Imperial Pacific, the company behind Saipan’s Imperial Palace integrated resort (IR), wants to build 2,000 new hotel rooms. This is part of the reason that the developer doesn’t seem to be able to complete construction. Now, regulators are calling into question the amount of hotel rooms, indicating that Saipan would have to see over twice the amount of tourists for the hotel to reach full occupancy.

The Commonwealth Casino Commission (CCC), the gaming regulator for the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI), doesn’t think that the construction is necessary. The commission’s executive director, Edward Deleon Guerrero, told a House Committee on Gaming this past week that it should reconsider the proposal. He added that CNMI would have to receive two million tourist arrivals annually in order to service all 2,000 rooms. Last year, there were only 659,741.

Guerrero asserted, “I don’t think the CNMI could accommodate 2 million visitors a year. And I don’t think we have the capability to construct 2,000 rooms.”

The timing of his comments is a little odd. Only two weeks ago, the CCC approved a request by Imperial Pacific to extend its construction deadline until 2021. That is an extension of two and a half years past the most recent extension, which was a year and a half from the original deadline.

The WPT is on its way to Morocco in just a couple of days. The WPTDeepStack Marrakech festival kicks off on September 22, running through September 30 at the Casino de Marrakech. There will be a total of 26 events, including the €1,200 (US$1,394) Main Event, whose prize pool has yet to be determined.

There will be a menu for just about everyone’s tastes. NLHE is the main course, served in a number of styles – turbo, bounty, eight-max, monster stack and more. To spice things up, there is also a Chinese Poker Open Face tourney thrown into the mix.

The Main Event will run from September 27 through September 30. The tournament starts with all players sitting down with 30,000 chips and playing 40-minute levels, and blinds will start at 100/100. In the third level of the action, the big blind ante format will be introduced, requiring the player in the big blind position to make the ante for the entire table.

On Day 2, which will get underway on September 29, the clock moves from 40 minutes to 46 minutes. The final table will be set on September 30, with the final nine playing to 60-minute blinds. Once the heads-up battle begins, the clock is dropped to only 30 minutes until the tourney finds a winner.

A couple of days ago, Macau’s casinos were ordered to close up shop as a result of Typhoon Mangkhut. The order came from the city’s Civil Protection Operations Center on Saturday, which told all casinos to “suspend all gambling activities” as of 11 PM that night. The devastating storm, which has already claimed dozens of lives across Asia, will more than likely result in a decrease in revenue for both September, as well as the third quarter of the year.

According to Grant Govertsen, an analyst with Union Gaming (UG), the gross gaming revenue for the month will more than likely be impaired by 500-700 basic points (bps). The storm has already begun to subside, but Macau’s casinos will have lost at least 24 operating hours. This will result in lower numbers for the month.

Additionally, Govertsen points out that the growth rate for September was also reduced. Initially, UG had expected growth of around 14.7%, but the company now forecasts the growth to be between 7.7-9.3%. Third-quarter growth was lowered from 14% to 12%.

Govertsen says, “[I]t does not appear that Macau is facing widespread utility outages as was the case last year. This means that once given the greenlight to reopen by the DICJ, we believe virtually all flagship casinos can resume normal operations quite quickly. There does, of course, appear to be some flooding in the older low-lying districts of Macau (e.g. near Ponte 16 casino), as well as near the Macau ferry terminal, and even some road flooding in the Lisboa district, but we believe virtually all flagship gaming properties weathered the storm in significantly better shape than last year.”

The Stars Group continue to cross-pollinate both online poker and sports betting platforms by rolling out the successful ‘The Big Race’ promotion for a second outing, this time involving Formula 1. 

I stood up in the bath, grabbed the towel, and started drying my hair when I realised something had landed on my pecker. The whole thing lasted a second. I brushed it away with my hand, and saw that it was a bee, moments before I realised it’s rear end was sticking in my never region; cue the scream, and the embarrassment as my mum and two sisters burst into the bathroom to rescue me.

I was eight.

I have hated bees ever since.

The 2018 Poker Masters ended with two winners as David Peters took down the $100,000 No-Limit Hold’em event to win his third seven-figure score of the year, and Ali Imsirovic won the series and Purple Jacket, beating Peters by a narrow ten-point margin. 

Like a placenta lying on a chopping board, I’m not sure how to carve this up.

Let’s start with the series as a whole.

Going into the final event of the 2018 Poker Masters ($100,000 No-Limit Hold’em), Ali Imsirovic had taken the lead from Brandon Adams, after back-to-back victories in Events #5 & 6.

The online poker market in India is about to grow by one as Raj Kundra and his wife Shilpa Shetty continue their love affair with the game with the intention to open an online poker room. 

Say what you want about Raj Kundra, he doesn’t give up, quickly.

In 2016, the Viaan Industries founder intended to launch an online poker room where punters could compete with the likes of Shane Warne, Minissha Lamba, and Shetty herself.

The idea of Celebrity Games lasted as long as a Bonzai tree in a teenagers’ bedroom.