John Mehaffey got word that Bill Rini is no longer "Head of Poker" at WSOP.com, and indeed his Linkedin confirms it:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/billrini

Bill Rini
Former Head of Online Poker at the WSOP

Head of Online Poker WSOP.com
Caesars Interactive Entertainment Inc.
Sep 2013 – Sep 2019 6 years 1 month


Rini was mostly despised by WSOP.com players, for his passive-aggressive, customer-unfriendly attitude, and his tendency to avoid customers and hide from problems.

He seems like a smart guy, but just wasn't the right fit for the job. He was horrible at customer service, horrible at dealing with the public, horrible at managing crises and issues, and extremely out of touch with the wants and needs of online poker players, both grinders and recs alike.

I don't know a single poker player who believes Rini was doing a good job.

Here's some various PFA threads highlighting various failures on Rini's part over the years:

2013: https://pokerfraudalert.com/forum/sh...ns-at-WSOP-com

2014: https://pokerfraudalert.com/forum/sh...forum-about-it

2018: https://pokerfraudalert.com/forum/sh...-to-the-status

Bill Rini also had thin skin, and apparently got easily insulted when people criticized the site or his decisions.

Laughably, Rini eventually protected his Twitter account, so non-followers couldn't see it. So the manager of WSOP.com wasn't accessible at all on Twitter. Terrible.

A successor has not yet been named, and in fact Caesars has not even announced Rini's departure yet.

It's also not clear if Rini was fired, or if he quit. He is listed on Linkedin as the owner of "Libdek Holdings", a real estate company, but that dates back to early 2017, so it's probably something he was doing on the side. Libdek Holdings' website describes the company as follows:

Libdek Holdings is real estate investment company that focuses primarily in distressed properties and debt.

We purchase homes in need of repair, rehabilitate them, and sell them, much like what you might see on the popular fix-and-flip television shows.

Libdek also purchases defaulted mortgages (also known as Non-Performing Notes or NPNs). Our goal is to work with borrowers to keep them in their homes and get them back on track. Our size allows us to develop creative solutions for borrowers that might not be possible working with banks.

Our portfolio consists of our own holdings as well as interests in joint-ventures that we engage in with other real estate investors.

It is possible that Rini will devote himself to real estate full time, or perhaps he's just retiring from full time work. It's also very possible he was fired, given the numerous customer complaints and the overall poor performance of WSOP.com.

In 2018, the site's management also had a bizarre battle with Mehaffey, a Vegas-area gaming journalist.

In addition to his well-documented customer service and management missteps, the site also wasn't run well. They never attempted to engage in innovative promotions to build traffic on the site, even when it was clear that it was struggling from the start. Instead, they simply stayed the course with boring "deposit bonus" type promos. Their VIP program was pretty much a ripoff of Pokerstars' original creation circa 2004, which didn't work well for a site where people from out of the area go months at a time without playing (because they can only play within Nevada / New Jersey / Delaware).

His departure is hopefully excellent news for the future of legalized online poker, though his replacement will need to be someone who will do a substantially better job.