International Game Technology (IGT) has agreed a deal to provide the Massachusetts Gaming Commission (MGC) with a central monitoring system that will be used to analyze electronic gaming devices across the state.

Through its wholly-owned subsidiary GTECH Corporation, IGT’s INTELLIGEN will monitor as many as 20,000 devices at more than four venues in Massachusetts.

The Plainridge Park Casino in Plainville will be the first venue to be monitored by the MGC on June 24th using either SAS or the Gaming Standards Association’s Game to System (G2S) protocol.  The system will also provide the regulator with advanced security and financial monitoring functionality.

The $250m facility will feature 1,250 slot machines, as well as video poker video blackjack games among others.

Sportradar partnered with the World Lotteries Association (WLA) and European Lotteries to combat match-fixing and to preserve the integrity of sports.

The Global Lottery Monitoring System (GLMS), powered by Sportradar, was launched on Monday, providing WLA and European lotteries member with monitoring of the various betting markets offered by government-authorized lotteries for profit-only bookmakers in markets around the world.

The Sportradar’s Fraud Detection System will supply users with alerts regarding unusual activity and provide member of lotteries with a platform to communicate with other lotteries and various organizations about suspicious matches.

The system is already being used by a number of law enforcement agencies and sports federations such as the International Olympic Committee and FIFA.

Lee Davy continues his World Series of Poker diary entries with news of a broken air conditioning unit, why he wants to kill people when standing in lines, and a cash in The Colossus.

We don’t have air conditioning in the UK. You open a window. I open a window in Vegas and a black widow, or a scorpion crawls in and kills me as I sleep. So I don’t open the window. This pisses my wife off, because for the past week we haven’t had a working air conditioning unit in our condo.

Living in the stifling heat presents a few issues. The worst one being the urge to rip your wife’s head off, scoop out her brains, and use it as a decorative fruit bowl. I haven’t killed her yet. I’m waiting for the black widow to get the job done.

This is why I’m so annoyed that I have spent most of my time in Vegas waiting in lines. I expected it at the airport. I didn’t expect it inside the Rio. It’s been well documented that people have been waiting in lines for several hours, either to register or be paid. I decided to be cute. I waited until the line was only 10-people long. It still took me 40-minutes to be dealt with. Where is my wife? Where is that spoon?

Lee Davy sits down with the 2012 World Series of Poker Main Event Champion, and Player of the Year, Greg Merson, to talk about his battles with drug addiction.

Suffering an addiction affects everything. I’m talking about your mindset, your relationships, and whatever it is you choose to call a ‘job’.

When stuck in this spiral of descent, there is no hope. Happiness is a gift that lies under someone else’s Christmas tree.

This is why my next guest is so important.

Macau casino junket operators are pleading with the special administrative region’s government to allow them to operate smoking lounges in their VIP gaming rooms.

On Tuesday, the Macau Junket Operators Association declared that the government’s plan to impose a blanket smoking ban in casinos would be “fatal” for Macau’s already slumping VIP gaming sector. Association boss Kwok Chi Chung made the comment following a meeting with Secretary for Economy and Finance Lionel Leong Vai Tac.

Macau casinos are currently mired in a yearlong gaming revenue decline, driven by a dramatic shrinking of the VIP market. Kwok told reporters that junket operators “do not oppose the government carrying out measures to control smoking in casinos … but we want our businesses to survive.”

The government had previously allowed smoking to continue in VIP rooms along with the construction of designated smoking lounges on the mass gaming floor. Both of these options will be phased out under the blanket ban. Kwok insisted that the VIP sector was “different to the mass gaming business” and thus deserved special consideration.

Lee Davy brings you up to speed with the main news stories on Day 7 of the 46th Annual World Series of Poker, including an amazing back-to-back victory for LA’s Tuan Le.

Tuan Le stepped beneath poker’s dazzling glare, when as a 27-year old he captured two World Poker Tour (WPT) Main Event titles in a matter of a few mesmerizing months.

That was back in 2004, when WPT Main Event winners were banking seven figure scores for fun. Le was no exception, picking up $1.5m for his first victory, and $2.8m for his second. I don’t care what kind of backing deal Le had, or if he had any at all, that kind of money hands you a poker bankroll for life.

Then Le steps away from the light instead preferred the shadows of the Commerce Casino. Night after night Le takes his seat and plays his cash games. The young man who once won over $4m on the WPT.

Fitch Ratings analysts believe Japan has a “50/50 chance” of passing their long-delayed casino legislation this year.

Japanese lawmakers reintroduced their casino study bill in April, but little has been heard of the issue since. Last week, Fitch suggested the bill had a coin-flip’s chance of coming up for a vote in Japan’s parliament this year. Assuming a positive vote is forthcoming, the next step would be passage of a second bill that would spell out the actual nuts and bolts of casino regulation and licensing.

Similar sentiments were expressed by Greenberg Traurig attorney Ryo Takizawa, who told GGRAsia it was “expected” that the study bill would meet with approval in the Diet this year. Assuming the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) can get its coalition partner Komeito to drop its moral objections to casino gambling, Takizawa said that the legislative process “will move forward relatively smoothly.”

Takizawa suggested the study bill’s follow-up legislation could be split into smaller, more manageable chunks, such as one bill “to regulate the criteria for choosing bids, granting licenses; another to implement an oversight body.” Another bill could deal with preventing and addressing “social problems.”

Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval has signed his state’s ‘entity’ betting law, offering out-of-state residents the ability to wager – albeit passively – with Nevada sportsbooks.

On Tuesday, Sandoval signed Senate Bill 443, which authorizes Nevada-licensed sportsbooks to accept wagers from business entities, which will represent pools of investors. These investors can be based out of state, but they won’t have an active role in determining how the entity’s wagers are placed. The process has been compared to investing in mutual funds.

Proponents of the legislation – including local sports betting tech provider CG Technology (the former Cantor Gaming) – believe it will lead to a dramatic boost in betting handle in Nevada, the only US jurisdiction currently allowed to offer single-game sports wagers.

Sandoval also put his John Hancock on SB 445, which authorizes Nevada sportsbooks to operate similar facilities in other jurisdictions where such activity is legal. CG Technology already operates sportsbooks in Mexico, the Bahamas, on cruise ships and a sports lottery bar in China, so SB 445 really only gives CG Tech some political cover for what it’s already doing. But the law would allow Nevada books a leg up should New Jersey prevail in its quest to overturn the federal PASPA sports betting prohibition.