Dear Reader,

Back in the saddle again -- back from my "end-of-the-summer" break. And yes my in-box is a mess, but I'm hammering away at it. Gimmee a few more days and everything will be up to snuff. Til then, scroll down and read on...

Decisively yours,

Bryan

Royal Vegas offers its free roll

Another online big budget, online poker freeroll tournament was announced this week by Royal Vegas Poker Room, which claims the "....poker world's first freeroll tournament to offer cash prizes totaling $100,000." There's no entry fee required - and all players have to do to win is play.

While tournaments with prize pools of $100,000 are rather commonplace these days, prize money is always contributed by the competitors, along with a fee that goes to the Internet site or land-based casino that's hosting the event. But there's a big difference here: all of the money in this tournament -- except for five-dollar rebuys during the first hour of play and a five-dollar add-on -- will be contributed by the host site, Royal Vegas Poker, a leading Internet poker site.

The action will take place Saturday night, December 18, 2004, at 8:00 PM EST. The game is no-limit Texas hold 'em, and entry may be gained by meeting any one of the following requirements:

-- Become a first-time Royal Vegas Poker account holder by registering an account between August 1st and December 14th 2004. You can do this at http://www.royalvegaspoker.com. There's no purchase required.

-- If you're a current Royal Vegas Poker customer, you can qualify by playing at least 2,500 raked hands between August 1st and December 14th.

-- You can also qualify if you play at least 1,000 raked hands in any one of the following calendar months: August, September, October, November or December 2004.

-- Fulfill any of the Royal Vegas Poker "special promotion" entry requirements.

Each player will begin the tournament with $1,000 in chips. Only one entry per account is permitted, and only valid Royal Vegas Poker account holders, who have met at least one of the qualification requirements, are eligible to play in the tournament. Entries are not transferable and raked hand requirements are only met on tables with limits of $0.25/$0.50 and above.

Bonusing blues...just seem to get worse, with daily issues arising between players and online casinos, and some none too savoury practices. One that caught our eye this week involved sending players promo offer emails that contained some, but not all the conditions. For example the Kiss and Giant Vegas casinos email we were shown did not contain the important condition that there was a maximum payout beyond which winners would not be paid. And there was no link to the T&Cs on site where the condition appeared none too prominently. The cut-off was applied to those players who were lucky enough to win over the max, alienating more customers at a time when acquisition costs are reaching very high levels. Surely it is not too much to ask that promo emails contain a clear link to the site T&Cs and the caveat that players are expected to familiarise themselves with these before accepting the promo? Despite admitting that their promo email had been "careless" Kiss management were still withholding full payment as we went to press. The issue has made them few friends.

Delano demise....another example of how NOT to close down an online casino occurred this week when RTG-powered Delano casino went down without a word of explanation to its players. The url at first routed to RTG, who ignored requests for comment and then had everyone scratching their heads when it re-routed to Winward Casino, a DCEG-Parley powered operation that has been around for some time. Understandably, those players owed money by Delano wanted to know what was happening, and fortunately the president of Winward, Jon Ramsay broke the Delano and RTG silence to tell them. It appears that Delano was provided with customer services and hosting in a commercial deal with Winward. For undisclosed reasons, Delano was unable to continue in business and Winward agreed to look after the owed players, whom it would transfer across to its books - not a bad deal with acquisition costs running at around $500 or head or more these days. Kudos to Winward and nothing at all to RTG and Delano management for their silence. Readers may recall that Delano was one of the casinos involved in the record-win Pirate of the Caribbean dispute last year.

Internet 1x2 hassles? Internet1x2, which is located in Belize, has reportedly had its doors boarded up and has been evicted from the business park, it was reported in Sports911 this week. It is rumoured that tens of thousands of dollars are owed to various people in Belize. Yahoops was listed in the Blacklist at Majorwager over 2 years ago.

News courtesy of Infopowa news service. 

More Casinomeister news here.