Monthly Archives: January 2016

PokerStars TCOOP Faces $500k Overlay; Four Players Seeking Grand Slam

A PokerStars insider has revealed that the opening event of the 2016 Turbo Championship of Online Poker is likely to accrue a $500,000 overlay, and four players look forward to achieving incredible Grand Slam success.

Fancy some free money?

A PokerStars insider has revealed that the opening event of the 2016 Turbo Championship of Online Poker (TCOOP) could be facing a $500,000 overlay.

The world’s largest online poker room is promising $15 million in prizes over a series of 50 TCOOP events. The first event, TCOOP-01 $27 No-Limit Hold’em (NLHE) 6-Max Turbo, starts the ball rolling with a $1.5m guarantee. It seems people aren’t as interested as the forecasters predicted.

Seven-year-old Indian boy tires of dad’s illegal gambling, rats dad out to police

A seven-year-old boy from India who told police about his father’s illegal gambling activity has been getting some serious mixed messages.

According to a recent report by the Hindustan Times, seven-year-old Amir Shoalb had grown weary of his father’s fondness for gambling and drinking alcohol. Apparently Amir’s complaints weren’t getting the desired response from dear old dad, so the boy decided to take his grievances up the chain of command.

On Jan. 3, Amir wandered over to the local police station in the central state of Madhya Pradesh and asked to see the officer in charge. Local cop Kishore Patanwala told the Times how the boy informed him of the father’s daily gambling and drinking sessions and of Amir’s inability to convince his father to stop having fun. Amir “wanted his father to be arrested to he told me about the spot where [his father] was playing at the time.”

Suitably intrigued, Patanwala sent a squad down to investigate, where he discovered the boy’s father Khan and several others behaving as the boy described, so the officers arrested the lot for illegal gambling.

Colossus Bets launches £1 Million free-to-play 6 leg predictor game

Colossus Bets today announced the launch of its ‘FreePlay6’ the world’s biggest free-to-play predictor game, with a £1 million weekly jackpot prize. The correct score game follows a similar format to Sky’s popular ‘Super6’ game, but includes the firm’s partial cash-out feature, enabling Colossus players to take cash profits on ‘live’ free tickets throughout the weekend.

The game, which requires players to pick the score in six of the weekend’s English Premier League fixtures, is available on the firm’s colossusbets.com B2C site and is to be rolled out to the firm’s B2B partner sites over the next few weeks.  The B2B product will be built into the Colossus B2B partner consoles, allowing partners to offer free play tickets across Colossus Bets’ multi-sports pools, to different segments of their customers.

Bernard Marantelli, founder and CEO of Colossus Bets said: “We have built a free-to-play game which puts all other predictor games to the sword in scale and functionality. FreePlay6 offers life-changing prizes and includes all the killer features of our real money pools: leg-by-leg real money cash-out; consolation prizes for 4 or 5 correct from 6; grouped scores to make winning easier; and transparent ticket tracking so players know where they stand as goals are scored and results are confirmed. We have also added a very slick social media option that rewards our clients for sharing – a win-win CRM tool.”

“This game will also give our B2B partners an unparalleled tool to acquire, reactivate and retain customers. It provides a soft entry level for new customer acquisition, can be used to reactivate lapsed customers and it can be used to reward active customers. We think this product can become the industry’s biggest CRM tool.”

Frontier Capital Group bets on proxy betting to lure VIP gamblers

Frontier Capital Group’s new Philippine casino will rely on proxy betting to lure its share of Asian high rollers.

This month will see the Australia-listed Frontier Capital Group complete its $26m acquisition of the Hotel Stotsenberg and Casablanca Casino in the Clark Freeport Zone in the Philippines. The company expects that the acquisition, which was announced in November, will double the company’s profit by 2018.

Frontier Capital had already announced its intention to boost its new casino’s gaming options by raising the number of slot machines from 190 to 250 and adding 11 gaming tables to the existing 36.

On Tuesday, Australian financial consultancy Alpha Securities revealed that Frontier Capital’s expansion strategy includes “targeting VIP patronage,” in part through the ‘introduction of proxy betting,” in which a VIP phones into the casino to place bets via a trusted partner, who relays real-time card information to the gambler at home.

Frontier Capital Group bets on proxy betting to lure VIP gamblers

Frontier Capital Group’s new Philippine casino will rely on proxy betting to lure its share of Asian high rollers.

This month will see the Australia-listed Frontier Capital Group complete its $26m acquisition of the Hotel Stotsenberg and Casablanca Casino in the Clark Freeport Zone in the Philippines. The company expects that the acquisition, which was announced in November, will double the company’s profit by 2018.

Frontier Capital had already announced its intention to boost its new casino’s gaming options by raising the number of slot machines from 190 to 250 and adding 11 gaming tables to the existing 36.

On Tuesday, Australian financial consultancy Alpha Securities revealed that Frontier Capital’s expansion strategy includes “targeting VIP patronage,” in part through the ‘introduction of proxy betting,” in which a VIP phones into the casino to place bets via a trusted partner, who relays real-time card information to the gambler at home.

Phil Ivey to Launch PhilIveyDFS on iTEAM Network

Phil Ivey is joining the Daily Fantasy Sports business after unveiling plans to launch PhilIveyDFS on the iTEAM Network in February 2016.

Phil Ivey loves his sports.

References to NBA, NFL, PGA and a whole host of three-letter acronyms covering everything from ice hockey to dwarf dart throwing coat his impressive Twitter feed.

Phil Ivey also loves to gamble.

Phil Ivey to Launch PhilIveyDFS on iTEAM Network

Phil Ivey is joining the Daily Fantasy Sports business after unveiling plans to launch PhilIveyDFS on the iTEAM Network in February 2016.

Phil Ivey loves his sports.

References to NBA, NFL, PGA and a whole host of three-letter acronyms covering everything from ice hockey to dwarf dart throwing coat his impressive Twitter feed.

Phil Ivey also loves to gamble.

FY2015 EPS Estimates for Alamos Gold Inc Raised by Dundee Securities

Stock analysts at Dundee Securities boosted their FY2015 earnings per share estimates for shares of Alamos Gold in a research note issued to investors on Monday, Zacks Investment Research reports. Dundee Securities analyst J. Wolfson now forecasts that the firm will post earnings per share of for the year, up from their prior forecast of .

Anthony Martial Could Cost Man United Upwards of £60m

Anthony Martial, the most expensive teenager in the history of the game, could cost his club Man United upwards of £60m after a French news outlet leaked the details of his deal.

If you wondered why Louis Van Gaal’s philosophy at Manchester United was to pass the ball sideways and backwards, I believe I have found the answer.

It’s to prevent Anthony Martial from scoring a goal.

The French star joined United from Monaco in the summer for a reported £38m. At the time it was a world record signing for a teenager breaking their own record of £27m when they signed left back Luke Shaw from Southampton a season earlier.

Anthony Martial Could Cost Man United Upwards of £60m

Anthony Martial, the most expensive teenager in the history of the game, could cost his club Man United upwards of £60m after a French news outlet leaked the details of his deal.

If you wondered why Louis Van Gaal’s philosophy at Manchester United was to pass the ball sideways and backwards, I believe I have found the answer.

It’s to prevent Anthony Martial from scoring a goal.

The French star joined United from Monaco in the summer for a reported £38m. At the time it was a world record signing for a teenager breaking their own record of £27m when they signed left back Luke Shaw from Southampton a season earlier.

FanDuel cuts staff; DraftKings boosts lobbying; NFL 45% of daily fantasy profits

Daily fantasy sports operator FanDuel is laying off staff as the legal and financial challenges facing the industry show no sign of letting up.

On Wednesday, Forbes’ Maury Brown quoted sources at FanDuel saying a senior exec had announced the layoffs to staff at the company’s New York offices. The scale of the cutbacks has not been publicly confirmed. The news follows rival DraftKings’ recent decision to look for a way out of the pricey New York office lease it signed last June.

The layoffs come just one day after Texas state Attorney General Ken Paxton became the latest to declare DFS to be illegal gambling. While DraftKings immediately stated its intention to continue serving the Texas market, FanDuel’s statement hedged on whether it planned to exit Texas, which reportedly accounts for up to 8% of all DFS entry fees.

At least one DFS operator’s concern over their increasingly insecure legal situation is borne out in federal lobbying disclosure forms. While FanDuel’s $20k federal lobbying budget was unchanged from Q3 to Q4, DraftKings’ expenditure rose from $10k in Q3 to $80k in Q4.

FanDuel cuts staff; DraftKings boosts lobbying; NFL 45% of daily fantasy profits

Daily fantasy sports operator FanDuel is laying off staff as the legal and financial challenges facing the industry show no sign of letting up.

On Wednesday, Forbes’ Maury Brown quoted sources at FanDuel saying a senior exec had announced the layoffs to staff at the company’s New York offices. The scale of the cutbacks has not been publicly confirmed. The news follows rival DraftKings’ recent decision to look for a way out of the pricey New York office lease it signed last June.

The layoffs come just one day after Texas state Attorney General Ken Paxton became the latest to declare DFS to be illegal gambling. While DraftKings immediately stated its intention to continue serving the Texas market, FanDuel’s statement hedged on whether it planned to exit Texas, which reportedly accounts for up to 8% of all DFS entry fees.

At least one DFS operator’s concern over their increasingly insecure legal situation is borne out in federal lobbying disclosure forms. While FanDuel’s $20k federal lobbying budget was unchanged from Q3 to Q4, DraftKings’ expenditure rose from $10k in Q3 to $80k in Q4.

Vietnam wastes no time deporting South Korean online gambling operators

Vietnamese authorities have deported seven South Korean nationals caught running an online gambling ring.

On Wednesday, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported that South Korean police were heralding the speedy extradition of the seven-member gang, who were caught running an illegal online sports betting ring in Hanoi.

Acting on a tip, South Korea’s National Police Agency alerted their Vietnamese counterparts to the existence of the ring, which is believed to have handled wagers totaling KRW 10b (US $8.2m). Vietnamese police pounced, arresting all seven members and seizing computers, cell phones and betting records.

The two countries recently agreed to cooperate more fully on such investigations and this bust represents the first test of the new partnership. An NPA official couldn’t have been happier, noting that an extradition process that used to take over a month was accomplished in just two days.