Online Poker News: Operators leaving India; Chico Poker DDoS attack; Tournament action on iPoker, Sky Poker & Winamax; Run It Once teases Sit & Gos
In this column, we deliver you the latest and most interesting online poker industry news from across the world and all platforms.
Operators leaving India
Operators like PokerStars, Adda52, PokerBaazi and Spartan Poker are leaving the Indian state Andhra Pradesh following the criminalization of online gambling.
We already reported about Bodog pulling out of India and now 888poker also announced to have left with their global client.
Andhra Pradesh is one of 28 states making up the Indian Federal Union. It is a coastal region located in the South-Eastern part of India and is one of the country’s biggest states. It has a population of nearly 50 million, with a GDP per capita higher than the national average.
The different states in India have different rules, laws and regulations about online gambling. Some states, like Goa, Sikkim, Nagaland or West Bengal, even consider poker a skill game. It is a difficult legal minefield to maneuver, so many poker operators would leave the country altogether while others are able to put in place regional restrictions and adjustments.
Always be sure to inform yourself about the legal situation in a country or region before firing up a poker game.
Chico Poker Network under DDoS attack
Another poker network has been subject to DDoS attacks, this time the Chico network, which includes BetOnline and Tigergaming.
Chances are that you have heard about DDoS attacks in the past. Distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks are malicious attempts to disrupt the normal traffic of a targeted server, service or network by overwhelming the target or its surrounding infrastructure with a flood of traffic. It’s like an unexpected traffic jam clogging up the highway, preventing regular traffic from arriving at its destination.
These attacks run by hackers can be to disrupt the service of a competitor or to extort payments from the victims in order to “release” the traffic.
In the past, we have experienced these attacks on some of the big sites like PokerStars, partypoker and GGPoker and it is indeed very disrupting for the operators and frustrating for the players.
In mid October a massive DDoS attack began against the Chico Poker Network. Players couldn’t log in to the clients of the network and later the websites were offline. The disconnect took over 24 hours.
Every time this happens it is a reminder for poker operators to get their cyber security in order as it will be way more difficult for hackers to even get attacks like this started, when systems are more secure.
Late October Tournament action on iPoker & Sky Poker
PokerStars and GGPoker both conclude their bounty series this weekend and other operators are ready to go with further tournament series action.
iPoker announced a new tournament series called Royal Series with a guaranteed €300k, starting 23rd October. There will be 80 events being played until 1st November.
Sky Poker connects with their own well-established series UKOPS from 30th October to 8th November, offering 64 events with buy-ins between £11 and £530 and £400k in guarantees.
Partypoker is expected to run a Monster Series around this time, too.
Winamax Pokus
In addition to the above tournament series Winamax has announced a new low stakes tournament series called Winamax Pokus around the same time.
The series will run from 1st to 12th November and include 141 tournaments across its two licensed sites in France and Spain. The buy-ins will be ranging from €2 to €250 and there is a total of €7 million guaranteed.
Winamax is one of the most innovative poker sites out there and this is the third new tournament series they have come up with this year. The artwork for the festival looks like something out of League of Legends or World of Warcraft and is promising to be an exciting series.
Run It Once teases new Sit & Go format
And talking about innovative poker sites. Phil Galfond’s Run It Once site has teased a new Sit & Go format called “Cub3” due to go live this autumn. So far the site has only offered cash games and the poker world has been anxiously awaiting a tournament product.
In a super short video clip on Twitter players’ interest got piqued.
🚨 Sit-N-Gos: Autumn 2020 🚨
Can you crack the Cub3? 🤔 https://t.co/G9D3VhaSMK pic.twitter.com/jQTPNB4gbZ— Run It Once Poker (@RunItOncePoker) October 19, 2020
As RIO has taken quite a while in the past to roll out features and products and has regularly been missing deadlines, the responses on Twitter are positive, but sarcastic.
This is getting serious. Autumn is almost a date 👀
— Moonlightmaster (@Moonlightmaste1) October 19, 2020
but seriously, will autumn be before christmas or after?
— TheFan83 (@TheFan83) October 20, 2020
When is autumn?
— David (@Titicamara82) October 19, 2020
Though the latter tweet might just be by someone not knowing that autumn is fall…
Fingers crossed that the “deadline” of autumn will be kept and that the product will be a successful one.
