Paul Newey: Ambition, Determination and Honesty Video

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Mustapha “lasagnaaammm” Kanit has won the Spring Championships of Online Poker High Main Event after beating Emil ‘Maroonlime’ Patel in heads up action to take the $1.3m first prize.

[Image Credit: PokerNews]

Mustapha ‘lasagnaaammm’ Kanit likes to be first.

In 2014 he became the first player to win two side events at the same Aussie Millions festival, when he topped fields of 1,302 and 494 players in differing variants of No-Limit Hold’em (NLHE) events.

Antonius Samuel was the main benefactor of $275,000 worth of dead money after beating Stacy Coore, in heads-up action, to win the inaugural partypoker Grand Prix Million

[Image Credit: PokerNews]

What would be your reaction if you organized a poker event carrying a $1m guarantee, and it missed its mark by $275,000?

Shitty barge poles at the ready?

Daily fantasy sports operator FanDuel has launched a new Android app that allows players to enjoy “the full FanDuel experience.”

FanDuel already had an app for Android devices, but its functionality was limited to providing live scoring updates so players could track their teams’ performance.

On Tuesday, FanDuel announced that it had released a new Android app that provides players with all the options available via their website, including finding contests, building and editing team lineups, tracking live scores plus the ability to withdraw, deposit and manage their accounts.

The app is currently available for download exclusively via FanDuel’s website, as Google’s Android Play store doesn’t permit apps that facilitate real-money gambling. As customers in regulated jurisdictions both within and outside the US have discovered, the fact that some wagering is legally permissible in certain jurisdictions matters not to Google’s overlords.

A Nevada federal court has dismissed the bulk of the remaining evidence against accused illegal online betting operator Wei Seng ‘Paul’ Phua.

On Tuesday, US District Judge Andrew Gordon effectively pulled the legs out from under prosecutors by barring them from using evidence obtained by FBI agents under highly suspect circumstances. Gordon’s ruling followed a two-hour hearing in which prosecutors attempted to preserve their already shaky case against Phua, a Malaysian businessman known for his high-stakes poker play.

Phua was one of eight individuals arrested last July for allegedly operating an illegal online sportsbook out of three luxury villas at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. But the justification supporting the government’s search warrants was called into question after the FBI’s tactics were revealed.

Believing something illicit was going on behind closed doors, the FBI convinced Caesars to shut off the internet connections to the villas. When Phua & Co. called for tech support, the FBI sent in agents equipped with hidden body cameras. The FBI used this video evidence to obtain their warrants, despite senior justice officials warning that the chicanery raised serious Fourth Amendment issues.

A new study has demonstrated the power that betting lines hold over college football television ratings.

Economics professors Steven Salaga and Scott Tainsky compiled the study, which was recently published in the journal Economic Letters. The professorial pair concluded that TV ratings were higher when the scoring margin moved closer to the point spread late in the game and that viewers kept watching games longer when the total number of points scored remained on the ‘under’ side of an over/under betting line.

The authors claim to have wanted to end speculation as to whether betting drives interest in games, which would poke some major holes in the credibility of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), which is one of the most vociferous opponents of betting on college athletics, despite profiting handsomely from the interest that betting provides for its product.

Using Nielsen television ratings for live NCAA broadcasts of Pac-10 (now Pac-12) football games during the 2005-2009 seasons, the authors looked at games in which the point spread was between 14 and 28 points. These samples were further narrowed to games in which the favorite was ahead by at least 10 points going into the fourth quarter.

Greece’s economy may be in tatters but local betting firm OPAP posted its seventh consecutive quarter of revenue growth during Q1 2015.

For the first three months of the year, OPAP sales rose 15.8% to €1.12b, while gross gaming revenue after punter payouts rose 11.3% to €356.3m. Earnings were up 22.3% to €93.2m and net profit gained 16.9% to €58.1m.

OPAP CEO Kamil Ziegler said the company had demonstrated “significant improvement” in both financial figures and operating efficiencies despite “a volatile environment.”

OPAP’s numerical games segment reported revenue up 2.8% to €585.8m. The Kino product was up 1.2% to €506.3m, its first positive quarter since scratch tickets were introduced. The Joker game grew more than one-quarter to €56.2m.