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For the past several years, the Bellagio has been the place to play poker in Las Vegas
Published: 2005-03-05
 It's on in Las Vegas - Wynn vs. Bellagio (03.05.2005)
For the past several years, the Bellagio has been the place to play poker in Las Vegas. Sure, there
are many other rooms, and a number of them have their own charm, and good reasons to play there,
but for the past few years, the poker room at Bellagio has been where the Crème de la Crème of the
poker world have chosen to ply their craft.
At midnight Wednesday night/Thursday morning, there was a new player in town, the Wynn. The Wynn
promises to be the new new in upscale casinos. The property is located up the strip a ways, I
believe at the corner of Las Vegas Blvd, and Spring Mountain.
But this is not an article about the casino, this is an article about how the Wynn is taking steps
to try to become LV's premier poker destination, in addition to its goal of being a destination
resort. Steve Wynn went out and got arguably the most marketable player in our game, Daniel
Negreanu to be a 'host' at the Wynn's poker room, and from what I understand, to play exclusively
at the Wynn. Obviously, one must assume this covers live play only, as I'm sure Daniel will be in
his rightful place in early June, playing at the Rio in the WSOP, as well as the WPT Mirage Poker
Showdown here in a few weeks.
The dollar figures I have heard attached to this deal are staggering, even if you only consider the
lowest ones. The Wynn is betting that Daniel will bring the cool poker pro crowd with him, as well
as give the room a panache it needs to compete from day one. In case you don't think Bellagio is
taking this threat seriously, consider this: The Bellagio has spent a couple months remodeling its
new poker room, which opened (not coincidentally) the day before the Wynn opening...on Wednesday.
It is going to be interesting to see how this fight for poker supremacy plays itself out. The fact
that Daniel chose Wynn I'm sure ruffled some feathers at Bellagio. In fact, several times during
the WPT taping last Sunday, Bellagio Tournament Director Jack McClelland made several jokes toward
Daniel during downtime between hands. Stuff like "Folks, our fabulous new poker room opens
Wednesday here at Bellagio. Hey, Daniel, you are going to be there for that, right?".
The fight is on for poker supremacy in Las Vegas. Where will you be playing?
From: John Caldwell
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Backgammon firm to enter online gaming fray
Published: 2005-04-20
 Backgammon firm to enter online gaming fray
Drew Barrand Marketing 20 Apr 2005
A gaming company has been set up to capitalise on the rapid rise in people playing backgammon.
Backgammon Ltd will host a flagship event, Backgammondollars Million, to be launched in June, which will offer the biggest prize in the game.
A broadcast partner and title sponsor for the event are expected to be announced within the next 10 days. The launch will also be backed by global marketing activity, initially focusing on the UK, US and Scandinavia.
Backgammonmillion.com will host a series of global online tournaments. The winners of these will progress to a final to be held in the Bahamas in December.
At this point, the online finalists will be joined by a mixture of professional players and celebrities, who will buy in to the event to compete for a $1m prize pool.
An additional online community, BeachBackgammon. com, will feature both pay-and-play games and those using 'beach dollars' to allow free play.
Backgammon Ltd is seeking to replicate the successful business model used by online poker firms such as PartyPoker.com and Paradise Poker. The latter was recently sold to SportingBet for $300m (£158m).
GameAccount will act as exclusive service supplier to the firm's online backgammon operations.
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