Poker Beacon
The tournament poker hub

Poker Beacon

Curated and sourced — the rules, tournament formats, where online poker is licensed, and validated study tools: the questions of playing seriously, each page citing the document it stands on. No content farm.

Curator, not publisher — every page is assembled from official references you can click.

51curated pages
74sources cited
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Guides

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guide

Barcelona poker stop — getting there, staying, playing

Barcelona is a tier-1 stop of the European tournament calendar: the European Poker Tour's official 2026 schedule lists a Barcelona stop, and Casino Barcelona is the stop's venue in this site's coverage universe. This guide is deliberately short, and says why: the venue's own site refused this site's verification channel, so no venue fact could be read on-piece. What remains is what the tour's official page establishes — and a precise list of what to verify where.

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guide

Las Vegas poker stop — getting there, staying, playing

Las Vegas is the densest tier-1 stop of the live tournament map: five rooms of the coverage universe sit within a few kilometres of Strip. This guide names what each room's official page states about itself and what to verify there before travelling. It quotes no price, no rate and no schedule that a cited document does not carry — where a number lives on an official page, the guide sends you to that page instead of copying it.

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guide

Rozvadov poker stop — getting there, staying, playing

Rozvadov is a village on the Czech-German border whose casino resort, King's Resort, hosts the WSOP Europe — the European bracelet series — alongside a year-round festival calendar. This guide states what the venue's official page says about reaching and staying at the stop, and what the rule documents in the sources panel establish about playing there. It quotes no price and no schedule: those live on the official pages it points to.

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guide

Monte Carlo poker stop — getting there, staying, playing

Monte Carlo is a fixture of the European tournament calendar: the European Poker Tour's official 2026 schedule lists a Monte Carlo stop, and the Casino de Monte-Carlo — the Société des Bains de Mer's landmark casino — is the stop's venue entry in this site's coverage universe. This guide states what those two official pages carry, and defers every moving detail to them.

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Tools

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Glossary

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glossary

ADM

Italy treats the control of gambling as reserved to the state, which has exercised it since 2000 through AAMS.

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glossary

Blinds

A blind is a required bet made before any cards are dealt, used in button games to stimulate action and initiate play, as a standard cardroom rulebook sets out.

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glossary

ANJ

The Autorité nationale des jeux is France's gambling regulator, an independent administrative authority instituted by the ordonnance of 2 October 2019

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glossary

Bounty

A bounty is a prize collected for eliminating another entrant, run as a distinct tournament format under a casino's posted tournament rules.

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glossary

Buy-in

The cost to enter a tournament, or the minimum amount needed to sit down in a cash game at a specific table. Usually twenty times the big blind.

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glossary

Connecticut iGaming

Connecticut channels regulated gaming through a narrow set of gatekeepers.

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glossary

Belgian Gaming Commission

Belgium's Gaming Commission licenses gambling by class. Operating a casino requires a class A licence, valid fifteen years and capped at nine; all

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glossary

Big blind ante

In tournaments using this format, a single ante is posted by the player in the big blind instead of every player anteing each hand, as cardroom rules

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glossary

Czech Gambling Act

Act No. 186/2016 sets the Czech framework for gambling: which game types exist, the conditions for operating them, responsible-gambling measures, and

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glossary

Delaware iGaming

Delaware's state lottery, which operates within the Department of Finance, launched what it describes as the first authorised online gaming system in

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glossary

DGOJ

The Dirección General de Ordenación del Juego is the Spanish state body responsible for the regulation, authorisation, supervision, coordination,

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glossary

Equity

Equity is the share of the pot a player expects to earn, computed under the assumption that no further betting occurs and using only the cards in that

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glossary

Expected value

Expected value is the probability-weighted average of the possible results of a decision, presented in university course material on poker theory as

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glossary

Freezeout

non établi par la source citée

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glossary

GGL

Germany's 2021 Interstate Treaty on Gambling permits public gambling only with a permit from the competent German authority; organising or brokering

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glossary

GTO

Game-theoretically optimal play refers to a Nash equilibrium strategy: one where no player can raise their own expected utility by unilaterally

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glossary

Hand rankings

Hand rankings order the five-card combinations that decide a pot, as set out in a state-approved cardroom game description for Texas Hold'em.

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glossary

GRAI

The Gambling Regulation Act 2024, enacted on 23 October 2024, establishes the Gambling Regulatory Authority of Ireland, in Irish Údarás Rialála

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glossary

iGaming Ontario

Ontario separates who regulates its online gambling market from who conducts it.

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glossary

ICM

The independent chip model estimates what a player's standing in a tournament is worth in money.

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glossary

Interactive Gambling Act

An Australian federal law of 2001 that sets the rules for companies offering or advertising gambling services, covering gambling that takes place

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glossary

Kansspelautoriteit

The Netherlands Gambling Authority licenses remote gambling under the Remote Gambling Act, the Wet Kansspelen op afstand, which together with its

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glossary

KYC verification

Customer identity verification is the licence condition requiring a remote gambling operator to obtain and verify enough information to establish who

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glossary

Late registration

Alternates, players registering late, and re-entries will be sold full stacks.

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glossary

Michigan iGaming

The Michigan Gaming Control Board is the state body charged with ensuring fair and honest gaming in the interests of Michigan residents.

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glossary

New Jersey internet gaming

New Jersey regulates internet gambling at state level through the Division of Gaming Enforcement, a unit of the Attorney General's Office that

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glossary

New Zealand Gambling Act

The Gambling Act 2003 was the first New Zealand law to regulate remote interactive gambling, and its stance is prohibitive: such gambling is banned,

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glossary

Pennsylvania iGaming

The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board regulates interactive gaming in the Commonwealth and publishes the roster of operators authorised to offer it,

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glossary

Nevada online poker

Nevada treats interactive gaming as a distinct licence category in the fee and tax schedule administered by the Nevada Gaming Commission and the

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glossary

Pot odds

The ratio between the money already in the pot and the amount a player must pay to call in order to keep playing.

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glossary

Rake

Rake is the fee a cardroom operator takes from the pot in exchange for supplying a dealer, a table and a place to play, defined that way in Florida's

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glossary

Re-entry

Under the standardised TDA tournament rules, a re-entry is treated like a fresh entry: re-entrants are sold full starting stacks and randomly draw a

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glossary

Remote gambling licence

In Great Britain, an operator needs a licence from the Gambling Commission to provide online gambling facilities to consumers, regardless of where in

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glossary

Satellite

A satellite is a qualifying tournament whose prizes must include a buy-in to a larger tournament, as North Dakota's gaming rules define it.

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glossary

Self-exclusion

Self-exclusion is a formal agreement a person enters into not to gamble, described by Britain's gambling regulator as a tool for those who recognise

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glossary

Showdown

The showdown decides the winner when more than one player still contends for the pot after every betting round is finished, as a casino poker room's rule book sets it out.

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glossary

Side pot

A side pot is the separate pot formed when a player facing a bet larger than their table stakes calls all in, as Colorado's gaming rule for

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glossary

Spelinspektionen

Sweden's Gambling Act (2018:1138) covers games played for money or prizes with monetary value that are provided in Sweden; online gambling not

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glossary

Spillemyndigheden

The Danish Gambling Authority treats online casino as one licensed category, covering roulette, blackjack, baccarat, punto banco, poker, online bingo,

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glossary

SRIJ

Portugal's gaming regulation and inspection service publishes the legal framework for online play, the Regime Jurídico dos Jogos e Apostas Online

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glossary

String bet

A string bet or raise is an attempt to bet or raise in multiple movements that includes a return to one's own stack without first declaring the

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glossary

TDA rules

The standardised tournament rule set published by the Poker Tournament Directors Association, a voluntary trade association of the poker tournament

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glossary

Texas hold'em

The flop game in which each player receives two down cards as a personal hand, known as hole cards, followed by a round of betting.

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glossary

West Virginia iGaming

West Virginia authorised interactive wagering, presented as iGaming, in fiscal year 2020, when the state legislature passed House Bill 2934.

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