KAHNAWAKE, Canada, July 30 /PRNewswire/ — UltimateBet.com(TM), the premier online poker site, has joined The World Poker Tour to help bring poker to a mainstream television audience. Played by over 50 million Americans, the nation’s most popular card game is poised to become the next major mainstream sport on television. The World Poker Tour will be the first regularly scheduled televised series of poker events in history, with production values equivalent to network sports programming. The season will consist of thirteen nationally televised poker events filmed in casinos around the world, from Los Angeles to Paris, where finalists compete for multi-million dollar prize pools.

As a charter member of The World Poker Tour, UltimateBet is hosting a unique event by combining online and land-based play to create a distinctive poker experience. Players will first qualify online at UltimateBet for one of 86 free trips to Aruba for their Ultimate Poker Classic’s $100,000 main event, which will be played and filmed for national television. Several world-class poker players have also accepted UltimateBet’s invitation to play in the UltimateBet Pro Celebrity Invitational in Aruba. The winner of the Pro Invitational will play the winner of the Ultimate Poker Classic $100,000 main event, which will pit amateur vs. professional in a situation most amateur poker players will only dream about: going heads up against one of the world’s best!

“We are extremely pleased to have UltimateBet.com join us as one of our Charter Member events,” said Steve Lipscomb, CEO of the World Poker Tour. “With their unique David and Goliath format pitting the little player against the pros, UltimateBet’s tournament provides an exciting and dramatic twist for our television audience.”

UltimateBet and its parent company, eWorld Holdings, are focused on providing a worldwide community of skill game players with exciting and secure environments in which they can interact. The WPT is a joint venture between Chief Executive Officer Steven Lipscomb, an accomplished television creator and award-winning filmmaker, and Lakes Gaming, Inc., whose founder and Chief Executive Officer, Lyle Berman, is a world-renowned poker player and accomplished business man.

PokerStars Online Tournament Shatters Records

July 30, 2002 (Los Angeles) – PokerStars, online poker’s most Situs Judi Qq innovative destination, announced today that the first annual World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) broke all online records, generating a prize pool of $809,050 over the nine events. The final event, played on Sunday, July 28, boasted a prize pool of $238,000, with the winner, Sweden’s MultiMarine, receiving over $65,450.

“The turnout for this event exceeded even our most optimistic forecasts,” said Steve Morrow, Card Room Manager for PokerStars. “The scope of this event, and the huge prize pool, puts the PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker in the top tier of poker tournaments worldwide.”

The World Championship of Online Poker consisted of nine events, with buy-ins ranging from $100 to $1,000. PokerStars conducted satellite tournaments for this event beginning in late May, with buy-ins as low as $10. Over 70% of the players in the WCOOP events won their entries via the satellite system, which accounted for a total of over 700 events. The tournament attracted over 2,800 poker players from 36 countries.

“PokerStars has created a landmark online poker event,” said Nolan Dalla, noted poker author and champion tournament poker player. “No one could have forecast this kind of popularity for an online poker tournament. PokerStars has proven that an online tournament can attract the same kind of turnout and prize pool as tournaments in live poker rooms.”

In addition to the prize pool, which included $200,000 of guaranteed events, PokerStars contributed an additional $10,000 prize money for the best all-around player, and added almost $30,000 of the prize money via the site’ s Frequent Player Points program, which allows players to earn tournament entries (and other prizes) by playing.

PokerStars (www.pokerstars.com) rocketed to the top tier of online poker sites in its first six months of operation, largely as a result of the company’s innovative multi-table tournaments, fast-action live games (including limit, no-limit and pot-limit games of Texas Hold ’em, Seven Card Stud, Seven Card Stud High/Low, Omaha and Omaha High/Low), outstanding customer service and Frequent Player Points rewards for regular players. “Amarillo Slim” Preston, one of the world’s best-known poker players, is the company’s host and spokesman.