A dramatic conclusion to the WPT Shooting Stars event saw Timo Kamphues win the title and 1 Day Sooner, the charity that is working on speeding up the development of a CVOID-19 vaccine, receive $51,200.

Everyone was a winner in the $1,100-entry event given such money was raised for charity on partypoker, but the World Poker Tour put on a superb event for the WPT Shooting Stars name, too. With 483 entrants into the tournament, it was a largely unknown young German player who took the title after he battled a table full of stars to shoot down to win it.

With 10% of the field classed as Shooting Stars, and this having a $590 bounty on their heads, some of the biggest names of sport and poker came out to play. Wes Brown, the former European Cup-winning Manchester United defender, took his seat along with Sam Trickett, who would run very deep indeed.

After Day 1, just 45 players survived, with the ‘Shooting Stars’ still among that number including Wes Brown and Sam Trickett, the United-mad pair joined by former PokerStars Team Pro Liv Boeree, Manig Loeser and former snooker World Champion Mark Williams in the table draw.

TAB New Zealand (TAB NZ) has completed a successful transition into power, assuming control of the racing industry in New Zealand. TAB NZ took charge of the racing sector in New Zealand officially from August 1 2020, replacing the Racing Industry Transition Agency (RITA) and New Zealand Racing Board (NZRB). 

TAB NZ will be focused on increasing revenue for the racing industry in New Zealand after a difficult period navigating the COVID-19 pandemic. The guidelines set out through the RITA transition also include a focus on limiting the impact of underage and problem gambling throughout New Zealand.

In a statement, RITA Executive Chair Dean McKenzie highlighted the significance of the transition for the racing industry. “The change marks a significant milestone in the history of the TAB and the racing industry. It also brings to an end a 13-month period of transitioning, as RITA, from the New Zealand Racing Board,” McKenzie said.

The change will allow individual racing codes in New Zealand, autonomy in promoting their own competitions and events. Its envisioned that these changes will bring stability to the industry according to McKenzie:

The Covid-19 pandemic continues to be a problem for Nevada, and Governor Steve Sisolak has decided that a change in strategy may be necessary. Following an August 3 press conference, the state will take a hyper-local approach to closing businesses, and small venues like bars appear like they will take the brunt of it.

The aim of the strategy is to allow areas where infections are not spiking to not get jerked around by the areas that are. Instead of the whole state shutting down again, only the areas with problems will.

That being said, bars, and bar top areas in in Las Vegas and Reno will stay closed. That’s going to have a large financial impact for restaurants that have had bar top slots installed.

This new strategy is a bit of a reset, Sisolak noted, and “current restrictions for bars, pubs, and taverns will remain in place” until a first assessment under the new strategy can happen. Slot machines in grocery stores, convenience stores and drug stores will still be permitted.

It’s not looking good for Ghislaine Maxwell, alleged sex trafficker and former girlfriend of the now deceased convict Jeffrey Epstein. With a trial scheduled for July, 2021, and several prominent politicians and powerful figures lined up to be thrown under the bus, Bodog favors her trial to not take place on time, if at all.

Why her trial would not push through on time could be for so many innocent reasons. Covid-19 could push the court date back, or perhaps legal maneuvering could give her lawyers more time to prepare a defense. But really, we all know the main reason people don’t suspect she’ll ever actually have to stand before a jury.

Epstein, who was convicted for procuring underage girls for prostitution and sex trafficking, was found dead while awaiting trial for further sex trafficking charges. His death, suspicious for many reasons, is suspected to have been orchestrated so that he could not implicate the same powerful figures that Maxwell may now name in her own defense.

Who could she name? Well the name you have in mind likely depends on what kind of media you consume.

Tomorrow’s airports may, in many ways, be extremely different from how most look today. There exists the real possibility that some, especially those with international terminals, might see full-body scanners like something out of a science-fiction movie in order to detect weapons, contraband or viruses. One airport, though, has taken a different route and is going to the dogs. Dubai International Airport (DXB) in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has brought in canines to do more than just sniff out bombs and drugs. They are now being used to sniff arriving passengers to see if they carry COVID-19. 

The airport began its program this week after controlled testing showed that the dogs are up for the task. The four-legged creatures have already proven themselves in identifying things like malaria and cancer, and are, once again, showing off their vast sniffing capabilities. According to the stats so far, the dogs are able to provide their results in seconds with 92% accuracy – better than many Transportation Security Administration agents. 

Passengers arriving in Dubai have to go through a testing area that allows agents to capture samples of their body odor. According to a video, the samples are gathered from the armpits of the passengers. Then, the sample is sent to a room where the canines are waiting to get to work. They sniff the sample through a device that looks like a funnel and, if the presence of COVID-19 is detected, the passenger is then administered a separate nasal test. 

DXB is just one of the country’s airports to go to the dogs, and the UAE has been deploying them elsewhere throughout the country, as well. According to the Emirates News Agency, “The specialised teams from the national team are distributed at the country’s airports to supervise the actual application in monitoring and checking samples taken from those coming to the country … without direct contact with the dog; the trained dog in seconds can determine the possibility of [the passenger being] infected or not.”

There will never be a shortage of “bad actors” in any sector of any industry, regardless of whether or not regulations are implemented. That has been made obvious by recent scandals involving payment processors like Wirecard and massive financial institutions like Wells Fargo and Deutsch Bank, the latter of which was implicated, along with several others, in helping its customers launder funds and evade tax obligations. However, there are also plenty of entities that realize that regulations serve a genuine purpose. The cryptocurrency ecosystem is no different than any other – there are good and bad entities everywhere. However, there is no shortage of players in the space who are helping the system evolve, even if it means following the rules when they don’t necessary apply. These entities are the ones that are going to allow the crypto space to evolve and mature into a viable operational unit, while the others will continue to be pushed aside and forced out.

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has prepared standards for the crypto space related to Know Your Customer (KYC) and anti-money-laundering obligations that should be followed by all countries for which it provides guidance. However, there are plenty of countries that fall outside that list that are eagerly ready to adopt the same protocols. In Africa, for example, crypto companies across the entire continent are adopting the same exacting FATF standards to their operations, even though only South Africa is governed by the agency.

According to the CEO of Notabene, a crypto identity startup, this is being done because the companies want to be part of the larger, global crypto ecosystem, which is going to lead to better facilitation of digital currencies as an alternative to fiat. CEO Pelle Braendgaard explains, “In places where there aren’t really e-regulatory rules yet, firms are doing KYC and using blockchain analytics for AML. People are shopping around for regulation, looking at remittance licenses to deal with foreign partners so they can have at least some level of clarity.”

AZA is another crypto entity doing something similar. The Kenya-based company, which was known as BitPesa until it rebranded itself last year, secured a license from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in the UK a few years ago and then purchased a money transfer company out of Spain, TransferZero, in 2018, which led to the issuance of a license from that country’s central bank. It then used its newfound knowledge as it expanded into Nigeria to help the country improve its crypto regulations. AZA head of marketing Stephany Zoo stated of the endeavor, “Our AML and KYC are of U.K. and European standards, which means we are asking for things that nobody else on the African continent is asking for. We have a number of automated AML and KYC platforms that are integrated into ours, but when you don’t have the same kind of access to government databases, it becomes much harder to run these checks. So, unfortunately, we do have to use a combination of automated and manual systems.”

Habanero – the gaming company, not the hot pepper – is gaining more traction in Colombia. It first stepped into the South American country earlier this year when it signed a deal with Codere to supply some of its iGaming games and solutions, and has now inked another deal that will give it an even larger piece of the action in the country. According to an announcement by the company from yesterday, Habanero is now set to provide content to Rush Street Gaming (RSG) through its Rush Street Interactive (RSI) iGaming arm. 

RSI has a substantial footprint already and was the first gaming company out of the US to make a splash in Colombia. It operates the RushBet.co online sportsbook and casino, and has brought on Habanero to retune its product offerings in the country. RSI now has access to 50 slot and table game options, which are already live on the RushBet.co website. In addition, Habanero’s complete library, which includes 170 casino-style games, will be integrated into RSI’s US-facing social casinos going forward. 

Habanero’s Vera Motto said of the new arrangement, “We are thrilled to partner with Rush Street Interactive, a highly acclaimed group with an impressive multi-brand portfolio. We’re honored to have been selected by an operator with such high standards and see this as testament to our record-breaking expansion over the past year. We look forward to a long and productive relationship together, especially when it comes to the US.”

The new arrangement should prove to be especially lucrative for Habanero. It marks the first time the company has gained access to the US iGaming market, and, as the market expands, it should be able to grow with it. Fueled by increased interest, the reversal of PASPA and, now, the coronavirus, iGaming is expected to become an industry worth almost $100 billion within four years. 

The PGA Tour wasn’t done after it recently signed a deal with DraftKings. The world’s top golf organization has signed a multi-year content and marketing deal with BetMGM, making it an official betting operator of the Tour.

With the deal, BetMGM now has a free pass to use all PGA Tour marks, as well as the ability to advertise on media and partner platforms. It can also display pre-game, post-game betting programming and highlight reels on its own sites.

The platform, a joint venture between MGM Resorts and GVC Holdings, is currently available in Colorado, Indiana, Michigan, Mississippi, New Jersey, Nevada and West Virginia. With that audience, PGA Tour’s CMO Matt Prevost believes it will “not only advance the Tour’s position at the forefront of professional sports, but the entire betting industry as well.”

Another official betting operator of the Tour, DraftKings, signed its own deal in late July, making it the exclusive DFS partner. At the time it was signaled as a first for the tour, teasing that another deal, like this one with BetMGM, was coming any time now.

The crackdown on casinos intensifies. New York casinos have been deemed “nonessential” and will remain closed. Patrons who refuse to wear a mask are being cuffed and arrested in Las Vegas. Say what you want about health policy, but this is not going to encourage more gamblers to show up. Still, regional casino stocks are back at or at least relatively near all time highs. How does this make sense? It makes sense in that Wall Street has turned into kitschy tourist trap.

If you’ve ever worn a fanny pack and sunglasses with a “Hello My Name Is” sticker on your shirt while wearing one of those fishing hats and staring at a map upside down, then you probably know what it’s like to be caught in a tourist trap. Everything seems expensive but you really have no idea, because you don’t know the market. You get accosted by the tourist equivalent of those guys that spray your windshield at a red light. They offer you a trinket or ad hoc tour guide services. You usually end up paying them off even though you can’t understand a word they’re saying just so they don’t have an excuse to lynch you in a dark alley you may find yourself in accidentally if you make a wrong turn somewhere.

This is what it’s like at the New York Stock Exchange right now. All the other casinos are closed but this one’s open. There are bunch of tourists with fanny packs and sunglasses on the trading floor, having no idea what they’re doing. They smell like sunscreen and bug spray and they’re busy buying and selling stuff, having absolutely no idea what any of it is or how much any of it is worth. But they’re getting a kick out of it, that’s for sure. Wall Street has now become, thanks in part to continued casino closures, the most dangerous tourist trap for gamblers the world has ever known.

“You don’t need a casino to maintain survival,” says New York Governmor Andrew Cuomo, unless that casino is Wall Street. Well, you do need a casino to maintain survival if you’re working at that casino and you’re living paycheck to paycheck, but whatever. Big Box retailers though, which are open in New York, are somehow “essential to life” according to Cuomo. I guess we should all go down to our bunkers now in the wake of the ongoing retail apocalypse that just got kicked up another notch. JC Penney is bankrupt now. So is Lord & Taylor. Run for the hills people. The Big Box retailers so essential to life on Earth are dying. It’s the second Cambrian extinction. Give me Walmart, or give me death, I think the saying goes.

An exodus of Philippine Offshore Gambling Operators (POGOs) appears to indeed be underway, as a new real estate report indicates that more than half of commercial spaces vacated so far in 2020 were due to this sector. But while industry analysts have predicted this would be a blow to the Philippines economy, the full report indicates that may not be the case.

The latest report from Leechiu Property Consultants indicates that 8 percent of all commercial office space has been vacated as of the end of June, with POGOs representing 54 percent of that amount. Hardest hit by those vacancies are Makati and Quezon City, which saw the majority of the exodus.

The report specifically notes that these new vacancies were created by tax regulations and Covid-19 restrictions, which “curtailed POGO growth.”

Contrary though to the doom and gloom predictions some have made, overall office rentals increased during the second quarter, thanks to the Information Technology and Business Process Management or IT-BPM sectors. Overall rentals increased byu half, with Cebu, Taguig and Ortigas having the best growth.

The international (and somewhat controversial) gaming company International Game Technology (IGT) has been able to convince FanDuel that it is squeaky clean and deserves to help the company take its operations to a new level. IGT announced yesterday that it had secured a lucrative deal with FanDuel that will see it become the latter’s sports gambling and iGaming platform provider for all its retail sportsbook properties for the next four years. 

Going forward, IGT’s PlaySports platform will be used to run all of FanDuel’s existing sportsbooks across the US, as well as any that it launches within the next four years – longer if the arrangement is renewed or if another coronavirus pandemic doesn’t wipe out gaming completely. This means that IGT will be found at FanDuel’s sportsbook at the Meadowlands racetrack in New Jersey, as well as at other properties in Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Mississippi, New York, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. In addition, with the PlayCasino games it has developed through its PlayDigital arm, IGT will provide iGaming content to all of FanDuel’s online casinos, which are currently up and running in Colorado, Indiana, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. It will also install over 200 PlaySports self-service kiosks in FanDuel sportsbooks across the country.

IGT PlayDigital Senior VP Enrico Drago says of the new arrangement, “IGT’s multi-faceted, multi-year PlaySports platform technology and igaming content agreement with FanDuel Group pairs the leading content and B2B sports betting provider with one of America’s most respected sports betting operators to propel an already winning partnership to new levels and create an abundance of opportunity for both parties.

“IGT and FanDuel Group are positioned for continued success in the US and we are committed to fueling FanDuel Sportsbooks’ sustained growth through our proven, market-ready platform, player-preferred game content and self-service betting technologies.”

In the fast moving world of gambling, sometimes you might miss news that could be important to you. To make sure you’re all caught up on gaming industry news, be it online or brick and mortar, we’re rounding up the some of the announcements and partnerships from the last week that you might have missed.

Don’t miss out on all of the latest announcements. Our Press Release section is updated constantly.

Pariplay Expands into Swiss iGaming Market with Grand Casino Baden Partnership

Pariplay Ltd., the No. 1 aggregator and content provider behind innovative products including the Fusion™ aggregation platform and the Ignite Studio development programme, today entered Switzerland’s iGaming space by partnering with Grand Casino Baden, the established land-based casino behind the regulated market’s first online casino brand, Jackpots.ch. Building on its recent ISO certification, Pariplay’s integration of its state-of-the-art online slots with Jackpots.ch marks another European first for the company.