Caesars Atlantic City was the first poker room to trigger the new bad beat jackpot.

The four Atlantic City poker rooms owned by Harrah’s began pooling their bad beat jackpots on Wednesday morning, giving players at each room the chance to win cash if the jackpot were hit at any of them. The jackpot started at $524,045; just one day later it’s been reset to $100,000 after paying out serious cash to everyone playing at a Harrah’s poker table in A.C.

Sheryl Wallace, of Auburndale, Fla., showed a straight flush in diamonds in a Caesars Atlantic City hold’em game at 11:16 a.m. Thursday, normally plenty good enough to win the pot. But John Sweet Jr., of South Brunswick Township, New Jersey, showed a royal flush to beat Wallace’s hand and trigger the $535,459.60 jackpot. Wallace received $163,343, or 30 percent of the jackpot, for her losing hand, while Sweet got $109,797, or 20 percent, for his royal flush in addition to the pot.

The biggest difference between the old jackpot rules and the new one was that the remaining 50 percent of the jackpot was distributed to everybody else playing at poker tables at any Atlantic City Harrah's property. Each player in a Harrah’s-owned poker room at the time, regardless of the stakes of their game, received $2,705 when Wallace and Sweet triggered the jackpot.

The change to the bad beat jackpot should be pretty good advertising to keep players at the poker tables in Atlantic City. And given the city’s continued misfortunes in recent years, that sort of advertising couldn’t come at a better time.

The new bad beat jackpot may increase traffic at Harrah's-owned A.C. poker rooms.

It just got a little easier to win bad beat jackpot money in Atlantic City. Yesterday morning Harrah’s debuted a revamped bad beat jackpot that will pay players at the tables at any of the company’s four casinos in the East Coast gambling resort town. The company also changed the criteria for triggering the jackpot to make it easier to hit as the pool grows larger.

Players at Harrah’s Atlantic City, Bally’s Atlantic City, Caesars Atlantic City and the Showboat poker rooms will all contribute to the new progressive bad beat jackpot. Any player who takes a qualifying bad beat will get 30% of the jackpot, the player who wins the pot will get 20% of the pool, and the rest of the money will be distributed among every player at the tables in any of the participating poker rooms when the hand is dealt. To qualify for the jackpot, a player must have four queens beaten. But for every week that passes where the jackpot isn’t hit, the qualifying hand will move down by one rank (e.g. if nobody hits the jackpot for three weeks, the qualifying hand will become four nines).

Hands eligible for the new bad beat jackpot were first dealt yesterday morning, with the pool starting at $524,045. That’s almost as big as the previous record bad beat jackpot for all of Atlantic City, a $553,958 pool hit back in January at Caesars that also set the record for the largest live poker bad beat jackpot in history. Needless to say, the new arrangement in Harrah’s poker rooms in Atlantic City puts them in position to start setting some records pretty quickly. And given the new competition from neighboring Pennsylvania and the annual losses that have become routine for Atlantic City casinos, the changes probably couldn’t have come at a better time.

Salma Hayek is from Mexico, where electronic poker tables appear to be popular.

A few years back it wasn’t uncommon to hear that electronic poker tables, which remove the dealer (and thus human error) from the equation, were the future of live poker. Companies like PokerTek began installing the tables in American gambling meccas like Las Vegas and Atlantic City. Some casinos like the Excalibur switched completely over to the electronic machines, while others made them an option alongside traditional tables. But in the end, players in those markets preferred the present to the future and stuck with live poker dealers. 

While PokerTek’s failed efforts at cracking the top gambling markets in the U.S. were ending, Mexico was changing its previously strict gambling laws in a way that became favorable to electronic poker tables. Suddenly an entire market of people unaccustomed to having a professional card dealer in their poker games was ripe for the picking, and PokerTek swooped in. The company has shipped 55 tables of its 220 tables to Mexico in the last year and has no plans to continue pursuing American gambling dollars with its machines.

PokerTek is betting that markets like Mexico are the future of its electronic poker table business, and its investors will probably be glad for the turn away from the U.S., since the company has yet to show a profit in seven years of business. The move should be a good one, since Americans who play live poker are loathe to switch away from their tradition of having a person on hand to spit food at when it’s time to throw a tantrum.

Rivers Casino in Pittsburgh will start spreading live poker today.

It’s been a long journey for poker players in Pennsylvania who want to play in their local casinos, but the day they’ve been waiting for has finally arrived.

After a limited test run that began on Tuesday, the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board has given the go-ahead for casinos in western Pennysylvania to begin offering table games to their patrons. Games such as blackjack, craps and roulette will be available, but one of the biggest draws is expected to be poker.

Pittsburgh will have two big poker rooms to draw in players who have previously had to go out of state to play their favorite game. The Rivers Casino will sport a 24-table poker room, while the Meadows Racetrack and Casino will feature a poker room with 26 tables. Both of those locations will begin spreading their new games at 6 a.m. ET today.

Table games will make their way to the other side of the state on July 18, when Parx Casino in Bensalem and Harrah’s Chester in Delaware County are scheduled to begin offering the games. The SugarHouse Casino in Philadelphia, which is still under construction, will offer table games immediately upon opening in late September this year.

The addition of live poker and other table games to casinos in Pennsylvania has already generated $165 million for the state this year thanks to licensing fees paid by the casinos, nearly making up for the state government’s $200 million budget shortfall. The state expects to pull in another $90 million before the end of the year through licensing fees on two smaller casinos and a 16 percent tax on table game revenues.

This isn't the design of a Florida casino poker chip - yet.

Thursday marks the start of a new fiscal year in Florida and that means that a slew of new laws goes into effect. Of the 237 new pieces of legislation taking effect, few are getting as much attention as SB 622, which makes a number of big changes to the state’s poker laws.

No-limit poker is now legal at all 23 of Florida’s licensed poker rooms, removing the old betting limit of $5 and the maximum $100 buy-in for cash games. Another change will see poker rooms operated by the Seminole tribe stay open 24 hours a day, a move that affects more than 130 poker tables at the six Seminole casinos in Hollywood, Tampa, Coconut Creek, Brighton and Immokalee. Meanwhile other poker rooms throughout Florida will be allowed to stay open for 18 hours daily during the week and 24 hours on weekends and some holidays.

Also affected by the new law changes are poker tournaments. Previously held to buy-ins of $1,000 or less, tournaments will now have the sky as their limit. This change in particular is hoped to draw professional poker players and hopeful amateurs to the Sunshine State, perhaps via a new tournament on the North American Poker Tour or another similar tournament circuit. 

The new changes are expected to be a boon to poker in Florida. A number of top-flight poker pros, including brothers Robert and Michael Mizrachi and Jason Mercier, already call the state home, as do numerous other grinders and amateur poker players. With so many options close to home, more of them might start keeping their action within the state. And if the tournament circuits react to the new laws the way the government is hoping, the rest of the world could soon help to make Florida one of the biggest markets in American poker.

Real big-bet poker is coming to the Seminole Hard Rock.

The state of Florida has been an American poker hotbed for years, even though the laws for live poker there have always been a little screwy. The limits on the games have been capped for years, and even increases in the betting limits weren’t enough to allow Floridians the chance to play real big-bet cash poker. 

But thanks to a new deal Governor Charlie Crist is set to sign today with the Seminole Indian tribe, all that is set to change. Poker rooms throughout Florida will see increases in the betting limits allowed in their games, and racetrack poker rooms in Dade and Broward counties will be allowed to stay open 24 hours on the weekends and 18 hours on weekdays. By the time the unlucky Floridians in the WSOP Main Event have busted out and are ready to return home from Las Vegas, they’ll be able to play legal no-limit cash poker in their home state for the first time - the deal will go into effect July 1st.

Even though the tax rate on the casinos will drop from 50% to 35%, the state is hoping to earn some $1.3 billion in the first five years of its new 20-year deal with the Seminoles. And while the money was required to be earmarked for education in the past, the state will now be free to free to deposit its gambling tax money directly into the general fund. The new deal should be a k ickstart for poker in Florida, where it is already one of the most popular games on offer at casinos.

Tom Marchese has a bright future ahead of him.

Before this January Tom Marchese hadn’t cashed in a single live poker tournament. After a final table appearance at the EPT Grand Final High Roller Event this weekend, the young online poker player has earned more than $1.4 million in a three-month stretch that bodes well for his future.

New Jersey native Marchese began his run in Atlantic City this January with a third-place finish at the Borgata Winter Open Championship Event, good for $190,027, or more than half as much as he’d won playing online poker tournaments since he first began playing at age 20. 

Impressive as his performance was at Borgata, Marchese didn’t really turn heads until February, when he won the first stop on the North American Poker Tour, the NAPT Venetian main event. There he defeated Sam Stein in heads-up play, overcoming a nearly 2-to-1 chip deficit to grab the $827,648 first prize and stake his claim as one of the top up-and-coming young poker pros.

March saw two more successes for Marchese. First he finished in 24th place out of a field of 333 players at the WPT Bay 101 Shooting Star main event, grabbing $20,500 for his troubles. Then he turned around and made his third final table of the year, finishing in fourth place at the Wynn Poker Classic $5,000 main event to win $73,356, bringing his three-month-long career’s total earnings to just over $1.1 million.

Now, with his fourth-place finish at the EPT Grand Final High Roller Event against some of the toughest competition in the world, Tom Marchese has proven to any doubters that his earlier live poker successes were no flukes. The €263,000 (US $350,125) he won in Monte Carlo brings his career winnings to $1,461,656 - not a bad take for three months’ work. Without a doubt, Marchese will be one of the top young poker pros to keep and eye on during this year’s World Series of Poker - and beyond.

Already a WSOP bracelet winner, Vanessa Selbst is now a NAPT champ too

Playing with a home field advantage yesterday, Vanessa Selbst took control of the final table at NAPT Mohegan Sun and secured the win.

Selbst, a Yale Law School student and coach at DeucesCracked.com, entered the eight-handed final table second in chips behind tournament grinder Mike Beasley of Hollywood, Fla. The two of them would end up meeting in the final heads-up match, though Selbst had a substantial lead with 18.8 million chips to Beasley’s 2.75 million. She finished him off within 30 minutes to take the title, sending Beasley home with the biggest score of his career, a healthy $428,000.

The NAPT title marks the third tournament Vanessa Selbst has won in Connecticut, where she has lived since beginning her schooling at Yale. She took down a preliminary event at the Foxwoods World Poker FInals in 2008 for $115,000 and then repeated her feat in 2009 for another $74,224. The NAPT Mohegan Sun win is worth significantly more money at $750,000, taking her total career live tournament earnings to more than $1.67 million.

After winning her first WSOP bracelet in 2008, Selbst told PokerListings.com that she saw her poker winnings as an opportunity to put her law education to good use by working for the causes she believes rather than seeking a big paycheck. If her track record in recent years is any indication, Selbst may only need a few more years on the tournament circuit to set herself up for life and get to work on changing the world pro bono.

There's more poker yet to come at Mohegan Sun - the $25,000 High Roller Bounty Shootout begins today at noon EDT.

This planned South Philly casino may never come to pass.

Billionaire casino developer Steve Wynn, the man behind the Mirage, Treasure Island, Bellagio and Wynn casinos in Las Vegas, has decided against expanded his gambling empire to the City of Brotherly Love.

Wynn pulled out of a deal with local Philadelphia investors yesterday, taking with him the $240 million he had planned to put toward construction of the planned $600 million casino project, which would have included a substantial live poker room. "We are fascinated by the legalization of full gaming in Pennsylvania and stimulated by the opportunity that it presents for Wynn Resorts, but this particular project did not, in the end, present an opportunity that was appropriate for our company,” Wynn said in a statement.

The move came as a surprise to many, including Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter and the local investors with whom Wynn was to partner on the project. Those investors are now in danger of losing their license, which cost $50 million in addition to the nearly $65 million they paid for the 16-acre site of the proposed casino in South Philadelphia. "We are shocked and amazed," said an attorney for the investors. "We're trying to find out what is behind it and what if anything can be done about it."

The casino project has been a bumpy ride from the beginning, when the local investors teamed up with the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation of Connecticut in a plan to use its Foxwoods brand. Since being awarded the license from the state, the project has had two proposed locations and has been handed more than $260,000 in fines for a failure to provide information on its progress to the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board. 

With Steve Wynn out of the picture, the near future looks gloomy for the casino - the investors will meet with the Gaming Control Board on April 21 to argue why their license shouldn’t be revoked. However, Wynn told the board last month that he would bid for the project’s gaming license if it were revoked - so this story may not be finished just yet.

The Bike is home to a new, low buy-in tournament series with $800K guaranteed.

With the economy still limping along like a wounded buffalo these days, the tournament poker industry has begun making some adjustments. The Borgata in Atlantic City dropped the buy-in for its WPT main event last year from the customary $10,000 to $3,500 and boosted attendance to more than 1,000, while the LA Poker Classic’s four-day, $1,000,000 Guarantee event with a buy-in of just $335 earlier this year drew nearly 6,000 players. 

One casino that has jumped on board with the idea of low buy-in events during this rough economy is the Bicycle Casino in Los Angeles. Already the longtime home to the Legends of Poker and the Winnin’ o’ the Green tournament series, the Bike has now added a third: the America’s Poker Classic.

The new tournament series is obviously designed for the player with a small bankroll to get a shot at winning a big payday in a live poker tournament. The Championship Event sports the highest buy-in of all the events on the schedule - a modest $545 fee - while all the buy-ins for other events range from $60 to $275. Those small buy-ins shouldn’t mean diminutive prize pools, though - there’s more than $800,000 guaranteed across all the events.

The schedule for the 2010 America’s Poker Classic officially started yesterday, but with another 19 tournaments on the schedule, including HORSE, Chinese Poker, Mexican Poker and other events, there’s still plenty of time to play. The Bicycle is even offering online registration for the whole schedule, which you can check out here.