Former King of Las Vegas and his ex-wife, Elaine Wynn, have finally decided to see eye to eye and put an end to the bitter chapter of their lives.

Wynn Resorts Ltd. announced on Monday that its embattled former CEO has agreed to settle his ex-wife’s remaining claims to put all of the personal unpleasantness of the last few years behind them.

The “unpleasantness” that the casino operator was referring to was the 2010 stockholders’ agreement involving them and Aruze USA Inc. concerning the control of each party’s respective shares of Wynn Resorts.

It would be recalled that the controversial agreement barred any of the subscribers, including Wynn, Elaine Wynn, Wynn Resorts, and Aruze from selling their shares of Wynn Resorts without the consent of the other signatories.

Integrated gaming resorts in Japan would be the greatest development for international gaming since Macau. The coming Japanese Diet will hopefully be the one to pass the legislation making it official, though there is no need to jump on an investment trying to anticipate who will win the coveted licenses, sure to be extremely scarce and certainly big newsmakers.

It is generally agreed upon by gaming analysts that the first resorts won’t be online until the middle of the next decade, and that takes into account a strict gaming-industry-only perspective. From what these analysts know about their own industry and how long it generally takes parliaments to do anything to legalize it, 8 years is the accepted ballpark timeline. I see that as a minimum. It will likely take longer because there is no economy more bloated with dead weight in the world than Japan, and this by far.

The next recession—and there will be one eventually, certainly before 2026 when these new resorts are estimated to go live—will likely bring down the entire rickety scaffolding of the Japanese economy and the winners of these licenses may then have to delay their plans while Japan restructures and cleans house. Don’t get me wrong though – even though the monetary and fiscal picture in Japan right now is quite monstrous, Japan will recover. Its people are too resourceful not to and it doesn’t have a totalitarian culture like China. How fast Japan will recover depends on how fast the Japanese government can get out of the way.

My feeling is that since Japan’s government sector is so intensely bloated, when the credit fueling it dries up, it won’t have that much power to interfere in the economic restructuring to follow. It might want to, but it won’t be able to.

The World Series of Poker has once again changed its Player of the Year formula, this time basing the calculations on the World Series of Poker Circuit system.

Each time I log on to the wi-fi in Coffee #1, there is a mini-questionnaire asking me to rate on quality and to leave a remark. I have a pre-written statement I copy & paste each time.

“When it works, it’s a 5/5, but I am going to give you a 1/5 because you keep cutting me off after 20-minutes and I often lose work, or most importantly, my place in my Spotify playlist.”

I could also add – your chairs look cool but are uncomfortable, a woman must have designed the men’s bathroom, and your seats are too low for people using laptops causing backache – but I don’t bother; it’s a coffee shop, not an office.

A round-up of the final action from the partypoker LIVE MILLIONS Grand Final in Barcelona including the Main Event win for Pascal Lefrancois and a finale victory for Pedro Cairat.

I once asked Jonathan Duhamel who he felt was the greatest multi-table tournament artist in the world.

No hesitation.

Pascal Lefrancois.

Lee Davy catches up with Unibet Ambassador Dara O’Kearney to talk about his morning routine, his study buddies and why his wife is so awesome.

Dara O’Kearney is my type of man.

Normal.

The Unibet ambassador is the type of bloke that you meet in your local home game, sitting there in his Ziggy Stardust t-shirt, talking about life in the trenches. O’Kearney has an obsession for poker, anyone who knows him knows that to be true. But do you know a lot about Doke’s poker game – how it’s formed, and how he has remained a professional poker player for so long?

In June 2017, Hong Kong-based Aquis Entertainment submitted a redevelopment proposal for its Canberra casino. The company promised to invest US$256 million to upgrade the casino, and provided plans for six-star villa accommodations, seven new restaurants, a five-star hotel, night club, a day spa and a shopping mall. The project was lauded by many, with Aquis promising that it would attract an additional 750,000 visitors per year to the region. Australian regulators agreed to the project, and then a strange thing happened. Aquis went silent.

Aquis purchased the casino in 2014, marking its initiation into the Australian gambling market. It had hoped to eventually launch another casino, a larger project that would be built in Queensland. It then approached the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) in 2015 to pitch its expansion ideas for the Canberra property, and had proposed that 500 poker machines be installed. After a lot of debate, the expansion project was approved, but the ACT would only allow 200 poker machines. The poker machines would have to be locked down to A$2 per spin, and gamblers would have to announce prior to their play how much they would be gambling.

The news certainly didn’t sit too well with Aquis, who had apparently been counting on the poker machines to generate the revenue that would pay for the expansion. Now, after no new developments on the project since last June’s green light, the ACT is beginning to put pressure on Aquis, telling the casino that it has one month to finalize its expansion proposal, the Canberra Times reported.

Aquis now has until May 14 to show some progress toward the casino’s renovations. Gaming Minister Gordon Ramsay was quoted by the news outlet saying the ACT hasn’t received “critical information required for the process to move forward.” For its part, an Aquis spokesperson said that it was still considering the redevelopment, but didn’t elaborate.

We finish our round-up of Week 34 of the English Premier League with the dirtiest game in the league’s history as West Ham, and Stoke played out a 1-1 draw containing 36 fouls.

My boy doesn’t know what to do with his life. He’s at that age, where a boy becomes a man, and you have to put down your joystick and pick up a pen, soldering iron or a hammer.

Like most people aged 17, he wants one of those cushy jobs, the ones where you can sit on your arse all day, being paid millions for doing nothing. I was telling him that there aren’t a lot of jobs like that in the world.

“What about Andy Caroll?” He said.

An Australian gambler was able to parlay A$1,600 (US$1,245) into an incredible A$56,000 (US$43,000) after pulling off an upset win during a horserace in February 2013. While he basked in his winnings and the attention he received after the long-shot victory, some began quietly questioning how it was possible. The truth has finally come out, with the gambler among 78 looking at charges of fraud.

Edward Ridgway was the prophet who foresaw Alma’s Fury winning the race that day. The track was wet, which always resulted in a poor performance by the horse. Always, except for one race. That win unleashed an investigation that uncovered a history of fraudulent bets. All of the bets were perpetrated by the same individual, Stephen Charles Fletcher, who was already in hot water for receiving insider information in various gambling activities, according to The Sydney Morning Herald report.

Fletcher was first introduced to authorities in 2006 after he and his betting partner, Eddie Hayson, had won millions wagering on a rugby match. Authorities accused the pair of learning prior to the match that a key player wouldn’t be on the field due to an injury, and used the information to enter their bets. Both Fletcher and Hayson denied the allegations, and there wasn’t enough proof for a conviction. However, Fletcher was subsequently banned from gambling.

From September 2012 to March 2013, Fletcher used the identities of 77 individuals, including police officers, to continue his betting activities, according to the report. He has been shown to have been behind bets placed at a number of horserace tracks around Australia, and also in Hong Kong and Singapore. In one instance, he used Ridgway’s account in a horserace in Hong Kong, turning US$233 into US$13,774. In February 2013, Fletcher made 28 bets under the names of others in racing events ranging from greyhounds in Western Australia to harness racing in Penrith.

Italy’s problem gamblers now have a one-stop shop for excluding themselves from every licensed operator in the country’s regulated online gambling market.

Last week, Italian gaming regulator AAMS announced the rollout of a nationwide unique self-exclusion register (USR) that will allow gamblers to fill out a single online form – available via the regulator or gambling operators – to bar themselves from accessing Italian-licensed online gambling sites. Under the previous system, players were required to self-exclude from each site individually.

Once players have filled out the new form the online operator will have to immediately close the player’s account and forward the exclusion request to the central registry, after which all Italian licensees must bar the player from their sites. Players have the option of excluding themselves on a permanent basis or for a six-month period.

PLAYERS DOWN SOUTH, MONEY UP NORTH