Insider trading charges against former Amaya Gaming CEO David Baazov have been tossed more than two years they were originally filed due to proseuctorial bungling.

On Wednesday, Court of Quebec Judge Salvatore Mascia stayed all charges against Baazov, former Amaya exec Benjamin Ahdoot and Baazov’s friend and financial advisor Yoel Altman, citing the inept prosecution of Quebec securities regulator the Autorité des marches financiers (AMF).

The AMF brought 23 charges against the trio in March 2016 due to a series of questionable share trades surrounding Amaya business transactions, including the $4.9b purchase of the Rational Group, the parent company of PokerStars, in 2014.

The AMF claimed to have the goods on Baazov but the investigation quickly turned into a Keystone Cops affair, with the AMF admitting early on that it had failed to secure crucial phone data. The AMF dragged its heels in disclosing evidence to Baazov’s defense attorneys, then buried them in millions of files shortly before the trial was originally supposed to proceed.

3: Barrels of different spices including Chris Moorman winning a title at the Wynn Summer Classic, Bill Perkins writing a book on why people are wasting their lives, and Cate Hall pondering life without poker.

He signed my first book.

He didn’t sign my second one.

It’s not the reason I took it over to the coffee shop and left it snuggled between Phil Hellmuth’s autobiography and one of Jonathan Little’s volumes upon volumes.

Less coverage and more thought from 888Live Barcelona as Lee Davy ponders the efficacy of 888Poker’s World Series of Poker promotion: The 8-Team.

I caught the thing in my hand, opened it, and there was nothing but blood. A lot of blood. I thought it was a fly. Later, I would see another one in the shower, chilling on the wall, listening to the people next door getting it on.

I squished it.

More blood.

Two stories with the flavour of India as the Poker Sports League partners with Discovery Channel Asia-Pacific’s DSports to broadcast the Season 2 finals, and Match Indian Poker League founder, Raj Kundra, is brought in for questioning as part of an investigation into a Bitcoin Ponzi scheme.

Sofia Lovgren told me that Goa is the nuts, which is interesting considering Goan Nuts won Season 2 of India’s Poker Sports League (PSL) in May.

The Swedish star knows that Goa is the nuts because she was handpicked by the Team Manager of Punjabi Bluffers as a wildcard entry and competed in the finals on the Deltin Casino floating in the seas surrounding Goan seashells.

“I was positively surprised by poker in India,” Lovgren tells me over a purple looking cocktail. “There was a great atmosphere; wonderful energy; everyone knew everyone; it was like a home game.”

India’s media continues to salivate over the juicy celebrity details emerging from the recent bust of notorious bookmaker Sonu Jalan.

Last week, police in Maharashtra state arrested Jalan, widely considered India’s biggest illegal cricket bookmaker. The vast number of computers, phones and physical records seized during Jalan’s arrest are providing insights into the scale of his betting operations and the identities of numerous celebrity clients.

On Wednesday, the Hindustan Times quoted a senior official in the Thane Anti-Extortion Cell saying Jalan’s diary indicated that his network of some 50 to 60 betting agents had handled wagers of Rs6b (US$90m) during the recent India Premier League (IPL) season from April 7 to May 27, or roughly Rs100m per match. Interestingly, Jalan reportedly claimed that the Pakistan Super League was a “non-starter” as far as India’s cricket bettors were concerned.

Jalan reportedly told the AEC that his bettors’ winnings were paid out the day after a match, delivered to their homes by local agents or by courier for punters in more distant regions. Indian police are liaising with their counterparts in several other countries to track the flow of money between Jalan’s many customers.

If there are in fact any adults overseeing Paraguay’s gaming market, they’re currently on a very long coffee break.

On Friday, the new five-year Paraguyan sports betting monopoly of Daruma Sam S.A. will take effect. The controversial concession was confirmed by the National Commission of Games of Chance (Conajzar) in March, following a contentious tender that sparked widespread allegations of political interference and led to the resignation of Conajzar’s former boss.

As of Friday – just in time for the 2018 FIFA World Cup – the provisional licenses of Paraguay’s nine other online and land-based sports betting operators will expire, meaning they will have to either come to some form of cooperative arrangement with Daruma Sam or shut down their local operations.

Daruma Sam’s concession allows it to operate both online and via 200 retail outlets, all of which will operate under its Aposta.la brand. The company will pay 21% tax on its gross revenue, from which the government hopes to earn PGY3.74b (US$653k) per month, based on Conajzar’s estimates of the market’s monthly revenue of PGY17.8m.

Macau officials insist there’s no new crackdown on the use of China UnionPay mobile banking terminals in casinos, despite reports to the contrary.

On Tuesday, analysts at both Sanford C. Bernstein and Morgan Stanley issued separate notes claiming that officials had removed UnionPay terminals from pawnshops located in casinos on Macau’s Cotai region.

The affected casinos were operated by Galaxy Entertainment Group, Melco Resorts & Entertainment and Sands China. Other Cotai operators weren’t affected – there aren’t any pawnshops in Wynn Resorts and MGM China’s Cotai casinos – and casinos on Macau’s peninsula region also weren’t targeted, despite that area being where most of the pawnshops are located.

The removals were reportedly ordered by the local branches of ICBC and Bank of China. Chinese banks have been upgrading their UnionPay hardware to comply with increased know your customer (KYC) demands, which aim to cut down on sketchy transactions in the world’s premier gambling hub. But Morgan Stanley reported Wednesday that many pawnshops are in the dark as to when they might get replacement terminals.