Philippine prosecutors have tossed the perjury and fraud cases that Universal Entertainment filed against Japanese gaming mogul Kazuo Okada straight into the trash can.

Documents obtained by CalvinAyre.com showed that the City Prosecutors of Makati and Paranaque Cities have cleared Okada from any criminal liabilities after the government lawyers failed to find any probable cause to send the complaint of Tiger Resort Leisure and Entertainment Inc. (TRLEI), a subsidiary of Universal, to the lower court.

In the first complaint filed in Makati City, TRLEI accused Okada and former Tiger Resort President and Chief Operating Officer Takahiro Usui of besmirching the company’s name, claiming he made false allegations that TRLEI laid off employees in Okada Manila.

Philippine Senior Assistant City Prosecutor Renato Pambid, however, frowned at the perjury complaint of TRLEI, saying he is “not convinced that there is sufficient evidence to support a conclusion that the respondents’ assertion of a falsehood was willfully and deliberately made.”

Three stories from the hallowed halls of PokerStars including a fresh approach to the Platinum Pass rollout involving Team Pros, news of Portugal joining the European shared liquidity, and the cessation of real money games in Hong Kong and South Africa.

Ok, it’s 6:25 am, my left eye is welded shut with sleep, I have just carted my daughter off to my wife’s room for booby breakfast, and I have hardly slept a wink.

So it could be that.

Or, maybe I’m just not down with the cool kids these days?

South Africa’s biggest hotel and casino operator, Tsogo Sun Holdings Ltd. (TSH), has seen its business boom. Unfortunately, it has seen its debt boom, as well. TSH has announced that it will put the brakes on acquisitions and business expansion as it attempts to corral its debt.

In an interview with Bloomberg, TSH CEO Jacques Booysen confirmed the hotel and casino operator has been looking at opportunities, “but obviously we’re mindful of the fact that our debt levels are higher than they used to be. We are not just out there to buy anything that comes up for sale.”

Putting the brakes on investments doesn’t mean that TSH plans to halt expansion completely. It still intends to launch its Garden Court in Zambia, as well as a Southern Sun hotel in Ghana. Both should be open by sometime next year, according to Booysen. TSH will also continue with renovations at the Suncoast in Durban, South Africa, a project that carries a price tag of $127 million.

Booysen also told the news outlet, “We’ve got opportunities in the Western Cape, with the possible relocation of the smaller casinos into the metropole. Also in Cape Town, Tsogo has opened StayEasy budget hotels in the city, and Maputo.”

In 2011, the U.S. online poker world mourned the death of its beloved game, following the seizure of all online pay-to-play sites in what has become known as Black Friday. PokerStars, Ultimate Bet and Full Tilt Poker (FTP) were all indicted for illegal gambling, resulting in millions of dollars of losses and multiple fraud charges. FTP took it extremely hard, as it was determined that the site did not have the funds to repay its customers. Seven years later, Chris Ferguson, co-founder of FTP and a poker pro in his own right, has come out to say that he’s sorry.

Ferguson founded FTP with poker pro Howard Lederer and Raymond Bitar, among a few others. Lederer tried to offer his take on the matter in 2012 when he sat down with PokerNews for an interview that would become known as The Lederer Files. Bitar has long since been removed from the limelight, after pleading guilty in 2013 over his mismanagement of the company. He was sentenced to time served and reportedly ordered to make restitution in the amount of $40 million. Ferguson took a different approach—remaining silent throughout the entire ordeal.

Ferguson returned to poker and has been seen on the poker circuit in 2016 and 2017 and even won the WSOP Player of the Year last year, winning around $660,000 across both years. However, during the entire time, he has not once offered to talk about the FTP fiasco. Through his Vimeo channel, he uploaded a video on May 23 called, ‘Chris Ferguson reaches out to the poker community,’ in which he, ahem, apologized for Black Friday.

The video can be found here, but the text is simple:

It’s not uncommon for companies to spread out into other that don’t necessarily fit their primary business model—just look at Amazon. However, as the late Steve Jobs said, “Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.” Perhaps this is why the Philippines-based Leisure and Resorts World (LWRC) has decided to get into cryptocurrency and the blockchain.

Through its LR Data Center and Solutions, Inc. subsidiary, LWRC has decided to take on blockchain technology using EOS. The casino company hopes to become one of the largest EOS block producers in the Philippines and has set up a Technical Service Agreement with Fast Distributed Cloud Computing, Inc. (FDDC) in an effort to make it a reality.

In a filing with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, LWRC said, “EOS is a distributed ledger technology platform which can be utilized in a number of ways, to include cryptocurrency, distributed applications and industrial blockchain.”

“LR Data is already in the network and data center business, in its normal course of business,” LRWC said in a statement. “LR Data only intends to host an EOS node in the Philippines, thereby becoming a BP [block producer]. As a BP, LR Data will provide the data center co-location, redundant and secure network operations and customer service. For its services, LR Data will be paid a hosting fee.”

Darren Elias has won a historic fourth World Poker Tour Main Event after overcoming a stacked final table at the Bobby Baldwin Classic at ARIA, and Art Papazyan wins the Season XVI Player of the Year.

Legacy.

It’s a word that fits as tightly as heart-attack inducing underpants when I question professional poker players on vision.

I’m talking about the high end. The bellybuttons, not the bellybutton fluff. The players who take more out of the game than they put in. The stars. The jade gems you find on the beach amongst the scrabble testing the strength of the soles of your feet.

Potent beverages made headlines this week for Massachusetts’ fledgling casino industry.

On Thursday, MGM Resorts petitioned the Massachusetts Gaming Commission (MGC) to allow it to serve alcohol until 4am at its new $960m MGM Springfield property, which is scheduled to open its doors to the public in September.

Massachusetts only allows liquor-licensed venues to keep the suds flowing until 2am, but legislators amended the rules last year to allow casinos to serve alcohol for an extra two hours, provided the MGC approved their request. On Thursday, the MGC said it would solicit public comment on MGM’s request before rendering its verdict.

Anthony Caratozzolo, MGM Springfield’s VP of food & beverage, insisted that the casino wasn’t seeking “an open bar” and that the early morning hooch would be available only on the casino floor – not in the property’s bars and restaurants – and only to people who are “actively gaming.”

Tankanza, an Italian player based in Austria wins the $1.1m first prize in the $10,300 buy-in Spring Championships of Online Poker Main Event {H} after refusing a deal when heads-up with Julien Stuer. 

As the man in front of me sips coffee through a perfectly sheared beard while reading King Lear, I think about the size of a grand or two getting lost in the enormous potential of six and seven figure sums while playing poker.

It’s Julien Stuer’s fault.

The man who won the €1m first prize in last year’s €25,750 High Roller at the PokerStars Championship in Monte Carlo was trying to emulate his seven-figure ways in the online realm when he reached the heads-up phase of the $10,300 buy-in Spring Championships of Online Poker (SCOOP) Main Event {H}.

Atlantic City casino-in-waiting Ocean Resort Casino plans to offer a William Hill-powered sportsbook when it opens to the public next month.

On Thursday, the Press of Atlantic City quoted Bruce Deifik, owner of the Ocean Resort Casino (the casino formerly known as Revel), saying his venue planned to include legal sports betting among its gaming options when the property (re)opens to the public on June 28.

Deifik revealed that his casino had struck a deal with the US division of UK bookmaker William Hill to operate ORC’s new sportsbook. William Hill US already has a sportsbook-in-waiting at New Jersey’s Monmouth Park racetrack, which is set to open the moment Gov. Phil Murphy signs the new sports betting legislation currently making its way through the state Assembly and Senate.

Deifik said ORC’s sportsbook would occupy 7,500-square-feet of the property’s 138k-square-foot gaming floor, and will be centrally located to make sure patrons have no way of missing it. The sportsbook will feature private suites for high-rollers who don’t wish to rub elbows with the hoi polloi during marquee events like the Super Bowl or the NCAA final four tournament.