Some police chiefs in India are decidedly not amused after a newspaper advertisement publicly thanked them for not enforcing anti-betting laws during the current Indian Premier League (IPL) season.

On Wednesday, the Hindustan Times reported that police in the state of Madhya Pradesh were struggling to explain themselves after an advertisement appeared in a local newspaper on Tuesday thanking police for not showing too much interest in rounding up bettors and/or bookies taking action on IPL matches.

The advertisement, which was credited to a group calling itself the Ujjain Betting Association, contained photographs of the local director general, inspector general and superintendent of police, all of whom were profusely thanked for the “unimpeded running of betting” during the IPL season, in stark contrast to the many anti-betting actions conducted outside Ujjain since the season began last month.

It turns out that the advertisement was intended as something of a cheeky op-ed by newspaper staff to express their concern over the lack of anti-betting enforcement in Ujjain. The newspaper’s chief editor has reportedly sacked the paper’s executive editor over the stunt and has promised to run a highly visible apology in a future edition of the paper.

Casino operator MGM Resorts is teaming up with UK-listed online gambling operator GVC Holdings on a New Jersey online casino and poker site.

On Wednesday, MGM announced that it had struck a deal with GVC – the parent company of PartyPoker – to launch a New Jersey site under the playMGM brand, which the company currently uses for its Nevada-based mobile sportsbook product. The parties declined getting too specific on when this site might launch, saying only that it will appear “later this year.”

MGM operates Atlantic City’s market-leading Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa, for which GVC already provides online gambling technology under the Borgata brand. The Borgata had also been the state’s unquestioned online market leader until the Golden Nugget’s recent surge, which has seen the Borgata family of sites knocked back to second and occasionally as low as third.

MGM has a well-established free-play social casino product (myVEGAS) that the company claims has been a strong customer acquisition tool but the playMGM site will mark the first time the MGM brand will be directly associated with real-money online casino and poker games.

Australian casino operator Crown Resorts is one step closer to learning the fate of its staffers who were detained in China last year for allegedly promoting illegal gambling activities.

On Wednesday, the Australian Financial Review reported that Chinese authorities had officially finalized their investigation of the 18 Crown-affiliated staffers arrested last October for suspected “gambling-related crimes” and handed the case to a Shanghai prosecutor two weeks ago.

The AFR quoted Shanghai lawyer Si Weijiang saying the fact that the police had turned the case over to the Baoshan District People’s Procurator rather than a city-level prosecutor “implies a less severe or shorter sentence.”

The working theory is that the accused will face charges of promoting gambling – which carries a maximum sentence of three years in prison – instead of the far more serious crime of money laundering. The hope is that the Crown staff will eventually be sentenced to time served, similar to the fate of the South Korean casino promoters arrested in 2015 for similar transgressions then released after 18 months in detention.

Oregon moves closer to shutting down poker rooms in the state after the House of Representatives approved the Social Game Bill.

House Bill 2190, which aims to modify the definition of “social game” for purposes of regulation of gambling, has been transmitted to the Senate after the House of Representative voted 41-14 in favor of the bill.  Five, on the other hand, did not participate in the vote.

Under HB 2190, the definition of social game is “a game, other than a lottery, between players in a private home where no house player, house bank or house odds exist and there is no house income from the operation of the social game.”

If enacted into a law, the measure will only authorize “social” poker games operated and regulated by non-profit organization. It will also result to the closure of at least 20 poker rooms operating in Portland, Oregon.

Lucky breaks in Cheltenham Festival have propelled the first quarter revenue of Irish bookmaker Paddy Power Betfair by 15 percent.

On Wednesday, the company released a trading update covering the three months ending March 31, with pro forma figures to allow for more accurate comparisons with their formerly standalone operations.

The betting firm announced that its revenue increased 15 per cent on a constant currency basis to £416 million (US$ 537.09 million) from £339 million (US$ 437.67 million) in the previous year.

On the other hand, the group saw its underlying operating profit rise £91 million (US$117.49 million) in the January to March 31 period, an increase of 114 per cent on the same period in 2016. The group’s underlying earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization jumped by 83 percent on a constant currency basis to £111 million (US$143.31 million).