Online Gambling News

Date: 09/30/2009

"There is a huge battle brewing" was Phil Hellmuth's recent comment during an interview on the Hardcore Poker Show. The reason for this comment is his dissatisfaction with the fact that Harrah’s, owner of the World Series of Poker, has announced its intention of opening an online poker site and his view that this could result in the major online poker sites uniting to form a breakaway series in the future.

It has come to light that Harrah's has contracted 888 Holdings to build an online poker platform which they wish to launch early in 2010. Helmuth is not very happy about the prospect of a WSOP poker site shutting down the competition. He feels that a breakaway series would result in the WSOP becoming virtually powerless.

It will be a big blow to most online poker rooms, big or small, if Harrah's decides to take away privilege sites such as Full Tilt or Poker Stars. Many WSOP champions are on the professional teams of these existing poker sites and should Harrah's contemplate banning the advertising rights for all poker sites they could be at a serious disadvantage.

Howard Lederer, co-founder of Full Tilt is one of many of Hellmuth's colleagues who share his concern about the way in which the WSOP has been performing since Harrah's Entertainment took over. Hellmuth is of the opinion that a breakaway series would hinder the WSOP virtually powerless.