The Pennsylvania House Gaming Oversight Committee has urged congress to oppose the Restoration of America’s Wire Act, by passing HR140 ahead of crucial iGaming talks set to take place on Thursday of this week.

The state of Pennsylvania is not prepared to stand idle in the battlefield as Jason Chaffetz and Sheldon Adelson pelt them with hypocritical rhetoric. The men and women of the House Gaming Oversight Committee have their shields raised, have dipped their arrows in tar, and are preparing to fire.

In late February, Representative John D. Payne, penned a house resolution designed to urge the Congress of the United States to place HR 707 (Restoration of America’s Wire Act (RAWA)) in the trash, along with any other pieces of legislation demanding States right to rule their own roost is taken away from them.

Today it’s online gambling, tomorrow who knows?

Daniel ‘danshreddies’ O’Callaghan joins Team PKR after becoming the first player in history to make back-to-back final tables of PKR Live Main Events.

27-year old Daniel O’Callaghan has been signed to represent PKR Team Pro after winning the 2015 PKR Live London Main Event for £19,000. The Hartlepool native, who plays under the pseudonym danshreddies, became the first player to make back-to-back PKR Live Main Event final tables in late March. His signing has been made public in the past few days.

O’Callaghan defeated 280 players at the PKR Live Main Event at Aspers casino in Stratford. In 2014, he was runner-up to Jeff Kimber in the same event. He has now earned over $50,000 in live tournament earnings, with those two PKR Live Main Event finishes resulting in his two best scores.

PKR has not signed him because of his live tournament prowess. That’s not the way they do business. What I love about PKR is how they look after their own. O’Callaghan has been a loyal servant at PKR since 2008. He has earned over $150,000 in online tournament winnings, and is a regular contributor to their PKR strategy section. He also has his own Twitch channel.

Multiple World Series of Poker gold ring winner Chan Pelton puts his World Series ban behind him to pick up the win at the Card Player Poker Tour Main Event in Choctaw, and Jason Mirza takes down the Mid-Stakes Poker Tour in Potawatomi.

It was a little over a year ago that Chan Pelton went from hero to zero, after being found guilty of removing a T25, 000 chip from his stack, when heads-up for his third World Series of Poker Circuit (WSOPC) gold ring, in a side event at the WSOPC stop at the Palm Beach Kennel Club (PBKC).

It was an act that would prove very costly to Pelton. He would go on to win that event, but both the WSOP and PBKC came down heavy on the young man. His victory was revoked, his seat at the WSOP National Championships removed, his prize money handed to someone else, and worse of all, he was banned from the PBKC and all Caesars properties indefinitely.

With the WSOPC beyond his reach, Pelton continued to earn a living playing on the Card Player Poker Tour (CPPT). He has cashed in eight events, since being found guilty of that rule breach, including six final tables and a solitary victory in the recent event at Choctaw, Durant.

What’s new and exciting about GiGse this year is the “Open Space” concept that will be applied to some of the session blocks, a first for the online gambling industry.

Open Space allows for the attendees to shape the discussion around a central theme on the day and encourages active participation from everyone in the room.  “Thought leaders” have been assigned to each Open Space session to manage the topics covered and to lead smaller group discussions.

For the upcoming GiGse, Clarion has organized a conference schedule featuring a mixture of old-fashioned presentations and panels with the addition of these blocks of time each day dedicated to Open Space style discussion.

Seeing as I have yet to experience the wonders of Open Space, I’ll leave it to you to decide which ones to attend and I will focus my top five recommendations on the available panels and presentations at the event.

Lee Davy continues his confessions series by delving into the difficulty of writing about the passing of a member of the poker community.

Death has been on my mind a lot recently. I’m 40, and as I age so does everyone else. For many years I avoided the Grim Reaper. My Mum turned 60 this weekend, and my Dad is only 63. They are mere pups in my eras demographic of parents.

Both my mother and father are not exactly pillars of health. Until very recently, both have smoked for many years, spent enough hours in the pub to make me worry about their alcohol consumption, lead very sedentary lifestyles, and eat a lot of the wrong things.

By contrast I am the complete opposite. I don’t drink, smoke, lead an active lifestyle, and am a vegan. I also coach people to change their lifestyle habits, so they can give themselves the best chance of having a long and healthy lifestyle. But try as I might I cannot influence my parents one iota.

South Korean casino operator Grand Korea Leisure (GKL) is exploring the idea of opening a new casino on Yeongjong Island but has denied reports it is planning a joint venture with US tribal casino operator Mohegan Sun.

Earlier this week, the Korean Economic Daily reported GKL would team with Mohegan Sun on a KRW 1t (US $912m) casino resort project near the Incheon Free Economic Zone (FEZ). The pairing would have represented the Connecticut-based casino operator’s first foray into the Asian market, but alas, GKL says there’s no truth to the reports – at least, not yet.

On Wednesday, GKL released a statement saying it was conducting a “feasibility study and many other kinds of research” regarding the Yeongjong project “but nothing has been decided, including any business partners or investors.” GKL confirmed that Mohegan Sun representatives had visited GKL’s offices but said this was nothing more than a courtesy call.

True or not, GKL’s Incheon project was said to involve 250 gaming tables, 1,500 electronic gaming machines, 1k hotel rooms and a 20k-seat concert arena. GKL currently operates three small foreigner-only casinos in South Korea under the Seven Luck brand and is known to be looking at expansion opportunities. The publicly traded GKL is an affiliate of the Korea Tourism Organization, a state-run tourism agency.

Struggling casino operator Caesars Entertainment is close to a deal with federal authorities regarding the company’s anti-money laundering (AML) lapses.

In October 2013, Caesars announced it was under investigation over potential money laundering activities at its Caesars Palace property in Las Vegas. This February, Caesars announced it had gone outside the company to hire a new AML compliance watchdog to help keep Caesars on the straight and narrow.

On Wednesday, Reuters reported that the US Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) was close to slapping Caesars with a civil penalty. The specifics haven’t been revealed, but it appears that no Caesars exec will be getting the boot, despite a source calling the AML lapses “very serious.”. A parallel investigation by the US Department of Justice will reportedly not result in further sanctions on Caesars.

Details on what sparked the AML investigation have never been spelled out but Reuters’ sources said the feds were alerted by Caesars’ failure to properly police sportsbook activity and to prevent illegal betting rings from placing wagers.