Tennessee sports bettors are gearing up for a November 1 launch of legal wagering after the state approved its first three bookmaker licenses.

On Wednesday, local media reported that the Tennessee Education Lottery committee had approved the state’s first three sports betting operator license applications. The thrillsome threesome are DraftKings (technically Crown TN Gaming), FanDuel (technically Betfair Interactive) and BetMGM, which had the audacity to apply under its actual brand name.

The successful applicants currently represent the three biggest US-facing operators in terms of online market share, which may or may not be the reason their names were the first drawn from this hat. A spokesperson said earlier this month that the Lottery had received four ‘complete’ operator applications plus another ‘incomplete’ application. A local firm, Tennessee Action 24/7, is the only other confirmed applicant.

The Lottery committee won’t meet again until October 5, at which other betting applicants may learn whether they’ll be joining the legal betting party when it gets underway on November 1. Lottery officials said earlier this month that the November date was a ‘no later than’ timeline and “we will start earlier if possible.”

It took just six and half hours for Teun Mulder to put himself in pole position for the PokerStars WCOOP title on Tuesday night. Whether he wins a World Championship of Online Poker title is something we’ll find out tonight.

Play got under way on Day 3 with 71 players left and the race for a final table chip-stack was a brutal and fast one. Dzmitry Urbanovich was one of several big names who were eliminated before the final 50 players were reached, with Christian Rudolph also among the early eliminations.

With six tables whittle to just three, several more big names went to the virtual rail, with Spanish poker crusher Sergio Aido, Gary Thompson and online poker legend Simon Mattsson all falling by the wayside.

It looked like we might have a WSOP Main Event winner at the final table at that stage, but sadly for the 2014 World Series of Poker Main Event champion Martin Jacobson, the Swedish star lost when all-in with pocket jacks against king-queen. Others fell at the same stage, with Daniel Rezaeli, Viktor Ustimov and Josip Simunic all missing out on the business end of the tournament. Ustimov’s departure was more than a little dramatic, with the Russian dropping piot after pot before being all-in with pocket kings against a flopped set of sevens.

Online poker’s former top dog Isai Scheinberg has been sentenced to time served for his role in PokerStars’ former US-facing operations, ringing down the curtain on the nearly decade-long Black Friday saga.  

On Wednesday, US District Court Judge Lewis Kaplan sentenced Scheinberg to time served and a $30k fine for operating an illegal gambling business. Scheinberg pled guilty to that charge in March, after surrendering to US authorities in January following his arrest the previous summer in Switzerland.

Scheinberg was one of 11 individuals and four companies indicted on charges of illegal gambling, bank fraud and money laundering by the US Department of Justice on April 15, 2011. Scheinberg is the last of the individuals to face the music, while PokerStars is the only company that survived Black Friday’s financial fallout.

Inner City Press said Scheinberg was accompanied by his wife Dora at the sentencing, which could have sent him to jail for up to 18 months. But prosecutors had recommended that Scheinberg not serve any additional time in custody, based on a number of mitigating factors.

Colorado’s sports betting market saw its handle more than double from July to August thanks to new operators and the return of major league play.

Figures released Wednesday by the Colorado Department of Revenue’s Division of Gaming show the state’s licensed bookmakers generated betting turnover of over $128.6m in August, up 117% from July’s figure. Of that sum, digital channels accounted for all but $2m.

August’s betting revenue totaled $1.88m, a step down from July’s $2.4m, as hold slipped nearly three points from July to 5.85%. The return of NBA action drove August’s handle surge, as basketball’s share of the wagering pie shot up 24 points month-to-month to 29.6%, while baseball slipped to second place despite rising nearly two points to 17.7%.  

Basketball’s resumption took a big bite out of ping pong, which had gamely tried to fill the void left by the pandemic-related halt of most major sports. Table tennis accounted for 24% of June’s wagers, but that dipped to 8.6% in July wagers and dipped further to just 3.5% in August. See you during the second COVID wave, fellas.

UK betting operator Ladbrokes is being sued for millions of pounds by a disgruntled gambler who claims the company should have known his bets were placed illegally.

This week, Terry Allan, who owns a recruitment firm in Abderdeen, Scotland, sued GVC Holdings’ Ladbrokes division in London’s High Court, seeking reimbursement of £3.37m that the 57-year-old Allen claims to have lost betting with the firm over a three-year period spanning 2016-18.

Allen says his total betting losses are significantly greater than £3.37m, but he’s yet to calculate losses for the years 2014 and 2015. Allen is also seeking 8% annual interest on both his declared losses and those he’s yet to reveal.

Allen claims to have bet up to £400k per week through a specific Ladbrokes betting shop in Aberdeen’s Rose Street, becoming so familiar to shop staff that he had a dedicated phone line installed to ensure he didn’t have to wait to make his wagers.

Australian casino operator Crown Resorts is coming under fire as its CEO admitted his cluelessness regarding VIP gambling activity.

The New South Wales Independent Liquor & Gaming Authority (ILGA) inquiry into Crown’s suitability to hold a state gaming license heard from company CEO Ken Barton on Wednesday. Barton acknowledged that VIP gamblers steered to Crown casinos by junket operators were “certainly a higher risk than other customers” in terms of complying with anti-money laundering (AML) rules.

But Barton (pictured), who was Crown’s CFO before assuming the CEO reins in January, expressed ignorance of the fact that the Suncity junket was operating a “cash desk” and facilitating large cash transactions with high-rollers in its VIP gaming room at Crown Melbourne.  

Evidence of these transactions surfaced last October when local broadcaster Nine aired security camera footage showing individuals handing over ‘bricks’ of $50 and $100 bills to Suncity staff, bypassing the casino’s main cashier cage and the extra scrutiny that comes with more traditional deposits.

Online sports betting operator Betway has been hit with a nearly $1.5m back-tax judgment by a Kenyan tribunal, in yet another blow to the country’s struggling gaming sector.

On Wednesday, Kenyan media reported that a Tax Appeals Tribunal had ordered Betway to pay the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) a total of KSH158m (US$1.46m), the vast majority of which was due to outstanding withholding tax on Betway punters’ sports betting winnings.

Betway was one of dozens of Kenyan-facing betting operators that had their local licenses suspended in July 2019 due to the KRA’s claim that they owed hundreds of millions of dollars in back taxes. The KRA based its claim on a disputed definition of how to apply a 20% tax on punters’ winnings, with the KRA claiming the tax applied not just to winnings but also to a punter’s original stake.

While market-leading operators SportPesa and Betin opted to shut their Kenyan-facing operations rather than accede to the KRA’s demands, Betway’s license was reinstated in August 2019 after it agreed to apply the new tax in line with the KRA’s definition.

Finnish online gambling operator Paf is once again reducing its customers’ loss limits while the pandemic struggles of local rival Veikkaus are forcing the government to find alternative funding for social programs.

Paf, which holds a gambling monopoly in Finland’s autonomous Swedish-speaking Åland Islands, announced that it was reducing its customers’ annual loss limit by another €5k to €20k effective January 1, 2021. Paf CEO Christer Fahlstedt said his group wanted to show that “it is possible to survive as a gaming company without income from the biggest players.”

Paf originally established a €30k annual loss limit in September 2018, then cut that figure to €25k last October. The second reduction came despite the original limit reducing the company’s annual income by 16% as high-rolling gamblers cut their spending by one-third.

Fahlstedt said Wednesday that Paf’s annual income would likely decrease by an additional €2m-€3m as a result of this latest reduction, but Paf wanted to demonstrate that it was “a gaming company that sells exciting entertainment for adults without trying to squeeze the last drop of money out of them.”