While all eyes are on the World Series of Poker the online poker world continues to trudge on, and not all of the news is good, as two sites have basically closed up shop, but on the flipside another poker room launched a Rush Poker type game and PokerStars announced the MicroMillions II tournament series.

Microgaming terminates 5050 Poker

The saga that has been Microgaming vs. one of their skins, 5050 Poker, seems to have come to a head in the recent days as Microgaming has announced it has terminated its contract with 5050 Poker. 5050 Poker was first suspended from the network for not adhering to the network’s policies, which set off a war of words and accusations between the two. Finally on June 26th Microgaming announced it would be ending its affiliation with 5050 Poker:

“The Microgaming Poker Network regrets to announce that it has terminated its contract with 5050Poker Ltd, with immediate effect.

“The decision was taken after giving 5050Poker Ltd over a week to redress a material breach of their contract, being the non-payment of monies owed to cure their overdrawn network clearing account.

“Although 5050Poker Limited was given the opportunity to rectify the breach so that the suspension could be lifted, they have failed to respond. As such the Microgaming Poker Network had no choice but to terminate the contract.”

There is no resolution yet as to player deposits on the site.

Hollywood Poker closes doors, transfers players to RedBet

Another online poker room, Hollywood Poker, is finding the road after Black Friday to hard to travel and has decided to close its doors. Unlike the situation with 5050 Poker, Hollywood Poker players will simply be transferred to RedBet Poker, another poker room on the OnGame Network.

Bet365 launches Sprint Poker

Another poker room has decided to get in on the Rush Poker copycatting, Bet365. Bet365 is part of the iPoker Network but it seems the site is the only iPoker room offering Sprint Poker (the name they have chosen for their Rush Poker inspired poker game).

Bet365 joins other sites like PokerStars (ZOOM Poker), Full Tilt Poker (Rush Poker), Microgaming (Blaze Poker), and Relax Gaming (Fast Poker) as sites offering the fast paced game.

According to Managing Director of Gaming at Bet365, Steve Ibberson, the decision was made to get out ahead of their rivals “We’re excited by the launch of Sprint and we think that our players will be too.” Adding, “We want to provide the latest innovations so it’s great to be first into the market with Sprint: it keeps us ahead of the competition. With this format, even if you’ve got the same amount of time to play, you can play more hands and make more decisions; so it’s more intense than normal poker.”

Tags: Accusations, Bet365, Black Friday, Flipside, iPoker Network, Material Breach, microgaming, Monies, Ongame Network, Online Poker, Poker Game, Poker Network, Poker Online, poker players, Poker Room, Poker World, Trudge, Type Game, War Of Words, World Series of Poker

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 1st, 2012 at 7:20 am 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.