The UK’s advertising watchdog has spanked the operator of online gambling site 21.co.uk for a television commercial that somehow made a man in a tuxedo look too tough.

This week, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) took issue with 21.co.uk’s owner, the Alderney-based Intellectual Property & Software Ltd (IPS), for a television spot (viewable below, at least for the time being) featuring a tuxedoed man playing blackjack at a land-based casino table.

A voiceover described the man’s heart pounding while his body remained still. “Heart versus head. Emotion versus reason. He makes his move. He makes his own luck.” As luck would have it, the man’s bet proves a winner and he smiles with satisfaction.

A TV viewer complained that the ad was socially irresponsible because the man appeared to be experiencing the kind of psychological thrill enjoyed by gambling addicts. Meanwhile, the ASA itself suggested the phrase “he makes his own luck” implied that gambling involved more skill than chance, while the bloke’s demeanor “portrayed gambling in a context of toughness.”

The Costa Rican-based Ignition Casino is set to provide the Australian market online casino and poker games, months after the Australian parliament banned online gambling as part of the Interactive Gambling Amendment Bill 2016.

Pruno is an alcoholic brew that prisoners make out of apples, ketchup, bread, and all manner of kitchen crap that they can gather up during potato peeling duty, and it goes to show that you can put people behind bars and they will still manage to get their mitts on what they want.

Online poker is the same.

In many parts of the world, online poker is dead, hunted down by archaic lawmakers armed with bows, arrows, and a deadly aim. But it isn’t exactly dead. Like Pruno producers, there is always a way.

Another two bracelets to hand out including one for a man who qualified for $60 playing online, and another who created a bankroll by winning the hit TV show Who Wants to be a Millionaire.

When the World Series of Poker (WSOP) scriptwriters gathered around that big oak table, I imagine the story of the guy who owned a shoe store, qualifying for a bracelet event via a $60 online satellite on WSOP.com, and then winning the thing was high on their list of specs.

Rulah Divine might not own a shoe shop, but he does own a WSOP bracelet, after qualifying for Event #63: $1,000 No-Limit Hold’em for $60 playing online at WSOP.com.

Divine’s victory means there will be a few more presents tucked under the Christmas Tree for his twins this December. $262,501 provides the security blanket needed to care for two such tiny foals.

Saipan casino operator Imperial Pacific International Holdings (IPI) opened its permanent casino’s gaming floor on Thursday, while unpaid construction workers staged protests outside.

IPI officially transferred its gaming operations from the Best Sunshine Live ‘temporary training facility’ in the high-end T Galleria shopping mall to its new $550m Imperial Pacific Resort Hotel Saipan on Thursday at 5pm. The Best Sunshine venue, which launched in 2015 and quickly made global headlines with its often insanely high VIP gambling turnover stats, is now closed for good.

The transfer was done with remarkably little fanfare given the struggles IPI has faced in opening its permanent venue. IPI officials told the Saipan Tribune that a formal opening ceremony would take place at an unspecified later date.

Thursday did see IPI’s majority shareholder Margaret Cui Lijie and CEO Kwong Yiu Ling plant themselves in the Resort’s lobby to welcome guests to the project’s phase one development. Said guests included local politicians like Rep. Janet Maratita, who has introduced legislation that would impose a 5% tax on IPI’s gaming revenue (up from the 0% IPI currently pays).

In this week’s Calling The Clock, Lee Davy reminds you that Mohsin Charania won a Triple Crown, Ryan Hughes could win the World Series of Poker Player of the Year award without winning a bracelet, and much more.

Soon the Galileo 4.5 inchers will be packed away as the star-filled spectacle that is the World Series of Poker (WSOP) will soon slip onto the Big Dipper and vanish into another cosmos for 12-months. But until that teary-eyed moment, we still have some stargazing to do.

Mohsin Charania is a missionary for the professionals who prefer the money over the titles, believing prestige is for people like Phil Hellmuth Jr. But this week, we can allow him a few minutes of sentimentality, as he gave the 1,580 players who entered Event #52: $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em (NLHE) a good spanking on his way to a $364,438 windfall, and a place in the lusted after, Triple Crown Club.

The European Poker Tour (EPT) Main Event, World Poker Tour (WPT) Main Event, and World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet winner wasn’t the only Chicago born player to win a bracelet this week after Tom Koral took down the $1,500 Seven-Card Stud event.

Pennsylvania casinos earned less revenue from their slot machines in the state’s most recent fiscal year, breaking a two-year streak of revenue gains.

Figures released Thursday by the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board (PGCB) show that the state’s 12 casino licensees generated combined slots revenue of $2.33b in the 12 months ending June 30. That’s down 2.2% from the $2.39b the state’s slots generated in fiscal 2015-16.

While the PGCB crowed about this year’s figure being the seventh straight year that slots have generated over $2.3b, it’s still well below the $2.5b peak the state recorded in 2011-12. Annual figures for the state’s table game operations will be released later this month.

Only three of the 12 casinos reported year-on-year slots revenue gains in 2016-17, and none of these gains exceeded 4%. The state’s perennial slots champ, the Parx Casino in Philadelphia, saw its slots revenue fall 0.45% to $386.6m while runner-up Sands Bethlehem was down 0.39% to $304.1m.