A former K-pop singer has been sentenced to a year in South Korean prison for blowing over $3m on an illegal online gambling site and lying to the authorities investigating his activity.

On Monday, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported that the Seoul Southern District Court had sentenced Jung Jin Woo (pictured), a member of the pop group M2M who got his big break via an Idol-style television program, to one year in prison for illegal gambling.

Court documents indicate that the 32-year-old Jung was originally cautioned over his gambling activity way back in 2007, but the warning didn’t take. Jung was again caught gambling online in 2014, but he convinced his mother’s boyfriend to claim that he’d been the one gambling on Jung’s online account. Mom’s squeeze was eventually slapped with a KRW 1m (US $900) fine.

But Jung’s close call failed to dissuade him from continuing to gamble online, and he even acted as a promoter for the unidentified online sports betting site from August to September last year.

Pennsylvania’s casino gambling revenue nudged up slightly in April as extremely hot tables offset tepid slots.

Figures released Tuesday by the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board show the state’s 12 casino operators reporting table games revenue of $79.54m in April, 10.2% higher than the same month last year and a new monthly record, albeit a mere $3k more than March’s previous record table performance.

The charge was led by the state’s perennial table games leader Sands Bethlehem, which reported table revenue shooting up nearly 24% year-on-year to $21.9m. Parx Casino maintained its always-a-bridesmaid status with $15.4m, up 6.4% year-on-year.

The PGCB released the state’s slots take earlier in the month, which showed overall revenue falling 1.6% to $205.7m. Parx maintained its position atop the slots leader board with $33.6m, well ahead of Sands Bethlehem’s $26.4m. The state’s overall gaming revenue take for April was up 1.4% to $285.2m.

The UK gambling industry’s self-funded problem gambling association says it’s open to the idea of a government-imposed mandatory levy to ensure it meets its funding targets.

On Tuesday, the GambleAware charity outfit issued a release celebrating the fact that it had received £8m worth of funding in the 12 months ending March 31. However, despite this sum representing a 10% rise on the previous year, it remains 20% below the £10m target set by the Responsible Gambling Strategy Board.

GambleAware CEO Marc Etches urged “all businesses that profit from gambling to step up to the plate in the next 12 months to help us achieve our objectives.” And while GambleAware says it still sees value in a voluntary funding system, Etches says his group “would not hesitate in supporting the commencement of a statutory levy if the voluntary system fails to deliver.”

GambleAware’s statement was issued the same day that the Times reported that some less scrupulous UK gambling operators had contributed a token 1p to GambleAware in order to avoid being tagged with the scarlet letter of having contributed nothing.

UK-listed online gambling and bingo operator Jackpotjoy Group reported double-digit revenue gains in the first quarter of 2017 thanks to solid customer growth across its brands.

Jackpotjoy, until recently known as the Intertain Group, reported revenue of £71.4m in the three months ending March 31, 11% higher than the same period last year. While adjusted earnings nudged up £1.2m to £29.3m, the company booked a net loss of £15.3m for the quarter due to rising interest costs on its significant debt load (£407m at the end of Q1).

The company’s flagship Jackpotjoy brand, which accounted for 71% of group revenue, reported revenue up 14% to £50.7m thanks to “significant” growth in its Starspins and Botemania brands, which helped offset declines in its social gaming operations.

The Vera&John online casino brand saw revenue rise 13% to £15.7m, representing 22% of group revenue. The Mandalay bingo brand reported a 14% revenue decline to £5m, which the company blamed on changes to its promotional spending and an unfortunate comparison with Mandalay’s record quarterly performance in Q1 2016.

A top exec for leading Macau casino junket operator Suncity Group narrowly escaped danger over the weekend after two knife-wielding assailants targeted the exec on the streets of Hong Kong.

On Tuesday, the South China Morning Post reported that Suncity’s chief investment officer Andrew Lo Kai-bong was attacked by the two men while leaving a sauna early Saturday morning. The 37-year-old Lo managed to make it inside his waiting vehicle unscathed but Lo’s 53-year-old chauffeur suffered wounds to his hand before slamming the car into gear and making good their escape.

On Sunday, Hong Kong authorities arrested three Hong Kong residents, including two men believed to have ties to the city’s triad gangs, in connection with the attack. The actual attackers are believed to be two non-Chinese men hired by unidentified parties to carry out the attack on Lo. The two non-Chinese men, as well as the suspected mastermind of the attack, remain at large.

Local police are still trying to determine the motive behind the attack. Lo reportedly told the police that he was targeted following a “business dispute,” but has otherwise remained tight-lipped. Police aren’t yet sure whether the attack is related to Suncity’s gaming operations or some other reason.

Doug Polk and 888Poker have entered into a business relationship that will see Polk streaming XL Inferno action on his popular Twitch channel, and the two-time World Series of Poker bracelet winner confirms a heads-up match with Luke Schwartz is never going to happen.

Luke Schwartz may think Doug Polk is a pigeon and his Upswing Poker business is a scam, but 888Poker have a different viewpoint.

The second largest online poker room this side of the bra I used to find on the bathroom floor when I was a kid that would cover my head has entered into a business relationship with the two-time World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet winner.

Once again, the ability for poker players to amass a tribe on Twitch is central to the relationship. Polk will appear in the $5,200 buy-in Super High Roller, Tue 16 May, as part of the XL Inferno online series while streaming live on Twitch.

Casino operators in Macau are looking for ways to keep the ball rolling in the world’s biggest gambling hub amid as Beijing authorities continue to push for diversification.

For Francis Lui, deputy chairman of Galaxy Entertainment Group, the answer to boost the gambling enclave’s tourism numbers lies on an island—Hengqin.

A pet project of Chinese President Xi Jinping, the 100-square kilometer island is supposed to help expand Macau’s appeal as a tourist destination, among other things. Hengqin already has a theme park, but visitors between the two islands need to pass immigration checkpoints before they can travel back and forth.

But the idea of relaxing border controls between Macau and next-door neighbour Hengqin may just be the key to boost the two islands’ tourism, according to Lui.

Melco Resorts & Entertainment, which as of yesterday, May 15, is no longer jointly owned by Crown, used to pride itself as being the mass market Macau casino. Focus on the mass market was its marketing point, that it could survive the onslaught against the junkets by turning to ordinary gamblers. From the looks of its most recent quarter, that doesn’t seem to be the case anymore. Not that mass market is failing at Melco, but the VIPs seem to be flocking there over other places.

I do love me a good conspiracy theory as long as it is basically plausible (plausible being the subjective term that it is notwithstanding) but the VIPs heading to Melco makes you think, does it have anything to do with last year’s arrest of Crown Resorts executives in Macau and the recent split between Melco and Crown? Now that the Australian foreigners have been purged so to speak, is Beijing giving Melco an easier time in trying to attract the whales? A little bit of under-the-table discreet Chinese protectionism without the formal legislation?

I have no direct evidence of this, but the numbers speak for themselves. At City of Dreams Macau, rolling chip volume, AKA VIP turnover, increased by 29%, or $2.8B. At City of Dreams Manila, VIP was up a huge 60%, $900M absolutely. Studio City saw VIP turnover of $3.6B in the first quarter of VIP operation there. The only Melco casino with a falling VIP segment was Altira Macau, where VIP fell by $500M, or 11% compared to Q1 2016. All in all, it’s a gain of $6.8B in VIP turnover.

Mass market fell at City of Dreams Macau and Altira Macau, but rose at Studio City and City of Dreams Manila. Overall mass market turnover increased by just under $100M, a nice number to report to shareholders about how dedicated you are to mass market but really nothing compared to VIP.

For an organization that claims to believe in consensus, Bitcoin Core—or at least, some of its members—just couldn’t resist spewing vitriol aimed at intimidating the rest of the community.

Bitcoin Core, if you’re just joining us, is insisting that blockchain technology’s 1MB size limit is doing fine in its current form, even though an increase in block size will pave the way for a more robust bitcoin environment. Core believes that among other things, increasing the blockchain size to anything beyond the current 1MB cap will threaten cryptocurrency’s decentralized state, and some of its advocates, such as Blockstream co-founder Greg Maxwell, has demonstrated a willingness to stridently attack anyone who dares suggest otherwise.

And it’s not just Maxwell who will go to great lengths—yes, even trolling—to defend their “faith” stance on the block size issue. Eli Afram, a developer, business analyst and cryptanalyst, has listed “some of the most outrageous and outlandish comments from the Core dev team” in a CoinGeek post.

First on Maxwell’s list is Blockstream co-founder Mark Friedenbach’s statement that “slow confirmation, high fees will be the norm in any safe outcome.” To which, Afram commented: “‘Slow’ anything in software is a detriment to user experience. You learn that in your first year of software dev 101.”

Hong Kong-listed gaming device maker Paradise Entertainment Ltd. saw its total revenue drop by 9.8 percent on weak sales.

In a filing before the Hong Kong bourse, Paradise Ent announced that its total revenue for the reporting period dropped to HKD235.3 million (US$30.21 million).

The game technology provider reported a HKD10.1 million (US$1.3 million) earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) loss for the first quarter of 2017. The firm’s EBITDA during the same period last year was at HKD700,000 (US$89,884).

Paradise further broke down the data by saying that the provision of casino management service was down 4.0 percent year-on-year to HKD186.5 million (US$23.95 million). The segment contributes 79.3 percent of the total revenue for the period.