+1

It's not even a Black Friday deal. The DOJ and Ford nailed the coffin for online play, Life is rigged.

I missed it when Pokerfuse posted about it the other day, but Party went live in Ontario this morning. They're going to be sharing a player pool w/ BetMGM Ontario.

Looks like players will have access to Party's classic cashback program (up to 40% weekly cashback + 10% "direct bonus" promo beginning in June) AND cash game rake seems like it's going to be identical to .com (that or they just haven't updated the site, yet, however Party rake was already a bit higher likely due to their generous rewards system)

PartyPoker's new fenced in site for Ontario was implemented today. My first impressions:

1) Player pool is 131 - 165 Tables

2) I cannot play due to an unverified location. But I thought I had to download the Ontario client?

3) My sports bets disappeared

4) Customer Service has me on hold for an hour now

Absolutely brutal

I had hundreds of $ in Sports Freebets in Futures (NBA/NHL/MLB Playoffs)

These have been 100% cancelled and will not be returned or refunded in any way.

Are you hardwired in? I had this issue with 888 where they couldn't verify me unless I had a WiFi adapter so I had to buy one of those

Yes but customer support states I can connect via LAN. However, the software states wifi.

Never mind, customer support has rescinded this statement.

Do they have monkeys working for them?

Reading some of these posts has made me even less optimistic about the future of online poker in Ontario.

Is traffic on these sites terrible?

Yeah. You can still connect via LAN but you also need a WiFi adapter for them to check your location. It's dumb, I know

The main reason it will suck is that the traffic will be spread THIN across GG/888/Stars/Party. Most fun players stick to one site at a time.

I highly doubt there will be any significant fast fold style pools.

The regular table cash traffic on 888 right now is okay at 50nl.

I think the area least affected will be MTT's on popular days like Saturday/Sunday, while obviously still taking a massive hit in guarentees, they're going to remain profitable for sure.

Overall, I despise the government entirely for this awful decision.

Just logged into betmgm for the first time… 240 players online. 4 active mtts, no others with anyone registering.

A lot of very unrealistic expectations being expressed in here so far IMO

I'm cautiously optimistic for the wsop.ca and PS.on.ca launches given we're already seeing upwards of 200-250 players online on 888 and Party, sites that aren't exactly contending w/ PS and GG traffic-wise

The good thing no ones talked about (probably because its very stupid and -ev to talk about) is all these sites have been pumping guarantees higher then they can realistically get and if say 888 poker lowers them everyone will play on bet mgm so these sites are willing to sacrifice alot of money for long term success to try to stay relevant and tap into the ontario market. 888 for example had a huge percentage of its players from ontario so they have alot to lose. When stars and gg enter the market its gonna be crazy at first lots of money to be made. Thats short term tho longterm its more grim. Looks like im going to be an mtt grinder for the first time in like 8 years

4-10pm they popping off your not going to see offfpeak traffic

also I noticed partypoker gives no deposit bonus for mtts only cash games... like wtf? I already cleared 100$ just from mtts on 888

Just adjust to where and what the fish play. having 4+ competitors in Ontario only is a very very good thing for winning regulars. We can go where the fish go we don't mind we can go site to site its the same amount of fish just more competition between sites which means more profit for us

If pokerstars and wsop can get to the point of having somewhere in the range of 5000+ players online most times of day, that would be OK I guess. I just like having options, if I want to piss away a few bucks while on a call playing micro stakes cash but then jump into a $100 MTT at a random time I want to be able to do that lol.

EWWW all we have is Party and 888?

Yeah won't be playing there the software sucks.

If you want my fish monies I'll see you when GG or Stars gets approved.

Having not played seriously in many years, the regulated market has brought me back to play for fun out of curiosity. I think people here are underestimating the value of a regulated market in the long-term. There is already a ring-fenced Portugal-Spain-France market. The potential here as more U.S. States add regulated online poker, that we could eventually have a legal market between Canada and the U.S. at a good scale. That would be great for the games. It also means protection for consumers and legitimacy for online poker over the long run, less random micro skins popping up and robbing everyone blind. It might take 10 years to get there, but you might actually see another poker boom when we do. Oh and it can't be ignored that you will probably be playing less bots online with certain countries removed from the player pool . That said, seriously understand it sucks for certain grinder pros in the short-term.

Twice now I've been booted from PartyPoker mid-session because their wifi detection method suddenly can't figure out I'm in Ontario. Super annoying.

Haven't run into this yet, definitely would piss me off.

I never play free rolls but 888 had a 10,000 freeroll for Ontario players. They got around 500 players so it was not bad value ($20 per player). I know it was Easter but that should give some idea as to the traffic.

I played a highroller with 11k overlay soooo ya no money in poker everyone solid. Infact I have probably played in mtts and satelites worth150k+ of overlay already so that would explain why im up 11k since april 4th as a guy whos not played a sng or mtt since 2013.

But keep complaining about there being no (insert your preferred game variant)bad software and how hard it is to login. figure it out sometimes I wonder if winning players even come to this forum anymore. Its a smaller field you gotta be more flexible

No ones playing cash because there is literally free money in the mtts right now its two sites competing against each other. using guarantees to try to attract players Wait till there is 4+

lol fair enough

I've yet to hear anything from PS in regards to playing in Ontario. I'm still able to log onto the global client and join tables (tested with micro stakes), which I find strange. Are we able to continue playing until further notice? I figured we'd be unable to reg anything on the 4th. Same goes with GG...

Currently PS is in the process of getting a license to operate in Ontario and until then we are able to play in the Global pool.

A part of me hopes that there is some loophole that will allow these operators to allow us into global pools. It's so much better. Way more games, way more hands.