eSports online betting operator Unikrn has bolstered its land-based presence by acquiring casino eSports tournament facilitator LEET.

On Wednesday, Unikrn CEO Rahul Sood announced that his company and LEET had come to terms on a deal that will see the two members of the fledgling Nevada eSports Alliance join forces. Terms of the transaction weren’t disclosed, but the deal will dramatically boost the Seattle-based Unikrn’s profile at Las Vegas brick-and-mortar casinos.

Unikrn has built a name for itself offering real-money online eSports betting in the UK and Australia (and free-play betting in less progressive jurisdictions), while Leet provides land-based venues with all the tools they require to conduct in-house eSports tournaments on their premises.

Leet began organizing eSports tournaments from a dedicated lounge at MGM Resorts’ Downtown Grand Casino in Las Vegas over a year ago. The Downtown Grand was also where William Hill US became the first US sportsbook to legally take wagers on an eSports event last November.

The two largest online poker rooms in the world have sprinkled a little celebrity flavour over their upcoming tournaments in Monte Carlo and Barcelona.

It was back in April that a number of gambling websites proffered an opinion that PokerStars had done a Pontius Pilate and washed their hands of any affiliation with sports stars in a change in marketing strategy.

The view formed after PokerStars told affiliates to shelve promotional materials relating to Real Madrid star Cristiano Ronaldo and Barcelona favourite Neymar Jr as it became evident their contracts had run their course and wouldn’t be extended.

I reached out to Eric Hollreiser, Head of All Things to do With Communications for PokerStars and Amaya, and he confirmed that the rumours were false. PokerStars had not created a marketing strategy to move away from established sports stars and would use them again as well as other established stars from the world of TV, film and whatever else passes as celebrity status these days.

The mass exodus of gambling entities leaving the Polish market increased this week, after a post on the Gambling Portal Webmasters Association (GWPA) confirmed that all skins on the iPoker Network would cease offering a product from 24 April.

If you are a fan of the iPoker Network and reside in Poland, then you are shit out of luck.

According to a thread entitled “William Hill to Exit Polish Market Due to Regulatory Changes” on the Gambling Portal Webmasters Association (GWPA) forum as of the 24 April, all skins operating on the iPoker Network will cease offering a game to Polish based clients.

I was about to write something along the lines of this shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone, but not everyone writes gambling articles to put green beans on the table for the kids.

Partypoker LIVE continues its progress up the live tournament organiser charts by planning to host a $5m Guaranteed Caribbean Poker Adventure.

It was November 2016 that the World Poker Tour (WPT) and partypoker got together to throw the party of all parties in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic.

A lot of cards have come out of the deck in those five months.

Partypoker and the WPT are no longer sharing the same bed. Instead, the online poker room has laid down a few markers to one day dominate the European poker scene in the same way the WPT dominates Stateside.

Saipan casino operator Imperial Pacific International Holdings (IPI) has been granted extensions on deadlines for both its temporary and permanent gaming venues.

On Tuesday, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) Lottery Commission granted IPI an extension of the August 11, 2017 deadline for completing the casino portion of its in-development Imperial Pacific Resort (pictured) in Saipan’s Garapan region. The new casino must now be completed by August 31, 2018.

The Commission also approved IPI’s request to extend the operations of its Best Sunshine Live ‘temporary’ casino in Garapan’s T Galleria shopping mall. Best Sunshine was supposed to shut down on April 30, but has now been granted permission to operate until August 31, 2018.

IPI submitted its extension requests in February, citing construction delays caused by 2015’s Typhoon Soudelor and a shortage of trained workers. That latter factor has caused IPI no shortage of bad ink following the detention of nearly 200 illegal Chinese workers at the construction site, a scandal that IPI has blamed on its main contractor.

Unibet’s parent company the Kindred Group reported record revenue in the first quarter of 2017 but profit declined on higher marketing costs and betting duties.

In an interim report released on Wednesday, the Stockholm-listed Kindred reported record revenue of £153.2m in the three months ending March 31, one-quarter higher than the same period last year. But earnings were up only 6.3% to £30.2m and pre-tax profits fell nearly one-fifth to £18.2m.

The profit shortfall was down to significant cost increases, including a 56% rise in betting duties and a 36% rise in marketing spend, as well as some unfavorable foreign currency losses and accelerated amortization of assets.

On the plus side, active customer ranks rose 22% to a new record of 1.23m and all verticals posted positive year-on-year growth. Sports betting revenue was up 23% to £66.4m, casino & games gained 26% to £77.4m, poker rose 16% to £3.7m and ‘other’ products jumped 50% to £5.7m, likely due to the addition of the Stan James Online brand on Kindred’s bingo platform.