West Bengal’s government, as would any enterprise, wants to generate more revenue. It currently run lotteries as a means of producing much-needed funds, and the Bengal government has announced plans to begin selling tickets online to increase participation leading to increased profit.

According to a senior government official, “Tickets of West Bengal state lottery will soon be available on the Internet. We won’t run online lotteries but tickets of existing draws will be available on the Internet. This will help generate more revenue.” As with any subject, not everyone is on board, with opponents wondering if the move will be seen as an unnecessary promotion of lotteries.

Selling lottery tickets online is seen as a positive method for collecting more state-needed funds. Bengal’s Trinamul government has been under the gun to increase revenue as its coffers continue to decrease and money is needed for a number of welfare programs.

Currently, around $5 million is earned each year by the government through lotteries. The finance department has said that much more is possible through the opening of the online sales market. One official thinks that the amount could easily double through increased sales and increased lotteries. “A state like Kerala generates about Rs [rupee] 4,000 crore [$580 million] annually from lotteries. If we can make lotteries attractive in Bengal, we can earn around Rs 2,000 crore [$290 million] a year,” explained the official. Some are also pushing for lotteries to be drawn daily, as opposed to weekly like they are drawn currently.

Phil Hellmuth is known as a lot of things, some of which can’t be repeated here. There’s no denying the fact that he has skills at the poker tables, having amassed 15 WSOP bracelets and more than $22 million in live action. However, when he recently moved from the poker table to the poker booth, his skills apparently didn’t get the memo and his reception as a poker commentator was not received all that well by the community.

Hellmuth was tapped to sit down with Lon McEachern and Norman Chad to provide commentary for the WSOP Big One for One Drop tournament in Vegas. While he fortunately didn’t throw any of his famous tantrums, he was still called out for what came across as condescension and a lack of decorum for comments made about players’ decisions.

Most notably, Phil Galfond took to Twitter to chide The Poker Brat for comments he made regarding the world’s winningest poker player, Justin Bonomo (who would eventually take down the One Drop tournament for $10 million). Galfond tweeted, “I don’t post much negativity, but I really am bothered by the way @phil_hellmuth is commentating on such a prestigious event.  Implying that @JustinBonomo is on this amazing run with an inferior strategy and a lot of luck undermines poker as a skill game & robs viewers of a hero.”

Hellmuth read the tweet and said that he would try to “do better.” It didn’t exactly work. He began complimenting players and individual plays, but did so with a certain air of superiority that isn’t exactly keeping with the high standards of ESPN’s broadcasts.

After a Prahlad Friedman tweet once again gets the poker community talking about racism and sexism, Lee Davy, shares a personal therapy session in the hope that it helps inspires men to take a more in-depth look at how their actions ripple around the world. 

You don’t hear much from Prahlad Friedman in the average Joe poker community these days, but this week, the self-proclaimed poker legend and rapper caused a typhoon of a stir after stating that systemic racism is responsible for the high number ‘whites and Asians’ making final tables.

The ensuing conversation widened to cover sexism, with Friedman tweeting Vanessa Selbst and Jennifer Shahade (amongst others) to get on a call and discuss this issue as ‘yall are so much better than myself at articulating.’

Race.

Despite a low turnout for high rollers at the 2018 Aussie Millions, the organisers have added another $25k buy-in event to the schedule this time in the art of Pot-Limit Omaha, and Dominik Nitsche has Sam Greenwood wetting his pants.

Seven years ago, US Special Forces killed Osama Bin Laden, the United Nations declared that the world’s population had breached the seven billion mark, and Erik Seidel went on the heater of the century, winning $6.5m in a calendar year without cashing in the World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event.

Seidel’s heater began at the Aussie Millions where he topped a field of 20 entrants to win the AUD 250,000 Challenge for AUD 2,500,000 (USD 2,472,555) and finished 3/38 in the AUD 100,000 Challenge for AUD 625,000 (USD 618,139).

Today, the modern-day heroes win $6.5m in a single sitting, but back then it was a big deal.

The darling of Scottish poker, Niall Farrell, joins new esports venture No Limit Gaming when the entire world (me) thought he would end up at party or 888.

With estimates suggesting that the global esports market could top the $1.6 billion mark by 2021, is it little wonder that everyone wants a piece of that unbuttered toast.

The World Poker Tour (WPT) has told players to expect North American final tables to be played out at the Esports Arena Las Vegas at the Luxor, using the venue created by their parent company Ourgame International Holdings.

ESP Gaming built something similar at the ARIA.

Casino operator Penn National Gaming (PNG) has dropped its legal challenge of Pennsylvania’s decision to license mini-casino operations in the state.

In January, PNG launched a federal court challenge of Pennsylvania’s gambling expansion legislation, specifically the part that allowed the state to auction off up to 10 mini-casino Category 4 licenses.

On Monday, Penn Live reported that PNG filed a notice of withdrawal of its lawsuit with the US District Court on July 12. PNG spokesperson Eric Schippers explained that, while the company “continue to believe in the merits of our arguments,” the withdrawal was a “business decision” to allow the company to focus on its own mini-casino plans.

Pennsylvania imposed a 25-mile buffer zone around its 12 brick-and-mortar casinos in which the new mini-casinos couldn’t be built. The relative proximity of many casinos meant their buffer zones overlapped, which expanded their overall prohibited zone. Hollywood Casino’s geographic isolation meant that its buffer was limited to the 25-mile radius, something PNG felt put the casino at a unique disadvantage, given that most of Hollywood’s customers already came from beyond the 25-mile buffer.

Lee Davy bumps into PokerStars Team Pro, Lex Veldhuis, at the Triton Poker Series in Jeju, and the pair has a chinwag over the ins and outs of commentary, including a few views on Phil Hellmuth’s commentary style.

Talking all things commentary with PokerStars Team pro Lex Veldhuis Audio

The venerable Hong Kong Jockey Club (HKJC) is being sued for failing to pay out on a sports bettor’s winning wager.

On Monday, the Hong Kong Standard reported on a Small Claims Tribunal hearing involving a bettor, Wan Chun-lun, who sued the HKJC for failing to pay out some HK$48,750 (US$6,210) in winnings and keeping his original HK$15k betting stakes due to an error in scoring an English Premier League (EPL) match.

The match in question happened on March 11 between Chelsea and Crystal Palace, and Wan took the ‘over’ on the HKJC’s line of 14.5 corner kicks during the match. There ended up being 15 corner kicks during the match, but the EPL website originally listed 14 kicks before correcting their error less than one hour later.

However, the HKJC claimed that it had begun paying out on the winning wagers half an hour before the EPL updated its info. Despite Wan’s pleas, the HKJC decided to stick to its rules, which state that the official decision will remain in effect regardless of whether the game results are subsequently amended by the respective sports authority.

New Jersey’s Meadowlands racetrack handled nearly $3.5m in wagers from its new legal sportsbook’s first nine days of operation.

The Meadowlands’ FanDuel-branded sportsbook opened on Saturday, July 14 and the Associated Press quoted track operator Jeff Gural saying the book had handled nearly $3.5m in sports wagers in the book’s first week-plus.

Gural’s verdict on the sportsbook’s activity was merely “okay,” saying the track had met its first weekend handle target of $1m but “the next four days were quiet with nothing to bet on due to the [Major League Baseball] All-Star break.” The track did another $650k worth of business last Saturday once baseball resumed its normal schedule.

Gural claimed to be satisfied with the book’s performance to date, given that there were only “10 live tellers windows open.” Plans are afoot to expand the track’s betting capacity before the real betting begins with football’s return.

Gamblers in the Bahamas have caught a temporary break from the government implementing its controversial new taxes due to technical issues.

On Monday, the Bahamas Tribune quoted Tourism Minister Dinoisio D’Aguilar, whose brief includes gambling oversight, saying the government needed to “re-certify” the systems and games of so-called ‘web shop’ operators before imposing the new taxes.

In June, the Bahamian government introduced its 2018-19 budget plan, which included significant tax hikes for web shop operators’ revenue, while their customers faced a 5% tax on all deposits and purchases of lottery products. The revenue tax kicked in as scheduled on July 1, but the punters’ taxes have been delayed until the end of August.

D’Aguilar said the process of re-certifying web shop operators’ computer platforms by independent third parties – Gaming Laboratories International, in this case – is proving “not so easy” as the government expected.