A wrap-up from the 2019 Irish Poker Open including a victory for Weijie Zheng in the Main Event and a peek inside the most productive side events. 

The Irish Poker Open is ’Geronimo.’ Not the leader and medicine man from the Apache Tribe between 1850 and 1886, but the 20th Century reusable condom that reliable sources said felt like wearing a cycle innertube.

Yesterday, the oldest live poker tournament outside of the World Series of Poker (WSOP) cremated their 2019 shindig and buried it in an emerald green urn.

The €1,150 buy-in, €1m GTD Irish Poker Open Main Event attracted 1,807-entrants. No blackmail required to create a mass, 34% stronger than 2018. Gargoyles, cannibals, hydrogen peroxide manufacturers – they all wanted a seat, and the CityWest Hotel in Dublin pushed them underneath bums.

The final of three Wk 35 English Premier League reports see Chelsea move into the top four after drawing with Burnley at Stamford Bridge.

The 35th week of the English Premier League (EPL), and when the leaders of Spurs, Chelsea, Arsenal and Manchester United reminisce they will grab the rats than gnaw at their heels and ask them to kick them in the shins instead.

A wasted opportunity.

Like terrorist cells rising in Afghanistan, it happens regularly; it’s as if the teams battling for whatever it is they are battling for become a thriving singular mass of DNA.

China’s lottery sales suffered their second straight month of year-on-year declines, while a former lottery boss will be suffering in prison for a lot longer.

On Tuesday, China’s Ministry of Finance announced that combined welfare and sports lottery sales totaled slightly under RMB35b ($5.2b) in March, around 13% less than sales in the same month alst year. This marks the second consecutive month that sales have fallen, and March’s decline was much larger than February’s 8.8% fall.

Sales were down across the board, with welfare lottery sales falling 16.4% in March to RMB16.5b, while the sports lottery was down 9.7% to RMB18.4b. Despite the two-month setback, sales over the first quarter of 2019 are still up 2.1% year-on-year to RMB 106.3b, with the welfare lottery down 6.1% to RMB49b while the sports lottery improved 10.3% to RMB57.25b.

China’s lottery sales had been on a fairly uninterrupted tear for the past three years, setting new records for annual sales, including last year’s RMB511.5b, which was up nearly one-fifth from 2017’s haul. In April 2018, the sports lottery overcame its traditional second-fiddle status and the welfare lottery hasn’t come close to regaining its crown ever since.

Sweden’s gambling regulator has slapped another six-figure penalty on an online gambling licensee for self-exclusion failures.

On Tuesday, Sweden’s Spelinspektionen regulatory body announced that it had imposed a SEK3m (US$321k) financial penalty on AG Communications Ltd, a subsidiary of Aspire Global, for allowing self-excluded gamblers to access gambling products via its 13 Swedish-licensed sites, including its main site Karamba.com.

In January, Spelinspektionen announced it was probing AG Communications and fellow online licensee Genesis Global Ltd after receiving reports that individuals who’d signed up for the Spelpaus online self-exclusion registry were still able to access the licensees’ gambling products.

Under Sweden’s new regulated online gambling market, all licensees are required to connect their services to the Spelpaus system, which not only allows gamblers to bar themselves from accessing Swedish-licensed gambling sites but also ensures they don’t receive marketing come-ons from Swedish operators.

Suncity Group has confirmed it has significantly boosted its stake in the company that controls the Tigre de Cristal casino in Russia’s far east.

On Tuesday, the Hong Kong-listed Suncity Group Holdings Ltd announced that it had boosted its stake in Summit Ascent Holdings from 3.29% to 27.97% at a cost of HK$717.8m (US$104.3m). Summit Ascent holds a 60% stake in Oriental Regent Ltd, which operates Tigre de Cristal, the only casino currently active in Russia’s Primorye gaming zone outside Vladivostok.

Summit Ascent announced earlier this month that the Taiwan-based First Steamship Company Ltd was looking to offload its stake in the Russian venture. First Steamship acquired its stake in late-2017 after Tigre de Cristal’s founder, Melco Int’l boss Lawrence Ho, decided his casino fortunes lay elsewhere.

Since Suncity acquired its initial stake in Summit Ascent last November, the two companies have been growing ever closer. In January, the two companies moved next door to each other in the same Hong Kong office tower, suggesting an even tighter connection between the two may eventually be in store.