The Chip Race podcast has quickly become a favorite of the poker community. It was started by Irish poker players Dara O’Kearney and David Lappin, and, later, found backing through Unibet Poker. The podcast is now in its sixth broadcasting season, and is calling on some of poker’s heavy hitters to sit down with them and discuss the game.

The first episode of the season, which became available nine days ago, featured Sam Greenwood and Alex Henry, creator of the Deepstack Open. Joining them was sideline reporter Laura Cornelius, with O’Kearney discussing strategy from a key hand that developed during recent participation in his eighth PocketFives Triple Crown.

Episode 2, which was uploaded this past Tuesday, features Adam Owen and Maria Ho. The poker greats discussed topics such as their routines and preparation ahead of large online games. Owen also went into strategy tips for those who want pointers for mixed-game events.

Viewers will have to wait a few more days for episode 3, which will be available as of May 29. The show will feature PocketFives community manager Kevin Mathers, Allen Kessler and poker streamer Ben Spraggs. Daiva Byrne, also known as the “Baltic Blonde,” will participate as well, discussing the recent Unibet Open Malta tournament.

The nays have it. An executive compensation plan drafted by executives at Wynn Resorts was met with overwhelming disapproval during the annual shareholder meeting last week. According to a company regulatory filing last Tuesday, 78.9% of the shareholders denied the plan, while only 19.7% had approved it.

A spokesman for the casino company told the Wall Street Journal that the board of directors was prepared for the rejection of the plan, and that it would be discussing updating the details, noting that, “Compensation practices will be a part of that [proposed] evolution, and we look forward to the future support of our stockholders through the process.”

In an April proxy statement that was released prior to the annual meeting, the Wynn Resorts compensation committee had tentatively reached an agreement with Matt Maddox upon his promotion to CEO. The committee also approved agreements with its executive VP and general counsel, Kim Sinatra, and Craig Billings, the company’s chief financial officer.

As part of the executive compensation plan, Maddox was set to receive a base salary of $2 million a year, coupled with an annual bonus equal to 250% of the base salary. The termination date of the agreement was also extended, pushing it back to February 27, 2021 from its original December 31, 2019. Maddox would have been eligible to receive a severance package worth at least 18 months’ of salary, instead of 12 months’ salary as was previously stipulated.

PokerStars have moved quickly to fill the void left by Split Hold’em by creating a new cash game variant known as Showtime Hold’em, a game where folded hands are shown face-up for all to see.

If you’re a book, then you’re better off snuggling up next to other books in Waterstones, Barnes & Noble or some aged-old bookstore in Budva.

Competition is fierce, but you have to be in the arena with other books. Otherwise, nobody will see you. Nobody will touch you. Nobody will read you.

All the books are helpful to each other, but underneath earmarked, child food splattered pages there is envy. At night when the books go to sleep, the savvy ones inch their spines forward.

Product differentiation and listening to the needs of customers are of upmost importance if operators in the online gambling space wish to succeed in an overly-saturated marketplace. There is always risk involved when trying something new, but if you’re able to get it right, the rewards are endless.

Codeta is an example of an online gambling operator that has taken a chance and is doing things differently. I learned this first-hand when I attended a Codeta VIP affiliate event in Stockholm several years ago, a 48 hour adventure designed to educate affiliates on the concept behind the innovative online casino while having a little fun celebrating its launch.

Codeta’s CMO, Joakim Amadeus Olsson, joined the operator this spring after having worked the past six years as a strategy consultant with a focus on identifying future growth and defining meaningful future roles for brands.

“The red thread in what I’ve been doing has been to help good companies be more relevant for their core customers in transformative and challenging markets. The winners have been those who best understand the needs of their customer and are bold enough to embrace the shifting requirements. That’s why I found Codeta so interesting”, he shared.

Former PokerStars ambassador, Eugene Katchalov, shares an update with his fans showing a keen focus on using his precious time to focus on his esports startup QLASH, referring to himself as a ‘recreational poker player trying to have fun.’

The sun is out. The man with half of his face melted away sticks a cigarette stub in his mouth, and lights, burning his nasal hairs in the process.

The cold weather gear is gone, replaced by skimpy shorts and tops; women are tugging at hems making me wonder why they put them on in the first place. Men show off body art for the first time all year.

The melted man gets to his feet, hobbled gait in waiting. Joanna fails in her attempt to create a creamy leaf-like symbol in another Coconut Latte, and I wonder why she chose to leave Colombia for Cardiff.

New Zealand’s minister for internal affairs is demanding a rewrite of the country’s gambling laws to prevent online casinos from advertising on local television.

For the past week or so, local online magazine The Spinoff has been running alarmist pieces about Malta-licensed online casino JackpotCity advertising its dot-net free-play site on Kiwi television. The adverts were likened to a ‘Trojan horse’ intended to trick customers into visiting the real-money dot-com casino site.

The Spinoff claims JackpotCity’s true intent is evident in the fact that if you don’t remember the commercial telling you to go to the dot-net address and instead do a Google search on ‘JackpotCity,’ you’re far more likely to find the dot-com version at the top of your search results. To which we say, well, duh.

The Spinoff was forced to concede that there’s no law preventing JackpotCity from promoting its free-play site in this manner. Last October, a confused Kiwi who believed that promoting real-money online gambling on TV was agin’ the law (which it is) complained to the NZ Advertising Standards Authority about a JackpotCity ad, but the watchdog found “no grounds for the complaint to proceed.”

Unibet has signed esports star Alan ‘Hotted89′ Widmann to act as a brand ambassador in an inspired move, and Daniel Jacobsen wins the Unibet Open in Malta.

One man’s heaven is another man’s hell.

I remember interviewing Unibet’s ambassador, Espen Uhlen Jørstad, for a PokerListings piece, back when my fingers couldn’t stop moving, and I was churning out more shit than Eric Carle.

Jørstad told me how he would hide from the world because he didn’t feel like he belonged. Instead of walking to the chemist to ask for a pill, Jørstad hid in his bedroom, spending his time killing Orcs and Elves in World of Warcraft (WoW).

Three barrels rolled out of 888Poker’s cellar including Anton Wigg joining Team Sweden in the 8-team promotion, a reminder that 888Live Barcelona is just around the corner, and JohnFoot wins the XL Inferno Main Event.

Poker is a battleground.

It’s not the place for people with licorice stick like backbones.

Preparation is key, and they don’t come more prepared than the Swede’s.

Brazil’s ongoing failure to pass new gambling legislation has created a void that the country’s unauthorized operators are only too happy to fill.

This week, the Rio de Janeiro-based O Globo newspaper reported that the illegal operators behind the popular ‘jogo do bicho’ (animal game) lottery have branched out into sports betting to take advantage of the growing excitement over next month’s kickoff of the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia.

Jogo do bicho traditionally offers players a selection of animal pictures, each one associated with four numbers. If one of these numbers matches the last two digits of the official state lottery drawings, the ticket is a winner.

O Globo claims jogo do bicho operators are now offering a couple sports betting variants, including one called Lotto do Bicho. It’s essentially parlay wagering, presenting a sheet with a list of football fixtures from local leagues to European matches, on which bettors can pick one team to win or the match to end in a draw.

Malta’s gaming regulator hopes to launch a unified self-exclusion system across all its online gambling licensees.

On Tuesday, the Malta Gaming Authority (MGA) announced that it was embarking on a project to enable gamblers to “self-exclude across all licensed gaming channels, be it land-based or remote.” The announcement follows the recent upgrade in the MGA’s unified self-exclusion system for its land-based gaming licensees.

The MGA’s licensed online operators are currently required to offer self-exclusion services to their specific gambling clients, but the MGA believes there remains “a gap in the protection offered within its regulated environment.”

The MGA says it will spend the next few weeks assessing a range of technical solutions, which could include Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) due to its “inherent characteristics of immutability and decentralization.” In March, the MGA announced plans for a ‘sandboxed test environment’ of DLT to determine its suitability for use by Malta’s gaming operators.