Partypoker finished off a successful MILLION Germany festival after Michal Mrakes took down the €1,100 Main Event for €200k; partypoker Ambassador Natalie Breviglieri finished sixth.

There’s an old adage that a lucky man falls into a vat of nipples, and comes out sucking his thumb. Recently, partypoker seems to have fallen into a vat of thumbs, and each time I see them, they are sucking on a nipple.

For the past decade, there has been barbed wire protecting the live tournament scene in Europe. PokerStars erected it during a period when they delivered customer value as frequently and accurately as a Japanese postman delivers manga magazines to horny teenagers. Partypoker is standing by that barbed wire armed with a pretty impressive pair of bolt cutters, and they are snipping.

With the pros heading to Las Vegas armed with a dream, it seems foolhardy to organise a live event anywhere else in the world, but partypoker relish a challenge.

David Stamm has notched up a mark in the amateur win column by defeating Sam Soverel to take the $306,554 first prize, and title, in the $10,000 $1m GTD Venetian High Roller as part of the Venetian DeepStack Extravaganza III.

There was a time when I would repeatedly moan and groan about the professional poker playing brethren choosing to play poker at the Venetian. I have quickly realised I am facing a losing battle – like keeping the shower clear of pubic hair – and so here you go; a complaint free snippet from The Venetian DeepStack Extravaganza.

The Venetian Poker Room were smart to organise a $10,000 High Roller as part of their festivities, especially with so many players who eat these things up for breakfast, skirting around the perimeter hungry for action.

The final attendance figure rang in at 107 entrants, and it was a pretty impressive final table featuring heavyweights from all over the globe. Nine champions with Hendon Mob statistics heading into the millions, and yet the man who won isn’t even a professional poker player.

Lee Davy sits down with 888Poker Ambassador Kara Scott during 888Live Barcelona to talk about the brands new Taking Back the Game promotion, the difficulty in balancing life on the move, and the importance of helping those in need.

If the poker industry needs someone to stand in front of the microphone and make it look bloody good they usually turn to Kara Scott.

Over the years, Scott has made an impact in a number of different organisations within poker, but it’s her contribution to poker on the whole that’s the most impressive.

And it’s not without sacrifice, as you will read once I stop babbling on about how great she is. It’s easy to see her convey such confidence and irradiate such light and think she has life sussed. But what happens once you and I have turned off the TV set and fired up 10-tables and Scott gets back to life?

Tribal gaming operator Pala Interactive has added a poker product to its New Jersey online gambling operations.

On Tuesday, Pala Interactive announced the launch of PalaPoker.com for both desktop and mobile poker players residing in the state of New Jersey. The poker site, which is currently in open beta testing, follows the 2014 launch of Pala’s New Jersey online casino and the 2016 launch of PalaBingoUSA.com.

Like its casino site, PalaPoker will operate under the Borgata casino’s interactive gaming license, but Pala won’t be sharing poker liquidity with the other sites on the Borgata network, opting instead to operate as a standalone site.

Pala Interactive, majority owned by California’s Pala Band of Mission Indians, is headed by ex-PartyGaming CEO Jim Ryan. In 2015, Ryan told CalvinAyre.com’s Rebecca Liggero that the site’s poker product was basically “ready to go” but the company now says it’s spent the past three years “building a new poker platform.”

Former Absolute Poker co-founder Scott Tom is a step closer to resolving his outstanding criminal charges filed by US prosecutors in the 2011 Black Friday online poker indictments.

On May 31, Tom (pictured) reached a deal with federal prosecutors to plead guilty to a single misdemeanor charge in connection with Absolute Poker’s US-facing operations in the years prior to the April 15, 2011 indictments issued by the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York.

Tom, who returned to US shores in February nearly six years after being indicted, originally faced multiple felony charges of illegal gambling and conspiracy to commit money laundering.

According to documents filed with the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, Tom agreed to plead guilty to a single misdemeanor count of being an accessory after the fact to the transmission of wagering information. Tom waived his right to a jury trial and consented to proceed to trial, judgment and sentencing by US Magistrate Judge Barbara C. Moses.

New York state’s legal online poker hopes grew a little dimmer this week after legislators added new ‘bad actor’ language to their current online poker bill.

Last month, a New York state Senate committee approved the S-3898 online poker bill introduced earlier this year by Sen. John Bonacic, setting up a possible floor vote before the state legislature adjourns for the summer later this month.

The bill would allow the state’s licensed land-based gaming operators to team with online poker technology vendors to offer legal poker games to state residents. But the bill was amended on Monday to include language that spells trouble for would-be technology vendors, including Amaya Gaming’s PokerStars brand.

Specifically, the amended text says state regulators will consider a number of factors in determining the suitability of significant vendors, including whether they “knowingly and willfully accepted or made available wagers on interactive gaming (including poker)” from US residents after December 31, 2006, or “knowingly facilitated or otherwise provided services” to anyone who did take such wagers.

Maryland’s newest casino came within a whisker of topping its all-time highest monthly revenue in May, while the state’s former top gaming venue plots its revenge.

Figures released Monday by the Maryland Lottery and Gaming Control Agency show the state’s six casinos generated gaming revenue of $136.5m in May, up slightly from April’s $135.7m and second only behind March’s record $141.2m.

May’s sum is 30.8% higher than the same month last year, although May 2016 didn’t feature contributions from MGM Resorts’ National Harbor property, which opened last December. Comparing only the five casinos that were open in both months, May’s revenue was down 17.7% year-on-year.

National Harbor reported revenue of $50.5m, the second time the property has topped the $50m mark and second only behind March’s record $51.2m. Runner-up Maryland Live! wasn’t too far behind at $45.9m, although this was down 22.3% year-on-year.

Malta’s gaming regulators have suspended the online gambling license of CenturionBet Ltd, which operates the Bet1128 brand.

On Tuesday, the Malta Gaming Authority (MGA) announced that it had suspended CenturionBet’s remote gambling license, and ordered the company to “indefinitely suspend all gaming operations, cease to register new players, suspend all transactions on all websites, including deposits and withdrawals,” and fully comply with MGA requests for data and documentation.

The MGA notice insists that all websites operating under CenturionBet’s license are “not approved to be operational by the Authority.” However, at present, the Bet1128.com site still prominently displays the MGA logo and the suspended MGA/CL2/527/2008 license number.

Italian gaming news agency Agimeg quoted a CenturionBet statement saying the MGA had “identified procedural irregularities in signing contracts with consultants.” The company expressed “deep regret” over the kerfuffle, while insisting that it had “acted in full compliance” with its regulatory obligations and promising that “all the payment activities of the winnings will be guaranteed.”