What started with 807 entries is now down to 25 at the time of this writing. The annual $2,500 buy-in WinStar River Poker series Main Event at the WinStar Casino in Oklahoma is winding down, with the winner expected to be announced today. It has been a successful tournament that has seen participation by a number of poker pros, with everyone battling it out for a piece of the $2-million prize pool.

Among the familiar faces have been Maria Ho, Dan Heimiller, Rainer Kempe and Ben Zamani, who took down the event last year. Unfortunately for these players, they were not able to survive into the final round.

Several players, including Mike Wang, Allen Kessler, Anthony Spinella and Alex Greenblatt, made it past Day 1b. Kessler would make it to 89th place before being eliminated for $4,460. Wang followed shortly after in 79th for $4,480, while Spinella and Greenblatt stuck around a little longer. Spinella took $6,280 with his 48th-place finish and Greenblatt exited in 41st for $6,980.

Wendy Freedman, who took first in the $365 NLHE WSOP Circuit event this past March and second in the $1,675 NLHE WSOP Circuit event last October, was able to survive even further. She got caught in the big blind looking for a miracle against Brian Green, but lost to a flopped full house to be sent to the rail in 26th place for $11,860. With that pot, Green now commands 1,150,000 chips.

Sports betting in the US of A is a non-stop news feed run amok that scoffs at alleged downtime such as Labor Day, so crack another beer and read on.

With the new NFL season just days away, New Jersey’s mobile betting apps are multiplying faster than racist Trump tweets directed at black athletes. Over the weekend, the FanDuel Group and William Hill each launched mobile betting products, bringing the state’s digital wagering option list to five.

FanDuel Sportsbook is available via Android and iOS apps, as well as the standard desktop option, while Hills’ app is Android-only, at least for the present. Both company’s products are currently in a five-day testing phase restricted to a small batch of punters until the Division of Gaming Enforcement is convinced the products are ready for prime time.

Hard to believe it was only a month ago that DraftKings had the state’s mobile betting market all to itself. That monopoly was spoiled a couple weeks ago when MGM Resorts’ PlayMGM NJ Sports app appeared, while Rush Street Interactive’s SugarHouse Sportsbook followed a few days later. Expect this app-happy release schedule to only increase in the coming weeks.

Additional costs and depreciation at its Tiger Palace Resort in Nepal has forced Silver Heritage to alter its 2018 first-half financials. It now says that the loss will be even greater than previously expected and will amount to almost $9.94 million. Last year, it reported a loss of $3.52 million.

The results were published in the company’s filing with the Australian Securities Exchange yesterday. Just prior to the announcement, Silver Heritage suspended shares trading on the exchange and doesn’t expect to begin trading again until tomorrow. The filing also said that the company is “currently working on a capital raising, the details of which are still being finalized.”

Additionally, said of OCP Asia, the company’s bondholder, “Once the capital raising is completed, the debt amortisation and redemption premium payments to OCP at the end of the year will not be at risk of default. The additional funds will be for working capital requirement whilst Tiger Palace Resort is still in the ramping up phase.”

As of June 30, the fair value of issued bonds was a little more than $16.9 million. They have an annual interest rate of 8% – which must be paid semi-annually if in arrears – and are redeemable at “any time prior to the date of maturity at a redemption price that will entitle the bondholders to an internal rate of return equal to 15 percent per annum on the original principal amount of the bonds.”

I was standing outside the boss’s office holding a panel of wood (soon to be part of a kitchen counter). I had been there for 30-minutes. My back was aching. It was my first day of work. Sweet 16. After sanding the piece of wood, I asked my foreman what to do with it.

“Go upstairs, and ask the boss for a long weight.” He said.

“What do I do with this?” I asked, pointing to the smoothest piece of wood I had ever manhandled.

“Take it with you, and show him.”

3: Barrels of a PokerStars nature including the Platinum Pass giveaway reaching the halfway point, PokerStars Play moving into the US and Australia, and Liv Boeree featuring on another TV show.

In 1956, the movie The Ten Commandments hit the silver screen, Elvis Presley released his first hit record Heartbreak Hotel, and in Iran, someone in the birth certificate department scribbled the words Jahangir Mokhtari onto a piece of paper.

A week ago, that same person, known as “John” to his American friends, became the 160th person to win a $30,000 Platinum Pass for the $25,000 buy-in PokerStars’ Player’s No-Limit Hold’em Championship (PSPC), after taking down the Lucky Chances leg of the Moneymaker PSPC Live Tour.

After his incredible victory, the tournament organisers asked the 76-year-old for his email address so PokerStars could send him confirmation of his PSPC win, and furnish him with the necessary instructions leading up to his Bahamian visit.

The final round-up from the PokerStars European Poker Tour Barcelona as Piotr Nurzynski turns a €250 online satellite ticket into a million euros, and Max Silver puts his SnapShove misery behind him to pick up the win in the final €10k.

You can be anything you want to be, physical restrictions aside. As incredible as Peter Dinklage and LeBron James are, Dinklage was never going to play guard for the Miami Heat, and James was never going to make the perfect Tyrion Lannister.

So how about poker?

Can anyone be a professional poker player?

UK online gambling operator Sky Betting & Gaming (SB&G) has become the latest to offer a ‘minimum bet to win’ guarantee to all race betting punters, although some conditions apply.

On Monday, SB&G confirmed that it will now lay any horse to lose at least £500, provided the wager is made after 10am on the morning of the race. The guarantee also only applies to Class One or Two races, only covers the win portion of each-way bets and doesn’t apply to multiples.

SB&G’s announcement follows similar pledges from major UK bookmakers such as Betfair, BetVictor and William Hill, each of which have their own fine print to consider, but SB&G’s race betting business is believed to eclipse all those other operators, making this very good news for UK race bettors indeed.

The push for an industry-wide minimum bet limit (MBL) came via the imposition of a similar scheme in Australia’s racing market in 2015. Bettors’ rights groups such as the Horseracing Bettors Forum (HBF) and Justice For Punters soon began advocating for similar treatment from UK betting operators.

The UK division of Malaysian gaming colossus Genting has tapped a senior Betsson exec as the new sheriff of its digital gambling operations.

Last week, Genting announced that it had appointed Jeremy Taylor (not pictured) as its new interactive managing director. Taylor, who formerly served as group marketing director for Nordic online gambling operator Betsson AB, will head up Genting’s new Malta office, to which digital staff (including affiliates) are currently being migrated.

Genting’s interactive brands include GentingBet and GentingCasino, the latter site featuring livestreamed gaming action from tables at Genting’s Resorts World casinos in Birmingham and Manchester. Another live feed from the Palm Beach Casino in Mayfair is due to commence broadcasting this month.

Genting Casinos’ group managing director Mark Sergeant called his company “retail casino experts” but Taylor was “the ideal man for the job” of further developing its digital presence. Sergeant said Genting had “seen the incremental value generated through our online casino and sportsbook brands and are now ready to push forward into the next phase of our evolutionary growth.”