Call us crazy, but we think we’ve figured out a way to make Florida’s annual gambling legislation derby a whole lot more entertaining.

Two weeks ago, Florida’s state Senate introduced the 2018 version of its omnibus gambling legislation. Among other things, SB 840 would approve daily fantasy sports operations and allow greyhound- and horseracing tracks to decouple, aka abandon racing while keeping their more lucrative slots parlors and cardrooms.

The bill would also allow those cardrooms to continue to offer the controversial designated-player games that the state’s Seminole Tribe believes run contrary to the agreement they signed last July with Gov. Rick Scott.

As such, in order to get the tribe’s support, the legislature will likely have to sweeten the Seminoles’ pot, possibly by adding the exclusive right to offer roulette and craps at the tribe’s six gaming venues in the state, as was offered in the 2015 gaming compact the tribe inked with Scott but which was never ratified by the legislature.

Kalidou Sow has won back-to-back PokerStars Live events after taking down the PokerStars Championship Prague, and PokerStars Festival London Main Events. Giuseppe Caridi joins him in Platinum Pass heaven with a victory in the London Cup.

Kalidou Sow is a Roman chariot with blades around the wheels carving through the heels of every poker player daring to step into his orbit.

The last time I carved his name into my work he had just beaten 855 entrants, including Jason Wheeler in heads-up action, to take down the PokerStars Championship Prague Main Event in December. Sow earned €675,000 for that win. A career high. But he didn’t receive a Platinum Pass. He would be the final winner of an event of that magnitude not to obtain one.

You can cast a profound eye on that decision and think that Sow was unlucky. You can. Sow had other ideas. Instead of being concerned with the surrounding triviality of missed opportunities, he thought up a new gameplan – to win the next tournament he enters.

888Poker’s online poker series, XL Blizzard, has come to a close with the Argentine online star, Pepepepepe taking down the $1m Guaranteed Main Event, as the organisers laud the festival as a ‘massive success.’

888Poker players wander clumsily, like Poker Bears. The XL Blizzard is over. Memories and regret fall from the sky, chuteless. Guts and glory floating on the will of the wind.

11 days.

34 tournaments.

The US Treasury Department has targeted the operator of a Laotian casino for alleged involvement in widespread trafficking in narcotics, wildlife and human beings.

On Tuesday, the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) brought the hammer down on what it called the Zhao Wei Transnational Criminal Organization (Zhao Wei TCO).

A Chinese national, Zhao Wei is co-owner of the Kings Roman Casino (pictured) in the Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone (GTSEZ) near Laos’ borders with both Thailand and Myanmar. The GTSEZ is a joint venture between Zhao and the Laotian government, which is said to hold a 20% stake, and is widely considered a hub for all manner of forbidden fruit.

The OFAC says the Zhao Wei TCO uses the Kings Roman Casino to store and distribute heroin, methamphetamine and other narcotics. Since 2014, Thai, Lao and Chinese authorities have seized large narcotics shipments that have been traced back to the casino.

Inspired by PokerStars’ decision not to renew the contract of Bertrand ‘ElkY’ Grospellier, Lee Davy, obtains the view of Eric Hollreiser, VP of Corporate Communications for the Stars Group, and shares it with you in a short history of the PokerStars Ambassadors.

Mihai Manole won the first-ever $30,000 Platinum Pass. It was a moment as perfect as the first time you fall into perfumed breasts. The chance to win millions. The opportunity to release your cycle clips and fly.

Does the name sound familiar?

It does to me.

partypoker ambassador, Boris Becker, loses £1m worth of trophies; finds a job in double glazing and his employer releases 2018 online MTT festival dates.

I’m off to see my ex-wife. Sometimes, it’s like eating an onion, but I look forward to my trips. I miss her. We spent 20-years together, side-by-side, believing as dogs believe.

I’ve moved on. Remarried. Found the spunk (literally) to create another young-un. There are still parts of me in that house. Physically. Mentally. And if I search hard enough I am sure I will find a cardboard box with the word ‘Trophies’ written on the side in black marker.

Long before I stood on the burning deck of that house, I took great pride in the parade of my trophies. I won the first one when I was ten. I was still sticking them in my cabinet in my 20s, by which time, the drink and drugs made it more challenging to finish a match.

Flamobyant Hong Kong investment banker Stephen Hung has walked away from his ill-fated über-luxurious Macau hotel project The 13.

Late last week, The 13 Holdings informed the Hong Kong exchange that Hung had resigned his positions as the company’s joint chairman and executive director, and would no longer sit on any company committees.

The 13 also announced that Pride Wisdom Group, a company said to be jointly owned by Hung, had inked a sales and purchase agreement to transfer 82.5m shares in The 13 Holdings – representing nearly 9% of issued capital – to a company owned by deputy chairman Tom Lau Ko Yuen.

Hung claimed he had “no disagreement” with the company’s board and there were “no matters with respect to his resignation that need to be brought to the attention” of shareholders.

Argentina’s plans to carve itself a slice of online gambling revenue have so far earned the federal government a whopping total of zero pesos, as provinces and international operators thumb their nose at national regulations.

In December 2016, Argentine legislators voted to impose a new 2% federal tax on all online wagers placed by the nation’s bettors. The tax, which officially took effect on January 1, 2017, was supposed to be collected at source by credit- and debit-card issuers from deposits made with Argentina-facing online gambling operators, regardless of where that operator was based.

Optimistic federal bean-counters predicted annual returns of up to ARS1b (US$51m) from this heretofore untapped revenue source. However, thirteen months later, a report in La Nacion revealed that the government has yet to collect a single peso from this new tax.

Internationally licensed online operators have encouraged Argentine punters to fund their accounts via other online payment methods, while provincially-run online sites are proving equally reluctant to allow the federal government to wet its beak on the sweat of their local operations.