National UK newspaper The Guardian has ended its sports betting partnership with FSB Technology. The newspaper announced that it would no longer run its GoWager betting services in its website.

The Guardian‘s partnership with FSB Technology launched GoWager in February 2014, offering customers a full sportsbook with live betting on a range of sports including football, horseracing, tennis, and cricket on selected betting markets.

The newspaper faced criticism and opposition from its readers for promoting gambling products and the publication was forced to review its sports betting partnership. FSB-powered GoWager was switched to a standalone site unaffiliated to The Guardian.

The UK newspaper had taken a strong stance against UK gambling, in particular the issue of fixed-odds betting terminals (FOBT’s) but its commercial department had defended its online sports betting product as an individual’s right to choose and that it was only marketed on the sports pages of the newspaper and website.

“Guardian News & Media is always seeking new ways to innovate commercially, but we are also mindful of the views of our readers, some of which were outlined in a readers’ editor’s column about GoWager last year,” a spokesperson told eGaming Review. “This decision was unrelated to the services provided by FSB Technology and the GoWager website will continue without Guardian involvement,” the spokesperson added.

Dave McDowell, CEO and co-founder of FSB Technology, added, “We really enjoyed working with the Guardian and remain on very good terms. The relationship gave us a fantastic platform to showcase our position as a leading technology supplier.

“We broke new ground in the distribution of a sports betting service by delivering contextual betting opportunities embedded within a media partner’s website. At FSB we want to continue being innovative when it comes to the marketing of those services and maintain our position as the most flexible sports betting solution in the market today.”

Fresh off the successful grand opening of City of Dreams Manila, Melco Crown Entertainment has come out doused any thoughts of building a casino in South Korea.

Speaking to reporters during the grand opening, Melco Crown co-chairman Lawrence Ho said South Korea’s policy of limiting casino access to foreigners-only is too risky a proposition for the company.

“In our opinion, foreigners-only gaming market is difficult. Korea and its policy of not letting locals in, to us, are difficult,” Ho said.

Neither Ho nor Melco co-chairman James Packer believe that the foreigners-only format could guarantee 30,000 visitors a day, a requirement to make a project with that kind of scale to work.

Ho’s stance could also be traced to his company already having a presence in Macau that attracts its fair share of VIPs and Chinese high-rollers, the same market casinos in South Korea are targeting. If locals aren’t allowed to play in casinos, a Melco Crown casino in Korea would essentially be going after the same people that already visit its casinos in Macau.

But the company isn’t completely closing its doors on the country. “If the government changes its policy about locals, we would jump in head first,” Ho said.

For now, though, Melco Crown is focusing its full attention in promoting and building up City of Dreams Manila. The resort’s grand opening was a resounding success and the company is looking to carry that momentum forward.

A family of four, from Birmingham in the UK, have ditched their jobs to focus on becoming full time professional poker players.

Ask poker players if they would recommend the life of a professional poker player, to their children, and a high percentage of them would say no. The reasons vary from the difficulty of eking out a profit; stress, and the fact that you are taking from the world and not giving back.

None of that bothers the Sheils family from Birmingham.

Parents Michelle and Matthew Sheils, and their sons 23-year old Richard, and 19-year old Brandon, have bucked the trend, ditched their jobs and decided to become professional poker players.

The UK tabloids have branded them as masterminds who have uncovered a mathematical formula that allows them to gain an edge. To be fair to the Sheils family that’s probably more to do with the uneducated writer, than any actual mathematical formula – unless they are all Ex-Machina sliding down the fallopian tubes of Cepheus?

“I did my dissertation on poker, the science and math behind the game.” Richard told the Birmingham Mail. “You can see where the gambling is, and where it is not. It would be extremely silly to go down the gambling route. If you meet gamblers, you are going to make money from them.”

Don’t tell that to Ivey.

Johnny Landreth has won the World Series of Poker Circuit Main Event at the Horseshoe Tunica, after beating Tom Thomas, in heads-up action, to capture the first prize of $147,388.

Johnny Landreth will be living on pure adrenaline after an eight-hour marathon against Tom Thomas ended with a World Series of Poker Circuit (WSOPC) gold ring being slipped on his finger.

Landreth takes his total live tournament earnings to +$585,000 after picking up $147,388 for the win, and a seat in the World Series of Poker (WSOP) National Championships. Scott Stewart will join him after his first, sixth, and 18th place finishes were enough to hand him the Casino Championship award.

Landreth and Thomas entered the final table with three quarters of the chips in play, and it took only two hours to remove Aphideth Nakhoneinh, Norman McKeldin, Jeremy Drewery, Keith Murrell, Tommy Bishop, Russell Head and Jamie Strickland from the equation.

But that scintillating start would soon hit a roadblock. Both players squaring off with deep stacks and plenty of patience. After eight hours of play Thomas had ground Landreth down to 15 big blinds, when he flopped a straight versus top two pair, to double up. A point he would power on from to pick up the win – pocket sixes successfully running the gauntlet against K9o.

“I’ve got a lot of friends that have [a ring],” Landreth told the WSOP. “I played a lot of events and it just hadn’t fallen my way. It did this time.”

The win is the biggest since Landreth started racking up Hendon Mob numbers a decade ago. His first-ever cash was for $185,797 after topping a 677-player field in a $1k event at the Gold Strike Casino Resort in Tunica.