The Swedish online poker room, Unibet, has partnered with the Cash Game Festival in a move that will see Unibet providing online outlets to live events throughout Europe.

I often wonder if things would change if Unibet became as big as PokerStars, 888poker or partypoker?

Would the leaders feel the pressure of a hairy palm on battered nuts? Would they walk through corridors of strangers with a big X sewn into the back of their sleek looking suit?

Would they go the way as Marilyn Monroe?

3: Barrels of an Asian-Pacific vintage including Bryn Kenney partnering with the Asian-facing online poker room GGPoker, Adda52 pulling off a Big Millions event, and a student from a bizarre-sounding place in Australia wins the APL Million.

A gun-toting cowboy with a splendid tash, a big-chested blonde Geri Halliwell lookalike and Bryn Kenney are the new faces of GGPoker.

The reigning Global Poker Index (GPI) Player of the Year has joined the Asian-based online poker room as a brand ambassador. It’s a fantastic signing for the online poker room. One imagines they paid a pretty price to get this prince of poker to convince people to sneak a dose of poker into their veins.

Kenny isn’t a snot swallower.

UK betting operator Sportech saw its shares lose over half their value on Wednesday after announcing that nobody wanted to buy the company.

Wednesday morning saw the UK-listed Sportech inform the markets that the formal sale process (FSP) it commenced last October as part of a wider strategic review had failed to deliver the intended result.

While Sportech said it had engaged in “detailed discussions” with an unspecified number of interested parties, Sportech’s board ultimately concluded that these talks “were unlikely to result in an offer” that the board could in good conscience recommend to shareholders. As such, Sportech has closed the FSP and terminated further discussions.

The market reaction was swift and negative. After closing Tuesday’s trading at 77.8p, the stock opened Wednesday’s trading at 31.5p, before staging a minor rally to close out the day at 37.5p, down 51.8% from the day before.

New Jersey’s regulated online gambling market set a new monthly revenue record in February despite having less time in which to rack up the win.

Figures released Wednesday by the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement show the state’s online gambling licensees generated revenue of $21.992m in February. That’s 17.5% higher than February 2017 and $30k higher than the state’s previous record performance in January 2018, which, it must be noted, had three extra days on the calendar.

As ever, the online casino vertical did all the heavy lifting, rising 22.2% from the same month last year to just over $20.2m. This marks 12 straight months that the casino vertical has topped the $20m mark. The poker vertical turned in its usual half-baked effort, falling 18.3% year-on-year to $1.77m and down from $1.95m in January.

For the admittedly young year-to-date, the overall online revenue figure is up 17.1% to just under $44m, of which all but $3.7m came via casino.

The operator behind Indian rummy website Ace2Three has anted up in real-money fantasy sports platform Fan Fight.

Hyderabad-based Head InfoTech India Pvt. Ltd., which operates Ace2Three, announced on Wednesday that it has shelled out INR6.5 crore ($1 million) for a majority stake in Fan Fight. The fresh investment will go towards scaling the fantasy sports platform, as well as for marketing and hiring tech and analytical talents, according to the company.

This marks the second investment that Head InfoTech India had made in Fan Fight. In April 2017, the online rummy operator put in close to $39 million for 2.5 million Series A preference shares in the fantasy sports company.

Founded in 2016, Fan Fight focuses on cricket games, although its founders said there are plans to add other sports like football and kabbadi.

Spanish-based gambling operator Sportium has been awarded Colombia’s ninth online gambling license, while simultaneously putting down significant land-based operations in the Latin American country.

On Tuesday, Colombian gambling regulator Coljuegos announced that Sportium – a joint venture of Spain’s Cirsa Gaming Corp and UK bookmakers Ladbrokes – had become the ninth operator to receive Coljuegos’ seal of approval since the country formally regulated online gambling in late-2016.

Sportium Apuestas Colombia S.A.S. paid COP7.85b (US$2.76m) for its five-year license to offer sports betting and games of chance via the new Sportium.com.co domain (which is still in test-only mode). Sportium originally planned to launch its Colombian online ops last year but evidently needed more time to dot the I’s and cross the T’s on its paperwork.

Sportium is also plotting a major land-based invasion, starting with its first sports betting terminals at the Dubai Casino in Bogotá. The company hopes to install over 100 retail points of sale in major Colombian cities before the 2018 FIFA World Cup kicks off in Russia in May.

Online poker contributed less than two-thirds of The Stars Group’s (TSG) fourth quarter revenue, and the company expects that figure to shrink below 60% in 2018.

Figures released Wednesday show TSG’s revenue rising 16.1% to US$360.2m in the three months ending December 31, 2017. Adjusted earnings were flat at $147m but net earnings improved 4.7% to $47.2m.

For the year as a whole, revenue improved 13.6% to $1.31b, while adjusted earnings gained 14.5% to $600m and net earnings shot up 91.3% to $259.3m, thanks in part to the past year’s non-core asset sell-off.

TSG continues to lessen its dependency on real-money online poker revenue from its flagship PokerStars brand, despite exiting markets such as Australia and Colombia. Poker accounted for 65.1% of Q4 revenue, down from 70% one year earlier, while combined casino & sportsbook revenue claimed a 31.2% slice, up from 25.8%. TSG expects poker’s share of overall revenue to shrink below 60% in 2018 as the casino and sports verticals continue to expand their reach.