The UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) has opened an online survey aimed at improving age and identity verification procedures for casinos.

UKGC Programme Director Brad Enright said in a press release, “Our aim is to protect children, reduce gambling-related harm and keep gambling fair and crime-free. We would encourage anyone with an interest in gambling matters to read our consultation and ensure they have their say on these proposals.”

Specifically, the UKGC wants input on proposed changes to the agency’s license conditions and codes of practice, which will require gambling businesses to verify the age and identify of customers before they gamble or deposit money. Establishments must also ensure that the name associated with the payment method matches a gambler’s account. Among the details to verify identity are name, address, date of birth and e-mail address.

The commission noted that although gambling operators do not allow withdrawal of winnings until age is verified, a customer nonetheless is permitted to gamble and deposit money while waiting for the verification to be completed.

Building on our theme from Calvin’s CoinGeek Bitcoin Rebirth Party, my interview with Jan Sammut of Reftoken and beyond, the intersection between the gaming and Blockchain industries is starting to become more and more obvious, especially as gaming organizations are getting exposed to and educated on how the technology can improve their businesses.

At Distributed 2018, a Blockchain-focused conference bringing together professionals working towards a global decentralized ecosystem, Alphaslot CEO Raymond Chan spoke on the “Tokenize Business Model” panel and emphasized how Blockchain has the potential to make a massive impact on the Casino Gaming industry.

Alphaslot is a Blockchain-structured platform that connects relevant parties in the gaming ecosystem, including gaming developers, operators and players, using SLOT tokens and the ALPHABOT avatar. Adding social elements to the casino game experience is at the heart of Alphaslot’s offering and Chan believes his organization is set up to disrupt the casino gaming world.

Becky Liggero: Thank you for your time today, Raymond. You’re based in Hong Kong, can you describe appetite for Blockchain solutions in your region, especially from a gaming industry perspective?

India’s top online poker site, The Spartan Poker (TSP), is currently running a new type of tournament. The Big Win tournament will run all of September and will award a number of exclusive prizes, including a Mercedes Benz CLA. Big Win is the latest in a long list of poker activity that is helping to shape the industry in the country.

TSP’s recent India Online Poker Championship, which wrapped up on July 24, was a huge success and led to the creation of Big Win in an effort to keep the game moving forward in India. With the prizes offered, it is certainly going to attract a lot of attention. In addition to the Mercedes, there is also a Ford EcoSport, a Samsung Galaxy, an all-expense-paid trip to the US, a Sony 4k Ultra HD LED TV and many other prizes to be awarded.

The tournament will operate a little differently than most. It will have ten levels, with grand prizes being offered at every level. The player who earns the most VIP points – loyalty points awarded to players who buy into real-money games – will win the prize. In order to receive the keys to the new Mercedes, however, a player will have to reach level 10.

Says TSP co-founder Amin Rozani, “At The Spartan Poker, we are constantly trying to introduce new competitions and challenges for poker aficionados to prove their prowess. It is of utmost importance to us that we provide a safe and trustworthy platform for our patrons. We are humbled by the participation and excitement of our patrons during the IOPC tournament, and we hope that the Big Win, which is promising to be an even longer tournament will be an exciting one filled with many twists.”

The mid-states poker scene lost a well-known figure on September 1 when Eric Thompson passed away. Thompson was participating in the Oklahoma State Championship’s inaugural event being held at the Hard Rock Tulsa when he had a heart attack during a tournament hiatus. The 39-year-old had just celebrated his birthday on August 20.

Thompson has been a regular mid-stakes grinder around the Midwest US since 2007. He won the 2010 Hard Rock Tulsa Poker Open $340 NLHE, taking home $41,132 and followed that up with another first-place win at the 2014 Choctaw Fall Poker Series Championship (CFPSC) for $103,228. Three years ago, he took first in the 2015 Grand Poker Series $240 Championship and second in the Choctaw Fall Poker Series Monster Stack. Combined, he had accumulated a total of $545,075 in live-action winnings.

The Oklahoma native was having a successful run at the tournament when the accident happened. To honor their fallen friend, players allowed his hand to be blinded out, instead of removed. He was also honored with a moment of silence prior to the beginning of Day 2.

Fellow poker grinder and friend John Reynolds stated, “Eric we had so many hours of Poker played together and it was always a battle. You was also always there willing to share your hotel rooms and talk Poker. We had many a fun time all over, Tulsa, Siloam, Joplin, St. Louis, Las Vegas, Durant. I will cherish all the good memories buddy, you will be missed!”

In the middle of last month, gaming services company Success Dragon announced that it would be using shares placements in order to collect some spending money. In a filing with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange this past Tuesday, it confirmed that the shares placement had completed and that it was a relative success.

Success Dragon had hoped to raise as much as $12.4 million from the placement, but was only able to collect around $8.8 million. The money it collected from the shares placement will be used, in part, to fund business development. Another portion, $2.72 million, will be dedicated to the repayment of loans and other payables and whatever is left will be earmarked for working capital.

According to the filing, Success Dragon asserted that the investors who took part in the placement were all third-party investors. It added that, as far as it knows, none was an active investor with a substantial stake in the company.

With the shares placement complete, those investors now own 12.37% of the company’s stock. The amount of stock owned by the largest shareholder, Liu Shiwei, was also reduced as a result. Liu’s stake is now around 25.88% to 29.53%. A non-executive director, Yong Peng Tak, saw his share decrease from 0.03% to 0.04%. Previously, the publicly owned portion of the stock was 70.43%. Following the placement, that amount has dropped to 61.72%.

Silver Heritage suspended trading of its shares on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASE) this past Monday following a brief announcement that it would increase the losses expected from the first half of the year. The suspension was to be temporary, with trading restarting yesterday. As of Wednesday, however, trading was suspended “immediately” due to a pending release of an “announcement regarding a capital raising and amendments to the terms of bonds.”

When it suspended trading on Monday, the company indicated that it was “currently working on a capital raising,” adding that the terms of the deal were “still being finalized.”

In a recent trading update, the company declared that total losses for the first six months of the year had risen more than 182% year-on-year, reaching over $9.9 million. This, it said, was due primarily to the “additional costs and depreciation associated” with the opening of its Tiger Palace Resort Bhairahawa venue.” It also said that, for the same period, it had to contend with “additional interest expenses no longer capitalized following the completion” of the $40-milllion project, despite an increase in total revenue of 40.2%.

Silver Heritage has been around for a number of years, having been founded in 2003. It opened the Tiger Palace this past January and also oversees The Millionaire’s Club and Casino inside the Shangri La Hotel and Resort in Kathmandu, Nepal, as well as the Phoenix International Club near Hanoi, Vietnam. Both of those venues have reported earnings on or above expectations.

Technology giant Fujitsu, the multinational that has been behind computers, cell phones, cloud computing and more, is getting into gambling. The company has designed a cashless betting machine that is going to be seen at the Tokyo Racecourse this month before being rolled out to all Japan Racing Association (JRA) courses, such as those in Fukushima and Hasshin, and WINS off-track betting facilities.

The machine uses biometrics to verify identities and financial amounts. Gamblers will have their palm vein tied to their JRA membership card, which can be used as a debit card at the JRA racecourses. When a gambler scans his or her palm on the machine, the machine will confirm the identity and the amount in the card and allow the user to place wagers.

According to Fujitsu, the new devices provide for a “highly secure placement of cashless bets as well as payouts.” It added, “JRA is using Fujitsu’s cashless betting machines featuring palm vein authentication as they make counterfeiting difficult and offer high recognition accuracy to verify members.”

The devices are designed to counter a number of issues seen by gamblers at the racecourses. They eliminate the need to provide change to the individuals and also remove paper tickets, as all of the information is linked to the gambler’s JRA card.

An enterprising online gambler in Germany has used the local illegality of online casinos to get out of paying his VISA bill.

According to a report on German legal advisory platform Anwalt, the District Court of Munich recently dismissed a claim brought by Landesbank Berlin AG against a gambler who refused to pay the charges he’d made with his VISA card playing with an unspecified internationally licensed online casino.

Since the customer in this case didn’t deny making the charges, under normal circumstances the bank would be well within its rights in launching legal action to compel the deadbeat to pay his tab. But the gambler argued that the bank had no right to collect due to online casino gambling being strictly verboten in Germany.

According to Bundesgerichtshof (BGH, or Federal Court of Justice) case law, banks agree to fulfill the obligations of cardholders to merchants but have no special checking and control obligations due to the transaction fulfilling the cash-reserve function.

Three live tournament wins to catch up on including victories at the WinStar Resort, the World Series of Poker Circuit in Rotterdam, and the Bicycle Casino in Los Angeles. 

When it comes to the hierarchy of live tournaments, you can safely say that these seven are the Gondoliers of the canal.

The World Series of Poker (WSOP).

The World Poker Tour (WPT) 

Vietnam continues to punish those involved with a major online gambling ring the authorities disrupted this spring.

In March, Vietnamese authorities announced that they’d taken down an illegal online gambling ring based in the province of Phú Thọ that involved the cooperation – both active and passive – of some of the nation’s top cops and telecom operators.

The ring centered on an online casino game called Rikvip that required players to buy virtual credits for online play but which could be redeemed for real cash should a player wish to cash out. Police said the game attracted millions of users who spent VND9.8t (US$426m) in the nearly three years the ring was in operation.

On Wednesday, Vietnam News reported that the Phú Thọ People’s Procuracy had confiscated VND372b ($15.9m) from three mobile operators – Viettel, Vinaphone and Mobiphone – through whose mobile top-up cards the game play was funded. The People’s Procuracy has required online payment processors and 33 banks to similarly cough up their ill-gotten proceeds.