Lee Davy opines about the recent furor over the use of voice activated remote software used to gain considerable edges in online Heads-Up Sit n Go games.

In my bid to become an effective altruist I have been gorging on works by . There is an interesting chapter in his book The Most Good You Can Do entitled Preventing Human Extinction.

Singer believes there are eight potential ways to fuck ourselves in the ass, ranging from: collision with a badass asteroid to death by nuclear war. But the one that grabbed my attention was death by ‘superintelligent unfriendly artificial intelligence.’

Singer writes:

Another batch of expatriate South Koreans has been caught running an online sports betting site targeting their countrymen back home.

Over the weekend, police in Thailand arrested seven South Korean men accused of running an illegal online sports betting operation out of two adjoining condominiums in a Bangkok luxury tower. One condo housed the computer gear, while the men slept in the other.

Police said the ring had been operating for around three years, frequently shifting their location in a bid to avoid detection. Police reportedly received a tip-off from someone in the building who noticed that the condo in question was full of foreigners who didn’t seem to go out all that much.

Thai media reports said the ring generated between Bt30m and Bt90m (US $900k to $2.7m) per month from bettors in South Korea, although it’s unclear whether this sum was betting handle or profits. The seven arrested individuals have been charged with unlawful online gambling, illegal entry into the country and working without proper permits.

David Kulchman has won the World Series of Poker Circuit Main Event in Foxwoods after beating Michael Thibeau in heads-up action.

[Image Credit: Bluff]

Image David Kulchman calls himself a ‘part-time poker player, and full-time Dad’, but if he keeps knocking these types of results out of the park, that might have to change.

The man, who learned to play Seven Card Stud and Five Card Draw for pennies, has walked away with the top prize of $124,370 in the $1,675 World Series of Poker Circuit (WSOPC) Main Event at Foxwoods Connecticut.

A new study says gamblers are more reckless with their wagers if they’ve recently spent time on social networking behemoth Facebook.

Dr. Eugene Chan of the University of Technology, Sydney recently published a new study in the Computers in Human Behavior journal that says Facebook users should impose at least one hour’s delay between checking their profile and gambling. Chan says the one-hour rule applies not just to online gambling but to brick-and-mortar gambling venues and other forms of risk-based monetary activity, including investing in the stock market.

Chan told the Herald Sun that Facebook users tend to view their network of social friends as a “cushion” against financial loss. Chen theorized that Facebook visits gave users a subconscious imprinting of a network of friends who might bail them out if an investment goes sour.

This effect was only noticed in people who’d recently spent time viewing their online social circle, meaning Facebook users who hadn’t checked their profile in a while failed to display the same elevated risk tolerance. According to Chan, “it is the act of interacting with one’s online friends on Facebook that activated the financial cushion.” Chan’s research focused solely on Facebook, but he believes similar effects are likely from other social platforms like Twitter and LinkedIn.