The Easter Bunny is only a few months away from making an appearance, but there is another iconic rabbit ready to rebuy and reenter the online poker community. The Playboy bunny, the globally identifiable symbol of the massive Playboy empire created by Hugh Hefner, will be seen hopping around the World Wide Web on virtual poker portals. The new owners which purchased the Ongame Network, the Amaya Gaming Group Inc., just recently announced that they had reached a worldwide licensing deal with Playboy Enterprises. The two companies have formed a partnership which will focus on offering online poker, as well as online lotteries, hoping to cash in on the world-renowned Playboy brand.

Phil Ivey is one of the most respected poker players both online and off. And it seems that even though in the past he threatened Full Tilt Poker with a $150 million lawsuit, the respected young professional poker player is happy to be back on the site and playing online poker. When the Black Friday federal indictment from the United States Department of Justice shut down Full Tilt Poker last April, Ivey had a rather substantial amount of money frozen in his account. He eventually ended up over at the PokerStars cash tables, where he rocketed up to $629,000 in profit.

Rafael Nadal is regarded as one of the best tennis players of all time, and is known as The King of Clay because of his peerless dominance on clay courts. The 26-year-old Spanish tennis pro recently joined Team PokerStars, and is hoping that the physical skills and instant decision-making he has used to become a Career Grand Slam title holder will help him in the not so physical online poker world. Nadal has a record 21 ATP World Tour Masters 1000 tournament titles, is the youngest to ever win a Career Grand Slam, and owns a record 7 Open Era French Open titles. Rafa, as he is affectionately known in tennis circles, recently registered for the Spanish Championship of Online Poker main event on December 9, hoping to add an online poker tournament title to his impressive trophy case.

Spain took a significant step forward in providing a safe and fair online gambling atmosphere when they passed the Spanish Gambling Act last May. That particular legislation disallows unlicensed companies from providing online gaming to Spanish residents and travelers located within their borders. And this June, Spain moved to strengthen that legislation by creating the framework for judging exactly what online poker operators can and cannot do to become licensed, and thereby legally provide online poker in that country.

If you love playing online poker and would like to get on board with one of the founding companies that plans to be the first to virtually shuffle up and deal in Nevada, you may be interested in the following news report. South Point Poker has officially announced that they are hiring to fill multiple marketing, customer service, regulatory compliance and technology positions for their Summerlin, Nevada headquarters. Chief Operating Officer Lawrence Vaughan stated that the headquarters are not located in Michael Gaughan’s South Point hotel-casino because his company does not view themselves as a casino, but rather as a creative software company, and they want to stay focused exclusively on providing a premier and enjoyable online poker experience.