For those of us who bow down before the altar of prop betting, there’s no better thrill than putting money down on entertainment props. It’s not quite like Super Bowl props in terms of stature, but for sheer entertainment purposes, no pun intended, betting on events like the Oscars is like trying to bet on Wrestlemania.

There are clear-cut favorites, and while they almost always win, there are still some notable exceptions when huge underdogs pull off an incredible upset. I see you, Brock Lesnar.

The template for this year’s Academy Awards fits that bill. For Best Picture, you have a clear favorite (Birman at 2/5 odds), a short underdog (Boyhood at 5/4), and a bunch of long shots with odds ranging from 20/1 to 50/1. The fun here isn’t so much about betting on Birdman or Boyhood, but putting small amounts on all of them with the hopes that something inexplicable happens and one of those long shots improbably wins the award. It’s a losing proposition for the most part, but if you bet, say, a dollar, on any of the long shots, you only stand to lose $5 if none of them cash in. Minimal risk, huge pay-off.

Same thing with the award for Best Actor. Right now, Eddie Redmayne remains the overwhelming favorite at 1/3 odds with Michael Keaton a little further down at 5/2. Outside of these two, the odds drop precipitously with Bradley Cooper at 12/1, Benedict Cumberbatch at 20/1, and Steve Carrell at 28/1.

The award for Best Actress is the most extreme example of this line-of-thinking. Everybody already has Julian Moore penciled in to win it, so much so that some sportsbooks are offering odds as low as 3/100. That’s the equivalent of, say, Real Madrid playing Elche in the Spanish La Liga. You have to feel bad for the other nominees, right?

They’ll show up at the awards knowing full well that they’re not winning it. Just look at their odds: Reese Witherspoon (14/1), Rosamund Pike (25/1), Felicity Jones (50/1), and Marion Cotillard (65/1).

The Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress Awards follow the same template, too. JK Simmons and Patricia Arquette are the overwhelming favorites with odds as low as 1/50 for the both of them.

The Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (PAGCOR) has won a major court victory over the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR).

PAGCOR’s charter states that it must pay a 5% franchise tax on income derived from gaming operations – including the licensing of casinos – while corporate tax is payable on revenue derived from other PAGCOR services.

In 2011, the BIR issued a circular requiring PAGCOR to pay corporate tax on its gaming income after the Philippine government amended its National Internal Revenue Code. The amendment failed to specify that PAGCOR was among the state-owned agencies that were exempt from corporate tax and PAGCOR has been locked in a knife fight with the BIR ever since.

On Thursday, the Supreme Court ruled that the attempt to impose the corporate tax on PAGCOR “constitutes an overreach” and “grave abuse of discretion” on the part of the BIR. The Court said there was no need for Congress to grant PAGCOR a tax exemption because the exemption was explicitly stated in PAGCOR’s charter. The Court said that if Congress had truly intended to remove PAGCOR”s exemption it would have “expressly” done so because the “repeal of laws by implication is not favored.”

The friction between PAGCOR and the BIR has only ramped up since work began on the mega-resorts in Manila’s Entertainment City project. Before they started building, PAGCOR”s international casino licensees had agreed to pay the 5% franchise tax on gross gaming revenue plus 15% on VIP winnings and 25% on mass market gaming.

BIR claimed it had never been consulted on this arrangement and promptly slapped the 30% corporate tax on all licensees’ gaming income. Operators were rightfully pissed at this apparent bait-and-switch and PAGCOR attempted to cushion this blow by lowering casino license fees by 10%. PAGCOR said it would revert to the previous formula if/when the BIR’s reign of terror was “restrained, corrected, or withdrawn.”

LEGISLATOR WANTS TO REDUCE PAGCOR’S AUTHORITY

Lee Davy brings you another shot of poker news, including: Caesars and Amaya falling in love; the World Series of Poker serenading the Italians; Dusk till Dawn jumping into bed with partypoker, and much more.

It’s been a strange old week for the poker community.

Hearts have fluttered. Hearts have broken. Fortunately, for you, we haven’t missed a beat.

Last week, we told you that Pala Interactive CEO, Jim Ryan, believed that the Restoration of America’s Wire Act (RAWA) had a good shot of passing. That belief strengthened this week, after Nolan Dalla posed the question: “Could American Online Poker be Holding the Losing Hand?”

“{Sheldon} Adelson’s organization, the Coalition to Stop Internet Gambling, is steadily winning over the hearts and minds of our elected officials in Washington.” Dalla wrote before continuing, “They are outspending, out maneuvering, outthinking and outworking the opposition.”

We are a disjointed bunch. A whole lot of people, looking at other people, hoping and praying that they will do something to bring back online poker to the USA.

That approach doesn’t cut the mustard.

Atlantic City casino operator Trump Entertainment Resorts may have spied a light at the end of its bankruptcy tunnel after creditors reached a deal on a restructuring plan.

Trump Entertainment filed for bankruptcy last September, shutting down the Trump Plaza casino that same month. The Trump Taj Mahal remains open only because principal creditor Carl Icahn floated the company a $20m emergency loan in December.

On Thursday, a panel representing Trump Entertainment’s unsecured creditors reached a deal that attorney Karen Giannelli said “allows us to support the [restructuring] plan.” Under the previous plan, Icahn would receive equity in the restructured company while unsecured creditors would have split $1m between them, representing a recovery rate of less than 1%. Bloomberg News reported that the new plan boosts the unsecured creditors’ payout to $3.5m.

While the creditors committee has signed off on the plan, the individual creditors are under no obligation to accept. The plan also doesn’t prevent casino workers union Unite Here Local 54 from continuing its appeal of the court order stripping Taj Mahal’s unionized employees of their existing benefits and health care plan.

JUDGE KILLS REVEL SALE, CASINO CAN KEEP STRAUB’S $10M DEPOSIT

Meanwhile, the long sorry saga of the Revel Hotel and Casino took yet another downturn on Thursday as a bankruptcy court gave the property permission to put itself back on the market. Revel now hopes to find another sucker willing to pick up AC’s white elephant on the cheap but there are no firm offers on the table and Revel will be forced to liquidate if no buyer materializes within the next five months.

Launched in April 2012, the $2.4b Revel declared bankruptcy for the second time last June. The property was sold at auction to Brookfield Asset Management for $110m, but the company walked away from the deal a month later after failing to reach a deal with the dedicated power company that supplies Revel with juice. Florida developer Glenn Straub then snapped up Revel for $95.4m but Straub couldn’t make nice with Revel’s tenants and the deal’s timeline expired.

Manchester United have launched ‘Manchester United Social Poker’ in collaboration with their official global social casino games partner, KamaGames.

Manchester United, the world’s most widely recognized football club, has entered the social casino industry by launching Manchester United Social Poker.

It’s a bold move for a club trying desperately to find the pulse that seems to have deadened since the departure of Sir Alex Ferguson.

In the summer of 2013 I was invited to attend The Road to Old Trafford. A £250 No-Limit Hold’em (NLHE) event that featured the likes of former Man Utd player Darren Fletcher, and our very own Sam Trickett.

Trickett would go on to win the £10,000 first prize and donate it to Rio Ferdinand’s charity; Darren Fletcher would go on to sign for WBA, and I would leave slightly bemused as to why bwin.party had not entered into an agreement to launch Manchester United Social Poker instead of KamaGames?

It’s all about money, honey.

Premier League football clubs seem to have an ‘Official’ everything. Official toilet paper provider, official tampon provider, and now an official global social casino games partner.

New Jersey sports betting advocates have learned the names of the three judges who will decide the fate of their state’s latest betting legislation.

A three-judge panel of the US Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia has scheduled a March 17 hearing for oral arguments in New Jersey’s latest appeal of the latest injunction barring the state from allowing sports betting at Atlantic City casinos and state racetracks.

The three judges picked to hear the state’s appeal are: Maryanne Trump Barry (pictured left), the sister of Donald Trump, famed entrepreneur and Hair Club For Muskrats hall of fame inductee; Majorie Rendell (pictured right), the wife of former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell; and Julio Fuentes (center), who was among the three judges who rejected the state’s previous appeal in 2013.

The trio does not feature Judge Thomas Vanaskie, who authored the dissenting opinion in that 2013 decision. Vanaskie was the lone judicial voice to suggest New Jersey’s advocates were right in their view that the 1992 federal PASPA sports betting prohibition was unconstitutional because it “conscripts the states as foot soldiers to implement a congressional policy choice.”

Fuentes, meanwhile, was the judge who said the state was free to decide the “exact contours” of its sports betting prohibitions. It was this language that helped New Jersey craft its latest legislation, which doesn’t explicitly authorize or regulate sports betting, but merely allows its casino and racing licensees to add sports betting to their gambling menu.

The pro and college sports leagues opposing New Jersey’s plan have argued that Fuentes wasn’t giving a green light to a partial repeal of PASPA, but was only suggesting that states had the right to decide how punitive to make their own penalties for violating the total prohibition. US District Judge Michael Shipp sided with the leagues in his November 2014 ruling.

As for Trump Barry and Rendell, they each have ties to gambling via their sibling and significant other, respectively. Donald Trump used to run casinos in Atlantic City while Ed Rendell was publicly advocating for sports betting in his home state way back in 2012, although that was one year after he’d left the governor’s mansion. Before donning her judge’s robes, Marjorie Rendell did a stint with Duane Morris LLP, a law firm with a significant gaming practice.