I first met Adam Small back in the pre-UIGEA days when Costa Rica was a major hub of iGaming and the online poker industry was absolutely booming. iGaming Affiliate Marketing in general was also booming, with plenty of small affiliates raking in the cash, especially those who knew a little something about SEO.

Nearly 15 years later, we’re starting to see the lucrative US market opening up again, an opportunity for many of the “old school” major players in the affiliate space, such as Small, to utilize their expertise. In fact, just recently Small decided to join RotoGrinders, a network of US-facing affiliate sites dedicated to sports betting, DFS and online poker, a company that was recently acquired by affiliate network giant Better Collective.

Here is a recap of Small’s journey from co-founding PocketFives in the early 2000s to becoming a part of one of the biggest names in online sports betting information today.

Becky Liggero: Adam, it is so good to be in touch again! We met back in the day when you were almost exclusively focused on PocketFives, an online poker forum & affiliate site- when did you decide to branch out into US-facing DFS & sports betting with the RotoGrinders network & why?

An opinion piece on partypoker’s decision to disable hand history downloads in a bid to make third-party software tools like Hold’em Manager, PokerTracker and TableNinja ineffective.

I remember the fear of not making the professional poker player grade. Butterfly wings reverberated around my belly with more force than during the decision to leave The Matrix.

The roles and responsibility statement for a ‘professional poker player’ screams ‘freedom’. There is no muzzle, because for many of us, at the start of our journey, we don’t know anyone who plays poker ‘professionally’. All we know is when we play; we feel free.

If I couldn’t turn a profit substantial enough to cover the life and death aspects of Abraham Maslow’s triangle, I would find have to give up my dream and find a ‘real’ job. I escaped from the path of least resistance’s magnetism despite the fear that I would have to start setting my alarm clock again.

Pennsylvania’s first satellite casino is officially a go while one of the state’s largest existing casinos is undergoing a name change.

On Wednesday, the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board (PGCB) unanimously approved the plan by Penn National Gaming (PNG) to construct a $111m ‘mini-casino’ in Berks County. Hollywood Casino Morgantown expects to open in late-2020 with 750 slots, 30 gaming tables (plus an option for 10 more), along with a sportsbook, restaurant and other amenities.

The state authorized auctioning off up to 10 Category 4 casinos under the gambling expansion legislation approved in 2017. However, the state called a halt to the process when the sixth auction produced exactly zero bids.

PNG won the first Cat 4 auction and also holds one of the other four Cat 4 licenses, with which the company hopes to build a venue in York County. PNG originally opposed the Cat 4 concept and only secured the licenses as a defensive strategy to protect its main Pennsylvania venue, Hollywood Casino at Penn National Race Course. PNG filed a lawsuit claiming the Cat 4 licenses were unconstitutional but ultimately dropped the suit.

News from the live tournament circuit including a massive Mid-Season Championship for the Mid-States Poker Tour, the belated climax of 888Live Barcelona, and news of the next poker sesh for tournament folk at the Borgata.

Mazen Abdallah has taken down an enormously popular Mid-States Poker Tour (MSPT) $1,100 Mid-Season Championship at the Venetian in Las Vegas after agreeing upon a four-handed deal.

The event pulled in 4,345 entrants over four starting flights, and Abdallah banked $445,000 after splitting the money with Sean Davidson ($306,325), Michael Shelton ($302,020) and Sheddy Siddiqui ($291,742) in the $3m GTD affair.

What’s Abdallah going to do with his newfound wealth?

The US Department of Justice is delaying – but not abandoning – its intention to enforce its new view that the Wire Act applies to other forms of online gambling beyond sports betting.

On Wednesday, Deputy Attorney General Jeff Rosen issued a memo instructing US Attorneys that the DOJ was extending the ‘grace period’ under which federal prosecutors “should not apply the Wire Act to non-sports-related betting or wagering.”

The grace period now extends to December 31, “or 60 days after entry of final judgment in the New Hampshire litigation, whichever is later.” The DOJ cautioned that this extension “is an internal exercise of prosecutorial discretion and does not create a safe harbor for violations of the Wire Act.”

Backing up for a second, the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) publicly issued a new opinion in January stating that the 1961 Wire Act, which barred the transmission of wagering information across state lines, now applied to pretty much all online gambling except the online horse betting covered by the federal Interstate Horseracing Act.

The World Series of Poker react to high roller feedback by including a second $50,000 buy-in event into the schedule, and New Jerseyans get the all clear to compete in all nine online bracelets.

A section of the high roller community was feeling a tad azure after the World Series of Poker (WSOP) decided to pitch the tent belonging to the $50,000 No-Limit Hold’em – 50th Anniversary High Roller at the entrance to the festival.

It’s not unusual for the high roller clique to dictate events at a tournament series. At the Triton Poker Super High Roller Series, you see it happening all of the time, and it’s always a win-win with the players getting more action, the tournament organiser picking up more revenue, and the fans finding another reason to give Love Island amiss.

“We got some feedback from players who thought [the initial $50k event] was too early in the series and they weren’t around for it,” said VP of Corporate Communications Seth Palansky.

The 1993 World Series of Poker Main Event winner, Jim Bechtel, ends 26-year drought with his second title, and father-to-be, Jorden Fox, wins his first.

With so much high-tech weaponry charging around the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino this time of year, it’s awe-inspiring to see a dreadnought like Jim Bechtel smashing through a World Series of Poker (WSOP) field.

After winning the 91-entrant Event #21: $10,000 No-Limit 2-7 Lowball Draw Championship, Bechtel told the press pack that he doesn’t play much poker these days, a statement backed up by his Hendon Mob profile with only four live tournament victories since 1979, none since 1993, and no ITM finishes in four-years. It didn’t stop him hailing ‘taxi’ for all eight of his final table opponents in this one.

Bechtel started the final table in the middle of the crowd. Jean-Robert Bellande, who won his first bracelet last year, was in pole position, and some heavyweights were bringing up the rear, including bracelet winners Paul Volpe, Galen Hall and Prahlad Friedman. Praise should also go to Ajay Chabra who made the Championship final after finishing runner-up to Yuval Bronshtein in the baby version.

Atlantic City casinos reported a double-digit gaming revenue rise in May, and even some of the older venues got in on the fun for a change.

On Wednesday, New Jersey gambling regulators announced that AC’s nine casino operators had generated combined slots and table game revenue of $222.9m in the month of May, up 15.3% from May 2018 and 7.3% higher than April 2019’s result.

All of AC’s land-based gaming options were contributing in May, with slots revenue up 13.8% to $165.2m and tables rising one-fifth to $57.7m. Throw in the $38.3m brought in by the casinos’ online gambling sites and the $5.5m from their sports betting operations and the month’s total gaming revenue haul was up 22.5% year-on-year to $266.75m.

For a change, two of the seven casinos that were open for business in May 2018 posted year-on-year revenue gains in May, although those gains were modest. Caesars improved 3% to $22.9m while Resorts Casino Hotel was up 4.2% to nearly $16.2m.