Ranking Hero partners with 2+2 as an extension of their HeroScore rankings, and partypoker players get the opportunity to face Rob Yong heads-up for $25,000 in cash.

Ranking Hero has announced a partnership with 2+2 that will enable members of the most popular poker forum in the world to join the HeroScore Rankings.

HeroScore was launched back in May with the intention of creating a ranking system that considered prestige and popularity as well as results. Speaking to CalvinAyre at the time of launch, Ranking Hero chief Nicolas Levi was very keen to push the contribution angle. The integration with 2+2 will certainly achieve that.

Members of 2+2 can enter their nickname into the Ranking Hero website and their one of a kind social algorithm will do its thing and create a score based on the contribution they have made towards the game. Expect to see Allen Kessler climbing up the ranks pretty rapidly.

Full Tilt experience a blip in traffic numbers after making wholesale changes towards their recreational player model, but it’s all part of the plan according to Dominic Mansour.

Online poker rooms are plagued with the same old question, “How can we get poker players to like us and play on our site? I think they should be posing a different question, “Why should poker players like us and want to play on our site?”

Don’t ever tell your kid that winning isn’t everything. That’s a crock of shit. It’s biological. Winning stirs the alchemy of feel good chemicals that see you bouncing along like Tigger, not dragging your chin on the ground like Eeyore.

If you don’t win then you lose. If you feel great when you win, then life sucks when you lose.

Season 12 of the World Series of Poker Circuit has started in fine fettle after Firas Haddad won a first event that attracted over 1,400 entrants at the Foxwoods Casino, Mashantucket, Connecticut.

The World Series of Poker Circuit (WSOPC) is like a carousel standing in the middle of an illuminated square – you can’t keep your eyes of it, and it keeps moving around and around.

It was only a fortnight ago that Loni Harwood applied a wet towel on the inflammation caused by the poker community’s misogynists, by winning the Season 11 WSOPC National Championships in North Carolina. A few days ago it started all over again.

[Image Credit: PokerNews]

The 2015 Sydney Poker Championships has come to a close with Ben Jee winning the Main Event and Daniel Neilson winning the AU$5k Challenge.

The 2015 Sydney Poker Championships spawned an eight-day festival of poker to be proud of. There were No-Limit Hold’em games, Pot-Limit Omaha and even a Team event. But there were only two that were promising a juicy six-figure score: The AU$3k Main Event and AU$5k Challenge.

The Star Casino captured all the action. The festival ran between 28th July & 10th August. Here is the event breakdown.

Sydney Poker Championships Results (AU$)

China LotSynergy Holdings subsidiary Guangzhou Lottnal Terminal Company has won a bid to provide computer-generated ticket games in Guangdong.

Guangzhou Lottnal was the first supplier selected in Guangdong Sports Lottery Centre’s “Sports Lottery CTG Sales Terminal Project.”

The project has a total procurement of 10,000 terminals, of which Lottnal won the largest batch of 4,000 terminals, marking the successful expansion of the China LotSynergy lottery terminal business to 14 provinces and regions across China.

“The winning of this bid marks the successful expansion of the group’s Sports Lottery terminal business into a major provincial Sports Lottery market in the nation, further securing the group’s industry position,” said China LotSynergy in a press release. “In the future, the Group will leverage its geographical advantages in the Guangdong lottery market to better serve the Sports Lottery market and maintain its industry leading position.”

Australian casino operator Echo Entertainment’s fiscal year ended with a bang as an influx of high-rollers boosted profits by more than half.

For the 12 months ending June 30, Echo reported statutory revenue up 18.5% year-on-year to A$2.14b (US $1.56b), earnings up 16.5% to A$451m and net profit after tax up 59.3% to A$169.3m. In ‘normalized’ terms, which smooth out the wild variance associated with VIP gaming, revenue rose 20.6% to A$2.3b, earnings gained 24% to A$521m and profit rose 52% to A$219m.

In normalized terms, Echo’s flagship Sydney property The Star reported revenue up 25.7% to A$1.64b and earnings rose 25.5% to A$356m. Echo’s two Queensland casinos – Jupiters Gold Coast and Treasury Brisbane – combined for A$692m (+10%) in revenue and earnings of A$165m (+21.5%).

Echo’s ‘international VIP rebate business’ aka Asian gambling whales was up a hefty 53% thanks to a 64% rise in customer front money to A$3.67b – a new company record. Total VIP turnover also set a record, rising 53.5% to A$46b. VIP win rate fell to 1.27% from 1.32% in the previous year – both figures are below the normalized rate of 1.43% – but bad debts fell to A$16m from A$41m as the company improved its credit risk management and collections performance.