Author Archives: The Daily Payoff

Former Mashpee Wampanoag claims he was setup by Trump admin

The embattled former chairman of the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe says he’s been set up. Cedric Cromwell has filed a motion to dismiss charges of bribery leveled against him, claiming he was set up by the Trump administration.

Cromwell filed his motion to dismiss on January 19, asking to be freed from accusations made on November 13, 2020. He faces 10 charges in federal court, including two charges of accepting or paying bribes, another for conspiracy to commit bribery, and a couple of charges revolving around extortion.

 “The charges allege that Mr. Cromwell violated the trust he owed to the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe by committing extortion, accepting bribes and otherwise abusing his position,” said United States Attorney Andrew E. Lelling in a press release on Nov. 13, 2020.

If you ask Cromwell, the Trump administration put him up to it. “This legal action is definitely a Trump set up,” Cromwell told Native News Online.

Longest Session of the Challenge Ends in Doug Polk’s Favor

Even Doug Polk knows his heads-up battle against Daniel Negreanu is no longer in doubt. He said as much during the Upswing Poker live-stream in which he won another $212,000 over more than seven hours of play, far and away the lengthiest of 35 sessions.

Doug Polk is on pace to finish up his battle against Daniel Negreanu winning an impressive 10 big blinds per 100 hands. (Image: YouTube)

With only around 1,500 hands remaining, Wednesday’s session very well could be the end. That’s right, folks, the challenge that feels like it’s gone on for eternity is finally approaching its conclusion.

Although there isn’t much suspense in terms of who will win the heads-up contest, there are still some reasons to continue paying attention. First off, many poker players have side bets on the outcome of the match, including Polk’s overall profit. And will Negreanu make the final tally respectable?

Parimatch CPO: We want to become the Netflix of gaming

Parimatch is changing the perception of the betting industry and building a technological entertainment platform. The company’s goal is to move away from the classic idea of bookmaker and become a gaming and entertainment platform. The company took the first steps and presented the Footboss game in the fall. The chief product officer of Parimatch, Sergey Berezhnoy, helps to understand how a simple session game changes the idea and approaches to betting.

The Footbooss’ concept

Footboss’ ultimate gaming adventure is to free 10 major football stadiums from the giant invaders. The game’s key character is the coach, whose task is to prepare his players for effective penalties and non-standard solutions day after day.

At first glance, the game seems simple, but with every new session, a player discovers many directions in which he could learn more or advance. Thanks to the random distribution of rewards and tasks, the journey becomes unexpected: you always get different things, quests, and heroes. Also, an additional interest is given by the effect of “kinder-surprise for adults” in the form of loot boxes.

Midweek Premier League Preview

The Premier League action has come thick and fast for five months and now into the second half of the 2020/21 season, there is no let up for the 20 EPL teams searching for success.

To some, such as the Manchester clubs and Liverpool, that success is getting their hands on the Premier League trophy, with its ludicrous crown. To others such as Chelsea, Tottenham Hotspur or Leicester City, finishing in the top four and qualifying for the Champions League would be a tremendous achievement. To the clubs currently in the bottom, just staying in the Premier League would be an amazing feat.

Let’s take a look at three clashes involving sides fighting for very different targets.

Manchester United vs. Southampton (Tuesday, 8.15pm GMT kick-off)

Marquee matchups on Tuesday NBA odds slate

Odds courtesy of OddsShark.com

No question that the marquee matchup around the NBA on Tuesday (February 2) is at 7:30 p.m. ET and nationally televised by TNT when the Los Angeles Clippers visit the Brooklyn Nets in a potential NBA Finals preview. The Clippers are the second favorites to come out of the Western Conference and have the best record in the NBA as of this writing, and the Nets are the Eastern Conference favorites.

Assuming they all play, and that’s never a sure thing in these COVID days, five of the best 15 or so players in the league will share the same court in the Clippers’ Kawhi Leonard and Paul George and Nets’ Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving and James Harden.

Leonard and George missed two games last week in the COVID protocols but returned Friday. They are two of the most ferocious defenders in the NBA and it will be terrific basketball watching them try and slow down Durant and Harden (not so much Irving as he’s a point guard and won’t be guarded much by the bigger but slower Leonard and George).

Russian bookmakers’ kickbacks to sport soar under new rules

Russia’s licensed online sports betting operators contributed a record sum to local sports bodies in 2020, despite the months-long shutdown of most sports activity due to COVID-19. 

On Monday, the First Self-Regulatory Organization of Russian Bookmakers (First SRO) announced that its members contributed RUB923m (US$12.15m) to Russian professional and youth sports bodies in 2020. That’s 60% higher than the total RUB577.3m that First SRO members contributed to local sport in 2019. 

The quarterly contributions painfully reflect last year’s pandemic-related disruption to sports schedules, as Q1’s total of RUB118m slipped to just RUB79m in Q2 before rebounding to RUB149m in Q3 as major league play resumed. 

But new laws that took effect at the end of Q3 required heftier contributions from Russian bookmakers by extending the levy to bets placed on international sports. The result was a total contribution of RUB577m, nearly four times Q3’s sum.  

The Secret Coach: Who’ll win the 2020/21 Champions League?

This season’s Champions League resumes in just three weeks’ time with the best 16 teams left in the competition as the group stages give way to  the knockout phase. From a sportsbetting point of view, picking a winner might look impossible, but what if you had someone in the know?  

Thanks to Calvin Ayre, you do. The Secret Coach is a professional football coach in English football… who will remain anonymous. The Secret Coach has worked with some of the biggest names in the game, been through the coaching badge courses and is currently part of the coaching team at an English league side… and that’s all we’re telling you. As ever, this week, The Secret Coach pulls no punches! 

We started by asking The Secret Coach whether they think the knockout phase reverting to two-legged ties this year after one-legged games last year gives some teams an advantage.  

“With it being two legs this season, I think the home leg coming second is still key.” TSC says. “That said, with no crowds, places like Anfield won’t be the same with that twelfth man, so COVID-19 might have levelled up the playing field in that respect. I think it will be down to schedules for travelling and each club’s domestic league fixtures that will be key now.”  

Limping towards the line? Polk and Negreanu slow down in heads-up duel

The latest shots that have been fired in the ongoing battle between two of the finest poker minds of their generation(s) have been… well, a little bit weird.  

If you thought that the action and back-biting couldn’t get any faster or more furious between Doug Polk and Daniel Negreanu, then you’d be right on one count. The action has slowed down considerably in recent days, to the point where one man was pointing out the rules of the battle writ large on Twitter.  

Where can we even start with these two?  

Negreanu Stuns Polk, Can’t Follow Through  

Poland’s Totolotek closing betting shops; 20th bookmaker raises eyebrows

Polish bookmaker Totolotek SA is closing its retail betting operations, while the country’s latest online betting licensee is raising eyebrows due to its ties to a ‘rogue’ international operator. 

Totolotek recently announced that it would close its 116 retail betting points of sale in Poland effective March 31. The move was prompted by the pandemic’s impact on retail operations of all kinds and the resulting migration of retail bettors to Totolotek’s Polish-licensed online betting site. 

The retail closure will result in the redundancy of around 150 staff, to whom Totolotek is promising support in finding new employment. Totolotek, which is owned by a joint venture involving the Gauselmann Group’s Merkur Sportwetten subsidiary, says retail betting customers will have 90 days in which to collect on pending wagers that ultimately prove to be winners. 

Meanwhile, local media reported that Poland’s Ministry of Finance had granted regulatory approval to the country’s 20th licensed betting operator, Bukmacherska Sp. z o.o, which will operate in Poland using the Fuksiarz brand. The company, which was established in May 2019, is reportedly backed by several individuals with past and present ties to major European gambling operators.  

Adding the Zero – Michigan becomes fifth U.S. State to bring online poker back

Online poker has been the elephant in America’s online cardrooms since Black Friday, the anniversary of which takes place this year. It will come as something of a relief, then, to millions of poker players that another state, Michigan, has legalized online poker.  

The Great Lakes State actually signed on the dotted line back in late 2019, but it’s taken all that time for PokerStars to offer Michigan-based players a way to play. That makes Michigan the fith state of the 50 in the United States to offer online poker – 10% of the country.  

So what would it take to add the zero to that number and make it 100% of Americans who are eligible to turn on their WiFi, load up a poker lobby and click to win?  

As we reported last week, Joe Biden could be the president who brings online poker back to America. That would be a big change, with 45 states needed to add to Michigan as well as the other four states in which online poker has been legalized: Nevada, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware.