The World Poker Tour has released details of the 15th Annual Main Tour stop schedule. The Tournament of Champions remains, and the Dominican Republic replaces tour stops in Johannesburg and Vienna.

After 21 Main Tour stops, and over $50m in prizes handed out to over 12,000 quavering hearts, Season XIV of the World Poker Tour (WPT) remained one of the major institutions in the world of poker.

We nearly saw our first female WPT Player of the Year (POY) as the Global Poker Index (GPI) top-ranked female poker player in the world, Cate Hall, pushed the eventual winner Mike Shariati all the way.

And we witnessed the most incredible Cinderella story as Farid Yachou won the WPT Amsterdam Main Event and the inaugural Tournament of Champions in his first live poker tournaments of his life.

The capital markets are not a simple game of follow the leader. Every single investor who has ever lived or will ever live always wants to find that one indicator that will predict with certainty where stocks are headed. Many use insider signals. But certainty does not exist. Insider selling is only predictive of outcomes that are extremely binary, or otherwise as some part of a pump and dump scheme. For example, if the FDA is about to approve or reject a drug and you see a bunch of insider selling the day or week before the bureaucrats meet, you can assume that someone has insider information that is not being released to the public. In that case, you better sell.

Or if you fell for one of those spam emails about how some unknown company with a market cap of $5 million is going to be the next Apple in 3 months time and somehow accomplish this without any employees, and you see a form 4 filing from the CEO selling all his shares to the poor lemmings who were taken in by spam, it’s a good indication to get out. But when it comes to established and highly liquid companies like 888 that are not either penny stocks or extremely binary biotechs dependent on the opinion of a single bureaucrat at the FDA, insider selling does not mean a stock has reached a high. All it means is that the seller would rather do something else with his money.

News is abuzz about how Shay Ben-Yitzhak, one of the founders of 888, lowered his stake to below 2.6% of the company from 10.9%. What many people don’t know about Shay Ben-Yitzhak is, well, almost everything. The man is a shadow, avoids media attention, does not revel in fame, does not conduct interviews, does not even have his own Wikipedia page. The man co-founded one of the most successful companies in Israel without any serious government “protexia” as they say in Israel for sly connections with the corridors of power, he’s one of Israel’s biggest tycoons, and he’s not even on Wikipedia.

Let me clarify for linguistic purposes that I live in Israel, I am fluent in Hebrew, and I checked for any Hebrew Wikipedia page or any other Hebrew biography for שי בן יצחק as well and did not find anything substantive, so it’s not just a language gap. The first result on Google from an Israeli IP address for the Hebrew name is an article from 2005. Talk about one heck of a microscopic internet footprint. All that is known is that he’s a computer guy and he was in charge of writing the software that powered 888 at the very beginning in the late 90’s.

The capital markets are not a simple game of follow the leader. Every single investor who has ever lived or will ever live always wants to find that one indicator that will predict with certainty where stocks are headed. Many use insider signals. But certainty does not exist. Insider selling is only predictive of outcomes that are extremely binary, or otherwise as some part of a pump and dump scheme. For example, if the FDA is about to approve or reject a drug and you see a bunch of insider selling the day or week before the bureaucrats meet, you can assume that someone has insider information that is not being released to the public. In that case, you better sell.

Or if you fell for one of those spam emails about how some unknown company with a market cap of $5 million is going to be the next Apple in 3 months time and somehow accomplish this without any employees, and you see a form 4 filing from the CEO selling all his shares to the poor lemmings who were taken in by spam, it’s a good indication to get out. But when it comes to established and highly liquid companies like 888 that are not either penny stocks or extremely binary biotechs dependent on the opinion of a single bureaucrat at the FDA, insider selling does not mean a stock has reached a high. All it means is that the seller would rather do something else with his money.

News is abuzz about how Shay Ben-Yitzhak, one of the founders of 888, lowered his stake to below 2.6% of the company from 10.9%. What many people don’t know about Shay Ben-Yitzhak is, well, almost everything. The man is a shadow, avoids media attention, does not revel in fame, does not conduct interviews, does not even have his own Wikipedia page. The man co-founded one of the most successful companies in Israel without any serious government “protexia” as they say in Israel for sly connections with the corridors of power, he’s one of Israel’s biggest tycoons, and he’s not even on Wikipedia.

Let me clarify for linguistic purposes that I live in Israel, I am fluent in Hebrew, and I checked for any Hebrew Wikipedia page or any other Hebrew biography for שי בן יצחק as well and did not find anything substantive, so it’s not just a language gap. The first result on Google from an Israeli IP address for the Hebrew name is an article from 2005. Talk about one heck of a microscopic internet footprint. All that is known is that he’s a computer guy and he was in charge of writing the software that powered 888 at the very beginning in the late 90’s.

The former head of a California gaming regulatory body has agreed to surrender his card room licenses and pay a hefty fine to resolve allegations that he abused his connections to benefit a consulting client.

Over the weekend, California gaming scribe Dave Palermo reported that Robert Lytle (pictured) had reached a deal with state prosecutors on May 2 to surrender his gaming license and pay a fine of $75k or 15% of the proceeds from selling his stake in two Sacramento card rooms, whichever amount is higher.

In December 2014, California attorney general Kamala Harris accused Lyle of a variety of shenanigans, including improperly obtaining information regarding a probe into alleged profit skimming at San Jose card room Casino M8trix.

Lyltle, who in 2007 retired as head of an enforcement body that was subsequently absorbed into the Bureau of Gambling Control (BGC), took a job as compliance officer with M8trix parent company Garden City Casino just one day following his resignation.

The former head of a California gaming regulatory body has agreed to surrender his card room licenses and pay a hefty fine to resolve allegations that he abused his connections to benefit a consulting client.

Over the weekend, California gaming scribe Dave Palermo reported that Robert Lytle (pictured) had reached a deal with state prosecutors on May 2 to surrender his gaming license and pay a fine of $75k or 15% of the proceeds from selling his stake in two Sacramento card rooms, whichever amount is higher.

In December 2014, California attorney general Kamala Harris accused Lyle of a variety of shenanigans, including improperly obtaining information regarding a probe into alleged profit skimming at San Jose card room Casino M8trix.

Lyltle, who in 2007 retired as head of an enforcement body that was subsequently absorbed into the Bureau of Gambling Control (BGC), took a job as compliance officer with M8trix parent company Garden City Casino just one day following his resignation.

With the Global Poker League heading directly for centre stage, Lee Davy offers an opinion on why he believes they will have to move away from the city-wide franchise to provide the main course of all sporting events: passion.

When I saw the first punch my foot stepped onto the pitch. When I saw the referee was in over his head, I broke into a gentle trot. When I saw 11 players converge angrily into my son’s space with fireworks of fists exploding around his head, I have never run so fast in my life.

As a coach of an Under 16 football side you should never be proud of violence but I was that day. All season I had worried over our inability to create the fever needed to compete. There was more oomph in Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory United.

When I was a kid, I played for a team called Wyndham Boys Club and we despised a team called Bettws. When I played senior football, I played for the Cafe Royals and we hated a team called Lewistown. As a Manchester United fan, I despised Liverpool. As an England fan, I hated Germany.

With the Global Poker League heading directly for centre stage, Lee Davy offers an opinion on why he believes they will have to move away from the city-wide franchise to provide the main course of all sporting events: passion.

When I saw the first punch my foot stepped onto the pitch. When I saw the referee was in over his head, I broke into a gentle trot. When I saw 11 players converge angrily into my son’s space with fireworks of fists exploding around his head, I have never run so fast in my life.

As a coach of an Under 16 football side you should never be proud of violence but I was that day. All season I had worried over our inability to create the fever needed to compete. There was more oomph in Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory United.

When I was a kid, I played for a team called Wyndham Boys Club and we despised a team called Bettws. When I played senior football, I played for the Cafe Royals and we hated a team called Lewistown. As a Manchester United fan, I despised Liverpool. As an England fan, I hated Germany.

3-Barrels of pure value including the University of Maryland creating a gambling course, an anonymous poker player/journalist writing about his pain and anguish in The Guardian, and The Borgata gets ready to roll out the rainbow carpet.

A professional poker player and writer has written an opinion piece for The Guardian called The Secret Life of a Professional Poker Player: I’m on the Fringes of Society. After reading it, I was suddenly transporting back to that scene in The Bridges of Madison County when Clint is standing in the rain and Meryl just can’t pull the trigger.

It’s a tear jerker.

In what is a very honest and well-written piece the writer talks about being ‘hopelessly addicted to fruit machines’ when he was younger, but doesn’t consider poker a form of gambling. He then writes about a steady profit line that spreads back over a four-year period.

3-Barrels of pure value including the University of Maryland creating a gambling course, an anonymous poker player/journalist writing about his pain and anguish in The Guardian, and The Borgata gets ready to roll out the rainbow carpet.

A professional poker player and writer has written an opinion piece for The Guardian called The Secret Life of a Professional Poker Player: I’m on the Fringes of Society. After reading it, I was suddenly transporting back to that scene in The Bridges of Madison County when Clint is standing in the rain and Meryl just can’t pull the trigger.

It’s a tear jerker.

In what is a very honest and well-written piece the writer talks about being ‘hopelessly addicted to fruit machines’ when he was younger, but doesn’t consider poker a form of gambling. He then writes about a steady profit line that spreads back over a four-year period.

Macau casinos and junket operators are largely observing the week-old ban on telephone ‘proxy’ betting at gaming tables, according to the city’s top gaming regulator.

Monday, May 9 was the first day that Macau casinos were required to prohibit the use of mobile phones at gaming tables and Paulo Martins Chan, head of the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau (DICJ), said the week had passed without rampant rule-breaking.

Macau Business Daily quoted Chan saying there were “only few” violations observed on May 9, while the number “went up a bit on the second day,” although Chan declined to offer specific figures.

Given the recent introduction of the new policy, Chan said DICJ inspectors were currently only giving warnings to offenders, most of whom “usually stop using their phones” as a result. However, inspectors and casinos will each have the right to bar repeat offenders from entering casinos.

Macau casinos and junket operators are largely observing the week-old ban on telephone ‘proxy’ betting at gaming tables, according to the city’s top gaming regulator.

Monday, May 9 was the first day that Macau casinos were required to prohibit the use of mobile phones at gaming tables and Paulo Martins Chan, head of the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau (DICJ), said the week had passed without rampant rule-breaking.

Macau Business Daily quoted Chan saying there were “only few” violations observed on May 9, while the number “went up a bit on the second day,” although Chan declined to offer specific figures.

Given the recent introduction of the new policy, Chan said DICJ inspectors were currently only giving warnings to offenders, most of whom “usually stop using their phones” as a result. However, inspectors and casinos will each have the right to bar repeat offenders from entering casinos.