Betting ads could soon be banned from live TV sporting events in Australia, if Senator Nick Xenophon has his way.

This week, federal authorities revealed plans to significantly slash gambling ads during sports broadcasts in an attempt to win support from the Senate crossbench. The Turnbull government is seeking to water down media ownership laws in Australia, but to achieve this, they have to strike a deal with senators—including Xenophon.

Votes from the three members of the Nick Xenophon Team (NXT) are reportedly crucial for the media ownership reform to pass the Parliament, but Xenophon, who was built most of his political career on “tough on gambling” posturing, is using the ban on betting ads as a bargaining chip in his negotiations with the government, according to Fairfax Media.

The crackdown on television betting ads is facing resistance from broadcasters, which raked in an estimated AUD120 million (USD92.35 million) from gambling advertising last year. TV broadcasters claimed the only winners from fewer television ads would be Facebook and Google.

Slower VIP gaming business coupled with a weaker peso dragged Philippine casino operator Travellers International Hotel Group Inc.’s net profit down by as much as 15 percent in 2016.

Resorts World Manila operator announced in Tuesday’s regulatory filing that its annual net profit tumbled to PHP3.4 billion (US$67.83 million) last year compared to PHP4.02 billion (US$80.2 million) in 2015.

The culprit behind Travellers’ net profit slip was its lackluster VIP segment, which fell 17.4 percent year-on-year. Travellers reported cornering P303.5 billion (US$6.05 billion) in 2016.

Traveller’s saving grace was its hotel and food/beverage operations and better cost management, which bolstered its cash flow by four percent to P6.4 billion (US$127.68 million) and increased its overall net revenue by two percent to P25.09 billion (US$500.54 million).

Its easy to list off disruptive technology touching the online gambling industry today, but its much more difficult to actually integrate such technology into a business plan.  As an industry, we learn about the latest technology such as artificial intelligence (AI), virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) and blockchain at conference sessions and as we browse expo floors, but how should we adopt these technologies into our roadmaps?

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PokerStars has asked their players to be patient after a hardware failure affected people for two hours on Tuesday night and UFC star Tito Ortiz shines at Day 1A of the PokerStars Championship Main Event in Panama.

I created a Mind Map, the headline read “How to earn $45,000 through poker in 12-months,” and in the left-hand corner of the Map was a bubble that read “Bucket List”, with a little arrow pointing towards ‘World Series of Poker Bracelet (WSOP)’.

But you can’t win a WSOP bracelet unless you play in a WSOP event and Ogmore Vale seemed a galaxy away from Las Vegas. But I was lucky. The World Series of Poker Europe (WSOPE) was about to begin at the Empire Casino in London’s Leicester Square. That would have to do.

Betfair were the sponsors, and I opened an account and entered a satellite to qualify for a £1,000 No-Limit Hold’em side event. I reached heads-up with a 5:1 chip lead and I started to think this Mind Map business was the key to my life ambitions.

On Friday, 16 more games will tip off in the first round of the 2017 NCAA Tournament, and by the looks of the betting lines they will either be very competitive or extremely lopsided. Eight of the 16 matchups see double-digit favorites, but there are also six games with spreads of less than four points.

Odds courtesy of OddsShark.com

Greenville, South Carolina might have two of the best games, with the eighth-seeded Arkansas Razorbacks (25-9) starting the betting action against the ninth-seeded Seton Hall Pirates (21-11) in the South Region.

The Razorbacks are listed as one-point favorites and have gone 6-1 straight up and against the spread in their last seven games following an ATS loss. But the Pirates are 6-2 SU and 7-1 ATS in their previous eight games during March, and they have won six of eight versus winning teams.

888Poker has announced the third and final leg of the triumvirate of inaugural 888Live events, and it’s time for everyone to set their Google Maps on Barcelona for a festival that caters for everyone.

A few years back I was invited to attend an 888Live Local Series event in Dublin, Ireland. It was a throwback. The poker room was no bigger than my living room. Photographs of The Hendon Mob, Doyle Brunson, and The Devilfish sat on top of the old wallpaper. The craic-filled the room with an ease of a local home game.

But this is 888Poker, the second largest online poker room in the universe. I loved the atmosphere, organisation and the connection they were making with the dustmen, postmen, and second-hand car salesmen of Dublin. But I knew that one day they would have to move into more luxurious surroundings if they were going to maintain that second largest tag, or prevent a young pretender from pinching it from under their nose.

So I was delighted when 888 announced plans to host three major live events per year under the new 888Live banner. It came at a time when 888 looked like serious contenders to the throne currently occupied by PokerStars with a series of high-profile sponsorships and hook ups with some of the most intelligent and marketable ambassadors in the world.

Partypoker has released the full schedule for the MILLIONS event at Dusk till Dawn, and there will be £8m in guaranteed prize money, including two £1m guaranteed events, and the £6m guaranteed MILLIONS event.

In a recent blog post, PokerStars Heads of Comms, Eric Hollreiser, acknowledged the rate of progress his competitors are making in the live tournament market.

“Competition makes everyone work to be better, and it builds more energy and excitement around the game,” wrote Hollreiser.

And it is exciting.

The boss of the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) has publicly warned parents that they need to guard against their kids blowing their lunch money on eSports skin betting sites.

On Wednesday, UKGC CEO Sarah Harrison (pictured) issued a statement alerting parents to the “dangers of gambling associated with video games.” Harrison said parents could be giving their offspring money “thinking that they are playing a computer game when in fact they are gambling and this is real worry [sic].”

Harrison referenced the growing phenomenon of gambling sites that use in-game virtual items commonly known as skins as betting currency, while stressing that regulators “need to make sure all gambling is fair, safe, crime-free and protects the young and vulnerable.”

Harrison’s concerns were echoed by Department of Media, Culture & Sport undersecretary Tracy Crouch, who warned of “unlicensed websites jumping on the back of popular video games and encouraging children to gamble.”