Nevada casino sportsbooks enjoyed record betting handle in September while falling just short of setting a new betting revenue record.

Figures released Tuesday by the Nevada Gaming Control Board show the state’s licensed casino operators generated gaming revenue of just under $980m in September, 3.25% higher than the same month last year but down around $10m from August 2017.

For the first three months of the state’s fiscal year, the statewide casino gaming revenue total is up 5% year-on-year.

The state’s slot machines had a good month, rising 1.6% to $595.5m, while games & tables improved 5.9% to $384.3m. The table gains were led by blackjack, which improved 4.4% to $111.6m, while baccarat gained 4.65% to $97.2m, craps shot up nearly 30% to $36.5m and roulette rose 3.5% to $32.7m.

The UK government’s triennial review of the gambling industry has proven far less decisive than industry stakeholders had feared and gambling critics would have liked.

On Tuesday, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) released its hotly anticipated review of the nation’s gambling operators, the key planks of which were expected to include new rules for gambling advertising, greater responsible gambling protections and significant reductions in the maximum stakes of betting shops’ fixed-odds betting terminals (FOBT).

On the FOBT front, the review does recommend a reduction from the current £100 maximum stake to one of four possible options: £50, £30, £20 or £2. The minimum time between spins may also be boosted from its current 20 seconds to one minute “to better reflect roulette in a casino.”

But in true government form, despite having three years to make a decision, the DCMS now says it requires a further three-month consultation with stakeholders to determine the best way forward. This consultation will extend to January 23, 2018.

Another state, another crisis, another half-baked plan to plug a budget gap without cutting any spending. Legalizing online gambling in Pennsylvania, while certainly an improvement over outlawing it entirely, won’t significantly increase Pennsylvania’s state revenues overall, nor will it hurt or much help the firms currently operating casinos in the state like Penn National Gaming, Pinnacle Entertainment, or Las Vegas Sands. Sheldon Adelson’s aversion to online gambling notwithstanding, perhaps this is an opportunity for him to see that it’s not a threat to his business.

First, spending a day or weekend to have fun at a casino is very different from spending a few minutes or hours on your phone playing poker or slots on your daily commute. Though the two markets certainly overlap somewhat, it’s not like legalized online betting will thin out the casino crowds noticeably. The two activities are qualitatively different consumer experiences and won’t cannibalize all that much.

Second, remember when Chris Christie infamously predicted $180 million a year from a 15% internet gambling tax, but only ended up with $12 million? Something similar will happen in Pennsylvania. There will be a marginal increase in tax revenue but it will be much smaller than the politicians are expecting. The reason will be the same for why this happened in New Jersey. iGaming is not a productive industry. It doesn’t produce wealth. It only produces entertainment by consuming wealth. That’s fine, but that doesn’t increase tax revenue on net, at least not by much. Gaming is a consumer service, and therefore only redirects wealth from other industries for entertainment purposes.

The politicians are expecting the new legislation to rake in $200 million annually from license fees and taxes. Even if they do, they’ll lose tax revenue elsewhere as individuals balance their budgets so the net increase will be much smaller.

Australian-listed casino operator Silver Heritage Group what it described as the firm’s “strongest operating quarter”

since its initial public offering in 2016.

In a disclosure to the Australian Stock Exchange, Silver Heritage reported that its  July to August 2017 revenues jumped 16.4 percent to US$4.8 million in the third quarter versus the previous quarter.

Silver Heritage operates the Millionaire’s Club and Casino in Kathmandu, Nepal’s capital, and the Phoenix International Club, near Hanoi, in Vietnam.

The long-held rumours that The Stars Group owned PokerNews has been partly revealed as true after iBus Media held a company-wide conference call this morning to discuss a potential acquisition strategy.

In 2015, Red Crow Marketing estimated that companies intrude on the average American firing between 4,000 to 10,000 adverts at them per day. The most prominent companies in the world spend billions of dollars on marketing, and they do so because it works.

If you control the media, you control the people.

And so it’s disturbing, but no secret, to learn that The Stars Group owns a large majority of iBus Media, or the name we all know: PokerNews.

Another round-up from the World Series of Poker Europe in the King’s Casino, Rozvadov, focusing on a fourth near miss by Allen ‘Chainsaw’ Kessler.

In 2005, Allen Kessler came within a flies foot from winning a World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet when he lost to Todd Brunson in a $2,500 Pot-Limit Omaha (PLO) Hi-Lo event. Five years later, it happened again, this time losing in heads-up action to Frank Kassela in the $10,000 Seven Card Stud Championship, and he made it a trio of close shaves in 2011 when he failed against Brian Rast in the final leg of a $1,500 Pot-Limit Hold’em event.

So when Kessler entered the final table of Event #6: €2,200 Pot-Limit Omaha he would have been glad the ilk of those three titans weren’t sharing the same oxygen as he attempted to win his first WSOP bracelet in a career that spans two decades.

The Chainsaw began the day with the second shortest stack at the final.

partypoker has made their next move in their bid to become the kingpin live tournament operator after releasing a 2018 MILLIONS schedule containing $100m in guarantees and a Grand Final in Barcelona.

Partypoker LIVE continues their trajectory to grind the PokerStars Championship into a fine powder after announcing a 2018 schedule containing $100 million in guarantees.

The jury is still out as to whom is the best live tournament operator between PokerStars and partypoker, but by the end of the year, my gut tells me that the debate will end.

By that time, the poker community will be able to compare the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (PCA) with partypoker’s Caribbean Poker Party; the PokerStars Championship Sochi with the partypoker MILLIONS Sochi, and now, most important of all, the PokerStars Championship Barcelona with the partypoker MILLIONS Barcelona.

Johannes “Greenstone25′ Korsar has become the sixth player to exceed $10m in online multi-table tournament earnings, and Doug Polk receives his Silver Play Button award from YouTube.

Johannes “Greenstone25′ Korsar has permission to leave solitary confinement after becoming the sixth player to earn more than $10m playing online multi-table tournaments (MTTs).

The Swedish online pro hit the milestone after a particularly productive session on partypoker saw him beating 145 players in the $530 buy-in High Roller Warm Up Special Edition for $13,514.52, and 4/217 in the $530 buy-in High Roller for $8,390.63 last week.

Here is a breakdown of Korsar’s results courtesy of PocketFives:

A Philippine police colonel is among the suspects in the recent kidnapping and murder of a local casino junket operator.

On October 21, junket operator Oscar Tan aka Carlos Abad Tan and his chauffeur were abducted en route to the Ninoy Aquino International Airport in Manila. Tan’s driver was released later that same day while Tan was held after his kidnappers issued a P50m (US $1m) ransom demand.

This ransom demand reportedly went unpaid, so Tan’s kidnappers reduced their demand to P10m, but this too went unpaid when further negotiations failed. On October 24, Tan’s body was discovered near a bridge in Tagaytay City.

On October 27, the Anti-Kidnap Group (AKG) of the Philippine National Police (PNP) were involved in a shootout leading to the deaths of four individuals believed to be connected with Tan’s kidnap and murder. To the PNP’s surprise, one of these four was a serving police officer with the Quezon City Police District (QCPD), two others were former cops, while the fourth was a civilian.