Fed up with the spread of illegal online gambling operators, Malaysian authorities are moving to update the country’s laws to help stem the tide.

It was two years ago that Malaysian authorities began calling for an update to the country’s Common Gaming House Act 1953, which obviously predates the modern communications technology that has allowed online gambling to spread far and wide through this deeply conservative country.

Malaysian police have tried just about everything to combat illegal operators, including blocking thousands of mobile phone numbers to combat SMS gambling and cutting off the power supply to ‘family entertainment centers’ suspected of offering more adult entertainment.

On Tuesday, Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi announced that a draft amendment to the 1953 law had been submitted to the Attorney General’s office and would be introduced into parliament in March.

International players attending the World Series of Poker may have 30% of profits withheld after a tax specialist alleges a change in the law disallows casinos from issuing Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers.

Professional poker players hailing from the UK have three things going for them.

1. They play a game for a living.

2. They have the freedom to ‘work’ on their terms.

After Igor Kurganov joins PokerStars, a section of the poker community criticises the Russian for sleeping with the enemy prompting Lee Davy to take a closer look beneath the sheets.

I was never intended to read The Bible. Meditations by Marcus Aurelius is another that makes me feel dyslexic. And The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene has just been tossed into the corner of my bedroom along with my recently deceased bush and a big purple exercise ball.

I understood Greene’s masterpiece, but the content made me feel seasick. And yet, had I read it a few years ago, when I was trying to become a professional poker player, I would have loved it. Poker is all about power. Poker is all about deceit. Poker is all about buying your opponent a Gin and Tonic, lacing it with Rohypnol and stealing his Stetson and snakeskin boots.

Power.

In this week’s 5 for 5 column, five professional players offer five pieces of advice to people living with ADHD looking to have a game of poker.

According to data robbed from the Centre for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), 11% of children aged 1-17 years have been diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) since 2011.

That’s a lot of people – 6.4 million to be exact – and one of them is a buddy of mine who recently reached out for help. Invited to a poker game he can’t turn down, he is worried about his ability to concentrate so asked me for advice.

I thought I would start by looking up the definition of the disorder in the Fifth Edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM).

Finnish gambling operator, PAF, has partnered with Scout Gaming Group to become one of the first state-owned gambling entities to offer a Daily Fantasy Sports product.

The Scandinavian betting beast, PAF, is diving slot handle first into the world of Daily Fantasy Sports (DFS).

PAF, founded in 1966, is one of the good gambling guys. The business operates out of the Åland Islands, and original founders include Save The Children and the Finnish Red Cross.

Rather than raking in vast fortunes and spending it on company bonus schemes, PAF has an independent board that distributes profits to non-profit enterprises on the archipelago at the mouth of the Baltic Sea

The alleged bagman for gambling operator Jack Lam has returned to the Philippines to face questioning by an inquiry looking into bribery of government officials.

Former Philippine police official Wenceslao ‘Wally’ Sombrero (pictured) returned to the Philippines on Tuesday from Vancouver, where he had fled following allegations that he offered bribes on Lam’s behalf to Philippine Bureau of Immigration (BI) officials and Department of Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II.

The bribe offers were allegedly made to secure the release of over 1,300 Chinese nationals arrested last November for working at an unauthorized online gambling operation linked to Lam’s Fontana Casino in the Clark Freeport. Sombrero allegedly spoke on behalf of Lam during meetings with Aguirre, as Lam speaks neither English nor Tagalog.

Two days after the workers’ arrests, Sombrero was caught on surveillance video delivering paper bags allegedly containing P50m (US $1m) to two BI officials. Sombrero, who claimed his actions were part of an elaborate sting operation, turned himself in to answer police questions despite expressing concerns that unspecified villains would try to kill him for speaking of the incident.

Atlantic City’s casinos started 2017 off on the right foot as all seven gaming venues posted year-on-year gains in January.

Figures released Tuesday by the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement show brick-and-mortar gaming revenue of $185.9m in January, up nearly 6% from the same month last year. Counting the $18.8m from the casinos’ online gambling sites and the annual gain is an impressive 15.2%.

January’s brick-and-mortar gains came almost entirely courtesy of the casinos’ table games, which reported an 18.3% year-on-year surge to $62.2m. By comparison, slot machine win managed only a 0.6% rise to $123.6m.

The January numbers also got a boost due to the weather, as January 2016 was hit hard by winter storm Jonas, a deep freeze that New Jersey Casino Control Commission chairman Matt Levinson said “effectively wiped out a full weekend last year.” However, January 2017 also had fewer weekend days than January 2016, so call it a wash.

Atlantic City’s Golden Nugget casino continued to rule New Jersey’s regulated online gambling market in January, while the Borgata’s former numero uno operation slid all the way to third place.

Figures released Tuesday by the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement show the state’s licensed online gambling operators generated revenue of $18.8m in January, 28.6% higher than the same month last year and $400k higher than December 2016’s total.

As ever, the results were dominated by the online casino vertical, which gained nearly one-third year-on-year to just under $16.5m. Poker gained a more moderate 8.7% to just over $2.3m, which is over $200k more than December 2016, so somebody apparently found some fun money in their Christmas stocking.

The Golden Nugget failed to match its record setting December revenue total of $4.79m, but only just barely. The Nugget’s casino-only site generated $4.77m in January, more than enough to keep it atop the revenue charts, a spot the Nugget has occupied in four of the past five months.