There is always a few poker stories that spend most of their short lifetimes on social media or in the gossip stages, and in this column I’ll cover two such stories; one from last week and one from today.

PokerStars casino rumors prove to be unfounded

One of the rumors circulating the Internet before the long Labor Day Weekend was that PokerStars was poised to enter the online casino industry in Europe according to an article first published on CalvinAyre.com by Steven Stadbrooke. According to the article a questionnaire PokerStars circulated asking their users about their gambling and online gambling inclinations pointed to an interest by PokerStars to jump into the casino market. By Tuesday, PokerStars had responded to the speculation, telling PokerFuse.com that it had no plans to enter the market at this time.

PokerStars Head of Corporate Communications, Eric Hollreiser, told PokerFuse.com that while PokerStars is “always open to new business opportunities that could strengthen our offerings to players” they [PokerStars] “regularly survey [their] customers on a wide array of subjects to better understand their attitudes and activities.”

Apparently the survey Stadbrooke was speaking of was from 2011, and new surveys PokerStars is sending to players do not include the same line of questions.

Joe Stapleton’s Drunk Dials

On Thursday we learned that poker commentator Joe Stapleton should have his phone confiscated when he’s drinking, as he made three separate phone calls after a hard night of partying, The first two instances of Joe Stapleton’s drunk dialing exploits at least make some sense (the messages are hilarious in that uncomfortably awkward way, but they are at least understandable) but the final call of the drunken trio that he made is a little harder to explain.

Apparently the first call went to Liv Boeree, and was played on the WCOOP Radio, where “Stapes” told Boeree, “I know I don’t have to tell you this, but you’re the bomb, you’re like so cool, you’re like the cool rocker chick,” adding that Boeree’s boyfriend Kevin MacPhee is cool and that. “He’s tall and good looking and if that’s the kind of thing that you’re into…”

Apparently after Boeree another poker beauty, Fatima Moreira de Melo also received a Stapleton call, but it was the final call that took the cake; a call to poker Hall of Famer Barry Greenstein, which Stapleton posted on his Facebook page. Towards the tail-end of the message (which includes what sounds like vomiting) Stapleton even tells Greenstein he is the inspiration for “Stapes” growing his own beard!

The WPT Magazine has more on this: http://www.wptmag.com/news.php?articleID=609

Or you can check out Stapelton’s voice recording to Greenstein here: http://soundcloud.com/joe-stapleton-1/stapes-drunk-dials-poker

Tags: Boeree, Casino Industry, Casino Market, Commentator, Corporate Communications, Drunk Dials, Exploits, Final Call, Inclinations, Instances, Labor Day, Labor Day Weekend, Lifetimes, New Business Opportunities, Online Casino, Online Gambling, PokerStars, Questionnaire, Speculation, Stapleton

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 6th, 2012 at 3:49 pm and is filed under Poker News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.