A plan to reorganize the racing club industry in New Zealand isn’t winning a lot of support from the smaller clubs in the country. The plan would force them to close down their operations, sell their land and then transfer the money to a central pool. The new pool of funds – in other words, other people’s money – would be used to upgrade the larger race tracks and to shore up staking money.

At risk are 20 of the 48 racing clubs in the country. The recommendations came from John Messara, a horse owner and breeder who just happens to be the Chairman of Racing New South Wales (NSW). The smaller clubs are resisting the plan and assert that it is nothing more than an illegal confiscation of their assets.

Fortunately, law may be on the side of the clubs. According to Justine Abernethy, president of Gore Racing Club, points out that the club’s constitution, which was adopted in 1889, stipulates that its land would be returned to the community if the club were ever to shut down.

Another club, New Plymouth’s Stratford Racing Club, is 125 years old and currently has 60 horses in training. The land is worth around $2.3 million and is completely owned by the club. Stratford Racing Club president John Gray asserts, “We certainly didn’t think the recommendation in the report would have us selling up and not able to continue as a training centre.”

The Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria in California have a million reasons to celebrate. 43 million, to be exact. An arbitration panel has shot down a lawsuit by Kenwood Investments, a real estate development firm out of Sonoma, California, that had sought to receive $43 million from the tribe.

The ordeal began simply enough about five years ago when the tribe and Kenwood founder Darius Anderson signed an agreement. That agreement specified that Kenwood would help the tribe buy land and develop a casino and, in return, receive 4% of the casino’s revenue for the first seven years of operation.

The contract began in 2003, but Kenwood backed out in 2005. It would be another eight years before the casino, the Graton Resort & Casino, would open. Anderson filed his lawsuit the following year in San Francisco Superior Court.

While the contract initially stipulated a 4% payment, this was later reduced to 2.5%. Anderson was suing for loss of income and a breach of contract on the part of the tribe. However, the tribe countered that Kenwood did not fulfill its obligations as stipulated in the contract and was, therefore, not entitled to anything.

Pennsylvania casinos reported a modest gaming revenue bump in August, while Boyd Gaming formally assumed ownership of one of the state’s lesser lights, and Penn National Gaming went full mallrats.

On Monday, the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board (PGCB) reported that gaming revenue at the state’s 12 brick-and-mortar casinos hit $275m in August, a 2.8% improvement over the same month last year. August’s slots revenue improved 4.4% to $201.7m while table games fell 1.3% to just under $73.3m.

Seven casinos reported overall negative growth in August, with most of the decliners reporting steep drops in table revenue. Sands Bethlehem, the state’s perennial top table earner, saw its tables down 6.35% to $18.7m, while tables at perennial runner-up Parx nearly closed the gap, rising 8.4% to $17.4m. Parx won the overall revenue race with nearly $52.2m (+8.5%), while Sands was well back in second with $44.4m (-1.4%).

BOYD HANDED VALLEY FORGE’S KEYS

A round-up of the final weekend of the PokerStars’ World Championship of Online Poker including two wins for Dzmitry Urbanovich, a fourth title for Mike Watson, and the biggest win of the series thus far for Linus Loeliger. 

Poker players from around the globe are about to grow accustomed to the shaking of hands again, as their sole reason for hibernating in their bedroom like a vampire draws to a close.

The 16th Annual PokerStars’ World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) has waved bye-bye to its final weekend. So far, 714,544 entrants have competed in 165 events, creating $70,588,896 in prize money dished out to 111,764 people, and that’s not including the Main Event data yet to come.

The King Cobra in the PokerStars’ snake charming kit is the $5,300 buy-in, $10m Guaranteed Main Event (H), and yesterday Stars surpassed that guarantee thanks to 2,044 entrants (1,572 unique, 472 re-entries) creating a $10.22m prize pool. The winner will take home $1,529,002.94, and the likes of Noah Boeken, Lex Veldhuis and Liv Boeree are still in with a chance of winning that incredible sum of money.

The World Poker Tour’s second visit to Japan has proven to be another success as Shingo Endo takes down the Main Event before vowing to use his WPT Global Ticket for a dream come true trip to Vegas. 

The hedgehogs.

I fucked that up.

I don’t know what I was thinking? I saw the ad for a Hedgehog Cafe and thought of Darjeeling, pinkie fingers, and a few hedgehogs on tap for stroking.

Three barrels with a distinctive partypoker flavour including a victory for Colin Gillon in the 2018 partypoker LIVE Irish Poker Masters, a nice pick up for Ben “CowEyed” Tollerene in POWERFEST, and Sam Trickett makes an appearance in the UK rags. 

Smarter people than me listen to a single tune on repeat when they write believing they are more likely to get into the zone. I tried it yesterday. It didn’t work. I spoke to a friend of mine who is far superior to me, and he told me to change the track, so today, no more Deeply Dippy by Right Said Fred, and instead I’m listening to Bad Radio by Leftfield. 

As you can tell from that first paragraph, I need a new line.

This one’s not working.

Gambling regulators in 15 European jurisdictions and one US state have issued a joint statement expressing concern over increased gambling activity in video games.

On Monday, gaming regulators in Austria, the Czech Republic, France, Gibraltar, Ireland, the Isle of Man, Jersey, Latvia, Malta, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, the UK and the US state of Washington issued a joint letter expressing their concerns over “the blurring lines between gambling and gaming.”

The letter singles out two main areas of concern: ‘skin’ betting and loot boxes. The former involves websites that use virtual goods from eSports games as currency for gambling activities, while the latter involves the sale of virtual items hidden inside loot boxes, the contents of which aren’t revealed until after purchase, a process that critics have compared to the online slots play.

The letter also mentions social casino gaming, which mimics real-money play but involves virtual currency, as well as “the use of gambling-themed content in video games available to children.” All of the above contain what regulators describe as “similar characteristics” that prompted them to regulate online gambling in the first place.

Lee Davy, sits down with Garry Gates, Senior Consultant of Player Affairs for PokerStars Live, to talk about his first year in the job.

The first person I see when I walk into the Pullman Hotel, Barcelona, after travelling for 20-hours is a sweaty, happy looking Garry Gates, the man PokerStars felt was the right person to fill the position of Senior Consultant of Player Affairs for PokerStars Live.

The sweat is a byproduct of a crack of dawn workout.

I’m not suggesting for one minute than Gates has a body odour problem. He smells quite lovely.

Stop us if you’ve heard this one before, but Kenya’s on-again, off-again plans to reduce its new 35% gambling tax are back on-again, at least for today.

On Monday, Business Daily reported that Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta (pictured) had refused to sign the new Finance Bill, 2018, and had instead sent parliament a memo asking them to reintroduce a measure to reduce the country’s new uniform gambling tax rate from 35% to 15%.

If you’re just joining us, Kenyatta himself signed legislation in June 2017 that boosted gambling taxes from as low as 5% (for lotteries) and 7.5% (for betting operators) to a new uniform 35% rate for all gambling products. The new rate officially kicked in on January 1.

Since Kenyatta signed on the bottom line, gaming companies have fiercely lobbied legislators to reduce their tax rate to something they believe doesn’t make their Kenyan operations unworkable. Two such reprieve efforts have already gone down to defeat, including an amendment to the Finance Bill that was rejected earlier this month.

China’s lottery sales soared by more than three-fifths in July as football-mad customers stormed sports lottery offices for the World Cup finale.

On Monday, China’s Ministry of Finance announced that overall lottery sales had hit RMB 54.4b (US$7.91b) in the month of July, a nearly 62% spike over the same month last year, as bettors raced to place their wagers on the second half of the 2018 FIFA World Cup tournament.

Both June and July’s lottery results benefited from bettors’ excitement over the World Cup, although July’s overall sales took a slight dip from June’s record result.

July’s sports lottery sales soared 117.5% year-on-year to RMB35.5b, although this was RMB4b lower than the sports lottery earned in June, which included the group stage of the World Cup tournament. Overall, ticket sales specifically related to the 2018 World Cup hit a record RMB46.34b, a nearly fourfold increase from the 2014 event’s returns.