The three new commercial casinos in New York have apparently failed to live-up to the state’s expectations.

Reuters reported that the newly opened casinos posted below-than-expected gambling revenues, with gross receipts at one gaming hall off about 40 percent.

The three casinos reportedly remitted a total of $50.2 million to the state coffers. The officials, who were interviewed at the annual meeting near the Saratoga thoroughbred track, failed to mention their expected tax revenue from these gambling halls for this year.

The New York State Gaming Commission was more understanding, saying that the created jobs in New York and construction spending have exceeded expectations.

Russia’s hyper-vigilant telecom watchdog has recorded a spike in complaints related to illegal distribution of online gaming content in the first six months of 2017.

In the first half of the year, online sentinel Roskomnadzor said it received more than 38,700 reports related to unlawful distribution of online gambling—a 235% increase from the same period last year.

The Russian federal agency also saw an increase in complaints in other categories, including child pornography (21,000 reports), drugs and drug use (39,000 reports), promotion of suicide (19,000 reports). In total, Roskomnadzor said it received more than 118,000 reports on the distribution of different types of information that are considered illegal in the country.

Roskomnadzor said it forwarded roughly 52,000 links to experts, who will decide on whether to include those in the registry of prohibited information.

The owner of PokerStars, which recently decided to rebrand itself, is writing a new chapter of the company’s history with a more than 200 percent increase in its second quarter net income.

The former Amaya Inc., now called the Stars Group Inc., announced that its net income jumped 213 percent to US$70.5 million in April to June 2017 period compared to US$22.5 million it posted during the same period last year.

Stars Group has made a turnaround this year after a tumultuous 2016 when it is plagued with weak earnings and after its founder David Baazov has been dragged into the insider trading controversy.

To strip off their tainted image, the company decided to drop Amaya and change it to Stars Group, packed their bags to Toronto from Pointe-Claire, Quebec, hired new executives, and expanded its game offerings other than poker.

In hopes of wooing Chinese visitors to Las Vegas, casino operator Caesars Entertainment has started accepting payments via Chinese digital wallet WeChat Pay.

Unlike its neighbors Las Vegas Sands, MGM and Wynn Resorts, Caesars does not have a substantial presence in China’s gambling mecca, Macau—something that the company hopes to solve by becoming the first Strip operator to allow Chinese tourists to pay for food, concert tickets and retail items using the popular mobile app.

Currently, Caesars has 16 point of sale locations inside Caesars Palace, The Linq Promenade and Paris Las Vegas that accept WeChat Pay payments. Bruce Bommarito, corporate VP of international marketing for Caesars Entertainment, told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that the company will roll out the WeChat Pay function to “dozens of more” locations in Las Vegas before the year ends.

“We want to do this for our Chinese customers to make them feel at home,” Bommarito told the news outlet. “We have been working hard on the Chinese market for some time.”

Portugal has issued its eight online gambling license, even as locally licensed operators struggle to find new customers.

On Tuesday, gambling regulator Serviço de Regulação e Inspeção de Jogos do Turismo de Portugal (SRIJ) awarded Estoril Sol Digital Online Gaming and Products Services, SA, a license to offer sports betting on its website estorilsolcasinos.pt.

This is the second license for Estoril Sol, which obtained Portugal’s first online casino license under the government’s new regulated online gambling market last year. The company, chaired by SJM Holdings’ founder Stanley Ho, operates three land-based casinos in Portugal: Casino Estoril, Casino Lisbon and Casino da Povoa.

Estoril said it will use its Belgian platform Gaming1 to offer a range of sportsbetting products at its newly rebranded Esconline.pt site. The sportsbook includes a Gaming1-developed feature, called Opti-Odds, which promises to boost the odds of any multi-bet slips.

Count bitcoin among the topics that crosses the political divide.

In Australia, a bipartisan group of lawmakers is pushing to get the country recognize bitcoin as an official form of currency. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, labor and coalition senators are calling on the Reserve Bank to embrace digital currency “or risk the future of competitiveness of Australia’s A$145 billion a year financial services industry.”

Leading the effort are Liberal Senator Jane Hume and Labor Senator Sam Dastyari, who argued that Australia will be left behind if it decided against having its own official currency and blockchain.

Dastyari told the news outlet that Australia is lagging behind its Asian neighbors in the area of cheap goods and services production, but the country can still compete in the financial services sector.

The online gambling industry is in the midst of a merger and acquisition wave.  XL Media, a leading digital performance marketing company, has been hot on the acquisition path for several years now, with their most recent acquisition of a Canadian credit card comparison site in early 2017.

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The spectre of Crown Resorts staffers’ arrests in China last year continues to haunt New Zealand casino operator SkyCity Entertainment Group.

In a regulatory filing, SkyCity reported on Wednesday that its net profit for the 2017 financial year tumbled 69.2 percent to NZD44.9 million (U$32.86 million) compared with NZD145.7 million ($106.7 million) the previous year.

The culprit behind SkyCity’s lackluster performance can be traced to its international turnover, which dropped 30 percent to NZD8.7 billion ($6.4 billion).

SkyCity pointed out that last year’s arrest of Crown staffers in China has driven away Chinese high-rollers from Sky’s gaming tables in Australia and New Zealand.

Poker in India continues to grow as Viaan Industries, and the International Federation of Poker sell eight franchises for their inaugural Match Indian Poker League experience.

While he may not be setting any trends in the hair department, Alex Dreyfus can take some pride in the fact that his Global Poker League (GPL) has made team poker cool again.

As GPL China rumbles on, and Dreyfus continues to prepare for a new look GPL Season 2, the second most populous country in the world, has decided to get in on the act, organising two leagues within a matter of months.

The latest endeavour: Match Indian Poker League (IPL), is the brainchild of Viaan Industries and the International Federation of Poker (IFP). The two men responsible for the new league are Viaan’s Raj Kundra and the IFP’s Patrick Nally.

The increasing popularity of betting on esports has been a topic of discussion at gambling conferences across the globe, yet operators still have a lot to learn about the sector.  Until this happens, we as an industry won’t see a dramatic adoption and improvement in esports betting offerings, one of the reasons why Sports Betting Community (SBC) decided to launch Esportsinsider.com one year ago and an Esports Forum Series just last month.

The second installment of the Forum Series takes place at 18:00 on August 31st at the Fnatic Bunkr in Shoreditch, London.  We spoke with Esports Insider Editor Sam Cooke to learn more about this event, what guests will learn, eat, drink and play on the night and also what charity it will support.  Cooke also reveals the latest trends in esports and betting in addition to what we can expect to learn about esports at the upcoming Betting on Sports Conference in September.

Becky Liggero: Thank you for joining me today, Sam.  Lets start with why you have chosen the location of the Fnatic Bunkr for this series? Can you describe it for us?

Sam Cooke: Fnatic are one of the world’s leading esports organisations, and so after they extended their Bunkr venue beyond the intended six week Christmas sales period, we couldn’t think of a more fitting venue to kick off our ESI Forum Series (#ESIForum).

888Poker Ambassador, Parker “TonkaaaaP” Talbot has joined Upswing Poker, and his lords and masters have decided to keep schtum over alleged artificial intelligence use resulted in players having their accounts closed down, and funds confiscated.

Parker “TonkaaaaP” Talbot’s career continues to flourish after Doug Polk anointed him as the latest member of the Upswing Poker coaching team.

The Upswing Poker founder announced the news on his Doug Polk Poker YouTube channel during an interview with the man of the moment.

“We definitely want to bring in someone like a tournament expert into the lab and felt you would be a good fit,” he said. “Happy to have you on board.”