PokerListings

PokerListings is a site dedicated to offering a place poker enthusiasts can rely on for online poker, online casino and online betting site reviews, extensive poker strategy guides and tips, live tournament coverage, poker bonus deals and freeroll information. There are also in-house poker tools available, like the Which Hand Wins Calculator, Side Pot Calculator, and Poker Odds Calculator to assist beginner players. It is run by Acroud (formerly Highlight Media Group), who also includes Matching Visions, BettingGuide.se, Traffic Grid and others under their corporate umbrella. Acroud as a software and online gambling company is traded on Nasdaq and headquartered in Sweden, with operations in Malta.
Andreas Oscarsson co-founded the company in 2003 with Niclas Flisberg, and sold it before his tragic death in 2009. The original team of coders and site managers spent their days producing as many new pages as possible. Including, news articles, book and site reviews, strategy tools, and all types of poker toplists - hence the name: PokerListings. 
Over the years, due to the Poker boom caused by Chris Moneymaker (see: Moneymaker effect), and the movie Rounders (film), poker games grew worldwide, especially in the United States And PokerListings.com grew alongside it with the mission to become the most comprehensive online poker guide. As of 2021, PokerListings offers an English language site for United States, United Kingdom and Canada visitors that was initially launched in 2003. 
In 2005, PokerZeit was launched and was later bought by PokerListings to cater for poker enthusiasts coming from Germany. That same year, the Sweden site launched in April, while the Norway and Poland editions launched in December, 2005. In 2006, there was the launch of PokerListings Greece, along with other native sites in the same year. Including a France site in February, followed by Italy in April. There was even a specific edition written in Simplified Chinese characters for Hong Kong that was released in July 2006, and one for Japan in August 2006. In January 2007, the language expansion continued with the launch of a Spain site. A few months later, two Nordic countries sites were added to the global network: Denmark, launched in August and Finland, launched in November. Then, the brand’s global reach expanded again in November 2011 with a Bulgaria site. Then later a Brazilian Portuguese PokerListings site in February 2013. Meanwhile, the Russia version in its current form has been live since March 2017 post re-launch. Other native languages sites for PokerListings were live for some time but later closed down due to regulations or some other reason, like Estonia and Turkey. 
Currently the team is led by Head of Poker / Brands, Kresten Hougaard, based in Malta where the head office is located, as well as other countries in Europe.
PokerListings currently partners with major online poker operating brands, including but not limited to, PokerStars, 2020 World Series of Poker Online (who partnered with WSOP.com in 2020) and their skin Natural8, 888poker, partypoker, and Unibet. 
== History ==
After a World Series of Poker visit in 2005, PokerListings joined the live poker reporting scene in 2006. Based out of a new office in Vancouver, Canada, current Editor-in-Chief Matt Showell and Senior Writer Arthur Crowson led the first six-person team to spend five weeks in Las Vegas reporting live from the Rio Casino Resort. The content included hand reports from every event, daily blogs on poker gossip and exclusive interviews with the top pros in the game at the time, like Erik Seidel, Daniel Negreanu and Main Event winner, Jamie Gold. 
Once the WSOP wrapped, Matt Showell and former reporter-turned-crime novelist, Owen Laukkanen, hit the road full-time to report from the World Poker Tour, the World Series of Poker Circuit and special events like the Caribbean Poker Classic and the The United States Poker Championship. Trips to the European Poker Tour and Crown Australian Poker Championship Millions soon followed as part of a dedicated schedule covering every major poker event of note from North America to Asia. In 2013, PokerListings became the official live Reporting Live partner for the first-ever World Series of Poker Asia Pacific in Melbourne and the World Series of Poker Europe in Paris. 
Parallel to growth in North America and the United Kingdom, an expanding group of international sites launched as part of PokerListings’ global reach. Drawing on their natural connection to Scandinavia, Swedish language and Norwegian language sites were part of the editorial team from early on and are still major geographical anchors for the PokerListings brand. German language site PokerZeit was purchased by the brand not long after its 2005 launch. While French language, Italian language and Spanish language sites were added between 2006 and early 2007, among many others, as listed above. 
The brand has been nurtured by a team of full-time editors under direction of a few managing editors over the years. Currently the team is led by Head of Poker / Brands, Kresten Hougaard (brother of two-time World Series of Poker bracelet bracelet winner, Jesper Hougaard). Now based in the PokerListings Headquarters in Malta, but also spread across various Europe. 
In November 2019, PokerListings went live with a casino affiliate vertical and a sports betting vertical in early 2020. 
== Battle of Malta ==
The Battle of Malta poker tournament is an annual No limit (poker) Texas hold'em tournament, designed for low- to mid-stakes poker players. This was the first ever live event founded by PokerListings.com, which was in tandem with Ivonne Monteleagre (Now Malta Poker Festival Organizer) back in 2012. But it is now run by Casino Malta by Olympic Casino, which is part of the Eden Leisure Group. 
The event has run in Malta since its inception and was so successful that it grew the country’s GDP in 2015. Even winning the 2014 European Poker Awards “Event of the Year” in the over €2,000 buy-in category. Since its launch, the event has become one of the most popular stand-alone European events and continued to grow each year. 
Increasing number of Battle of Malta Main Event entries:
* 2012: 349 entries
* 2013: 888 entries
* 2014: 1,447 entries
* 2015: 1,804 entries
* 2016: 1,813 entries
* 2017: 2,074 entries
* 2018: 3,816 entries
* 2019: 4,657 entries (2,691 unique players)
* 2020: 8,789 entrants
The Battle of Malta even attracted big-name poker pros, like Daniel Cates “Jungleman12” Cates in 2013 and Gaëlle Baumann in 2012. Even featuring hosts and reporters Kara Scott (currently 888poker ambassador) and Maria Ho (pro poker player who also ran deep in the BOM Main Event). 
Also introduced at the inaugural Battle of Malta were the “PokerListings Spirit of Poker Awards”, made to recognize poker players who achieved great results and offered people inspiration to learn and play poker. The three categories were Rising Star, Most Inspiring Player and Living Legend – and the deserving winners were crowned at the Battle of Malta event itself. Highlighting now-established players like Felipe Ramos and Liv Boeree. 
In 2018, Battle of Malta was sold in its entirety to Casino Malta for €300,000. That same year, the Main Event had a €1 million guarantee for the first time but massively exceeded the expected turnout with 3,816 entries for the Main Event and a €1,850,760 prize pool. However, the following year, had the biggest participation rate of a live event in Malta to that date (2019), with 4,657 entries (2,691 being unique players). 
The ninth edition of the event in 2020 was initially cancelled then taken online on GGPoker due to the COVID-19 pandemic. There was over $30 million guaranteed in prize pools - the biggest yet, plus lots of interesting events like Siege of Malta. Also with great coverage and commentary from poker pros like Randy Lew. The result was 73,240 entrants across its 14 ring events. The main event had 8,789 entrants with a $4,592,252 prize pool. 
== PokerListings Operator Awards ==
In November 2020, PokerListings introduced the PokerListings Operator Awards with seven different categories. The eight category “Player Favorite” was voted on by PokerListings players and followers on social media over the course of a month, and GGPoker was the winner. In December 2020, the other seven winners for the following categories were announced: 
* Most Improved Software: 888poker
* Best Software Overall: PokerStars
* Best for Beginners: 888poker
* Best for Grinders: partypoker
* Operator of the Year: GGPoker
* Best Online Series of the Year: PokerStars 
* Poker Innovation of the Year: GGPoker
Category:Poker publications
Category:Companies established in 2003
Category:Online poker companies