3: Barrels of an 888Poker flavour including the full line-up of wingmen in the 8-Team World Series of Poker promotion, a Chris Moorman freeroll, and the new Gr8Debate concept.

Poker players are flesh and blood.

They are judges, schoolteachers, and steelworkers.

They are married, divorced, widowed.

Inspired by Seth Godin’s Marketing Seminar, Lee Davy shares his thoughts on the needs and wants of online poker players.

I used to wake up at the crack of dawn, and play four tables of Rush Poker before driving into work for 12-hours of drudgery.

How times change.

These days, I wake up at the crack of dawn and feed my nine-month-old daughter before sitting in my office writing things like this.

Canadian online gambling operator Amaya Gaming has won approval for its corporate rebrand as The Stars Group Inc.

Amaya held its last annual general meeting in Montreal on Wednesday, at which shareholders approved the company’s plan to rebrand its operations to better reflect the dominance of its flagship PokerStars brand. The brand switcheroo is expected to be a done deal by the end of August.

It’s been suggested that Amaya’s desire to rebrand is also intended to distance itself from any lingering association with Amaya’s former CEO David Baazov, who is awaiting a November trial on criminal charges of insider trading related to Amaya’s 2014 acquisition of PokerStars parent company, the Rational Group.

The Canadian Press quoted Amaya CEO Rafi Ashkenazi saying the brand rejig wasn’t due to Baazov having ‘tainted’ the Amaya brand, but merely reflected the company having shed its non-core operations in recent years to better focus on growing the PokerStars business. (Regardless, putting distance between the company and Baazov’s ongoing scandals probably doesn’t hurt.)

Junket operator Jimei International Entertainment Group Ltd has scrapped talks to participate in a Macau casino VIP gambling operation.

On Wednesday, Jimei informed the Hong Kong Stock Exchange that it had terminated negotiations to indirectly participate in a profit sharing deal with a Macau VIP gaming promoter. The filing didn’t identify the Macau promoter, but a earlier filings identified the operator as New International Club Ltd, which is a licensed VIP promoter that had reportedly been negotiating a deal to operate around 30 VIP tables at the Wynn Macau casino.

It had been well over two years since Jimei began talks with New International Club regarding the VIP profit participation deal and the deadline was extended again in March until the end of June. With just one week to go, Jimei decided to walk away after determining that “no agreement could be reached with the concessionaire upon such prolonged period of negotiation.”

Jimei assured its shareholders that the termination of the talks wouldn’t have “any material adverse impact on the business, operation and financial position of the Group” and that none of the parties involved in the talks have any liabilities toward the other.

Malta’s residents spent nearly 3% of their total household spending on gambling products in 2015, according to a new survey by the local gambling regulator.

On Wednesday, the Malta Gaming Authority (MGA) published the results of its first survey into the gambling habits of local residents. The report (an abridged version of which can be read here) is based on 1k responses to a survey conducted in January 2016 covering gambling activity over the preceding 12 months.

The report indicates that 195,300 Maltese residents engaged in some form of real-money gambling in 2015, representing nearly 56% of the adult population. Total gambling spending was around €125m, equal to 2.8% of total household consumption expenditure and around 2.4% of average gross household income. Gambling accounted for roughly one-quarter of recreational and cultural activity spending.

The National Lottery claimed the biggest slice of gambling spending at 41%, well above the 28% spent at gaming parlors/outlets. The rest of the pie was divided between casinos (16%) and the bingo-derivative Tombola (13%), while online gambling and ‘games with friends’ each managed only a 1% ranking.

Kenya’s president has signed the country’s new gambling tax into law, eliminating the possibility that parliament could attempt a hail mary vote to override presidential preferences.

On Wednesday, President Uhuru Kenyatta formally signed the Finance Bill 2017 into law, eight days after he rejected a previous version of the bill because he felt the proposed tax rate on gambling revenue wasn’t high enough.

The new bill imposes a uniform 35% tax rate on all gambling revenue – betting, gaming, lotteries and prize competitions – which was less than the 50% rate originally proposed by Kenya’s Treasury Secretary Henry Rotich but well above the rates operators had been paying. For example, Kenya-licensed sports betting operators had previously been subject to a rate of just 7.5%.

The 35% rate suggested as a compromise by Kenyatta was approved by the House Finance Committee last Friday, the final day of the legislative session ahead of the August 8 national elections. Parliamentarians had earlier rejected Rotich’s 50% plan and a two-thirds vote by the full 349-member House could have overruled Kenyatta’s compromise had MPs not been off campaigning.

Gambling proponents in Taiwan have secured a date for a new referendum, which would pave the way for casinos to be built—finally—in the country.

On Monday, Taiwanese news agency Focus Taiwan reported that Kinmen County’s Election Commission announced that a referendum would be held on October 28 to allow the residents of the island to decide whether they want to have a casino developed in their hometown.

Kinmen County Council Tsai Chun-sheng, who initiated the referendum, was able to collect 5,602 valid signatures to back up his initiative. The number of signatures that Tsai collected surpassed the 5,178, or roughly 5 percent of the total number of eligible voters, threshold set by the commission.

If all goes according to plan, this could be the third time a Taiwanese outlying island will hold a referendum on gambling after the government lifted the 15-year prohibition on gambling on the islands of Kinmen, Matsu and Penghu in September 2009.

International credit debt watcher Moody’s Investor Service has upgraded the Seminole Tribe of Florida’s existing term debt, affirming the positive prospects for the tribe’s casino business.

South Florida Business Journal reported that Moody’s assigned a positive Baa2 rating to the Tribe’s proposed $2.4 billion credit facility, saying that the tribe “reflects its dominant market position in the Florida gaming market and the company’s strong financial profile.”

Obligations rated Baa2 are subject to moderate credit risk. They are considered medium grade and as such may possess certain speculative characteristics.

It was reported that proceeds from that facility will be used to repay the Tribe’s outstanding term loans and fund expansions at its Tampa and Hollywood casinos in Florida.