Lee Davy sits down with the photojournalist, Joe Giron, to talk about his life as a photojournalist within the poker circuit, his greatest shots, and his time on the road with Pantera.

I was working at a live tournament, and the photographer had been axed to save money. The camera ended up in my lap. It made perfect business sense to me at the time.

Any idiot can take a photograph of a poker player, right?

It turns out I was wrong, very wrong.

Pokerlistings has announced their 2016 Spirit of Poker Award winners and the trophies are heading to Brazil, Norway and Russia.

PokerListings has announced the three winners of their annual Spirit of Poker Awards, and I have to admit all three public choices surprise me.

The award for Most Inspiring Player went to Felipe ‘Mojave’ Ramos, and according to Pokerlistings, he won the award by a landslide. Ramos represents the Global Poker League (GPL) Sao Paulo Mets and is a big reason why poker has grown so popular in Brazil, the likes of Andre Akkari can pick up a sponsorship deal with Puma and carry the Olympic torch.

Ramos is an ambassador for PokerStars, is chums with Barcelona star Neymar, and has won over $1.2m playing live tournaments.

The technical guru behind a Hells Angels-controlled online gambling site has been fined C$400k (US $306k) by a Canadian court.

In February 2013, Canadian police raided an invitation-only Super Bowl party in Markham, Ontario for customers of Platinum Sports Book, an online credit betting operation that utilized toll-free phone lines and a Costa Rica-based website. Police said the ring was operated by the London, Ontario chapter of the Hells Angels motorcycle gang.

On Monday, Justice John McMahon handed Gordon Baird a $400k fine for Baird’s role in operating the gang’s website, PlatinumSB.com. The 59-year-old Baird pled guilty to bookmaking and contributing to the activities of a criminal organization.

Baird had looking at a potentially lengthy prison stint but his lack of prior convictions convinced McMahon to opt for an 18-month house arrest and 12 months probation. Baird has already paid $50k of his fine, but he’ll face a three-year prison stint if he fails to pay the balance within the next 12 months.

The CEO of daily fantasy sports operator DraftKings is once again musing publicly about a merger with archrival FanDuel.

On Monday, DraftKings CEO Jason Robins visited the TechCrunch Disrupt conference, confirming that his company continues to discuss the possibility of a union with FanDuel, although he qualified that the talks were “on and off” and no such deal was imminent.

Robins used his TechCrunch appearance to debut a new technical tool for users to track their fantasy activity. The DK Live app (currently available only for iOS) is a real-time NFL news aggregator that displays stats on all league players as well as costuming the feed to focus on players on your DraftKings roster. An Android version is in the pipeline and DraftKings plans to add other sports to the app in due course.

This weekend marked the return of NFL DFS action, and DraftKings’ marquee NFL guarantee prize pool fell well short of filling. The site dropped the entry fee for its $5m Millionaire Maker to a player-friendly $3, but the site ended up having to cover a significant overlay. The site plans to reinstate the marquee contest’s $20 entry fee for Week 2.

Barrels of a PokerStars flavour including sponsored pro-Andre Akkari striking a deal with Puma; The Open renamed within a week, and Shaun Deeb chooses poker over the birth of his little pooper.

 Andre Akkari has nailed down one of the most incredible endorsement deals in the history of the game.

In an industry that can’t seem to stop the word ‘legitimate’ from floating around the ether, Akkari’s new deal with the sportswear giant Puma is increíble. The poker industry struggles to attract mainstream sponsors, but fortunately for Akkari he hails from a country where the rule makers accept that poker is a mind sport, hence the willingness from Puma to do the deal.

Akkari is also a very popular sports star in his home nation and is friends with his fellow PokerStars teammate Neymar. At the recent Olympic festival in Rio, Neymar won a gold medal when the Brazilian football side beat Germany 5-4 on penalties after drawing 1-1 in normal time, and Akkari got to carry the Olympic torch representing Brazilian mind sports.

British Columbia’s provincial gambling monopoly has teamed with technology outfit International Game Technology to bring omnichannel Powerbucks jackpots to Canada.

On Monday, IGT and the British Columbia Lottery Corp (BCLC) announced that the province’s gamblers now had access to IGT’s famed Powerbucks seven-figure jackpot pools via slots at BCLC’s 33 gaming venues, as well as via the mobile and desktop versions of BCLC’s online gambling site, PlayNow.com.

BCLC is also celebrating the return of National Football League action to PlayNow’s sports betting section. People typically associate Canada with hockey, and with the World Cup of Hockey about to kick off in earnest, it’s natural to think that the NFL would take a back seat.

BCLC spokesman Doug Cheng told CTV News that the total volume of National Hockey League wagers was indeed higher than the NFL, although Cheng chalked this up to the longer NHL season. On a per game basis, more money and wagers are placed on the NFL than on any other sport via PlayNow.