Lee Davy spends his morning bringing you up to date on all of the weekly news including Asher Conniff’s incredible rise to the top, Anthony Zinno wrapping up a sound Season XIII at the World Poker Tour with the Player of the Year award, Bryan Micon having the worst week of his life, and much more.

The weekly news round up begins with Bryan Micon.

When you talk about Bryan Micon you immediately think about Seals With Clubs (SWC), the Bitcoin only online poker room that seemed to be doing decent business in the states, before the shutters came down.

Speaking with Micon about SWC his passion for Bitcoin, and online poker, is unparalleled, and yet he has always insisted that his role with the company has never been anything more than ‘bit-part.’

Casino operator Boyd Gaming says its online gambling operation in New Jersey posted its third consecutive profitable quarter in Q1.

Boyd, which shares ownership of Atlantic City’s market-leading Borgata Hotel Casino with MGM Resorts, said its online gambling operation generated earnings of $1.1m in the three months ending March 31. It’s not a huge sum, but it compares quite favorably to the $3.2m loss the online business recorded in Q1 2014. Earlier this year, Boyd projected that the online operation – a partnership with UK-listed online gambling operator Bwin.party and California’s Pala Interactive – would generate full-year earnings of between $3m and $5m.

The Borgata was also a solid performer on the brick-and-mortar front, with revenue rising 9.2% to $182.6m and earnings nearly doubling to $37.8m. Boyd CEO Keith Smith told analysts the “right-sizing” Atlantic City endured over the past year “has helped stabilize the operating environment.” Having lost four of its 12 casinos, Smith believes the new AC “appears to have reached a level of supply that is appropriate for demand and the remaining properties are generally seeing better results.”

Boyd’s overall revenue was up 1.8% to $550.6m, while adjusted earnings were up 11.1% to $149.2m. Profit came to $35.1m compared to a net loss of $6.2m in the same period a year ago. This quarter’s numbers were boosted by a favorable tax ruling that reduced Boyd’s Q1 tax provision by $23.2m.

Another member has joined the PokerStars millionaire club after the Polish player ‘bladsonpoker’ won the huge prize whilst playing on his mobile phone. At the other end of the scale PokerStars launch relief initiative to help the victims of the Nepal earthquake.

Friend of PokerStars (I hate that term) Jamie Staples was on the ball this week, capturing Poland’s ‘bladsonpoker’ turning a $5 investment into a million bucks whilst streaming live on Twitch.

The Pole is the second Spin & Go million-dollar winner in the recent “PokerStars Makes Millionaires” campaign. The first million was handed to the Russian player “CccpVodka” on April 22.

In a loving appreciation of the game of poker, the Pole continued playing in a $4.40 No-Limit Hold’em tournament, with 4,767 other players, until he was eliminated, despite winning the life-changing sum of money. His two opponents, ‘hooomlesnurr’ from Norway, and ‘ROliver CEO’ from China, were recipients of $100,000 apiece. The three-handed play lasted seven minutes and eighteen seconds. The Pole is the 24th player to ever win a million bucks on PokerStars.

Two life sentences have been handed out to the people responsible for murdering 56-year-old gambler, Mehmet Hassan, and a third received 16-years for manslaughter. Lock Poker loses their Curacao gaming license.

The three people responsible for killing 56-year-old London-based gambler Mehmet Hassan, are behind bars, after Judge William Kennedy handed down their sentences this week.

Kyrron Jackson, 28, and Nicholas Chandler, 29, both received life sentences with a minimum term of 36-years, after they were found guilty of tying Hassan up, and then beating him to death, before ransacking his flat in Islington.

The pair gained access to his home after Leonie Granger, 25, built up a relationship with Hassan, in a honeytrap plot designed to rob him of thousands of pounds that he had stored in his flat.

Asher Conniff has become the Season XIII World Poker Tour World Champion after beating the Russian, Alexander Lakhov, in heads-up action, to claim the first prize of just under a million bucks, in Atlantic City.

[Image Credit: Bluff]

There are poker gods, and there are poker gods. The next time I get down on my knees and pray, I want to know the names of the ones that Asher Conniff confides in.

There are times in your life when everything comes together – a perfect jigsaw with all of the pieces fitting perfectly. That’s what’s happening right now in the world of Conniff. His world won’t keep still. It keeps on spinning.

Online gambling software outfit Net Entertainment set new revenue and profit records in Q1 as the company reaped the benefits of its expansion strategy.

Revenue in the three months ending March 31 rose 37.1% to SEK 258.3m (US $30.9m) while operating profit jumped 59.8% to SEK 81.8m and profit after tax soared 60.9% to SEK 74.2m. Operating margin improved 4.5 points to 31.7%. Net Ent CEO Per Eriksson credited 2015’s strong start to the company’s “innovative gaming solutions as well as our strong expansion on new and existing markets.”

Net Ent says it handled 6.5b game transactions in Q1, up 30.8% from the same period last year. Mobile gaming nearly doubled to 20.6% of total game win. Net Ent says that as of Q2, all its new games for both desktop and mobile have been developed in HTML5, which will help realize synergies going forward.

The quarter brought 11 new customer agreements – including Denmark’s Danske Spil, Spain’s Codere and the UK’s Gamesys – and the launch of seven new customers’ casinos, most notably Full Tilt. The company has also gone live with Bwin.party since the quarter ended.