Laurence Excalente, CEO of Global Poker and its parent VGW Holdings in Australia, is confident that he has found a way around the restrictive US gambling laws on real-money online poker…and that could be put to the test Sunday, when Global’s Daytona $500×10 Freeroll Frenzy kicks off.
“We’re proud to offer a widely accessible poker site to the U.S. poker playing public,” Escalante said in a statement this week, boasting that his company’s patented “sweepstakes” business model lifts the product out of the gambling category, operating in partnership with Facebook and PayPal.
“Our unique and patented Sweepstakes model offer players something different without straying too far from traditional poker,” Escalante claimed, explaining that GP sells virtual currency in the form of gold coins or virtual chips. The sweepstakes entries are treated as a second form of virtual currency, basically allowing the company to operate games in the form of traditional real money play.
Gold coins are used for play in tournaments and are credited to the player’s balance, but can’t be cashed out. The company gives away sweepstakes, or Sweeps Cash, that can be used in the poker room and withdrawn via PayPal as real cash prizes.
The Global Poker Daytona $500×10 Freeroll Frenzy! starts this Sunday at 2 p.m. EST and will run every half hour for five hours, giving players 10 tournaments and $5,000 to play for.