Vietnamese authorities have filed charges against 63 people over their involvement with an online sports betting ring in the northern part of the country.

According to Thanh Nien News, the website, which was ran from overseas, accepted more than VND487 billion (USD21.8 million) in wagers between 2012 and 2015. Bets were made on soccer, basketball and tennis games. The site also offers online poker games.

Among those facing gambling charges is 34-year-old To Cong Hung, director of Dream Weavers Online Services JSC, and five of his alleged accomplices, according to the Supreme People’s Procuracy. Investigators claimed Hung sent an estimated VND20 billion (USD896,800) in bet money to different accounts at Chinese banks, and earned about VND4.3 billion (USD192,812) from running the gambling site in Vietnam.

Gambling is largely illegal in Vietnam except for the state-run lottery and a few foreigners-only casinos, but the country has been considering relaxing its longstanding prohibition on sports betting. Several weeks ago, reports surfaced that Vietnamese finance officials are seeking the government’s approval to legalize sports betting, albeit with a maximum daily betting limit of $45.

Have a spare Ethereum change? This deal might be for you.

A new project based on the Ethereum blockchain has launched an initial coin offering (ICO) to raise funding to complete and launch a decentralized lottery.

Kibo said it is working on a lottery that will make use of blockchain technology “to bring transparency to the game,” and also solve some problems in lotteries such as fair drawings, collecting winning and limited access to ticket purchases.

Developers started working on the platform in 2015 with a goal of ensuring a 100 percent fair lotto experience using blockchain-based smart contracts. The company said with blockchain contracts, “anyone can check out any transaction, any draw or any lottery” from any place in the world, unlike traditional lotteries that are restricted by location or local currencies.

The World Poker Tour launch social casino PlayWPT; welcome the players to provide feedback at the forthcoming Borgata Poker Open, and Pat Lyons wins WPT Legends of Poker.

The World Poker Tour (WPT) has decided to follow the crowd and move into the casino business. In their first joint venture with owners OurGame International Holdings Ltd., the WPT has created a new social gambling platform. PlayWPT is now available on desktop and Facebook worldwide.

One of the difficulties with play money sites, especially in poker, is the legitimacy of the action. To combat this, the WPT has created a more competitive environment by ‘strategically limiting’ the number of play money chips in action.

At the tail end of the week I wrote about the partnership between PokerStars and Seven Deuce Gaming and the launch of Casino Rush. That collaboration resulted in poker themed slots, but the WPT have taken a different tact by creating slots with a prehistoric dinosaur theme.

Macau’s government has awarded Sheldon Adelson’s soon-to-open Parisian Macao resort 150 new gaming tables.

Just like the recently opened Wynn Palace resort, the $2.7 billion Parisian Macao will get to operate 100 new-to-market live dealer tables on opening day, Macau’s Secretary for Economy and Finance Lionel Leong Vai Tac announced over the weekend.

Sands China will be granted 25 more tables at the beginning of 2016, and another 25 tables at the beginning of 2018.

The Parisian Macao was also authorized to install 1,600 new slot machines on its casino, GGRAsia reported, quoting a statement from the government.

Six-times World Series of Poker bracelet winner, Ted Forrest, has been charged with theft and writing bad checks in a $215,000 tug of war with Wynn Casino, Las Vegas.

Could Ted Forrest do with a Bill Perkins overzealous prop bet right now?

As the weekend broke, Clark County chiefs issued a warrant for his arrest in connection with a couple of bounced checks sent the way of the Wynn in Las Vegas.

According to Dave Palermo over at Las Vegas Journal Review (LVJR), Forrest, 51, wrote two checks totalling $215,000 and handed them to the cashier at Wynn between Oct 28, 2012, and May 17, 2013. District Court papers show that Forrest didn’t have sufficient funds in his account to cover the amount.

September 2016 will see the launch of the latest TV ad campaign for award-winning bingo comparison site, WhichBingo, following their successful foray into the medium last year. The launch of the campaign is timed to tie in with the ‘back to school’ period.

For this campaign there are the two versions of the advertisement which will be seen on UK TV screens for the next three months across a wide range of SkyTV channels. Two versions of the advertisement are being used due to the new rules on online gaming TV advertising.

The first version of the re-worked advertisements (see https://youtu.be/iUrxmrUN9JM), to be run pre-watershed, focuses on the site’s comprehensive range player site reviews, whilst the second, post-watershed, (see https://youtu.be/IDSLBf-OU-E) features the 100+ free play offers available on the site.

“Our first TV campaign last year was really successful so it makes sense for us to do it again.” said Simon Jones, Commercial Director of WhichBingo. “This campaign, alongside our continued and on-going site improvements, is all part of an overall strategy to continue to raise the profile of WhichBingo as the nation’s number one resource for everything online bingo.”