Weekly Poker Roundup: November 12, 2016

UKGC Chief Wants Operators to Put Customers First

Speaking at the Raising Standards Conference, UK Gambling Commission’s (UKGC) chief executive Sarah Harrison urged online gaming operators to make a more concerted effort to make customers happy and take proactive steps to be sure the industry remains scandal and controversy-free. Gaming news website igamingbusiness quoted her as saying:

You need to step up the pace of change in how you handle customer complaints; ensure advertising is clear; simplify terms and conditions; develop your risk management strategies on money laundering; evaluate the impact of social responsibility initiatives – and, working across all these areas, in how you do more to share best practice… don’t wait for a crisis to happen that shakes the very foundation of customers’ trust in your industry.

“Act now and demonstrate to consumers that your interest in their needs is genuine,” Harrison added.

In what is perhaps an effort to nudge operators in the right direction, Harrison also said that the UKGC will look into implementing harsher penalties for operators who are particularly guilty of repeated regulatory violations.

WPT Foundation, Poker Players Raise $765,000 For Children’s Hospital

In continuing their tradition of charitable giving, poker players rose to the task recently, raising $765,000 for the Cardiac Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). The event, the “All In” for Kids Poker Tournament, was put on by the World Poker Tour (WPT) Foundation in late October at the Mandarin Oriental New York.

“We are proud to once again partner with the WPT Foundation on this important and exciting event,” said Madeline Bell, president and CEO of Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, in a press release.  “We are especially grateful to our friends at The Kibel Foundation for their support, and to the physicians and staff in CHOP’s Cardiac Center, who have revolutionized the way children with heart conditions are cared for both in our local communities and around the world.”

Founded in 2008 by Dan and Beth Shak, the “All In” for Kids Poker Tournament has benefited different areas of CHOP each year, from the Center for Childhood Cancer to Food Allergy Research and many more.

Phil Hellmuth served as this year’s emcee; such poker pros as Vanessa Selbst, Jonathan Little, Andy Frankenberger, and Victor Ramdin were among those in attendance.

Adjarabet Launches Full Deck Poker Promo

It’s been a while since Adjarabet has been in the news, but now is as good a time as any to talk about the online poker room based in the country of Georgia. The site rose to prominence a couple years ago when it began running rec player-friendly promotions that had rewards that were extremely easy to earn. It used the momentum from these promos to rise into the top ten of PokerScout’s rankings, though it has since fallen to about fifteenth.

The latest promo is called “Full Deck Poker” and calls for players to participate in cash games to collect cards to complete a 52-card deck. As expected, it is simple to do this. Whenever a player competes in a raked hand (real money hand in which the player stays in until the flop, at least three players were dealt cards, and the pot is at least .20 GEL), their hole cards will be added to their Full Deck Poker collection. When an entire deck is collected in a single day, the player earns a seat into the weekly Full Deck Freeroll, held each Monday.

In a bit of a twist, for each day that a player completes a deck, they earn more starting chips for the freeroll. Everyone begins with 2,500 chips, but start with as many as 50,000 if a full deck is earned each of the seven days before the freeroll.