2011 March 19 Poker News, Events and Happenings

Video poker may find its way into prominence around Illinois if one man has his way. The head of the Chamber of Commerce for Chicago is looking to poker to pay for construction in the area. Jerry Roper imagines that hit could raise the $31 billion to cover the cost of current construction projects. Poker players would fund the construction to improve the area from doing what love to do - playing poker games. Roper is also in favor of a downtown Chicago casino for much the same reason. Others seek non gambling means to raise the money, such as an increase on cigarette tax.

The man who has been the voice of the WPT for years will be at the TV table of one of the WPT events for the first time ever. Mike Sexton managed to final table at the Bay 101 Shooting Star event. The poker pros at the table will have their work cut out for them - Sexton is not called the Ambassador of Poker for no reason. While Sexton won’t have an easy time of it during the poker game as he is starting as the lowest chip stack, he is an experienced poker pro and has a good shot at bringing home a win.

Ashley Mitchell, 29, will now spend the next two years of his life in prison. The computer hacker stole £7.4million worth of online gambling chips. The target was  the Zynga Corporation, the American company behind many popular Facebook games, including a poker game. Poker players would get chips for signing up and could win chips as they played. Mitchell hacked the computers and stole the chips and then created online accounts to sell them, many on Facebook itself. He stole 400 billion chips and sold them for a fraction of their worth, making about £53,000.