We would consider Paradise Poker a true pioneer when it comes
to the online gambling industry, as they have been around since
the late 1990s and have played a significant role in the further
development of online poker.

In 2004, things changed drastically for Paradise Poker, as
they were bought out by the up and coming company, Sportingbet
PLC. Since that change, Paradise Poker has had a series of ups
and downs, including the unfortunate events of UIGEA that forced
the company to close their doors to US customers. To take a
deeper look into Paradise Poker’s history, please continue
reading.

Mysterious Start

When we write site histories, we typically like to start off
by walking you through the people behind the online gambling
empires, but we unfortunately won’t be able to do that with
Paradise Poker, as the identities of the founders of this site
remain a mystery.

Although not much information has ever been released on the
founders of Paradise Poker, we do know that three Canadian men
were responsible for the site’s launch in 1999, but their names
have never been released to the media, even to this day.

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Early Competition

Paradise Poker launched its website at just the right time,
as the only other poker site in existence at the time was Poker
Planet, which was developed a year prior but had recently gone
through a major security crisis. Hackers had breached their
system and were able to determine what cards were going to be
dealt next, making winning combinations inevitable for them and
causing innocent players to lose a substantial amount of money.

This horrible tragedy for Poker Planet was just what Paradise
Poker needed to rapidly increase their customer base, as Poker
Planet’s former customers were on the prowl for a fresh,
alternative poker site that would make them feel more secure.
When Paradise Poker first came out, they quickly became the
world’s leading online poker room for these reasons and more.

Paradise Poker’s initial software was much more reliable than
Poker Planet’s; it didn’t freeze nearly as much and it was much
easier to use. Paradise Poker was the first poker site to join
Google’s pay-per-click advertisement scheme, which benefitted
them greatly, as after awhile, no one could search for “poker”
without being first linked to Paradise Poker in the sidebar.
Google no longer sells advertising space to internet gambling
companies of any kind, but it was the perfect marketing tool at
the time.

Paradise Poker was consistently improving their software and
offering new features such as multi-tabling options and
informational statistics charts that documented the average pot
size and other valuable information for players who wanted to
further advance their skills. They also began offering higher
stakes for their increasing number of high-rollers, which is
something their competitor, Poker Planet, had failed to do.

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2. One year after the big purchase, Paradise Poker became the first online poker room to host a $1 million free-roll tournament which an unprecedented 3,900 players competed in worldwide. It was the first time in online poker history that any tournament was offering a $1 million prize, so this definitely turned player’s attention to Paradise Poker.

Unfortunately, as more and more sites started popping up in
the early 2000s, Paradise Poker’s popularity started to fade.
Ultimate Bet, PokerStars, and Party Poker were among these
sites, each bringing new, innovative ideas to the industry that
Paradise Poker just couldn’t keep up with and before they knew
it they were on the verge of going out of business.

A New Owner: SportingBet.com

Paradise Poker was soon looking for a buyer and that’s when
Sportingbet PLC stepped in and acquired their site in 2004.
Sportingbet decided to keep the Paradise Poker name though, as
it was a trusted name that could allure their previous loyal
customers to join their new site under Sportingbet.

Bonaire, a company located in the British Virgin Islands and
owned by the three mysterious Canadian men that we mentioned
earlier, was offered $160 million in cash and $88 million in
shares, which they happily accepted to finalize this deal. To
this day, Bonaire remains Sportingbet’s second largest
shareholder, owning just over 11% of the company.

In an interview with Poker News a few months after
Sportingbet purchased Paradise Poker, Scott Wilson, Director of
Poker Operations for Sportingbet said this in response to being
asked how they intend to keep players devoted to the new
Paradise Poker website, “We do have a loyal group of players and
that has come from our commitment to customer service, superior
software (in my opinion) enhancing the playing experience, and a
number of exciting events.”

Bruce Stubbs was the marketing director for Paradise Poker at
the time. He graduated from the Simon Fraser University with a
Bachelor’s degree in Entrepreneurship. He led the marketing team
for Paradise Poker from 2005 to 2008 and was crucial to the
advancement and increased popularity of the site.

He’s most famous for helping develop the million dollar
free-roll tournament, but he also brought a variety of other
fresh new ideas to the table including the very first team of
professional poker players, the first hybrid online/offline
tournament, and much more.

One year after the big purchase, Paradise Poker became the
first online poker room to host a $1 million free-roll
tournament which an unprecedented 3,900 players competed in
worldwide. It was the first time in online poker history that
any tournament was offering a $1 million prize, so this
definitely turned player’s attention to Paradise Poker.

Stubbs had this to say after the $1 million dollar free-roll
tournament had been announced, “ParadisePoker.com is a great
experience at the best of times, but throw $1 million in to the
pot and make it a free-roll for amateurs and you discover a
whole new crowd able to challenge the best of the pros.”

In less than two years from the change in ownership, Paradise
Poker had reached over $150 million in profit thanks to these
changes. Paradise Poker seemed to be on a steady up-rise until
the U.S. Congress announced they had passed the Unlawful
Internet Gambling Enforcement Act.

Dealing with the UIGEA

On October 30th, 2006 the UIGEA was officially passed,
greatly hindering the further development of the online gambling
market. This act forced many of the leading online gambling
sites to close their doors to all US customers, as transaction
to and from these sites would no longer be processed.

Paradise Poker under Sportingbet PLC suffered severely from
losing so many of their valued customers. How badly did this
affect them? Let’s just say that over 60 percent of the
company’s profits in the year prior to the release of the UIGEA
came from their U.S. players alone.

In hopes to overcome these significant financial losses,
Sportingbet re-launched Paradise Poker, making it only available
in Canada, Europe, and a few other countries around the world.
Sportingbet gave existing U.S. Paradise Poker players a one
month notice to cash out all of their assets to avoid losing
their bankroll forever. Although this was a major setback,
Paradise Poker pressed on and below we’ll take a deeper look
into what they have to offer today.

Paradise Poker: Game Selection

Paradise Poker has a wide selection of games including Texas
Hold’em, Omaha, Omaha Hi/Lo, Seven Card Stud, and Seven Card
Stud Hi/Lo to name some of their most popular options. All of
these variants come in Limit, No Limit, and Pot Limit formats.

Paradise Poker offers both cash games and a variety of
different kinds of tournaments. Most revolutionary are the
satellite tournaments that can earn your entrance into bigger
live events such as the World Series of Poker. Paradise Poker
has even won accolades for their tournaments, with their most
prestigious award being when they were named the Poker Site with
the Best Poker Tournaments by Casino Player Magazine in 2006.

What Else Does Paradise Poker Have to Offer

Paradise Poker offers quality customer support 24/7 via
e-mail and telephone for your convenience. A FAQ section is also
available and may be able to answer any of your questions right
away. Paradise Poker also offers a myriad of different deposit
and withdraw methods to meet their customer’s individual needs:
bank wire, check, credit cards, Neteller, and PayPal are just
some of their more well-known options.

Paradise Poker offers a Players Club loyalty program where
players earn points for every real money hand they play, of
which these points can either be cashed in for money value or
for seats into various tournaments.

One aspect that really stands out about Paradise Poker is how
customizable they make their site. Players have the ability to
control the sounds, the animations, the color of the deck, and
several other features that allows you to personalize your
gaming experience according to your own specific needs and
preferences.

Charitable Causes

Paradise Poker and Sportingbet have hosted several charity
poker tournaments, which celebrities participate in and all of
the proceeds go to various charities that they select prior to
the event. They also sponsored Championship football team
Wolverhampton Wanderers from the 2009-10 season until the
2013-14 season, providing them with the necessary funds and
equipment needed to make their season a success.

Nigel Payne, pictured above, is Sportingbet and Paradise
Poker’s Finance director and has been in that position since
June, 2000. He and seven other team members from various online
gambling companies teamed up to climb Mount Kilimanjaro in
February of 2011, raising over $55,000 from their sponsors.

They split the money they earned to three different
charities: Breast Cancer Care, the Injured Jockey’s fund, and
the Israel Sport Center for the Disabled.

Still More Changes to Come

William Hill recently acquired Sportingbet and Paradise Poker
towards the end of 2012. So far this change in ownership hasn’t
had a huge impact on the Paradise Poker website, but there has
been talk about a possible remodel for the site in the near
future.

On a recent trip to Seoul, South Korea, I was able to play poker in each of the two casinos in Seoul that offer the game — the Seven Luck Casino and the Paradise Casino, Walkerhill, also called the Walkerhill Casino. After reviewing the poker room at the Seven Luck last week, today I’m sharing a review of the Walkerhill casino poker room for those traveling to Seoul.

Introducing the Paradise Casino, Walkerhill

The Paradise Casino, Walkerhill is part of the Sheraton Grande Hotel, a luxury facility with spa, health club, eight restaurants, a shopping mall, and 583 rooms spread over 17 floors. It’s located about five miles northeast of the heart of downtown atop Walkerhill, overlooking the mighty Han River in the eastern end of Seoul.

The building, visible from many miles around, is topped with glittering silver-colored frosting that glistens as you gaze up at it from the Gwangnaru subway station located at the bottom of the hill, about a mile away.‬

This casino’s luxurious shopping area (duty-free I was told) had all sorts of name-brand clothing, watches, bags, jewelry, and other accessories. As I walked around, buses arrived, dropping off well-heeled patrons. I don’t know if they all made their way to the casino, but I was encouraged to think that it was likely that there would be a regular flow of tourists into the gaming area.

Poker at the Walkerhill

On the Saturday afternoon that I visited the poker room in the Walkerhill, there were two tables of $1/$2 no-limit hold’em going and they started a third within 30 minutes of my arrival. By the way, with currency I am using a rough conversion here. The actual game is in Won, of course (this being Korea), and the game was structured 1,000/2,000 Won. With the Won’s recent slide, there is about 1,200 Won to the US dollar (making the game the more-cumbersome-to-report $0.83/$1.66).

For the $1/$2 game, you’ll find a $100 minimum and a $1,000 maximum buy-in. My table was the more deeply-stacked of the two that I sized up before taking a seat, with four of the players having between $700 and $1,000, a few having around $300, and a couple having stacks of roughly $100. The other table, and then the third table, had stacks averaging around $300.

I spent about four hours in the room both playing at my table and then, between hands, wandering over to the other two tables to get a sense of what their play was like. Generally speaking, the play was relatively sedate. Of course, my sample size was relatively small — just three tables on a Saturday afternoon — but even so, I witnessed no play that I would consider particularly wild or maniacal.

Players seemed mostly tight and timid, as they were at the Seven Luck Casino. Hands were generally not three-bet preflop. Large raises tended to be respected. Stack shoving seemed minimal to me. In short, it seemed a pretty relaxed place to play poker.

The rake was the same as it was at the other Seoul casino — 10% with a $15 maximum. Here, however, there was a $2 bad beat drop as well, making the full takeout as high as $17 on large pots. They also offered $1 an hour in comps.

Food is free for players at the Walkerhill, with the same arrangement I had seen at the Seven Luck. There’s a small restaurant with an automated menu on the outside. Players order electronically, are seated, and their orders are brought to them at no charge.

But there’s a restriction at the Walkerhill I did not notice at the other poker room, what I can best describe as a “Third Man Eating” rule which dictated that only two players could be away from the table eating at any one time. There is a waiting list kept, allowing players access to food only when the second player returns to play. There is no eating at the table, and non-alcoholic beverages are served free to seated players.

I did not sample the food (I was on the waiting-to-eat list, but never called). Players described it as “decent,” “pretty good,” and “better than average.” The fact that there were five or six names of players ahead of me on the list is a fair testament to the popularity of the food.

More from the Tables

As is the case in all casinos in Korea, access is forbidden to those without a foreign passport and those under 19 years of age. I met Germans, Russians, Chinese, Americans, and Brits during my visit to the Paradise, Walkerhill. The poker language at the table was English, though players also conversed in languages I did not understand.

In spite of the high rake (or maybe because of it), the environment for playing poker is otherwise pleasant. The cards are Kems. The playing felts are firm, the chairs are comfortable, the lighting is good, and the dealers are competent. Also, the room’s management is helpful, friendly, and multi-lingual.

Just like the Seven Luck Casino, the Walkerhill also offers the same helpful option when exchanging money into and out of Won. You’re permitted to change back into your native currency all of the Won that you initially purchased (at the same rate).

The casino has a full supply of other gambling games including roulette, blackjack, baccarat, three-card poker, Tai Sai, and slots. Though the three poker tables were full when I left early on a Saturday evening, the other gaming tables were largely ignored.

Getting to and from the Walkerhill

The Paradise Casino, Walkerhill‪ is located at 177, Walkerhill-ro, Gwangjin-gu, Seoul, 143-708 South Korea. Games last all night and into the following morning, I was told. So if you go and stay late, be aware that the Seoul subway system, though extensive, safe, and extremely convenient, stops running between a little after midnight and stays shut down until about 6:00 a.m.

Though the poker room will transport you the casino Sunday through Monday, they will not give you a free ride back to your hotel. Cab rides to the heart of the city will run you about $40 (but no tipping in Korea!).

The casino runs a convenient shuttle bus to and from the subway to the casino. You can also walk the mile from the subway to the casino, though it’s all uphill, making it tough on a cold day or if you’re not in shape.

Conclusion

Overall, the Paradise Casino, Walkerhill is the nicer of the two poker rooms in Seoul, with more games, a luxurious hotel, and extensive shopping and other amenities available. There’s also a greater likelihood that you’ll be able actually to get a seat fairly quickly when you arrive.

Ashley Adams has been playing poker for 50 years and writing about it since 2000. He is the author of hundreds of articles and two books, Winning 7-Card Stud (Kensington 2003) and Winning No-Limit Hold’em (Lighthouse 2012). He is also the host of poker radio show House of Cards. See www.houseofcardsradio.com for broadcast times, stations, and podcasts.

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