Wan Kuok Koi, the former leader of the notorious 14K Triad, is reportedly cashing in on the cryptocurrency craze.

Macau gaming company Dragon Corp. announced early this week that it plans to sell digital tokens via an initial coin offering (ICO) to raise $500 million and bring blockchain to the gambling enclave. The ICO, scheduled for October 27, will have junket operators offer credit on behalf of the casino operators, and the money raised will help fund the construction of 1,600-square-meter floating Dragon Pearl Casino Hotel.

ICOs have already caught the eye of regulators in China who are concerned with possible cases of fraudulent fundraising and speculative investment, but Dragon Corp’s digital token sale is expected to face even closer scrutiny after reports surfaced that the Macau gaming company’s ICO has the backing of 61-year-old Wan, also known as Broken Tooth. Wan was released from prison in December 2012 after serving a 14-year sentence for illegal gambling, loansharking and criminal association.

On Tuesday, the South China Morning Post published photographs that showed Wan at a signing ceremony between Dragon Corp. and Thailand-based Wi Holding. A source familiar with junket financing told SCMP’s Niall Fraser that while an ICO “is probably more secure” compared to the “traditional handshake or one-page agreement,” it is doubtful that the token sale will escape the authorities’ wrath since junket operators “are essentially trying to use an IT patch to legitimize an underground activity.”

After six weeks, the Premier League is beginning to take a familiar shape with five of the perennial big six taking their usual places at the top of the charts.

Man City 5 v 0 Crystal Palace 

The flares are in the air.

Crystal Palace is in serious trouble, and Roy Hodgson is a masochist.

Unibet, the Swedish online poker room, releases details of an online multi-table tournament equipped with a brand new space theme.

The excitement of waiting for the release of an Oasis single was one of the highlights of my youth.

It was the B-sides.

Nobody created better B-sides than A-sides, that was insane, but Oasis did.

A pickle jar full of PokerStars stories including PokerStars Caribbean Adventure online satellite news, a live podcast celebration, Dublin & Uruguay Festival news, and more charitable work, this time for Hurricane relief in Florida.

PokerStars has reacted well to player feedback in recent months. The top brass pulled the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (PCA) brand out of the trash, dusted it off, and gave it a fresh lick of paint. Now they are working on the complaint that Stars has forgotten the importance of providing tributaries to the bigger events for the recreational players.

The Road to Bahamas ultra satellites will send 200 qualifiers to the PCA in January 2018. On Oct 15 & Nov 5, PokerStars will offer punters six different ways to qualify for the $10,300 PCA Main Event, distributing $3m in prizes over the two days.

Here are the six routes:

UK National Lottery operator Camelot has won the $2.2b management contract for the troubled Illinois Lottery.

On Friday, the Illinois Lottery announced that it was handing responsibility for managing its affairs over the next decade to Camelot Illinois, a local subsidiary of UK lottery giant Camelot Global.

Camelot established a local office in the state last year for the express purpose of winning the Illinois Lottery’s business, although it likely didn’t hurt that Camelot was the only bidder for the 10-year contract.

The Illinois Lottery had previously been managed by the Northstar Group, a joint venture of Scientific Games Corporation and International Game Technology, which beat out Camelot for the 10-year contract at the start of this decade.

The UK Labour Party is considering a plan that would compel gambling operators to fund National Health Service treatment for gambling addicts.

Labour is set to begin its annual conference in Brighton on Tuesday, and deputy party leader Tom Watson’s office released excerpts of a speech he intends to deliver, in which Watson calls on UK gambling operators to bear a larger brunt of the costs imposed by the nation’s ranks of problem gamblers.

The gist of Watson’s jeremiad is that UK gambling operators have so far failed to live up to the modest problem gambling education and treatment funding benchmarks established by GambleAware, the industry-funded problem gambling association.

In May, GambleAware announced that its annual funding had hit £8m in the 12 months ending March 31, 10% higher than the previous year but well shy of its £10m target. GambleAware CEO Marc Etches urged the industry to ensure its contributions in the current year are on target, otherwise he said his group would support “the commencement of a statutory levy.”

Online lottery betting operator Lottoland is getting into the insurance game after receiving a financial services license from Gibraltar regulators.

On Monday, Lottoland proudly announced that its new Fortuna Insurance subsidiary had received a license from Gibraltar’s Financial Services Commission to handle future collateralized reinsurance and insurance-linked securities (ILS) transactions. Lottoland believes it marks the first time an online gambling operator has set up its own insurance company.

Lottoland offers players the ability to place bets on the outcomes of draws from major lotteries around the world, including Powerball and EuroMillions, with winning bettors claiming similar prizes as if they were directly participating in these lotteries.

The company takes out insurance to guard against the possibility that one of its players will hit one of these nine-figure paydays. To date, Lottoland’s biggest payout was a €22m prize claimed by a German punter last year.

Politicians on the island of Tinian have approved legislation that will allow locally licensed casino operators to offer online gambling, but finding qualified applicants may prove difficult.

On Friday, Rep. Edwin Aldan’s House Local Bill 20-30 was unanimously approved by the Tinian and Aguigan Legislative Declaration, leaving only a signature by Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) Gov. Ralph Torres to become law.

A report in the Marianas Variety indicated that the bill would amend the Revised Tinian Casino Gaming Control Act of 1989 to allow licensed casino operators to lawfully provide online gambling, provided the casino licensee operates a hotel offering a minimum of 300 rooms.

Interested operators would pay an annual fee of $300k for the right to offer online gambling, while paying 5% tax on their gross online gambling revenue on a monthly basis.