IFP President Patrick Nally talks to Marco Brambilla, Italian senior reporter of That’s Poker News – TPNEWS.IT, about match poker and IFP’s plans. F.I.G.P (our Italian member nation) is working very closely with the Italian National Olympic Committee (CONI) towards the acceptance of poker as a mind sport in Italy.
Read the entire interview here – http://tpnews.it/federazioni/international-federation-poker/patrick-nally-presenta-il-match-poker-0-fortuna-100-skill/10885
IFP’s Italian member nation, Federazione Italiana Gioco Poker (F.I.G.P), has recently collaborated with Em@ney, an electronic money institution based in Malta.
Em@ney avails itself of a management team with ten-year proven experience in the world of electronic money, emissions of online bank accounts and issuance of rechargeable credit cards.
The Institute started working a few months ago with the Italian Federation of Poker, an important partner in the world of poker, providing their innovative financial products.
Here is an English translation of the interview with Germano Arnò, CEO of Em@ney:
Em@ney is a new reality in the electronic money market. Can you briefly those who don’t know you when your financial institution was born and what your mission is?
Em@ney has been licensed to Electronic Money Institution last April 2013 by Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA) according to Em@ney European Directive 2009/110/EC.
Even though recently established, Em@ney has the support of experts who have ten-year know-how in the Electronic Money world and who have decided to invest in the future given the changes in technology and the increasing demand for payment services in “real time”.
Our Mission is to make a substantial contribution to the growth of businesses that need of a solution in the payment processes in terms of solutions range and instantaneity.
When did you decide to marry the “Poker Sportivo 2.0” project? Did you decide to embrace it when you knew FIGP or when you had already assessed other plans related to such niche markets? What was the trigger in the choice of FIGP?
Em@ney based its core business on other markets such as services and tourism and thanks to the encounter with FIGP it had the opportunity to discover how “Poker Sportivo” world needed advanced tools of electronic money, like our Em@ney tools, to be compliant in the labyrinth of Italian financial laws. Certainly challenge mixed with curiosity and the safety in working with a partnership with a well-defined CONI path, have strongly influenced our decision.
In your opinion, Sport Poker and an authoritative Financial Institution as Em@ney can go hand in hand? And what benefits can be drawn from each other?
Considering the current Italian sphere, the two must necessarily go hand in hand. On the one hand Poker SPORTS, and, on the other hand, a Financial Institution that complies with the anti-money laundering and anti-terrorism checks that only a banking abstraction institution may make: mutual benefits can be summarized in a synergy that can lead to a complete customer satisfaction in terms of safety, legality and transparency.
The fruitful collaboration between Em@ney and FIGP has gone beyond the initial choice to provide a simple service. What have you proposed to the Federation and on the basis of what this important decision has been made?
During the initial request for prepaid cards, Em@ney noted that its additional security and loyalty tools go well with FIGP world. From study to integration the step was short.
How do you see Em@ney and FIGP in the future? Do you plan to test other European markets?
Em@ney is already working on other European markets with great success. The objective is to widely cover the whole region SEPA with our Em@ney debit card circuit. At the same time, we are pleased to note that FIGP is taking substantial importance that we hope to have in other markets soon. Once you have solidified the relationship in a market, you can safely consider to tackle together new markets.
What do you want to you recommend to FIGP that decided to embark on this important journey with “Poker Sportivo 2.0”?
We always recommend to choose the path of safety and innovation. Customers will be pleased.
http://www.figp.it/emney-entra-nel-pianeta-del-poker-sportivo-intervista-a-germano-arno-numero-uno-dellistituto/
Dan Smith
In an age when the talents required to succeed as a poker player are often dismissed by elected officials as simple good fortune, there was nothing but reassuring news from Prague this week for the poker advocates, where the PokerStars European Poker Tour played out its last event of 2012.
The bigger events were dominated by players whose talents and natural skill could only be doubted by only the most ignorant of poker’s opponents.
Uppermost was the performance by Ramzi Jelassi, the 26-year-old Swede, who overcame a field of 836 to win the main event. Not unlike Ludovic Lacay, who won EPT Sanremo, Jelassi is among those EPT regulars who are overdue a big result after years of performing at the top of the game.
For Jelassi the relief was obvious. “Finally,” he said, as the trophy was presented to him. Only those on the game’s front lines know how difficult it is to succeed at the top of the game.
That said they often make it look so easy. Take Dan Smith and Marvin Rettenmaier for example. Both won side events in Prague; Rettenmaier in the €10,000 buy-in High Roller and Smith in the €5,000 Turbo. Each was merely adding to their 2012 records which sparkle with high stakes success.
What makes players like Jelassi, Smith and Rettenmaier the top quality players that they are? It would be great to know. But it is not luck, chance or being in the right place at the right time. Their talents should be celebrated, regardless of the ambivalence of those whose job it is to know.
The news from Germany will undoubtedly be a great lift to the poker community. That an established club like SV Arminia Hannover has recognised poker as a mind sport, equal to other sports in its portfolio, is a welcome shot of credibility in a region where the law has been muddled. It will hopefully serve as a catalyst for other clubs to do the same.
It was a sentiment echoed by another club official Class Kähler who will head the poker division.
“With the inclusion into the SV Arminia Hannover [portfolio] we have the ability to utilize existing structures and to benefit from this great organization,” he said. “We will prove the sports aspect through training and club rankings. In addition we want to offer regular gaming operations with the assistance of
members and sponsors.”
The German poker community added its support for the move, with Stephan Kalhamer, President of the DPSB Stephan Kalhamer expressed his delight.
“I welcome the words of Claas Kähler, in cooperation with Arminia Hannover, to write a piece of poker’s sporting history,” he said. “That this is being done, especially in the complex legal circumstances surrounding the state of Lower Saxony, is particularly pleasing. If you make it there, you make it anywhere.”
Voters go to the polling stations tomorrow across the United States to either re-elect their President, or to select a new one. But how much will be changed on poker’s political front with Barrack Obama or Mitt Romney in the White House?
The result, as you can see on the Pocket Fives website, is hardly inspiring, unless you consider the chance of a libertarian landslide a possibility. But regardless of which candidate wins, the political landscape is likely to change and the effects of that will be significant.
Read the full article on the Pocket Fives website.