Gossip Column: PokerStars’ New Video Ad Touches Upon the Fine Art of Bluffing, Brett Kavanaugh Admits to Playing Poker & More

Rudi Rosenberg and Brett Kavanaugh
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  • PG News September 18, 2018
  • 6 Mins Read

PokerStars never fails to surprise us with its gaming innovations and branding moves. And now the gaming giant throws in humor as well. The latest PokerStars ad campaign ‘The Unexpected Poker Master’ is a finely crafted take on bluffing, one that had us laughing out loud! However, US Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh seems to have lost his reasons to smile. Kavanaugh has been facing a tough time due to his association to gambling, especially poker. He has now attempted to clear his name and responded to the allegations levied against him.

Meanwhile, another controversy raged in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where two women gamblers have taken the Rivers Casino to court for allegedly using their surveillance systems to zoom into their mobile devices and record private information. That’s not all; the women have leveled other serious charges on the casino and its employees. Read on!

PokerStars New Video Ad Touches Upon the Fine Art of Bluffing

The world’s premier online gaming site PokerStars knows how to be in the news, and has often come up with ads that make your eyes pop. In its latest ad campaign, however, PokerStars has endeavored nothing of the sort. Rather, it’s a subtle and delicate approach to bluffing.

Paris-based Ad agency Romance is the creative team behind the concept. Romance had, a few months back given us an epic video ad on the ultimate ‘Poker Face’ featuring two goofy game bros.

Rudi Rosenberg
Rudi Rosenberg

This time again, director of Romance Rudi Rosenberg who had famously helmed the first ad, displays his crafty abilities in, ‘The Unexpected Poker Master.’

In this ad, the two main leads of the ‘Poker Face’ return to show you how talented bluffers stand to win big. We see the story of two men who are opponents on the poker table and best friends off it.

The simple looking lad is always taken for a ride by his seemingly smarter friend. His birthday is forgotten, he has to foot the bills of a dine-out and he even finds his pet guinea pig exchanged for some other animal! Well, we almost felt sorry for simple guy, till comes a moment when the poker faced man is once again seated opposite his buddy, and quietly gives it back with a win!

Running along the visuals is a meaningful message, “And there you are that moment when you must decide if he’s bluffing or not…Yes, all those times, never doubt your talent champ, and never forget you’ve been bluffed in life so you won’t be bluffed again!

Evidently, Romance had to audition more than a 100 people before they could find their ‘Unexpected Poker Master.’ Finally they found him in a poker room in Paris “He wasn’t hard to spot, he was the worst player in the room!” said co-founder and creative chief of Romance, Alexandre Hervé.

“Lots of creative territories have already been explored in the market for online poker, and it’s a tremendous opportunity to be in a position to renew the genre,” Hervé said. The ad explores online poker with a fun idea, and certainly calls for a watch.

Brett Kavanaugh Admits to Playing Poker But Denies Gambling Debt

In a recently published report, we had discussed how U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s plans of being confirmed as an associate justice for the highest court in America had run into trouble after written questions were submitted by several Senators regarding his affiliation to gambling. Kavanaugh had until 6 p.m. on September 12 to respond to the questions and responded he has!

Brett Kavanaugh
Brett Kavanaugh

Dismissing the request for details as overbearing, Kavanaugh wrote, “Like many Americans, I have occasionally played poker or other games with friends and colleagues. I do not document the details of those casual games.”

After a revelation that Kavanaugh had thousands of dollars, possibly up to six-figures, worth of credit card debit as recently as 2016. It also didn’t help that a 2001 email from Kavanaugh surfaced in which he mentioned becoming combative during a “game of dice.”

Explaining the situation, Kavanaugh stated that “the large amount of credit card debt was largely thanks to updates and repairs” to his $1.25 million home in Maryland. The Trump Administration also claimed that “he sunk a considerable amount of money into his love for attending Washington Nationals games, including the playoffs, with friends and family.”

Kavanaugh cleared up that he and his wife do not have any debt outside of their mortgage. “Maintaining a house, especially an old house like ours, can be expensive,” the judge wrote. “I have not had gambling debts or participated in ‘fantasy’ leagues.”

Kavanaugh also admitted to playing blackjack in the past, “I recall occasionally visiting casinos in New Jersey when I was in school or in my 20s. I recall I played low-stakes blackjack.”

In response to Senator Sheldon Whitehouse’s interrogation regarding the full extent of his gambling for “monetary stakes”, Kavanaugh only partially answered that broad question. He replied in written form, “The game of dice referred to in that email was not a game with monetary stakes.”

A final vote on Kavanaugh’s nomination to the highest court in the land is expected for late September, with preliminary votes slated to begin next week, according to reports. Well, let’s hope that Kavanaugh’s love for one of America’s oldest and favourite pastimes, doesn’t rob him of his nomination.

Pittsburgh Casino Slapped With Charges of Illegal Snooping on Gamblers

Casinos have been in quite a bit of trouble lately. Just days after we heard that a Baccarat dealer of a Maryland casino had admitted to having connived with a few players to cheat the casino, another scandal is out in the open, and this time it’s the Rivers Casino in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania that is in the centre of controversy.

Rivers Casino in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Rivers Casino in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

A pair of gamblers identified as Julie Capone and Hayley Clerici have filed a lawsuit against the casino. In their charges, they have alleged that the casino through its employees, used the property’s security video system to zoom into their mobile devices and read their private information. They also said that the casino allegedly recorded and saved images of their private texts and emails.

But why, anyone would ask, the casino even engage in such an activity? According to the women, the casino handed these images and recordings to a lawyer who represented Clerici’s former husband, a local police officer with whom she’s battling a custody dispute.

The lawyer, Dennis McCurdy they charged, unlawfully served a subpoena to the casino to obtain its surveillance images of the women and their mobile devices. Here, they pointed out, the Rivers Casino should have been aware that it was a sham subpoena under the Pennsylvania Rules of Civil Procedure.

With the two women also naming one of the security supervisors of the casino in the lawsuit, it’s going to be a muddy battle along the way for the popular poker haunt!

So, this is it for this edition of the PokerGuru Gossip Column. We’ll be back soon with more news and juicy updates, stay tuned!

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