The UK horseracing industry has joined the chorus of voices urging the government not to slash maximum stakes on fixed-odds betting terminals (FOBT) to £2.

Over the weekend, UK media reported that Matthew Hancock, the recently appointed secretary of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), was in favor of cutting FOBT maximum stakes from their current £100 to just £2 when the government’s three-month consultation period concludes on Tuesday.

Monday saw share-price carnage for London-listed betting operators with a large high-street retail footprint. William Hill led the decliners, falling 11.6% to 297.2p after sinking as low as 285p earlier in the day. Ladbrokes Coral Group was down nearly 8% to 168p. Paddy Power Betfair, which has less of a high street presence and supports a steep stake cut, fell 2% on the day.

Online operator GVC Holdings, which is working on a deal to acquire Lads Coral, fell 1.2% to 926.5p after dipping to 885p in early trading. Investors eventually remembered GVC structuring the deal to ensure a lower top-up payment should the FOBT curb prove too harsh.

Former PokerStars Team Pro, Isaac Haxton, partners with partypoker, a company he predicts could overtake PokerStars as the world #1 by the end of 2019.

As a trio of PokerStars Team Pros melt away like a rogue snowflake stuck to your bathroom window as the shower shoots away in the warmth, a former member of the team has taken up employment with the competition.

Isaac Haxton has joined partypoker, and he’s really pumped.

Really pumped to be joining this team. Party are doing great things. https://t.co/Wfd54FBhca

Lee Davy sits down with Jaime Staples to talk about his recent prop bet with Bill Perkins, the motivation behind the deal, and how he feels since losing a lot of weight. 

Jaime Staples: a once sedentary man with $150,000 reasons to shift Audio

David Baazov’s insider trading trial will go ahead, after a Quebec judge refused to stay the charges against the former Amaya Gaming CEO.

On Monday, Provincial court Judge Salvatore Mascia rejected motions by Baazov’s attorneys to stay his charges due to the length of time it’s taken for prosecutors to bring his case to trial. The trial, which was supposed to get underway in December, also includes two other defendants, Yoel Altman and Benjamin Ahdoot.

In arguing for the stay, Baazov’s attorneys claimed prosecutors had waited until late September to dump 16m pieces of evidence in their laps, only 2m of which turned out to be specific to Baazov’s charges.

In December, Judge Mascia hinted that he was strongly considering the stay request. On Monday, he said “it was very close at home plate but at the end I accept the argument” of Quebec’s securities watchdog, the Autorité des marches financiers (AMF), that the trial should proceed.

Vietnam is increasing financial surveillance of its growing casino industry to ensure the government gets its rightful share of the gambling spoils.

Last week, Vietnam’s Ministry of Finance released A Circular Guiding Management and Supervision of the Collection of Taxes on Casino Business Activity. The document, which was officially issued on December 29 but only now made public, is the latest plank of the government’s efforts to expand its domestic casino sector.

Among the new rules, which take effect February 12, is a requirement that casino cashiers can only use “conventional currency” to accept buy-ins from players or pay out winnings. So no gold bars, prize pigs or Bitcoin accepted (Vietnam banned all cryptocurrency payments last October).

Casinos will have to record all monetary transactions through the use of specialized software, and the collected data must be contained in revenue summaries and reported to relevant state management agencies to ensure all taxes are being paid.

The Stars Group has appointed a new boss of its Betstars betting brand as rumors swirl that an aborted merger with UK betting operator William Hill may be back on.

On Monday, the Toronto-listed Stars Group announced that former William Hill Online managing director Andrew Lee (pictured) had signed on as BetStars’ new MD, replacing the outgoing Zeno Ossko, who has led the division since September 2016.

Stars Group CEO Rafi Ashkenazi hailed Lee as the man to develop BetStars into “a strong secondary customer acquisition channel to our leading poker business, improve its market share in our top European markets, and prepare it for future geographic expansion.”

Lee’s former relationship with William Hill has bolstered rumors that Stars and Hills are attempting to restart talks on a merger of equals that fell apart in October 2016 when Parvus Asset Management, which held a 14.3% stake in Hills, slammed the merger idea as a “value-destroying deal.”

Former Australian betting syndicate leader Bill Vlahos is facing over 300 counts of financial deception for allegedly defrauding hundreds of investors between 2008 and 2013.

Yahoo 7 News reported that Vlahos, who formerly headed up the BC3 Thoroughbreds ownership group, appeared in Melbourne Magistrates Court last Thursday to answer allegations that he swindled millions of dollars from people who invested in betting syndicate, The Edge.

The prosecution will present more than 80 witnesses during the course of Vlahos’ four-week pre-trial, which will start on March 5. A pre-trial is conducted in order to determine whether the betting syndicate leader should stand trial.

Among those expected to present evidence before the court is the head of Ladbrokes Australia.