Monthly Archives: November 2020

Tabcorp fined (again) for violating NSW gambling ad rules

Australian lottery and betting operator Tabcorp Holdings has been fined (again) for breaking New South Wales rules on inducing state residents to gamble.

Late last week, Sydney’s Downing Center Local Court issued an AU$30k (US$22k) penalty against Tabcorp for breaching NSW regulations that make it an offence to publish gambling ads that include “any inducement to participate, or participate frequently, in any gambling activity (including an inducement to open a betting account).”

Liquor & Gaming NSW opened an investigation last December after learning that a Tabcorp customer had received an ad from the company via his Instagram account. The ad was part of an Instagram Stories campaign Tabcorp ran over two days in December 2019.

Liquor & Gaming NSW subsequently discovered that 900 NSW residents who’d closed their Tabcorp accounts were also targeted by this campaign. Tabcorp blamed the mistake on human error, but Magistrate Erin Kennedy concluded that it was likely that at least some of these 900 customers had closed their accounts due to problems controlling their gambling, making their targeting extremely inappropriate regardless of the excuse.

Hero Call on Final Hand Ruins Impressive Session for Daniel Negreanu

Daniel Negreanu was so close to chipping away a big chunk of Doug Polk’s $600,000 lead on Day 13. He was cruising along up big for the session. And then he lost most of that profit on the final hand of the day thanks in part to a questionable river call.

Daniel Negreanu played well on Monday, but only won a small amount. (Image: YouTube)

Monday’s session lasted just over 2 hours and 15 minutes, perhaps shorter than it would have if not for the last hand. The poker pros have agreed to play for at least two hours per day. After that point, either player can call it quits at any time.

Entering the session, Polk had won four straight sessions by at least $117,000, including his most recent $332,178 win on Saturday. That brought his total profit for the challenge up to $596,197 through 5,751 hands out of 25,000 (potentially only 12,500, however).

Day 1a of WSOP Main Event sees 62 progress to day 2

With 246 entries all paying $10,300 to take part, the 2020 World Series of Poker $10,000 Hybrid Main Event began in earnest on GGPoker and saw 62 players make the Day 2 seat draw.

It was a busy Day 1a field, with some top pros such as Fedor Holz taking part, as PokerNews reported in the immediate hours after the tournament locked for the day.

Holz didn’t make the Day 2 cut, as it turned out, so who did? Well, after 16 levels of elite poker each lasting 30 minutes, the cream of the crop was Julian Menhardt from Austria, who totalled 534,490 after knocking out Ami Barer late on. Menhardt is closely followed in the chipcounts by Paul Esau (475,075) and Dirk Gerritse (457,197), with Norwegian player Preben Stokkan ending on 446,677. With over $2.2 million in live winnings, Stokkan will definitely be one to watch.

Elsewhere on the day, Lauryinas Levinskas (389,628), Brunno Botteon (247,359), partypoker Team Pro Anatoly Filatov (232,102), Daniel Dvoress (200,905), Aliaksei Boika (197,556) and Yuri Dzivielevski (184,326) all made the cut.

GGPoker teams up with Poker Shares

In many ways, it’s the most natural poker partnership to come along in some time – GGPoker, the site who brought us 54 of the 85 WSOP bracelet events in the summer, have teamed up with Poker Shares to bring betting and poker together in perfect harmony.

Sportsbetting and poker go together like strawberries and cream, like Daniel Negreanu and Doug Polk, like the rubber and the road. Betting on the final nine players of events such as the Super MILLION$ is an exciting development, as announced by the poker site over the weekend.

NOW PLACE BETS ON THE FINAL TABLE@GGPoker & @pokershares, have launched a new feature which allows you to bet on final table line-ups.

We’ll offer a 10% PRICE BOOST if you place a bet & back the winner of the weeks SuperMILLION$!

Malta online gambling ops reported record suspicious transactions in 2019

Malta-licensed online gambling operators broke a record for suspicious transaction reports (STR) in 2019 and are well on pace to break that record this year.

Malta’s Financial Intelligence Action Unit (FIAU) recently released its report on STRs issued last year by remote gaming licensees of the Malta Gaming Authority (MGA). The reports were submitted to the FIAU’s Compliance and Supervision Platform for Assessing Risk (CASPAR), with which all MGA remote licensees are required to register.

The FIAU received 1,445 STRs from online operators in 2019, more than twice the 700 received in 2018, which was itself more than triple the 218 received in 2017. As of May 2020, the FIAU had received 741 STRs, putting the current year on pace to break 2019’s record.

Nearly one-third (32%) of 2019’s STRs were submitted by just three companies, while another 35% were submitted by five different companies. The remaining 33% of STRs were submitted by 72 entities, with 29 online licensees filing one STR apiece. Just over one-quarter (26%) of licensees submitted zero STRs last year.

Champions League Sportsbetting Preview

The Champions League is back in action this week as clubs such as Manchester United and Liverpool battle to join others such as Manchester City and Chelsea in the knockout stages.  

Let’s take a look at the biggest matches and some betting predictions for those games as well as setting out the gameweek’s fixtures in full.  

Shakhtar Donetsk vs. Real Madrid (Tuesday, 5.55pm GMT kick-off)  

This has all the makings of a corker. Both sides score goals, yet have key men on the fringes of the side or suffering from injury, such as Los Blancos seemingly cursed wing-forward Eden Hazard. While the Ukrainian side undoubtedly pose a threat, we’d take both teams to score in a Madrid victory, at 6/4. We like another bet even more, however, with the potential for parity up until very late.  

Quebec orders independent audit of casino-mafia allegations

Quebec’s gambling monopoly says it will fully cooperate with the provincial government’s plans to audit its casino operations for signs of improper dealings with local mafia figures.

On Monday, Quebec Finance Minister Eric Girard (pictured) announced plans to conduct an independent audit into allegations of money laundering and other dodgy dealings at the four land-based casinos operated by the province’s Loto-Quebec gambling monopoly.

The allegations were made last week in a series of print and broadcast media reports focusing on perks doled out to the likes of Stefano Sollecito, a reputed organized crime figure who somehow gambled millions at Casino de Montreal despite declaring an annual income of only around C$50k to tax authorities.

Loto-Quebec responded to those media reports by insisting that it “complies with all regulatory requirements” but the provincial government evidently felt enough heat that only a public display of curiosity would temper. In addition to money laundering, the audit will also examine the casino loyalty programs that offered luxury perks to controversial figures who were willing to gamble large sums.

Seven Poker Quotes from Poker Underdogs to inspire you

Some weeks, you might want to hear from the elite players in poker to inspire your working week, other times it’s all about the champions. This week, however, it’s the turn of some of poker’s little guys to send you into the week with cheer in your heart. No, we’re not specifically talking about players of reduced height, but more the underdogs of the poker world.

 

From the World Champion who coined an era to the superfan who became the man, underdogs are the poker narrators of history. Let’s read them in their own words, their inspiring, moving words.

“Just fold and I can go to the bathroom.” – Sebastian Malec

LeoVegas, Spillehallen online casinos cop to Danish AML shortcomings

Online casino operators LeoVegas and Spillehallen have been (very lightly) spanked by Denmark’s gambling regulator for failing to observe anti-money laundering (AML) obligations.

On Monday, Denmark’s Spillemyndigheden regulatory agency reported that it had issued a ‘reprimand for non-compliance’ against LeoVegas for flaws in its customer verification process. The matter was brought to the regulator’s attention by the company, which detected the problem during an internal investigation.

The flaw, which involved new customers who registered with the company’s Danish-licensed site between June 2019 and May 2020, involved converting temporary accounts to final accounts without the required customer verification. Specifically, the accounts in question were all approved using NemID, a popular online banking log-in solution for Danish residents.

However, Spillemyndigheden prohibits online licensees from using NemID as a standalone registration unless a risk assessment has been made. Otherwise, “NemID cannot stand alone and must thus be supplemented by another control source or other mitigating measures.”

Gonzaga sits atop 2021 NCAA tournament odds

Odds courtesy of OddsShark.com

Because the coronavirus pandemic shows no signs of slowing in the United States anytime soon, the NCAA announced recently that the entire 2021 NCAA Tournament will be held in one location – from the First Four through the Final Four. That site is expected to be the greater Indianapolis area as that city was set to host the Final Four in early April as it was, and it’s a very centralized location in the country.

A final decision should be made fairly soon and means that 13 sites across the country will no longer host a preliminary round of the NCAA Tournament. The NCAA has to ensure the 2021 Big Dance goes off because the organization (and schools) lost hundreds of millions of dollars last year when it was canceled. The NCAA makes most of its money off the Big Dance as it has no part of the College Football Playoff.

So which team will be cutting down the nets on the night of Monday, April 5 (again, assuming the date and location stay the same)? Oddsmakers favor Gonzaga (+650), which is the top-ranked team in the Associated Press Top 25. This could easily be the best team Coach Mark Few has had in Spokane and he landed the school’s highest-ever ranked recruit in freshman Jalen Suggs.