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How Slow is Poker News Today?

It’s one thing when some fluff piece, re-written press release makes its way around the poker press but when you keep seeing it pop up over and over again you have to wonder how damn slow is the poker news biz these days. Case in point is a press release / news article that PKR has signed an agreement making Xhilarate Poker its exclusive massage supplier at all live events in the future. Holy crap! They’ve signed an official massage supplier? Stop the presses.

Really? A massage supplier? A massage supplier that specializes in poker? Why is this news? Why is this appearing on what I normally consider reputable poker news outlets?

Actually, no. That is where his inexperience playing poker comes into play. On most poker sites a first time deposit bonus is either released incrementally as you hit certain milestones (like on Full Tilt Poker) or you have to complete the entire bonus to receive any part of it. Admittedly this is different than for online casinos which often comp you the money up front and then require that you give them so much turnover before any of it will be released to you. In fact, some poker sites even use a similar strategy to get low roller customers to come back to the site. They’ll deposit X dollars into your account and then you just have to play Y number of hands in order to release the money for withdrawal.

But the standard in the online poker industry, especially for first time deposit bonuses, is for the player to either earn off the matching portion incrementally or to completely earn it off before being released. The fact that the “Staff Editor” of a major gaming news site wouldn’t know that is somewhat scary. But even worse is that when he’s later informed that this is all in the terms and conditions when he signed up instead of investigating whether this is a fundamental difference between casino and poker offerings (which it is – and I’ll tell you why in a moment) he repeatedly calls Full Tilt “deceptive” and “deceiving.”

Now, Mr. Rutherford, should you read this, allow me to school you on why poker rooms and casinos offer different types of bonuses. When you play casino games you play against the house. That means if you lose your entire stake the casino still wins. Let’s look at the math:

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