eSports betting platform Unikrn couldn’t have asked for a better start to the year, following news that two more cryptocurrency exchanges have listed its widely popular digital token, the UnikoinGold (UKG).

In a blog post, the eSports betting company announced that UnikoinGold will start trading on cryptocurrency exchange OKex on Thursday, “signifying the continued widening of UKG’s reach to fans and users worldwide.”

Unikrn said the exchange, which has a strong presence in Asia, will help in expanding the company’s reach to users anywhere in the world. CEO Rahul Sood said eSports and video games have completely blown up, and Unikrn customers are now using their Unikoins in over 100 countries.

“Across Asia, Europe and North America, interested users now have the best options available in their regions to access UnikoinGold,” said Sood. “Our team takes pride in working alongside exchanges we’ve vetted, and OKex is clearly among the best in the world.”

More U.S. states are considering whether to legalize sports betting should the Supreme Court (SC) decide to strike down the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA).

On Thursday, Illinois House Deputy Majority Leader Lou Lang filed HB 4214 which seeks to regulate sports betting in the state.

Though the bill only contains a short title provision at the moment, Lang’s legislation is a testament to the fact that more U.S. states are willing to embrace sports betting if it’s declared legal by the high tribunal.

Last year, Illinois attempted to pass a bill that would have legalized daily fantasy sports and online casinos in the state. Unfortunately, the proposal failed to make it through the Senate.

The prospects of the Philippines’ casino industry remain bright for 2018, with analysts forecasting the gross gaming revenues of the country’s four integrated resorts to expand by 32 percent this year.

International brokerage Morgan Stanley said in its note on Thursday that the Philippine casino GGR will get a boost from newcomer Okada Manila, which has been adding facilities since its soft launch in December 2016.

Without Okada Manila, Morgan Stanley estimated that the Philippine casino GGR will likely be at 14 percent.

“Mass revenue growth has strong correlation with hotel room supply growth,” Morgan Stanley analysts Alex Poon and Praveen Choudhary said, according to GGRAsia. “The opening of Okada Tower A in first quarter 2018… could accelerate [market] growth in 2018.”

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) is once again kicking off the 2018 awards season by recognizing the best films and TV shows and the stellar performances of actors in the 75th Golden Globes.

All 93 members of the HFPA have already casted their votes ahead of the prestigious movie awards night, and the buzzword is that there are no clear front-runners for this year’s nominees. Before the celebrities reveal the winners on Sunday, Bodog gives us a glimpse on the odds of this year’s nominees.

Best Picture

Glossy, large-scale historical productions with big budgets (of various genres) and social-problem films have often taken the Best Picture prize over the past years. This was the case in 2012 and 2013 when historical film Argo and period drama film 12 Years a Slave took home the award, respectively.

Macau casino bigwig Angela Leong On Kei thinks she can do six times better than Cruella de Vil once Asia’s lone greyhound racetrack closes this summer.

The Macau (Yat Yuen) Canidrome is scheduled to close its gates forever on July 21, following years of waning interest by gamblers in the world’s top casino market. The venue, which has been running 12 races per night, five nights per week since 1963, was given a two-year notice of closure in July 2016 by local authorities.

As the clock ticks down, there are increased fears over the fate of the roughly 650 greyhounds who currently ply their fleet-footed trade at the Candirome. Everyone from animal rights groups to former members of the rock group Queen have expressed fears that the Canidrome’s animals will be slaughtered, eaten or simply abandoned to an uncertain future.

Leong, who owns the company that runs the Canidrome, has dismissed alarmist tales of the dogs coming to a grisly end as a “smear.” Leong, who is also a Macau lawmaker, managing director of casino operator SJM Holdings and who holds an estimated personal net worth of $4.1b, told reporters this week that she had invited local animal protection group Anima to visit the track to see how the dogs are faring.

Online gambling operator Star Casino has earned the ire of Belgium’s feminists after displaying too much female flesh in a public billboard campaign.

The new year was but a few days old when Belgian Twitter users started circulating photographs of a billboard featuring an apparently naked (and empirically attractive) woman lying on what appears to be a bed of clouds, her naughty bits strategically covered with (for some reason) American banknotes.

The ad, which was pimping Belgian online gambling licensee StarCasino.be, featured the tagline ‘La Sensation de Gagner’ (The Sensation of Winning), which evidently accounted for the blissful smile on the aforementioned lady’s face.

The gist of the complaints was that this type of sexism had no place in Brussels metro stations and bus stops, and as the hashtag #EverydaySexism started to trend, public transport operator Stib ordered all 1,000 copies of the Star Casino billboard yanked from its facilities.

Poland’s gamblers will have to wait a while longer for the ability to play at an online casino – one the government approves of, at least.

A few days before Christmas, Poland’s deputy finance minister Piotr Walczak found himself in the unenviable position of informing the public that the national lottery operator’s online casino site won’t be ready to launch until the third or fourth quarter of 2018.

A little over a year ago, Poland amended its gambling laws to permit online casino, poker and bingo products alongside the existing online sports betting sites. However, the new products would be the sole responsibility of the state-owned Totalizator Sportowy.

Last August, the lottery operator was supposed to open a tender for a technology partner to power its ‘eKasyno’ offering. However, a freedom of information request from opposition MPs forced Walczak to confirm that the tender didn’t actually start taking bids until November, and the government has yet to designate which lucky suitor will get to escort Totalizator Sportowy to the online casino ball.

The Lucky Dragon casino in Las Vegas is scaling back its operations a little over one year after it opened.

On Thursday, the Lucky Dragon Hotel & Casino announced that it was “temporarily” closing “all gaming and restaurant operations” as part of a “process of repositioning” the venue. Gaming chip and ticket redemptions can be handled via the front desk, while all future gaming offers are now invalid.

A statement on the venue’s official Twitter account indicated that the Lucky Dragon’s gaming operations are expected to resume “within six months.” The property apparently intends to hire new external partners to manage gaming operations.

The statement went on to say that this “difficult decision,” which will involve an unquantified “reduction in staff,” was necessary in order for the Lucky Dragon “to establish new partnerships that will enhance the property’s long-term positioning and provide a better guest experience.”

India’s Poker Sports League (PSL) is set for some major public exposure after inking a television rights deal with Indian sports broadcaster Dsport.

On Thursday, Dsport’s parent company Discovery Communications India announced that it had secured exclusive rights to broadcast season two of the PSL, marking the first time that poker will receive such coverage on Indian television. The coverage will be conducted in the English language, at least initially.

The PSL launched last year as the world’s first ‘franchise-based’ poker league. Ten teams competed in its freshman season, and the PSL has bumped this number up to 12 for its sophomore campaign. The teams will be competing for a total prize pool of Rs 30.6m (US $483k), a hefty bump from the year before.

DSport boss TS Panesar said his group was “elated to associate ourselves in this first of its kind journey” and assured audiences that the PSL team was “committed to creating an excellent broadcast-friendly show – to reach out to sports lovers across the subcontinent and make this an exceptional experience.”