The British Columbia Lottery Corporations’s (BCLC) online gaming site, Playnow.com has now officially joined the first ever government run online poker network in North America, the Canadian Poker Network powered by GTECH G2.  PlayNow joins Loto Quebec’s Espacejeux.com as the two sites and provinces making up the newly launched network.  Now players in BC will be able to play with players in Quebec and enjoy the same promotions and tournaments that the QC residents have enjoyed.  This included a $250,000 freeroll held earlier this year, as well as a monthly $50,000 tournament on the first Sunday of every month.

Canadian Poker Network operations are based in Canada. The system is housed in a Montreal based data centre and poker network operations are in the National Operations Centre in Moncton, New Brunswick.

“The CPN is an excellent example of the kind of convergence of the igaming and lottery industries that GTECH G2 was created to serve,” said Paolo Personeni, President of GTECH G2. “We are proud to be partnered with such innovative lotteries, and look forward to enabling other lottery corporations to enter the igaming space with confidence.”

GTECH G2 is providing eight poker variants including Texas Hold’em and Canadian Stud (or Soko) which is played the same way as 5-Card Stud except that there are two extra combinations: a four-card Flush and a four-card Straight.

The Playnow.com poker room is now open.  Grand opening promotions include a $100,000 freeroll on March 27, and you can also win VIP Vancouver Canucks tickets.  There is also a Bad Beat Jackpot going on which is now over $300,000.  Simply lose with quad jacks or better, and win the BBJ!