Hung Le pulled off the second big shock of the 47th Annual World Series of Poker after beating a field of 6,671 entrants to win the $888 Crazy Eights 8-Handed No-Limit Hold’em event. It was his first appearance at the Series.

Dreams keep coming true for the 47th Annual World Series of Poker (WSOP).

Less than a week after amateur Mitchell Towner shocked the world after wandering through 6,927 players to capture the top prize of $1.1m in the MONSTER STACK, the same thing has happened again in the $888 Crazy Eights 8-Handed No-Limit Hold’em event.

[Image Credit: pokeritaliaweb.org]

Allen Le has won the top prize of $189,223 in the $1,500 buy-in Mixed Omaha event, and Justin Bonomo continues to fire on all cylinders taking the chip lead into the penultimate day of the Poker Players Championship.

Allen Le has won bragging rights in the Le household after becoming the first of three poker playing brothers to win a World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet.

[Image Credit: CardPlayer]

Le, 30, beat a field of 668 entrants in the $1,500 Mixed Omaha event. The tournaments contained three variants of Omaha: Pot-Limit Omaha / 8; Omaha 8, and Big O. It turns out that Le is pretty adept at them all as his $189,223 first prize shows.

Lee Davy takes a look ahead at the semi-finals of Euro 2016 and picks out the winners of the France v Germany and Wales v Portugal ties, and it ain’t easy.

“You have to watch this.” Said my uncle, Alan.

I was only 7. It was a school night. I followed him into his room. He was watching France v West Germany in the semi-final of the 1982 World Cup. They were about to start extra time.

“Don’t tell your Mum.” Said my uncle. “But, this is something special.”

Loading the player…

jwplayer(‘camediasplayer’).setup({

Vulcun has shut down its fantasy eSports site in favor of Twitch chat games.

July is rapidly turning out to be a dreadful month for anyone dealing with betting on competitive gaming, including Vulcun, which announced recently that it has ceased its fantasy sports operations starting July 5.

Vulcun co-founder Murtaza Hussain said they will be spending the next two weeks slowly re-orienting the site as the venture capital-funded company moves into a new arena—away from the increasingly hostile environment of legally offering fantasy sports skill games within eSports.

“Last year we acquired TwitchAlerts.com and over the course of the year we’ve been focused on Twitch and making the viewing experience more engaging and fun,” Hussain wrote in a blog post. “The new version of Vulcun.com will be focused on this.”

Imperial Pacific International Holdings says VIP gambling turnover at its temporary casino on the island of Saipan fell by more than one-third last month.

In a filing with the Hong Kong exchange, Imperial Pacific said rolling chip turnover at its casino in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands came to $1.65b in June, down 35% from May’s number and barely half that of April’s $3.2b. The turnover figure is the lowest since last December’s $1.44b.

The figure adds some credence to Imperial Pacific’s recent claim that its VIP turnover “will cease to grow and have become saturated.” Mark Brown (pictured), CEO of Imperial Pacific subsidiary Best Sunshine International, later claimed that the saturation comment was only made because the early returns on the casino had been so massive that some tempering of expectations was needed.

Brown recently gave an interview with World Casino News in which he repeated that the property’s “explosive growth will not grow exponentially forever, particularly given the current hotel capacity constraints.”

Asian-facing online gambling operator Dafabet has renewed its shirt sponsorship with English Premier League side Sunderland AFC.

Dafabet hooked up with Sunderland in June 2015 and the relationship went smoothly enough that the parties have agreed to re-up for an additional three years, extending their ties through the end of the 2018-19 EPL season.

Dafabet has promised some new tricks for the upcoming season, including giving fans group Ha’way the Flags a new giant crowd-surfer flag for use at the Stadium of Light when the team is playing.

Dafabet’s sponsorship point man John Cruces said the new deal “was actually agreed in principle some time back,” reflecting the value the bookies placed on their Sunderland partnership.

Asian-facing online gambling operator Dafabet has renewed its shirt sponsorship with English Premier League side Sunderland AFC.

Dafabet hooked up with Sunderland in June 2015 and the relationship went smoothly enough that the parties have agreed to re-up for an additional three years, extending their ties through the end of the 2018-19 EPL season.

Dafabet has promised some new tricks for the upcoming season, including giving fans group Ha’way the Flags a new giant crowd-surfer flag for use at the Stadium of Light when the team is playing.

Dafabet’s sponsorship point man John Cruces said the new deal “was actually agreed in principle some time back,” reflecting the value the bookies placed on their Sunderland partnership.

Casinos in the Philippines could be forced to adhere to strict anti-money laundering (AML) requirements if local politicians approve a new piece of legislation.

This week, Rep. Feliciao Belmonte Jr. introduced HB 14 into the House of Representatives. The bill would remove the exemption local casinos received when the country passed its Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2001.

Belmonte said his bill was a direct response to the recent Bangladeshi bank heist scandal, in which $81m was unlawfully transferred from Bangladesh government accounts at the Federal Reserve Bank in New York and funneled through local banks, casinos and junket operators. Most of the $81m remains unaccounted for to this day, in part due to law enforcement’s inability to accurately track the money once it entered the country’s gaming industry.

Belmonte hopes the casinos’ inclusion under the Act will bring the Philippines into full compliance with the international Financial Action Task Force (FATF), which has warned the Philippines that its failure to act could land the country back on the FATF’s ‘grey’ list of jurisdictions that are vulnerable to laundering high-jinks.

UK bookmakers Betfred swung to a net loss in its most recent fiscal year thanks to the double whammy of new taxes and lucky punters.

For the 52 weeks ending Sept. 27, 2015, the privately-held Betfred says it suffered an operating loss of £76.7m, a far cry from the £31.5m profit in the 78 weeks ending Sept. 28, 2014. Earnings were down nearly half to £56.5m over the same period but up 7.5% on a like-for-like basis.

As with other UK online and retail betting operators, Betfred’s bottom line was done in by the introduction of the online point of consumption tax and the hike in retail Machine Games Duty. Betfred said the combo had trimmed an additional £16.3m off its annual earnings.

All told, Betfred suffered £87.3m worth of exceptional items, including a one-off goodwill impairment from the December 2014 closure of Betfred’s Australian site, which failed to gain traction in the country’s “overpopulated” online betting market.