker venue only. Dusk Till Dawn’s officials are absolutely delighted with the magistrate’s decision. There might have been a problem if they had applied for a casino license. But the demand for the type of the poker club Dusk Till Dawn is offering was key point.

The poker fans across the UK cannot but be pleased with the news. At the same time, the opening of the card room has attracted stiff opposition from London Clubs International, Gala and Stanley Leisure. In their opinion, there was not “sufficient interest to justify the opening”. Anyway, they had to listen to the magistrate rule in Dusk Till Dawn’s favor.

The opening of the card room is being planned for a mid-November.

Stockholm native Emanuel Karlen, ‘ManneKK’, was announced to have won the $25, 000 Summer Series Freeroll Grand Finale. The winner will play against Doyle Brunson known as ‘Godfather of Poker’ – the winner of ten World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelets in a heads-up match for $25,000 at DoylesRoom.com. As part of the prize, Karlen will also appear on the cover of Online Poker Pro magazine and in feature stories for other major poker publications.

Both players, Emanuel Karlen and Doyle Brunson, are looking forward to a heads-up tournament.  If Karlen wins, the Swede will take the cash and receive the ultimate bragging rights.

Next year the Irish Open poker tournament is promised to be much bigger and better. For that purpose the event will move to the Citywest Hotel. Having 1,314 rooms, bars, restaurants, health and leisure facilities and two golf courses, the hotel can accommodate 1,000 players. Besides, being located only 20 km from Dublin airport, the tournament will attract more and more players.

The poker tournament will start on March 19 and it will run all week. The champion “will be crowned on the 24th Main event after playing a No Limit Hold’em Freezeout game for a 4,200 euro buy-in plus 300 euro entry fee”. The prize pool for the 2008 Main Event is guaranteed to be 3 million euros.

The launch of the European Championship of Online Poker (ECOOP) has been recently announced by Victor Chandler, leading British bookmaking and gaming group. It is going to be a ten-event online poker tournament. The tournament is planned to take place in November.

The top players from all over the world will take place in the inaugural event where the guaranteed prize pool is said to be $2.5 million.

One of the events on offer is a $50,000 MVP free roll competition aimed at rewarding players for their skill, effort and determination. The winner will get the title of 2007 ECOOP Most Valuable Player. At the end of the ten-day tournament the top 50 players will get entry into the $50,000 free roll competition which is to take place on the 11th of December.

Other games of the tournament are Pot Limit Omaha and Omaha Hi-Lo poker games, a variety of no limit and limit Texas Hold’em poker. All of them have their own prize pool.

You can enter any of the ten ECOOP events online at VC Poker. At the site belonging to VC Poker – VCPoker.com – you can also find all the necessary information.

A bad beat is not always disappointing. It is not bad when players are seated at a Bar Beat Jackpot table, because a winning hand that actually loses means jackpot for all of the players involved in the game.

Bad Beat jackpots were designed to reward players who lose a Texas Hold’em game with a hand that is favored to win. Players who lose the Texas Hold’em game with a hand of four 8’s or better trigger the jackpot.

AbsolutePoker.com is the place where the most recent Bad Jackpot was won. The jackpot was $821,670, what is the biggest jackpot of this kind won at online casino poker sites. $267,043 went to the “favored to win” loosing hand, $133,521 and some change to the player who actually won the hand, and $33,380 to all other players in the Texas Hold’em game.

Winners of the tournament held by PlayersOnly.com will take part in the World Poker Tour (WPT) North American Championship in October.

The last in the series of PlayersOnly.com’s Super Satellites will take place this Sunday. Its players will be able to qualify for the Niagara Falls event. The buy-in for this qualifier is $200 plus a fee of $12.

There are 8 winners left after the last competition held on Sunday. And the competition is claimed to have been pretty stiff.

As for PlayersOnly.com’s Gold Card Poker Tour Leaderboard contest, its final has taken place this week. The top 100 players will join 100 players from the previous contest for the Gold Card Poker Tour Final on September 29. Then, the ultimate winner will be awarded with the WPT North American Poker Championship prize package of $12,000. The prize package includes the $10,000 registration fee for the WPT North American Poker Championship tournament and travel expenses to the Fallsview Casino Resort in Niagara Falls, Canada.

PlayersOnly.com have given away $25,000 in tournament prizes over the summer. The company is going to continue into the fall with the WPT qualifiers and the Million Dollar Free Roll Tournament that also started this month.