3: Barrels of soup straight from PokerStars stock including news of a brand new online series for the folks at PokerStars Europe, a partnership with the cool clothing cats at Hugo Boss, and the opportunity to play a role in shaping the most important live tournament in PokerStars’ recent history.

Don’t be fooled by the title.

Thanks to the idiots who decide the laws of a world that belongs to no one and everyone the ‘world’ won’t be featuring in the World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) when PokerStars’ #1 online festival kicks off in September.

I am pretty sure the folks in South Korea won’t be playing. China may have to do with walking along that long wall. The Japanese may have the best ramen in the world, but they don’t have the best poker tournament.

Las Vegas resident, John Hastings, is suing Unikrn, stating that the leading esports cryptocurrency sports betting outfit circumvented US Securities law during their ground-breaking 2017 Initial Coin Offering (ICO).

A lot of interesting tweets rain down from the summit of Rahul Sood’s Twitter waterfall, but you won’t find one including the name ‘John Hastings.’

A lot of people love Unikrn.

Hastings is not one of them.

The legal team representing the Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa has suggested that Phil Ivey’s repayment of $10.1m, won when playing baccarat, will not compromise his ability to play poker professionally with games running online for less than $100.

The Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa want their money back ($10.1m to be precise). Phil Ivey has it, and his legal team are doing everything in their power to delay its return.

On August 4, lawyers representing the Atlantic City behemoth filed court documents expressing their dismay at the roadblocks erected by Ivey’s legal team suggesting several reasons why Ivey’s lawyer’s assertion that to repay $10.1m in a lump sum would cause “irreparable harm” is bogus.

The first is Ivey’s return to the live tournament circuit.

A round-up from the Premier League games involving the two Manchester clubs with polar opposite results during Week 2. 

Man City 6 v 1 Huddersfield 

Last night, I felt my first earthquake. Ok, maybe a tad dramatic – it was an aftershock. But the house rumbled. The key wouldn’t stop jangling in the door.

I felt completely and utterly small.

The Professional Golf Association (PGA) is on its way to Paramus, New Jersey for the 12th edition of the FedEx Cup Playoffs, scheduled to be held from August 23 – 26. The state is one of a few to now offer legalized sports wagers, and many expect to see bets taking place right on the course.

Following the demise of the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) in May, the subject of sports betting has been a hot-button item across the country, with many sports leagues joining the debates in an effort to receive an “integrity fee” from all wagers. This PGA Tour event will be one of the first major sporting events to take place in a state that has legalized sports gambling.

New Jersey already several sportsbooks operational. Six are located at casinos in Atlantic City and two are offered from horse racetracks, Meadowlands and Monmouth Park. Despite the PGA’s attempts at securing the integrity fee, it won’t see any proceeds from sports bets at the upcoming event.

The competition at the Ridgewood Country Club in Paramus will be the first leg of the FedEx Cup Playoffs. The club is located only about a half-hour from the Meadowlands FanDuel Sportsbook, which will allow gamblers to bet on which player will win at the end of the event next Sunday. 125 golfers are expected to tee off for the event, including possibly Tiger woods or Dustin Johnson. In addition to wagering on the winner, prop bets will also be made available.

Malta-based iGaming company Bethard is on a crusade to conquer Europe. In its latest move, the company has announced that it has been given a license to operate in Denmark. Now, the company holds licenses in the UK, Malta and Denmark and is looking next to Sweden, where it has already filed for a license and is waiting for approval.

Erik Skarp, co-founder and CEO of the Bethard Group, said that the company is “very satisfied” with the licensing approval. He added that the company is looking forward to developing a presence in the country and said that “2018 is a truly exciting year for us.”

Skarp said that the company’s expansion this year will help it “lay a solid foundation for establishing Bethard as Europe’s leading sports betting brand. And we have had a great start. First with the announcement of Zlatan Ibrahimovic’ joining our team, followed by a very successful start in the UK market and a great World Cup. Now the time has come to conquer Denmark.”

In addition to the license application in Sweden, Bethard has also filed for a license in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. The company, which offers an online casino and supplies casino odds, wants to secure a presence across a number of key markets in Europe within two years.

Two casinos in the US state of Pennsylvania were slapped with fines this past week totaling $160,000. The fines were levied by the state’s Gaming Control Board (GCB) after its Office of Enforcement Counsel reached an agreement with the two offenders. The fines come as a result of “various infractions” found at both venues.

In a GCB press release, the agency said that it had fined Washington Trotting Association, Inc. $80,000. The penalty was a result of an investigation at the company’s The Meadows Racetrack & Casino, which found that employees at the racetrack had issued over $830,000 in complimentary services over an eight-year period starting in 2009.

According to state law, only select employees are authorized to provide complimentary services, and a cap is in place on how much can be awarded. The authorizations are part of any facility’s internal controls, which are approved by the GCB.

Another $80,000 in fines was given to the Valley Forge Convention Center Partners, L.P., which operates the Valley Forge Casino Resort. One fine in the amount of $50,000 was levied for several infractions, including “Failure to safeguard its revenues and assets” and “Failure to maintain reliable and accurate financial records, including ensuring access, record and compare its assets, conducting regular audits and ensuring segregation of audit functions and responsibilities.”

The PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) will run from September 2 to 17 and has $70 million up for grabs. It has become a hugely popular series of tournaments with virtually every level of buy-in imaginable. It will offer two main events this year, including a $55 buy-in tournament with a $1-million prize pool, and a second, $5,200 buy-in event with a $10-million guarantee. Rival online poker site partypoker doesn’t want PokerStars to have all the fun, and has announced its own monster series of tournaments, offering a guaranteed $60 million.

The partypoker Powerfest Online Poker Series is scheduled for September 2 to 23. There will be a total of 670 events and will have a combined prize pool of at least $60 million. As with the SCOOP, there will also be something for everyone, with buy-ins ranging from $1.10 up to $25,500.

This is the ninth year for the Powerfest series and could be the largest in the history of the poker portal. Starting this Thursday, partypoker will offer players a chance to win part of a $50,000 pool of tournament entries. Players who log a significant amount of time playing on the site between then and September 1 will have the opportunity to win free tournament tickets.

There will be a total of 20 championship events during the series, of which 15 offer a prize pool of at least $1 million. The largest is a $25,500 Super High Roller tournament on September 20 that offers a $3-million guarantee. A few of the tournaments include:

She described herself as the “LeBron James of poker,” whatever that means. She certainly isn’t as tall as he is and has way more hair. Whatever her reasons, Geeta Singh became known as the madam of a Greenwich Village, New York underground poker game before her reign came to an end recently. Singh led the games, which had ties to drug trafficking, before her arrest in Atlanta, Georgia and subsequent extradition to New York. She appeared before a judge in an arraignment hearing last week, where she pleaded not guilty to six counts of gambling promotion, and was given a get out of jail free card while she waits for her day in court. The allegations of drug trafficking were not brought up during her arraignment.

A sting operation helped build the case against Singh and her accomplice, 52-year-old David Diaz. The investigation was led by the New York Police Department and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which determined that the two were leading several games with varying buy-ins starting at $200. The poker tables were open daily from 4 PM to 4 AM and reportedly brought in “tens of thousands of dollars” each night.

Diaz was allegedly the mastermind behind both the poker and the drug trafficking. Below him, 38-year-old Benjamin Guerrero managed a “drug stash apartment” and acted as the pit boss at the games. Singh managed and promoted the activity from her home in Atlanta. She would communicate with potential players via the “Meetup” social network and provide them with an exclusive password that would allow them to get into the building where the games were held.

The sting operation ultimately netted 32 people in New York, Georgia, Florida and Massachusetts. The Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) division of ICE led the investigation and HSI Special Agent Angel Melendez said of the arrests, “Those arrested today are not just alleged to have been involved in selling highly addictive drugs on city streets, but they are also connected with a sophisticated underground gambling operation right here in Manhattan.”