Poker News: WPT New Hostess, PokerStars hits Five Billion, D'amato applauds Barney Frank

WORLD POKER TOUR TAPS FOURTH HOSTESS IN FOUR SEASONS

Shana Hiatt made poker fans fall in love all over again as hostess for the World Poker Tour, hosting the popular show's first three seasons. Now, for the third time in three seasons, the WPT has turned to another beautiful face to be its hostess. Layla Kayleigh has been chosen as hostess for the WPT's sixth season; also it's first on GSN, after a five year run on the Travel Channel. Kayleigh is no newcomer to the airwaves, having serving as a host on MTV2 in Britain and as a correspondent for "The Best Damn Sports Show Period." Layla currently hosts a segment called "The Feed" on the G4 network, where she reports on the latest tech news.

YOU GET MORE HANDS IN ON THE INTERNET - TRUST US.

Online poker site Poker Stars recently dealt its ten-billionth hand to its customers. Ten billion hands dealt in just five years of operations. To put that in perspective, if you sat in a game that could average one hand every three minutes, you would have to play constantly without breaks for a little over 57,000 years to reach that milestone. The player who won the ten billionth hand on Stars was awarded $100,000. Every other player who was dealt into the hand won $10,000 plus a seat in the website's upcoming World Championship of Online Poker. At the pace it currently operates at, the site will deal its twenty billionth hand in just over two more years.

JOE HACHEM JOINS WPA BOARD OF DIRECTORS

The World Poker Association announced recently that 2005 World Series of Poker Main Event winner Joe Hachem will join its Board of Directors. Hachem will also assume an executive role as Secretary of the WPA and will front a membership drive conducted by the WPA at this year's WSOP. "I'm both pleased and honored to be chosen to serve on the World Poker Association Board of Directors," said Hachem. "I strongly support the WPA's efforts to promote ethics and integrity in poker, and am happy to take a leadership role with them." Hachem also noted that he and other prominent players will man the WPA booth to interact with players and fans and further boost the WPA's visibility.

D'AMATO PUTS HIS TWO CENTS INTO THE POT

Poker Players Alliance Chairman Alphonse D'Amato published an opinion piece in the Boston Herald recently, applauding Congressman Barney Frank's initiative toward the goal of regulating online gaming and overturning the UIGEA. D'Amato compared the current legislation of online gaming to the alcohol prohibition of the 1920s, and concluded that this legislation, much like the prohibition legislation, was doomed to fail. D'Amato referred to online poker as "An American tradition, simply evolving into the 21st Century."

"POKER.COM" HIGHEST EVER PRICE FOR DOMAIN NAME? A couple issues ago we noted that the valuable domain name poker.com was among several high-profile domains to be offered during a recent Amsterdam-based auction of Internet properties. The DomainNameWire.com site has reported that poker.com received extensive interest, with one or more offers in the $20 million range, but that due to complications the actual sale of the domain will now have to be made through private, after-auction negotiations. Had the domain been sold in the auction itself, the amount would have been a record for a cash sale of a sought-after domain name.

Visit PokerNews.com for More