Welcome to the BLUFF Daily Buzz, where we scour the entire internet for all the latest news in and around the world of poker. If it involves chips and cards, or people known to associate with chips and cards, we’re there.

Has High Stakes Poker found its new co-host?

After weeks of wondering who’s going to replace departed High Stakes Poker co-host A.J. Benza, it seems there’s an answer: Kara Scott.

Scott, the television-hostess-turned-poker-player who this year became only the second woman in WSOP Main Event history to cash in consecutive years, has plenty of on-camera experience in the poker world. She was handled the hosting duties in the past for Sky Poker and Poker Night Live in the United Kingdom, as well as the European Poker Tour. Because she is Canadian, Scott still has to get a permit to work in the United States, and that seems to be the reason that neither GSN nor Poker PROductions has made an official statement up to this point.

The new season of High Stakes Poker is set to begin filming next week, with episodes slated to air in February 2010.

(Kara Scott to be Named New Host of High Stakes Poker - Poker News Daily)

Vanessa Rousso on new reality series

A lot of people were expecting Vanessa Rousso to be announced as the new co-host on High Stakes Poker before she came out and denied the rumors, partly due to a message on her Twitter feed saying that she was working on a new television project. Now it’s clear what that project was, as E! Entertainment Television has ordered a series called Bank of Hollywood, produced by the company run by American Idol host Ryan Seacrest.

Rousso will serve on the show’s celebrity panel, which will hear pitches from everyday people asking for money and decide whether to give it to them. Wilhelmina Models president Sean Patterson, Pussycat Dolls singer Melody Thornton, and author and entrepreneur Candy Spelling, the widow of legendary television producer Aaron Spelling, will make up the rest of the panel. According to Seacrest, “The idea’s simple. We are giving away tons of money to everyday people to alleviate the stress of today’s climate and have fun.”

The show is based on a similar series in the UK, Fortune: Million Pound Giveaway, the panel of which included the owner of a soccer team, the daughter of the owner of another team, and a former politician convicted of perjury - but not a single poker player.

(E! Orders Ryan Seacrest ‘Bank of Hollywood’ series - Reality TV World)

Check out the rest of our Poker Tweets and start your own poker TV rumor today!

All you need is a (real) chip and a chair

There’s another tale of a poker crime gone wrong thanks to two men from Missouri who tried to rip off an Oklahoma casino - though thankfully their scheme didn’t require them to resort to violence.

William Reece Lancaster, 49, and Mark Vernon Edmiston, 45, were indicted by a federal grand jury in Tulsa, Okla., for conspiring to defraud the Seneca Cayuga Grand Lake Casino casino by using counterfeit poker chips. According to the Tulsa World, the indictment accuses to the two men of “cashing in counterfeit chips, exchanging them for legitimate chips, introducing bogus chips into play and meeting to divide the ‘illegally and fraudulently stolen funds and money of the Seneca Cayuga Grand Lake Casino.’” Authorities say they believe the case involved more than $25,000.

The Assistant U.S. Attorney on the case, Trent Shores, wouldn’t say how the two men got their hands on counterfeit chips, but he did say that the scheme was eventually spotted by casino personnel, leading to Lancaster’s and Edmiston’s arrests in October. They are currently free on bond.

(Men charged with conspiring to defraud Oklahoma casino with fake poker chips - Tulsa World)

Lose a bet, get some ink

And finally, nosebleed-stakes online cash game pro Ilari “Ziigmund” Sahamies doesn’t just gamble with money - he also puts his body on the line. It seems that the Finn was taking in a hockey game in Helsinki recently between his favorite team, HIFK, and a rival squad called JYP. With the two teams tied late in the third period, one of Ziigmund’s friends suggested a bet: the supporters of whichever team lost would have to have the team’s logo tattooed somewhere on their body. Needless to say, we wouldn’t be talking about this if HIFK had pulled out the win.

It seems that the tattoo artist who did Ziigmund and his friend up was also an HIFK fan, so the art was clean and precise. Add to that the fact that he’s been an HIFK fan since long before he became a poker player, and Sahamies didn’t even mind losing the bet. Looks like that means we won’t be reading any anti-JYP blog rants about anytime soon.

(Ziigmund loses a bet but gains a tattoo! - Betfair Blog)

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