Net profit of Macau-based casino operator Galaxy Entertainment Group (GEG) soared 67 percent in 2017 as Chinese high rollers return to the premier gambling hub.

In a disclosure to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, GEG announced that the company posted a better-than-expected net profit of HK$10.5 billion (US$1.34 billion) in 2017 compared with HK$6.3 billion (US$804.88 million) in 2016.

GEG’s revenue also rose 18 percent to HK$62.5 billion ($7.98 billion) in 2017, beating analysts’ estimates of over HK$61.2 billion ($7.8 billion).

Adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA), a key measure in the heavy-asset gaming sector, jumped 37 percent on the year to HK$14.1 billion ($1.8 billion).

Lee Davy highlights the swift change in focus of two of poker’s most influential people with crypto/blockchain being the winner and poker the loser.

Adam Pliska signed a new four-year contract. The World Series of Poker (WSOP) snubbed the American Poker Awards (APA). Daniel Negreanu showed up but didn’t win. Phil Hellmuth sold 60% of his LAPC action on YouStake, and entered the event on Day 2, much to the chagrin of those who had a piece.

PokerStars announced plans to merge sportsbook and poker marketing tactics with the Big Race. partypoker handed Viktor Blom a million bucks. Alex Dreyfus flew to Hong Kong. Doug Polk bled humility in a YouTube video.

What do all of these people and institutions have in common?

Asian casino operator Donaco International reported a nine-figure net loss in the last six months of 2017 thanks to a writedown at its flagship Cambodian venue.

On Wednesday, the Australian-listed Donaco announced revenue falling 25.5% to A$44m (US$34.3m), while earnings slid nearly 42% to A$19.4m and statutory net profit after tax (NPAT) swung to a A$133.8m ($104.2m) loss versus a A$14.8m profit in fiscal H117.

Donaco’s results were undone by a A$143m non-cash impairment of the casino license of Star Vegas, the company’s flagship property in Poipet, Cambodia. Absent this big blotch of red ink, Donaco said its underlying NPAT would have been A$8.2m.

The writedown was the result of Donaco’s ongoing legal squabble with its former Thai vendor, who has continued to oversee gaming activity at the Star Paradise Hotel, which sits adjacent to Star Vegas, despite the contract between the parties having expired last summer. The Thai vendor also runs a second gaming venue “concealed behind a supermarket operation.”

Denmark’s Gus Hansen decided to step away from the poker tables and was only seen in a small handful of live tournaments from 2014 to 2017. During his almost 20-year reign at the tables, he recorded over $10 million in live action as one the top players at the felt, and then abruptly decided on taking the breather. The Danish legend is now looking to get back into the swing, but will first need to brush up on his game a little.

Denmark’s second winningest poker player took a trip to King’s Casino in Rozvadov, the Czech Republic recently to brush off the cobwebs and see if he still had the edge. He spent 14 days playing at the casino, battling it out against the casino owner, Leon Tsourkernik and other high rollers. The game of choice was Chinese poker and, while Hansen left in the black by about $123,000, he took one serious punch in the gut against Tsourkernik, losing a hand worth around $615,000. He briefly talked about the hand on his Instagram feed, but didn’t go into detail about how the hand played out.

From the Czech Republic, the 44-year-old Poker Hall of Famer is off to Vienna, Austria. He hopes to keep his positive momentum going and rebuild his game back into what it was before his three-year hiatus. Hansen has only played in a small handful of tournaments since 2014 and hasn’t reached the money in any of them. He’s hopeful that 2018 will be his turn-around year, and is expecting a much larger showing than what he’s given the past couple of years.

Hansen began his professional poker career in 1997. He made his first WSOP appearance in 2004, finishing in the money, and then returned in 2006, making it all the way to the final table. In 2016, though, Hansen reported that he was leaving the game for good, choosing to settle down in his native land to raise a family. After having won a WSOP bracelet and three WPT titles, coupled with the fame that follows, it would appear that he isn’t ready to give up the spotlight, and will try once again to be the Danish king of poker.

Upswing Poker has added another popular face to its contributors. The popular online poker training site has a wide range of courses led by celebrity poker players available for those looking to get into the game, as well as veterans that just want to fine tune things a little. The site recently introduced a new course, Elite Cash Game Mastery, and called on Andres Artinano to lend his skills and talents to the portal.

Artinano, who is also known as ‘educa-p0ker’ in online poker circles, isn’t a live-game top player, having only pocketed $39,000 in tournaments. However, he has racked up more than $1.1 million playing in high-stakes PokerStars games, and is often the go-to player for training on six-max games. He has been on the poker scene since around 2009, and his best online win was at the 2015 PokerStars Spring Championship of Online Poker where he won the main event for $578,621.

The Elite Cash Game Mastery course is one of the most advanced courses on No-limit poker offered by Upswing. It is designed to teach players how to master six-max games and Artinano is the right man to provide the lessons. The Spanish player is thought to be one of the top three six-max players in the world. Elite Cash targets strategy and performance through its series of videos, and offers insight into the science behind the game. The course consists of four sessions that cover the strategy behind each of the Texas Hold’em parts—the preflop, the flop, the turn and the river. Artinano provides video commentary on specific hands, breaking down strategies behind the decision-making process at each of the parts.

Upswing Poker was founded in 2015 by poker pros Doug Polk and Ryan Fee. It now has eight regular contributors onboard and is considered to be the number one resource for poker training and tips on improving strategy. There are numerous courses available for free, while others require a subscription. Some of the free resources include preflop charts, a flush draw guide, secrets to Pot Limit Omaha and how to crush three-bet pots. In order to take advantage of the Elite Cash Game Mastery course, a $999 fee is necessary.

Australian MP Andrew Wilkie has gone public with fresh insider allegations of “predatory” behavior by one of the nation’s major video poker (pokies) machine operators.

On Tuesday, Wilkie (pictured) announced he’d obtained compromising info on retail giant Woolworths, which operates around 12,500 pokies through the hundreds of pubs and clubs run by its Australian Leisure and Hospitality Group (ALHG) subsidiary.

Wilkie spoke with two staffers from ALHG pubs who claim they were required to interact with big-spending gamblers in order to glean information on personal habits and interests. The info would be kept on file and shared with staff not just at that venue but across all ALHG properties.

One of these unidentified whistleblowers told Fairfax Media that the idea was to engage these VIP customers in familiar conversation to keep them “gambling for as long as possible.” The whistleblower described the data collection as “profiling” while the customers “think you are having a general chit-chat with them.”

World Poker Tour President and CEO, Adam Pliska, has been rewarded with a new four-year contract, and Raw Deal host Phil Hellmuth is one of 31 players left in Day 4 of the LAPT Main Event.

Adam Pliska is an artist.

When he took over as President and CEO of the World Poker Tour (WPT) in 2009, Pliska, chisel in hand, looked at the company like a clean block of marble and began hacking away.

The company that he commands nine years on is virtually unrecognisable to the one he inherited. And his Lords and Masters recognise his value. Pliska a new four-year contract.

A 24-year-old student from the University of London has taken down the PokerStars MEGASTACK London event and with it a Platinum Pass, and BetStars and PokerStars partner in Big Race.

Whenever I hear the number 300, I think of the Spartans. Blood. Guts. Phalanx. War. I don’t know if the Battle of Thermopylae was on the mind of the PokerStars team when they created the $25k buy-in Player’s No-Limit Hold’em Championship, but it’s on mine.

At the time of writing, 35 players of all shapes and sizes, have experienced war to win a $30,000 Platinum Pass giving them a seat in the biggest event of 2019 outside of the World Series of Poker (WSOP).

The latest is a 24-year-old student from University College London called Peter Brankin, and it’s people like the young man studying a Masters in Social Cognition that PokerStars created the idea of the Platinum Pass.

Doyle Brunson gets his gun holsters in a twist after another controversial Twitter debate, prompting Lee Davy to prod the question of separating the art of poker from the art of the man.

I took my Dad out for dinner. The first time in 43-years I can remember us being alone for more than 20-minutes, other than a trip to Coventry in a lorry when I was too young to remember, what, why or where.

Things went well.

Until.

UK gamblers are gambling more on their mobile devices than ever before, but they’re losing interest in online gambling companies’ social media pitches.

On Tuesday, the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) published its latest gambling participation and perception report, which draws on interviews with around 1,000 random subjects every three months, then combines the results into a rolling year average to smooth out the effects of seasonality.

There are no major surprises in the latest results, which showed 45% of respondents copping to having gambled at least once in the previous four weeks, down from 48% in the 2016 survey. Excluding the National Lottery, participation falls to 31%, down two points year-on-year.

Excluding the National Lottery, online gambling participation remained relatively unchanged at 14%. The average online gambler held four different accounts last year, one more than in 2016, but equal to the 2015 figure.

Dr. Craig Wright, cryptocurrency pioneer and currently chief scientist of blockchain technology research and development firm nChain, is being sued for $10.2b by a relative of one of Bitcoin’s earliest advocates.

On Monday, word broke that Ira Kleiman, brother of deceased Bitcoin pioneer Dave Kleiman, had filed a federal lawsuit in the Southern District of Florida accusing Wright of acquiring via nefarious means some “hundreds of thousands” of Dave’s Bitcoins, along with “valuable intellectual property rights of various blockchain technologies.”

The complaint notes that Wright and Dave Kleiman shared a “longtime interest in cyber security, digital forensics, and the future of money,” and their early collaboration allowed them to accumulate “a vast wealth of bitcoins from 2009 through 2013,” the year Kleiman died following a long battle with MSRA.

The complaint says Kleiman’s family was ignorant of his Bitcoin holdings, because “for reasons not yet completely clear, [Kleiman and Wright] chose to keep their involvement in Bitcoin hidden from most of their family and friends.”