POKER IN PLAY
From Statehouses to Showdowns
By Sean Chaffin
Online poker made some news in January, with one state betting on the legalization bandwagon and a major cheating episode exposed. The poker industry also saw some major events in January including the PokerGO Tour crowning the player of the year and the winner of the tour’s marquee event. An unlikely winner also surfaced in Mississippi that proved poker is a game for anyone, no matter the age.
Online Gaming, Poker Legalized In Maine
Online sports betting has expanded rapidly since the Supreme Court overturned the virtual ban on betting outside Nevada in 2018. However, online casino gaming and poker have lagged behind. The industry did see another state legalize iGaming in December with Maine joining Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Michigan, Delaware, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and West Virginia. Nevada also allows for online poker.
After waiting on a decision for months, Maine Gov. Janet Mills (D) allowed an online gaming bill to become law without her signature. The law legalizes the industry, including poker, through the state’s four federally recognized tribes, which already have exclusive rights to mobile sports betting.
“This fall, I met with the five elected chiefs of the Wabanaki Nations, who each spoke passionately about the importance of this bill in offering life-changing revenue for tribal communities, as well as providing a form of economic sovereignty for their Nations,” Mills noted in a statement. “I considered this bill carefully, and while I have concerns about the impacts of gambling on public health, I believe that this new form of gambling should be regulated, and I am confident that Maine’s Gambling Control Unit will develop responsible rules and standards to hold providers of this new form of gambling accountable while ensuring that Maine’s tribes benefit from its operations.”
With a population of just 1.4 million people, Maine would need to join the Multi-State Internet Gaming Agreement (MSIGA) shared liquidity market to be part of larger prize and player pools. The MSIGA currently includes Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Michigan, Delaware, and West Virginia.
Legislators in other states have also recently considered legalizing online gaming and poker. That includes recent moves by lawmakers in Virginia and New York.
Poker Bot Farm Revealed
Concerns about cheating have been a major concern in online poker for decades. In January, a video of a poker bot farm allegedly running on offshore sites Ignition Casino and Bovada was revealed on social media. Bots are computer programs that play and mimic real-life players. They are used to win money from other players. The bots can play 24/7 and have become a scourge in the industry, cheating players out of millions of dollars over time.
Poker pro Martin Zamani posted the video on Twitter/X and numerous screens can be seen with bots allegedly playing one or two tables on Ignition. No players are seated at the tables and the computers appear to be playing by themselves. Zamani alleged that the platforms have been negligent in trying to weed out these types of cheating schemes. He doesn’t believe this type of cheating is occurring at other regulated sites like seen in legalized U.S. states. These platforms often make use of technology to fight bots.
“They’ve known about it for ages and done nothing,” he posted. “It’s high stakes and this isn’t the entire operation either, and they just don’t care. Enough is enough of this shit. I don’t think this is happening on other major sites either.”
Ignition Casino told Card Player magazine that the video was from 2022 and any accounts involved with the scheme had been suspended.
“The video in question is outdated, dating back to 2022,” company officials said. “All accounts shown, along with associated accounts uncovered during review, have already been terminated. Customer security and fair play are central to Ignition Casino’s mission and values. We actively monitor the network as well as our products and respond quickly when issues are identified.”
Pokerbos made news in 2024 when a large operation was revealed in Siberia. Bloomberg reported that the group is actually known as Bot Farm Corporation and began as a collective of college poker players. That eventually turned into a high-tech cheating operation.
“In only a few years, they’d managed to substitute the human talent in their operation with an alternative that didn’t need to eat or sleep; that could connect automatically to a platform with minimal supervision by the founders and their friends; and that could sift through millions of potential scenarios to find the best move from a 3- terabyte database of past games, right down to exploiting a given opponent’s tendencies based on their record of play,” the news outlet reported.
Chad Eveslage Wins PGT $1 Million Championship
The 2025 PokerGO Tour (PGT) season wrapped up in early January with Alex Foxen crowned player of the year. The poker pro, originally from New York, has $54.3 million in live tournament winnings and that included winning five events in the PokerGO Studio in Las Vegas in 2025.
Additionally, Florida’s Chad Eveslage won the season-ending PGT $1 Million Championship. He topped a 54-entry field to win first-place money of $500,000 and the tour’s most prestigious title. Eveslage qualified for the championship with 1,423 PGT points and methodically worked his way through the field. After Michael Wang was eliminated in third place, Eveslage entered heads-up play against Andrew Lichtenberger with better than a 4-to-1 chip lead. Here’s a look at the final results.
- Chad Eveslage – $500,000
- Andrew Lichtenberger – $200,000
- Michael Wang – $120,000
- Daniel Negreanu – $80,000
- Aaron Kupin – $60,000
- John Riordan – $40,000
Eveslage’s 2025 season was highlighted by his win in the Super High Roller Bowl Mixed Games for $1.2 million, along with multiple deep runs in PGT-qualifying events throughout the year. With the 2025 season officially complete, the PGT now shifts to 2026. This marks the tour’s sixth season, beginning in January with the PGT Kickoff series.
Turning Stone Hosts WSOP Circuit for Fifth Straight Year
Turning Stone Resort Casino is once again stepping into the poker spotlight as New York’s only host of the World Series of Poker Circuit, welcoming the prestigious tour back for a milestone fifth consecutive year from March 12-23, 2026. The 12-day series will feature more than $2.5 million in guaranteed payouts and draw thousands of players from across the Northeast and beyond.
The schedule includes 18 official WSOP Circuit events, with players competing for coveted WSOP gold rings—the most respected trophies in tournament poker. Adding even more incentive, each ring winner will also earn a $5,000 WSOP Paradise Package, including entry and accommodations for the WSOP Circuit Championship at Atlantis Paradise Island in the Bahamas this December.
Headlining the series is a three-day $1 Million Main Event, set to take place in Turning Stone’s Event Center. The action continues in the property’s poker room with a two-day Mini Main Event carrying a $500,000 guarantee—an event that topped a $1 million prize pool during last year’s run.
Fan-favorite tournaments also return to the lineup, including a Ladies-Only Event with a $25,000 guarantee, the popular 40/40/40 No-Limit Hold’em event (open to players age 40 and over) with a $100,000 guarantee, and a two-day Monster Stack tournament offering a $200,000 guaranteed prize pool.
With big guarantees, prestigious hardware, and a tropical championship carrot dangling at the finish line, Turning Stone’s 2026 WSOP Circuit stop is once again shaping up as one of the must-play poker events on the East Coast calendar.
Blake Vodges Scores Borgata Winter Open Title
Atlantic City’s Borgata was the site of the property’s annual Winter Poker Open in January, held in partnership with BetMGM. The $3,500 Winter Poker Open Championship highlighted the series and came with a $3 million guarantee. Blake Vodges topped a field of 895 entries for a $437,980 payday after a heads-up deal with Jack Kwon, who parlayed a seat via a $400 BetMGM Poker online satellite into a $407,110 second-place finish.
“Jack Kwon turning a $400 online satellite into a six-figure final table payout is why BetMGM invests so heavily in qualification pathways,” BetMGM Director of Poker David Mileaf said. “Events like the Borgata Winter Poker Open, along with the announced slate of 2026 Opens, will continue to underscore BetMGM Poker’s true differentiator—the bridge between online and live poker.”
About 150 players qualified for the event online. Other upcoming Borgata event include:
- Spring Poker Open – April 22-May 8
- Summer Poker Open – July 15-31
- Fall Poker Open – Nov. 3-17
Sean Chaffin is a freelance writer and senior writer for Casino Player and Strictly Slots magazines. Follow him on X @PokerTraditions or email him at seanchaffin@sbcglobal.net for story assignments.
