Most of the time, betting on poker is a suckers bet since the vigorish is so high. Whenever there is a future bet like this one, almost always the bookies make the odds to short to be able to bet on anyone.

The fish, of course, want to bet on Phil Ivey. While he is an amazing player, he also has one of the smaller starting stacks. He has the added advantage that people will probably play worse against him. Some may play too scared and will fold too easily. Others may do the opposite and gamble too much. Pinnacle has Ivey to win at +601 (you can lay -745 to bet against him). I’d be tempted to play the ‘no’ here.

Joe Cada may be a good ‘yes’ bet at +1300. He is fifth in chips and is a solid player. As you can see compared to Ivey, you make over double betting on Cada, and the kid has more chips! He is also an all-around good player.

Some of the other bets seem to be about right. For example, chipleader Darvin Moon is +334 on yes and -386 on no. While some people will say the chipleader going into the final table never seems to win, you are still getting better than 3:1 with Moon. Also, if I am not mistaken, Chris Moneymaker was the chipleader going into the final table, and we all remember what happened there.

Las Vegas - this is always a good destination for the long time gambler. Not only are you sourrounded by a variety of resorts all calmoring for your attention, you have access to a large selection of games and shows. No good games at the Bellagio? Maybe try checking at Caesears. Nothing good at Caesars? Maybe head on down to treasure island. More games = higher chance of picking a better game = more $$. Plus, it’s Vegas. One of these tables has a drunk guy who really doesn’t care how much money he’s losing!

Of course, Vegas can get boring if that’s all you go to. While the games might be good during the weekend, it can kind of suck during the weekdays as it gets filled with regulars.

Atlantic City - If you’re on the East Coast and shorter on budget, AC might not be a bad choice. It’s kind of the “East Coast” Vegas and pretty much whatever you’d expect poker wise in Vegas, you can expect in AC - except at lower stakes. Think of it as a smaller version of Vegas for East Coast people.

Los Angeles - If you’re sick of gambling holes like Vegas and AC, you might want to take a swing by Hollywood. After all, it’s good to be in a place full of rich people. Poker’s more or less the same game whether you’re playing for $1 or $1,000,000, so why not find some people who treats a million like a dollar?

Not only will you find some soft games, you’ll get to spend some time checking out various point of view. Not bad even for a family vacation!

San Jose - Along the lines of looking for rich people, what better place than Silicon Valley, the home of successful startups. Aside from the very soft limit games, you can enjoy the perfect weather. Take a nice walk by the beach when you’ve gotten a bad beat - what could be more relaxing?

Party Poker has now countered with their own ‘Supernova’ like program, the Palladium Lounge. If you make the Palladium Lounge elite, they will even pay for a WSOP Main Event package, which seems to be worth about $20k. This includes:

The luxury WSOP^® package includes:

• $10,000 buy in for WSOP^® Main Event
• The use of a luxury apartment for two weeks during the WSOP^®
• $2000 in casino chips on arrival
• $3,000 spending money
• An exclusive Las Vegas experience where we’ll take you to VIP events, members-only clubs and on adventure tours

Man, to get all of that, you must pay a ******** amount of rake!  You need 300,000 Party Points to get this, not a small task!

1. The main one that caught my eye was the addition of a $40,000 no-limit hold’em event. This will be the first main WSOP event (after the casino employees $500 event). This will be the largest no-limit hold’em tournament played this year in terms of buy-in. It should be interesting to see how many players caugh up the money for it. I suppose it all matters how much the online poker sites run satellites to it.

2. The rebuy event is essentially dead. They replaced it with a ‘triple chance’ event where people essentially get tokens to get 2 additional starting stacks. They can use this immedietly or when they go busto. No more craziness and Negreanu making 20+ rebuys though.

3. They added a few more “World Championship $10k” events in games that most people don’t care about, like limit hold’em and 2-7 lowball.

All in all, I give two thumbs up to the $40k event and one thumbs down to changing the rebuy event. So one thumb up total

Ease of Competition

The main reason to play at the non-US sites is that the games are easier. A higher percentage of Americans are sharks than are Europeans. This is because it is more difficult for Americans to deposit and withdraw, so only the faithful continue to play. Also, Americans have been playing poker longer. The fish have been weeded out and only the sharks remain.

Less Scandals

Most likely this won’t be a problem with Full Tilt or PokerStars, but US sites have been plagued by scandals. The most well-known is the cheating scandal that happened at UB/Absolute. One person had a ’superuser’ account and was able to see everyone else’s hole cards. He won $20 million cheating this way. Something like this is less likely to happen at a European site since many of these sites are publicly traded companies and have more media attention. In contrast, the US-facing outfits are all very closed-off.

Also, with the US sites, there is always the fear that they may be shut down by the US government. While unlikely, it could happen. The most clear case is BetonSports, which was a sports betting outfit that took US bets. When their management was arrested and BOS shut down, no one got paid.

If your goal truly is to make money, then your focus needs to be on playing a gambling game that you can win at in the long-term, which generally means your focus should be on poker. Some can win by betting sports as well, but poker is the only game people can generally beat in the long-term.

If you are more focused on having fun, then you should mainly play the game that is fun for you. However, if you want to still have a decent chance at winning, you should focus on a game with a low house edge. That way you may have an increased chance of walking away a winner.

If you are very concerned about the raw amount of money you may lose in a game, then your focus should be on the variance/swings in a game. It is more of a concern then to play a game where you can bet a little. Even if the house edge is 20%, if youa re just betting  €.50 at a time, then you won’t lose that much money. In this case, your expected value loss is  €.10 a bet, though the important thing for you is that the most you can lose is €.50 a bet.

Put it this way, suppose one game has a 20% edge and the other has a .2% edge. In the 20% edge, by betting €.50 a bet, you lose €.10 of expected value but in absolute terms, will lose a maximum of €.50. In a game with a .2% edge, you can get €50 of action for the same expected value loss. However, in most cases, you will win or lose €50. In the €50 case, you just have a much more likely chance of winning. In the €.50 case, you have a much smaller chance of winning anything at all, but the amount you will lose will be small no matter what.

So if your gambling goal is to win money long-term, play poker. If you want to have a lot of action and don’ t mind the swings, find games with low house edges or potentially beatable games. If you are just afraid of losing much money no matter what, just bet a small amount and don’t worry about the house edge.