Lee Davy covers news from the World Poker Tour (including the creation of the Bobby Baldwin Classic), the Super High Roller Bowl expanding to China and much more.

I’m going to begin this week’s picnic of poker by focusing on the World Poker Tour (WPT) who started and ended three different events this week.

The most recent to end saw Darryll Fish overcome a field of 911 entrants to win his first major title, and career-high $511,604 in prize money, in the WPT Lucky Hearts Poker Open Main Event at the Seminole Hard Rock Casino & Hotel in Hollywood, Florida. Nesrine Reilly (4th) and Andy Frankenberger (3rd) also made the final table.

It was Reilly’s second final table of the Lucky Hearts Poker Open after finishing eighth in the WPTDeepStacks Main Event. Scott Baumstein took that one down for a career-high $220,238 after overcoming a field of 1,366 entrants.

Betcoin Poker, the cryptocurrency online poker room that closed on Christmas Day, reopens in a bid to distribute the funds remaining in the Bad Beat Jackpot.

I wolf-whistled at her.

She looked adorable in her pretty dress looking like the scent of the sweetest perfume; bow in her hair, shoes that sparkled like the stars seen from a bed underneath an Icelandic sky.

It was a natural reaction.

888Live has released their 2018 tour stops including new events in Romania and Portugal and a host of familiar stops including several events at Aspers Casino, Stratford.

The grand old tapestry of poker is like a 5/5 Netflix show. PokerStars and partypoker are two parts of this peculiar parade. Out in front. Chests puffed. Headlines. Lights. Attention. Glory. They are not alone. The sufficiently supple 888Poker has a latitude and a longitude in this thing. I can see them. I am intrigued. When will they make their move? Will it roar? Will we hear anything?

An email hit my laptop this week.

Special Announcement – 888Poker LIVE Announces 2018 Stops 

UK gambling operators could face stiff financial penalties for breaching advertising rules, according to proposed changes to their licensing conditions.

On Thursday, the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) unveiled its proposed changes to license condition and codes of practice (LCCP) for UK gambling operators. Stakeholders and members of the public have until April 22 to submit their opinions on the proposed new rules of the road (viewable in full here).

The changes come as the UKGC is imposing its new vision of a ‘fairer’ gambling market, with an emphasis on a consumer-friendly approach and a zero-tolerance policy toward social responsibility shortcomings.

Among the highlights are a change in licensees’ adherence to socially responsible (SR) marketing activity. Whereas the previous LCCP said that licensees “should” comply with UK Advertising Codes, licensees are now told they “must” comply with codes issued by the Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) and the Broadcast Committee of Advertising Practice (BCAP).

UK-listed online gambling operator GVC Holdings is putting aside €200m as a provision against a hefty back-tax demand from the Greek government.

On Thursday, GVC announced that it had received a tax audit assessment from the Greek Audit Center for Large Enterprises, which is demanding €186.77m in back taxes to cover a GVC subsidiary’s activity in the Greek market for the years 2010 and 2011.

The GVC subsidiary in question was owned during the period by Sportingbet, whose operations GVC acquired in 2013 as part of a joint deal with rival bookmaker William Hill. At the time, Sportingbet held an interim Greek license, the permanent replacements for which have been still not been issued by Greek authorities.

GVC says the nine-figure back-tax demand is “substantially higher by multiples of the total Greek revenues generated” by Sportingbet during the period in question. GVC disputed the Greek taxman’s methodology for arriving at this “widely exaggerated” figure, while noting that “multiple other online gaming operators” had been subjected to similar demands.