This Thursday (May 8th) the hunt is on for the 888.com World Poker Crown. Ten lucky players will get a chance to win the crown at the Perlada Castle in Barcelona, Spain after battling more than 2200 players to become a finalist in the $3 million guaranteed event. Prize amounts range from $1 million (1st place) to $22,500 (10th place) and will be 888.com’s biggest poker event to date.

The top ten include Jack Hinchey (Canada), Michael Lawson (Canada), Bart Wetsteijn (Netherlands), Piotr Skiba (Poland), Pini Roberto (Italy), Mark Rossler (Germany), Mark Castonguay (Canada), Arjan van Bavel (Netherlands), Michael Leah (Canada) and Gijsbert van Doesburg (Netherlands).

The event is also being broadcast live at http://www.worldpokercrown.com/. Pacific Poker members will have a chance to play in a special restricted tournament during the live webcast to win one of four World Series of Poker packages worth $17,000 each by placing their bet on who will win prior to the start of the tournament. The live web cast will begin when there are 8 players remaining (about 14:30 BST).

With millions of member’s world wide, 888.com offers a range of games including casino, bingo, sports and poker rooms. Founded in 1997, 888.com has been named Best Online Casino twice, Best Online Operator of the Year at the eGaming Awards, Best Online Casino at the Inside Edge Awards and Best Online Casino at the UK Gambling Awards.

Only about a week ago, a 30-year old man named Mikkel O. from Denmark decided to register with Windows Casino, fill up his account with 110 euros and begin playing. As he moved from slot machine to slot machine, they seemed to do just what he dreamed they would, as the Danish raked in just over 300,000 euros!

He began playing on Desert Treasures, an ancient Egypt themed game where he hit his first jackpot of 30,000 euros. Then he moved onto Bonus Bears, raking in another 50,000 euros. And on he went, to several other slot machines in search of his next win, finding it in Football Rules, winning another 77,500 euros. And he didn’t stop there as his total kept climbing to a total of 323,578 euros in a single day!

Casino manager, Grey Gomez commented on the win and Windows Casino by saying, “The Casino has not seen a win like this for a long time. The win is one of the biggest wins at the Casino and one that will be remembered by it for a long time.”

“Our casino makes it a point to make it comfortable for new players to play on it. We also offer some of the best welcome bonuses in this space.”

The wins for Windows Casino don’t stop there. The online casino dished out several large jackpot amounts to other players from $5,700 to €100,000.00 on a wide range of available slots! Why not try your luck!

Online casino PokerStars.com is giving back in two great ways over the next few days. They are first, giving away trips to the annual Life Ball, an annual charity even that raises money for AIDS research and second, are raising money for Life Ball through donations, freeroll events, and a Hold’em tournament.

PokerStars.com will be giving away several Life Ball prize packages over the weekend which includes flight for two to Vienna, 2-nights in a luxury hotel, tickets to the Ball and $250 in spending money. PokerStars.com will also award any player making a direct donation of 1$ or more to Life Ball an entry into a $2,000 freeroll, to take place on Sunday. And finally, there will be a $20 no-limit Hold’em tournament on Sunday. Half of the money will go to charity with PokerStars.com matching any amount raised and has promised they will double the final figure if more than 500 players enter. Players in each of these tournaments have a chance to win the Life Ball prize package.

The 2008 Life Ball will take place in Austria, has been running since 1993 and is regularly attended by celebs and philanthropists alike. Last year, they even raised 2 million dollars for AIDS patients and research funding. So why not make your gambling money count for something this weekend! Go try your luck at PokerStars.com!

The chance to win one of 2 great trip giveaways is up for grabs during the month of May from online casino, IntertopsCasino.com. One player from Europe and one player from the U.S. will be awarded trips to Monaco and Las Vegas (respectively).

Every player that takes part in online play during the month of May will be entered to win the great trips, both valued at $10,000 each. The European winner will be flown first class to Monaco while the U.S. winner will receive the same to Las Vegas, Nevada. Both packages include round trip flight, show tickets, chips and spending money. The U.S. winner will stay in a suite at the luxurious Bellagio hotel while the European winner will receive the equivalent in Monaco.

“We’re very proud of the ten years of trust that we have with players around the world,” said Michl Posch of IntertopsCasino.com. We thought birthday parties in the casino capitals of the world was a good way to celebrate.”

The contest is part of IntertopsCasino.coms’ 10th anniversary celebration. The Antigua/Kahnawake-licensed site will also be adding five new games next week – HoldEm High, Sure Win, Alley Cats, Quest for Beer and the Chashapillar slot as well as extend its extremely popular Trivia 500 promotion throughout May.

There’s a chance for everyone to win at IntertopsCasino.com!

This past weekend, at the Bellagio hotel in Las Vegas, the WPT ladies league title was won by political consultant, Nancy Todd Tyner.

Todd Tyner is a relative newcomer to the game compared to her fellow competitors. She is a WPT Boot Camp graduate and only started playing poker 18 months ago.

Off the table, Tyner Todd has an impressive 98% success rate as a political consultant (with most of her candidates being the underdog) and has been a part of 196 political campaigns in six different countries.

She said drawing on her background helped her move successfully into the poker world. She won her seat to in the WPT event by winning a ladies-only satellite at the Commerce Casino in Los Angeles and successfully made it to the final round at the WPT ladies event eventually competing in a heads-up battle with runner-up Vanessa Selbst – regarded as one of the worlds’ best women in poker. Tyner Todd however was able to keep a cool-head during the aggressive and at times overwhelming final round and played like a pro.

“I’m very proud to have been able to hold my own at the table,” she said. “I’ve been a fighter all my life!”

The final results saw Tyner Todd win $68,640, Selbst taking $40,815 and third place finisher, Cindy Kerslake, taking $20,405.

Another lucky player has hit it big in the online casino world. The UK-based online gambling group, SportingBet, announced that a Greek online player has won the largest payout in its history.

The lucky winner, K Vasileiadis, hit the jackpot on SportingBet.com’s Super Seven progressive slot playing in the online Paradise Casino and will take home a total of 1.47 million dollars!

A spokesperson for SportingBet said “This is a huge win and we are delighted for Mr. Vasileiadis. He is a loyal customer and, despite the loss for SportingBet, we are delighted to show how our customers can be true winners. I am sure that Mr. Vasileiadis will enjoy spending the money and we hope that the experience of this win will stay with him for a long time.’

SportingBet is quickly becoming an award-winning gaming destination as it continually upgrades products and puts its customers first.

‘We are determined that the journey for the customers from depositing to winning provides them with the ultimate gaming experience,’ said the spokesperson.

With over four million registered customers it is becoming quite a popular site within the online casino world and offers betting and gaming products including poker, sports betting and traditional casino games like slots, roulette and backgammon.

Cantor Fitzgerald made history as it became the first financial company to launch an online casino. Following the success of Cantor Gaming’s white label B2B offering is their new site CatorCasino.com which was launched through Cantor Gaming.

The blue-chip financial company offers a great variety of old and new casino games and is giving players a low house edge, 15% cash back and lists paying players quickly as a high priority.

Manu Gambhir, Managing Director of Cantor Gaming, said: “As a company that has always been associated with innovation and has had a deep experience in operating mission-critical systems that can process tremendous volumes of transactions, stepping into online gaming is a logical step for Cantor. It’s not about being the biggest; it’s about being the best. We’re confident that our customers will find the new advanced betting games as well as our traditional casino games perfect for their needs and tastes.”

CantorCasino.com offers all the classic casino games from baccarat to blackjack to slots but has also added new and innovative games such as SlatJack, Xtra Odds Baccarat and even new ways to bet on stock for as little as £1. Why not head on over and try out a few of the new offerings!

Everywhere you surf these days, online casinos are offering lots of different ways to win a host of trips to world poker tour events around the world. The next seat up for grabs is for the Asian Poker Tour from the innovative 3D online poker room PKR.

The hard to come by seats are worth $5,000 to the APT, running from May 27th to June 1st and will take place in Manila, Philippines at the Dusit Thani Manila Hotel.

If you’ve never visited PKR.com you’re in for a treat. It’s the world’s most advanced online poker room and offers amazing 3D graphics, fully customisable characters, and unique ‘Emote control’ technology. This is most likely enough to intrigue you but add the seat giveaway and you’ve got to be crazy not to head over and start playing!

Players can enter for as little as $2.20 in the stage MTTs where players will compete in progressively higher-stakes tournaments, culminating in the grand finale on May 12th.

PKR manager Neil Wright said: ‘The APT is a new and unique event. It showcases the global popularity and growth of poker. We are looking forward to seeing PKR players get a shot at a fantastic all round experience and a slice of the guaranteed $1 million.’

The Manila portion of the APT will be the largest poker event to take place in Asia with 400 players expected to compete and with at least three coming from PKR.

Online casino PokerStars.com has launched their new video website, PokerStars.tv. The site has been compared to the likes of YouTube and features a video tutorial by Canadian professional poker player, Dan Negreanu.

The new website is a great way for members to access video for everything ‘Poker’ from live webcasts of major events to a great range of poker footage (such as the European Poker Tour). The site contains several types and ways to view video content including live-play video, instructional comments, interviews and behind the scenes action. Users of the site will have the ability to email links to other users, embed videos on their websites and personalize their pages by creating video ‘channels’ and selecting preferences.

The site has over 500 video’s available with a searchable database with videos categorized by player, even or type of hand. The site also offers channels dedicated to each team PokerStars.com professional player. Other entertaining functions include Online Action, Sweat the Hand and Fun Stuff.

The site mainly offers videos in English but will also offer alternating live feeds from different tournaments in six languages, English, German, Dutch, French, Italian and Spanish making their site accessible to many around the world!

It’s every poker enthusiasts dream to qualify one of the many poker tour events around the world. While a great number of poker players attempt to win a coveted seat online for events like the European Poker or World Poker Tours, only a select few actually manage to win themselves a seat. This was the case for Glenn Chorny, a business student from Timmins, Ontario who qualified online at PokerStars.com by playing in their steps satellites. Chorny beat out 841 other players from around the world at the fourth annual EPT Grand Final (sponsored by InterCasino) and managed to win himself a total of $3,198,500!

This wasn’t the first win for Chorny, who previously won a World Poker open pot-limit Omaha event and also finished 13th in the PokerStars.com EPT Caribbean Adventure.

Chorney went head to head for 14 hours with runner up Denes Kalo from Hungary who ended up taking a $1,864,116 cut of the pot. Fellow Canuck, Maxime Villemure finished third and took home $1,130,487.

The European Poker Tour took place in the gorgeous Monte Carlo Bay Hotel and Casino Resort and was reported to be one of the best EPT events.