All the signs point towards the end of the road for Jao Poker as the unregulated US-facing online poker room advises customers of its closure, with no word on the location of player funds.

On one extreme you have my boy, 17, and afraid to open a Paypal account because he doesn’t trust this Internet stuff, and then at the other end of that tug-of-war, you have the people who deposit money on unregulated online poker sites like Jao Poker.

When will it end?

It won’t.

Poker Night in America prepare to debut a new live celebrity cash game on the CBS Sports Network called Poker Night LIVE.

I have a choice. We all do. It’s Tuesday night, I can watch the Champions League highlights, or I can read a story about the world’s largest turnip to my 17-month-old daughter, giggling (internally of course), when I recite the line about the old girl pulling the old man. From March 20, and for 13-weeks beyond, I can make a different choice. I can watch the new show from Poker Night in America (PNIA).

Todd Anderson and the crew have created Poker Night LIVE. CBS Sports Network (PNIA’s home since 2014) will broadcast the action at 10 pm each Tuesday night from the 20th onward. The Gardens Casino, Los Angeles, California will have the microwave on standby so the crew can warm up their cold cups of tea.

Steve Ruddock is a man you can trust, and he said that Poker Night Live would be a live cash game featuring a lower buy-in than the $25/$50 PNIA lovers consume. Ruddock noted PNIA believe the lower buy-in will give the celebrities who don’t know what they’re doing (I added that part) a reason to get a little loose without losing much ballast.

Japan is hoping the country’s baseball teams don’t object to allowing a new baseball-themed sports lottery product.

On Thursday, Japanese media reported that a meeting was held Wednesday between the Nippon Professional Baseball Organization (NPB) and the representatives of the league’s 12 pro teams regarding the launch of a new baseball-themed lottery product.

At present, Japan’s Sports Promotion Lottery is limited to a football-based product run by the government-backed Japan Sports Council. The football lottery generated sales of nearly ¥112b (US$1b) in fiscal 2016.

The football lottery involves a pools-style set-up in which either the lottery player selects his or her favored teams, or the (oddly more popular) Toto-Big version, which relies on a computer to randomly select teams to emerge as winners in their respective matches.

Saipan casino regulators have publicly refuted recent media allegations of corruption, calling them “exaggerated, uncalled for and very unfair.”

On Thursday, gaming regulators in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) went public with their belief that they had been ill-treated by last week’s Bloomberg article alleging millions of dollars in sketchy payments to CNMI officials from Saipan’s lone casino operator, Imperial Pacific International Holdings (IPI).

IPI announced this week that it is suing Bloomberg for defamation. On Thursday, the Marianas Variety quoted Commonwealth Casino Commission (CCC) exec director Edward Deleon Guerrero saying the regulator was “looking at the article” and would “consult with our legal counsel” regarding the appropriate response.

The Marianas Variety also reported that the CCC held a meeting on Thursday at which chair Juan Sablan declared “no one here has received anything of value from IPI,” while urging the public to come forward with any evidence of regulatory malfeasance “as we don’t tolerate such actions.”

Former Amaya Gaming CEO David Baazov’s date with judicial destiny on insider trading charges will have to wait a while longer.

On Wednesday, La Presse reported that the Court of Quebec had postponed the start of Baazov’s insider trading trial until April 16. The trial was supposed to have got underway next Monday (26) but Baazov’s legal team requested more time to consider the Crown’s evidence against their client.

Baazov and two other individuals – fellow Amaya exec Benjamin Ahdoot and longtime Baazov adviser Yoel Altman – were hit with 23 criminal charges of insider trading in March 2016. The trio stand accused of illegally enriching themselves and others via engaging in stock transactions related to unannounced Amaya transactions, including the company’s 2014 acquisition of the parent company of online poker giant PokerStars.

The trial was originally scheduled to start last December, but was postponed so Judge Salvatore Mascia could consider Baazov’s attorneys motion that the charges be stayed due to the length of time it took for Baazov’s case to come to trial.

Colombia has issued its eighth online gambling license to Spanish gaming operator Luckia, while another online licensee got some unwanted attention via a tennis player who should have known better.

On Thursday, Colombia’s Coljuegos gaming regulatory body announced that Spanish operator Luckia’s local subsidiary Luckia Colombia S.A.S. had been awarded the eighth online gambling license since the country liberalized its online market in late-2016.

Luckia already has a retail sports betting operation in Colombia via a collaboration with the National Corporation of Entrepreneurs of Luck and Chance Games (Cornazar). The new Luckia.co website has been approved to offer both sports betting and ‘luck and chance’ games, although its website currently displays only a splash screen featuring the Spanish phrases ‘stay close’ and ‘soon’.

Luckia’s new online license is valid for five years and cost the company COP 11.2b (US$3.9m), making it the priciest of all eight Coljuegos’ online deals to date. The next highest license fee was the COP 10.9b paid by local operator Colbet last October.