Atlantic City, as a whole, suffered in the year 2009 because of the tough economy across the country, but it really suffered in the gambling industry as each casino saw a decline in revenue. There is some good news out of Atlantic City though in terms of revenue reports. The month of March saw only a small decline in revenue for the casinos after double digit declines in revenue over a span of a couple of months. The revenue for the casinos fell just 5.6 percent in the month of March for 2010. The casinos saw a revenue of $300.8 million in March of 2010 compared to $318.4 million in March of 2009. The only casino in the city with higher revenue was Harrah’s, according to a report released by the New Jersey Casino Control Commission.

The PokerStars Team Online has added one of the leading instructors of poker to its lineup from DragTheBar.com. The instructor, Dusty ‘Leatherass” Schmidt, joins an elite group of players including Thomas Boekhoff, Grayson Physioc, Randy Lew and Steve Jacobs. Schmidt, who plays as Leatherass9 on PokerStars, had the following to say about the announcement:

Caesars has become a well known name throughout the years and we are not talking about the famous Caesar. We are talking about the brand name Caesars, which is associated with casinos, gambling, poker, and blackjack by billions of gamblers around the world. As the poker and gaming industries continue to expand, Caesars did not want to feel left out, so they decided to venture into the United Kingdom. A Montreal based division of the United States company known as Harrah’s Entertainment has formed a partnership with the Gamesys Group in order to develop a gambling site that would feature casino side games and the ever popular bingo.

The game of blackjack is a game of skill, requiring quick thinking and decision making on the part of every player involved in a match or tournament. Quick thinking can be useful to some players and very harmful to others based on how well they can deal with pressure and make a decision. One of those decisions is how to play a soft hand dealt to a player by the dealer. Soft hands are not welcome by all blackjack players because there are so many decisions to be made. Other blackjack players welcome a soft hand because they have played one in the past and know what it takes to play the soft hand successfully.

UB.com, a United States friendly poker site, will be running the Perfect 10 Poker Challenge during the entire month of April 2010. A total prize pot of $100,000 will be given away by the site for the Leaderboard Challenge. The top prize is a total of $20,000. Each day in April will feature ten buy-in tournaments that cost $11 to enter, automatically entering all players who play in these events into the $100,000 Leaderboard Challenge. Tournament leaderboard points will be awarded to every participant based on their finish in these buy-in events. The top ten finishes for a player will count towards the Leaderboard Challenge and the top 50 spots on the leaderboard will pay out cash prizes to those players.

Everyone loves it when the month of March rolls around. Not only does it mean that summer is right around the corner but it also means that March Madness is upon us once again. That’s right, the NCAA basketball tournament, that has millions of United States residents filling out brackets and entering into office pools for a small price. Some pools cost $100 to enter while others cost a measly $10 or $20 to enter. The more you spend to enter, the more you can win if your bracket succeeds. These winnings, and any winnings you might accrue over the course of a year are considered taxable income, which means that they must be reported to the IRS come tax time in April.

Ever since the game of poker became popular on the Internet, state governments across the United States have debated whether or not to legalize online gambling. One such state, Iowa, could reap the benefits of online poker legislation if it is passed by the state’s government. The benefits Iowa could reap are to the tune of $80 million. State officials estimate that close to 80,000 residents of Iowa currently play some form of poker on the Internet and want this new piece of legislation to help the state and the players at the same time.

Have you ever dreamed of owning a domain name, using it for a couple of years, and then turning it around and selling it for a large chunk of change? If so, then this story is for you. A story about the sale of a domain name has made its way around the internet like wildfire. In fact, the story is so big because it involves a web domain from the poker industry. Whenever there is a news story involving the poker industry it tends to get a lot of notice. This time the story involves the selling of the domain name known as Poker.org. The company that presided over the sale is known as Sedo, a domain name broker, and they claim they sold the domain name for a cool $1 million. This is not, however, the largest amount of money spent on a domain name. In the spring of 2009, Toys”R”Us bought the domain name Toys.com for around $5 million, Business.com has changed hands for $7.5 million, and Sex.com sold for $15 million at one point. Poker.org is the largest amount of money ever spent for a .org domain name.

A Las Vegas casino, upon hearing that the state of Pennsylvania legalized table games, has applied for a poker license in that state. The Las Vegas Sands Corp., which owns a casino in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, filled out a formal application for the approval of 80 table games at their casino with state authorities. Among those 80 tables will be ones designated for poker card games. Robert DeSalvio, the President of the Sands Casino in Bethlehem had this to say about the application:

The 2010 World Poker Tour Celebrity Invitational took place on February 20 and 21 at the Commerce Casino in Los Angeles. The tournament featured celebrities and poker players alike. It was the eighth edition of the invitation only tournament, which has sent this year’s proceeds to Chrysalis, a non-profit organization. The goal of Chrysalis is to help economically disadvantaged homeless people find employment opportunities. Chrysalis was founded in 1984 and since then has helped over 30,000 people get back on their feet. Ninety percent of every dollar donated to the organization goes directly to the individuals being aided. There were 100 invitations sent out to poker players and celebrities for the tournament. The confirmations from those invitations include the following celebrities who were present at the tournament: