Poland’s online gambling blacklist has been upheld by a local court as permissible under the country’s gambling laws.

Last week, Polish media outlet Gazeta Prawna reported that the Provincial Administrative Court had upheld the Ministry of Finance’s right to compile and publish a list of online gambling domains deemed to be serving the country’s gamblers without local permission.

The blacklist had been challenged by a number of unspecified international online gambling operators who argued that the Ministry had no right to besmirch their good names by adding their domains to the blacklist without a court order.

Polish internet service providers are compelled to block local punters’ access to the offending domains, something even the Polish ombudsman believed represented “a serious risk to freedom of speech and access to information.”

Despite their proven benefits, there are still gambling operators who remain wary of accepting cryptocurrencies as a form of payment. Much of the operators’ apprehensions come from their limited understanding of how cryptocurrencies and blockchain work.

It also doesn’t help that these operators need to thoroughly sift through over 1,000 cryptocurrencies in the market to determine which of these digital coins are viable payments and tokenization solutions.

That’s why Clarion Gaming will give cryptocurrency and blockchain businesses to present their products to an audience of potential customers, partners, suppliers, investors and advisors from the iGaming community at the inaugural iGB Live! Conference, which will be held at the Amsterdam RAI on July 17-20.

iGB Live!’s Crypto Live!will showcase the latest and most cutting-edge technologies and products in iGaming, offering potential partners and advisors/investors in the audience a chance to identify and approach the best businesses in crypto/blockchain iGaming.

German online gambling operator Bet-at-home has been hit with €410k in financial penalties by Netherlands gaming regulators who say the company explicitly targeted Dutch punters without a local license.

On Tuesday, the Netherlands’ Kansspelautoreit (KSA) gaming regulatory body announced that it had sanctioned the Frankfurt-listed Bet-at-home for a variety of offenses, including promoting its products in the Dutch language, incorporating the Dutch flag in its marketing and allowing its website to be accessed from Dutch IP addresses.

The KSA says it previously discussed these issues with the company in 2012 and 2014, but was informed in May 2017 of the existence of Bet-at-home adverts appearing on a television channel aimed at Netherlands residents. This prompted the regulator to open a new investigation into Bet-at-home’s activities last October.

KSA agents were able to open accounts with Bet-at-home from Dutch IP addresses, and were able to fund those accounts with Dutch online payment processor iDeal, whose services were recommended on the Bet-at-home website.

The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) has teamed up with Silicon Valley-based growth equity firm TCV to acquire a 39 percent stake in Swiss-based sports data firm Sportradar.

Sportradar announced that CPPIB, through its wholly-owned subsidiary CPP Investment Board Europe, planned to gobble up a minority stake in the company valued at €2.1 billion ($2.4 billion). It was estimated that CPPIB shares in the company would be around 40 percent or a total of $713.01 million.

The shares that CPPIB planned to purchase belonged to private equity firm EQT and certain minority shareholders, according to Sportradar. EQT, for its part, said it is planning to reinvest a portion of its sale proceeds into Sportradar.

According to their timeline, the parties target to close the transactions in the fourth quarter of 2018. Sportradar founder and CEO Carsten Koerl will retain his entire ownership position despite the entry of CPPIB and TCV in the company.

Despite experiencing a slump in its slot machine sales, casino revenues of South Korean casino operator Grand Korea Leisure (GKL) grew by 4.1 percent in the first half of 2018.

In a disclosure before the Korea Stock Exchange on Monday, GKL announced that recorded casino sales reached KRW238.62 billion ($214.2 million) in the first six months of the year, higher than the KRW229.42 billion ($205.2 million) it posted during the same period in 2017.

Table games remain robust in GKL casinos during the six months to June 2018, growing by as much as 7.4 percent to KRW209.75 billion ($187.71 million) from KRW195.32 billion ($174.79 million) in the previous year.However, GKL’s earnings from slot machines fell by 14.9 percent to KRW28.86 billion ($25.83 million) in the first half of 2018, compared with KRW33.92 billion ($30.36 million) during the January to June 2017 period.

South Korea’s second largest foreigners-only casino operator did not give a detailed explanation on the casino sales results for the first half of its financial year, particularly on why revenues from slot machine was lower in the first half of 2018.

When investors think of The Stars Group, they think big. World Series of Poker, huge promotional events, largest online gaming company, leveraged buyouts, crazy stock moves. When they think of 888, they think slow and steady, lone wolf, slow burn. The Stars Group was, is, and continues to be a trading vehicle. 888 is an investment. The wild moves in TSG feed on themselves, forcing investors in and out of positions due to the emotional extremes involved in holding it.

It’s easy to say “well just buy the dips and sell the rallies”. It’s much harder to actually do it. When a stock is tanking and your position is going deeper and deeper underwater, just try to pull the buy trigger. Wear a blood pressure and heart rate monitor. See what happens. When a stock is rallying and your position is going more and more in the green, just try to sell it. See what happens. See if your mind can break through the emotions that constantly stop us from actually pulling it off.

If most people bought dips and sold rallies, dips would be minor and rallies would be gentle. If everyone bought dips and sold rallies, there would be no dips or rallies. The reason big dips and big rallies happen in trading vehicles is that people sell dips in fear of losing more money and buy rallies in fear of losing out, amplifying them. While this does provide a great opportunity for trading experts to make a lot of money, the chances that any of us are actually trading experts is infinitesimal.

Anyone can win on any given trade once in a while. Almost nobody can do it consistently. If there were a 12-step program for trading addicts, recognizing this truth would be the first step towards a cure. Here’s a picture of what I mean:

The crack inside Wynn Resorts Ltd. board continued to widen after majority of its members rejected the nomination of former Harrah’s Chief Executive Phil Satre as the company’s newest chairman.

The New York Post reported that the tensions between Elaine Wynn, the largest shareholder in Wynn Resorts Ltd, and other members of the casino operator’s board ignited after the directors rejected Satre’s bid for either chairman or vice chairman roles.

Elaine reportedly backed Satre for the top two positions in Wynn Board, vouching before the Wynn board that the ex-Harrah’s executive was “extremely well-qualified” and that he served “on the boards of at least six public companies, including as chairman of the board of three public companies, and has extensive credibility with gaming industry regulators.”

She promised full support to the Wynn board for the next two years, if Satre’s chosen as the casino company’s chairman, according to Wynn Resorts.