“[E]verything is true, but none of it happened. “

Patrick Marber

Anyone associated with gaming, online or off, has run into it. Gambling, and often enough gaming in general, is denounced a menace to morality, a booby-trap for the young and unwary. It’s all a waste of time and money that gives children anti-social habits. It encourages violence.

And so forth. But now we see the most damning accusation of all: online gaming was part and parcel of the Russian collusion, the attempt to throw the 2016 Presidential election.

3: Barrels of a World Series of Poker vintage including Circuit victories in North America and Africa, and a new role for a former commissioner.

Let’s go all Erasure and set sail for California on a ship of fools, sails billowing in the dry arid dirt, a wallet full of interest-free credit cards burning a hole in our Levi’s pocket alongside a ticket to a game.

What game?

The World Series of Poker (WSOP), baby.

The Netherlands’ gambling regulator is looking for new ways of punishing unauthorized gambling operators after admitting it’s powerless to collect the financial penalties it imposes.

On Monday, the Kansspelautoriteit (KSA) gaming regulatory body published its draft Monitoring Agenda 2019, which spells out the regulator’s plans for overseeing both legal and illegal operators doing business with Dutch gamblers. Interested parties are invited to submit responses to the draft Agenda by February 11.

The KSA notes that the Dutch Senate has scheduled a debate on the country’s Remote Gambling Bill for February 5, with a possible vote scheduled one week later. The bill, which was passed by the legislature’s lower chamber three years ago, would open up the Dutch market to international online operators for the first time.

Assuming the Bill is approved, the KSA says it will face the new task of vetting new online licensees. The KSA also plans to “counteract the disproportionate increase in advertising” that the new liberalized market is expected to create. Online licensees will be required to “advertise in a reserved way” that takes into account “the special nature of gambling.”

Sweden’s gambling regulator has publicly warned all its new online licensees that they need to comply with the new rules or else.

On Tuesday, Sweden’s Spelinspektionen regulatory body (formerly Lotteriinspektionen) made public a strongly worded letter it sent to the 66 companies approved to operate under the country’s new gambling regulations, which took effect on January 1.

The letter said Spelinspektionen had received “many complaints and tips on deficiencies in gaming companies in several different areas.” Chief among these faults is some licensees’ failure to check customers’ names against the new Spelpaus self-exclusion register before (a) permitting them to gamble, or (b) sending them promotional material inviting them to gamble.

Spelinspektionen also reminded its licensees that their websites need to prominently feature the Spelpaus logo (along with the regulator’s other two responsible gambling features) and ensure its link to the program is active. Any operator whose website has yet to institute these requirements needs to take action “immediately” or face the consequences.

Spanish gaming operator Codere has moved its digital operations to the Spanish enclave of Melilla in a bid to reduce its tax burden.

Last Friday, the Autonomous City of Melilla, a Spanish enclave on the shores of Morocco, confirmed that Codere’s digital sports betting brand Codere Apuestas had moved its headquarters to the city. Local media quoted Melilla vice-president Daniel Conesa saying the city had been contacted by four other companies interested in making a similar move.

These companies are undoubtedly drawn by the 10% tax rate on gambling revenue offered in Melilla and its sister city Cueta, which is similarly situated on the African continent. That’s half the rate charged on the Spanish mainland, and Melilla has also slashed rates on the local equivalent of VAT for technology firms with the specific intent of attracting online gambling firms.

UK-based online gambling companies who currently use Gibraltar as their European-facing HQ may also be eyeing Melilla and Cueta – and other gaming-friendly hubs such as Malta – as a means to retain access to EU markets if the UK’s Brexit debacle continues to unfold as if organized by cranky toddlers.

Lee Davy sits down with Eric Hollreiser, Director of Poker Marketing for PokerStars, to hear his thoughts on the success of the PokerStars’ Player’s No-Limit Hold’em Championship, and to gauge whether the brand lives or dies.

Up in the sky was a blood red moon shaped like a spade. It had dug a crater in the centre of the universe so big it forced you to watch. A black sky of a thousand eyes, this time, had 320.

Twinkling.

Teasing.

Another round-up from the Aussie Millions neither live, nor direct, and not from the Crown Casino in Melbourne, but a Starbucks in Tujunga, LA, including wins for Ari Engel, Daniel Mayoh and Paul Hockin.

Other than some dickhead driving down the freeway while reading a book, an ex-teacher facing the beak on child pornography charges, and a fifth woman murdered in the past six years, it’s been a relatively quiet day in Melbourne.

The poker bubble allows us to be whisked away from the startling truth of the human condition, much like Glinda the Good Witch of the South floating to the Emerald City inside her little pink effort.

That bubble currently sits in Melbourne, unseen by the Muggles, and one person who hitched a ride is Ari Engel.

Uganda has clarified its new anti-gambling policy, saying it is only directed at international firms that have set up operations in the African nation.

On Monday, Ugandan state minister of finance for planning David Bahati announced that President Yoweri Musuveni had instructed him to issue no new gambling or betting licenses, while those licenses already issued wouldn’t be renewed once their current terms expire.

On Tuesday, Ugandan media quoted Finance Minister Matia Kasaija saying that the new policy was specifically targeted at ‘foreign’ sports betting companies that repatriate revenue from their local betting operations back to their base of operations outside Uganda.

Kasaija said the country was “not banning gaming. We’re saying this activity should be limited to only Ugandans. We have said that licensees that are running will not be renewed and new ones will not be issued to foreigners because we’ve discovered so much of our money is being exported through that gaming thing which as far as I am concerned has little value to the economy.”