On December 17, the Genting Group announced that they had appointed Bob DeSalvio as their new president of Genting New York State. In his new position, DeSalvio will oversee the operations of Genting’s two casinos that are located in New York, Resorts World Catskills and Resorts World Casino New York City.

[Image credit: Resort World Global]

DeSalvio comes with a wealth of experience in the gaming industry. He most recently served as the president of Encore Boston Harbor. There he led the development, design, staffing, and opening of the largest development project in the history of Massachusetts, a project that cost a total of $2.6 billion. This project opened last June.

Previous to his time at Encore, DeSalvio served eight years as the president of Sands Casino Resort Bethlehem. He joined the Las Vegas Sands Corporation in 2006 when Pennsylvania issued a license for the property design and construction that he led, an $840 million project. That casino was sold earlier this year for an impressive $1.3 billion.

The latest €25,000-entry high roller at EPT Prague saw two of the format’s favourites both bag around €400,000 and chop the top prizes as an entertaining event played out at the Hilton in the centre of the Czech capital.

With 66 entries (including 23 re-entries), the single-day format of high rollers was hugely popular among poker’s elite set, and many regulars from events such as this that take place all over the world were again present.

Sam Greenwood took his own seat in the first level and he wasn’t alone, with players such as Adrian Mateos, Daniel Dvoress and the Japanese player Tsugunari Toma all keen to get amongst it from the off.

While many players needed to fire a second bullet, Greenwood wasn’t one of them steadily chipping up throughout the first few hours to see his 100,000 starting stack quadruple.  With the field thinning, registration closed and it was Steve O’Dwyer who had the biggest stack. He would yield it to trim the remaining players even more, with Simon Pedersen seeing his straight lose to O’Dwyer’s flush in just one example of the American-Irish player’s control.

Six days of incredible action in the Czech capital saw Mikalai Pobal crowned only the second double EPT Champion, winning €1,005,600 and making poker history with his heads-up victory over Norbert Szecsi.

It has been five years since Victoria Coren-Mitchell won her second EPT Main Event and in doing so, became the first ever to do so. Seven years after he first took the title in Barcelona in 2012 in the infamous ‘Finnish Drinks’ final, Pobal was back to claim a second historic win on the European Poker Tour.

The final day began with just five players left from the 1,154 entries and with Hungary’s Norbert Szecsi leading the way with a big lead, everyone knew that they had to step it up to challenge the leader.

Tomas Paiva from Portugal could not climb off the canvas, coming in as a short-stack and he was unable to hold from the flopped top pair, Gaby Livshitz outdrawing him by the river. Pobal was then the short-stack, but he came roaring back into contention when he doubled through Livshitz, Pobal’s ace-king beating Livshitz’ pocket queens.

Poker strategy comes in all shapes and sizes. From those books that teach you specifics, such as winning your way to tournaments via satellites, to others that focus on tournament strategy as a whole. It takes all sorts.

There are few players quite so individual in poker than ‘The Great Dane’ or ‘The Madman’, or as you might already know him, Gus Hansen.

When Gus Hansen burst onto the scene, he became a huge success for a number of reasons combining at the right time and was perfectly aware of it. Intelligence, a brooding physical appeal to both men and women – the old adage about men wanting to be him and women wanting to be with him never rang truer until Patrik Antonius came along – and vast financial success all combined to make Hansen a poster boy for Full Tilt Poker.

While many in poker turned against FTP in time, not least for the events that led to Black Friday in the United States, Hansen always seemed untouched by any stain of controversy that would rest like a shadow on players such as Howard Lederer and Chris Ferguson.

According to a recent report, Swedish fintech company Zimpler has filed a complaint about Trustly with the Swedish Competition Authority (Konkurrensverket). The accusation alleges that Trustly has been locking companies into expensive and exclusive contracts, while also stopping them from adopting services from other vendors.

According to the complaint, Zimpler allegedly has evidence that can prove that Trustly is stopping the fintech company from being able to conduct business with gaming companies who currently hold a Swedish license. They further allege that operators are unwilling to make contracts with their company out of concern that it would damage their relationship with Trustly, which could prove detrimental in the short-term.

In a story published on Gambling Insider, Zimpler CEO Oskar Bjursten discussed the complaint, stating that “I note Trustly’s answer to the Swedish Competition Authority differs from the experience Zimpler and our merchants are having.” He further added that “While it is gratifying to hear Trustly admits to the use of exclusivity clauses within the area of direct bank payments, we do not share Trustly’s view that it will mean our merchants will have enough flexibility.”

While the CEO seems confident that Trustly executives have violated the law, those executives do not see it that way. Respondents for Trustly stated, “Zimpler’s complaint contains numerous factual errors and in our opinion has no merit. Trustly is a relatively small payment solution in the online payments market full of competing international and domestic payment services providers and payment solutions including Visa, Mastercard, PayPal, Swish, Skrill, and others.”

Last night’s English League Cup action saw Aston Villa progress as they beat a young and inexperienced Liverpool side, with Jurgen Klopp’s first XI about to play their Club World Cup opener against Monterrey.

With three matches taking place tonight, there are points of interest in them all as mid-season frustrations need to be put to one side by both Manchester clubs and both Everton and Leicester.

Everton vs. Leicester City (7:45 pm GMT kick-off)

Two teams at polar opposite positions of the English Premier League will find themselves closer than at first they might appear on Wednesday night at Goodison Park. With rumours of Carlo Ancelotti’s impending takeover as Everton manager not going away, it looks like the Italian may be in place for the weekend’s intriguing clash between The Toffees and Arsenal.

Casino operator Twin River Worldwide Holdings is dealing with fresh controversy after one of its senior execs was charged with bribery.

On Tuesday, the Rhode Island Attorney General’s office announced it had filed multiple charges of accepting bribes and ‘casino gaming crimes’ against Michael Barlow, senior VP of operations at Twin River, which operates Rhode Island’s two casinos on behalf of the state government.

Attorney General Peter Neronha said a grand jury had returned an indictment on December 12 that included 30 felony counts against Barlow (pictured) and two other individuals, casino vendor Yehuda Amar and Amar’s business associate Jill Feldman.

Amar is accused of making payments to Barlow – who began his tenure with Twin River in 2006 – to secure subleases with multiple food court vendors at Twin River casino properties, as well as securing multiple business contracts.

Netherlands online gambling hopefuls likely won’t enjoy the process of applying for new licenses, according to the local regulatory chief.

On Tuesday, Kansspelautoriteit boss René Jansen gave a speech at the Gaming In Holland breakfast, at which he claimed to share operators’ frustration at the slow pace of the Dutch online gambling market’s transition to an open licensing model.

Jansen (pictured) said the regulatory delays weren’t all bad, in that the Netherlands could end up with “the world’s strictest addiction prevention policies.” Online license applicants will be required to offer up volumes of detail regarding their responsible gambling policies and Jansen warned that the KSA “will definitely find out if your measures only exist on paper.”

Jansen warned that operators’ marketing practices will also be scrutinized, including their use of bonus offers, ensuring players are not incentivized to gamble, avoiding misleading or aggressive advertising, and how these various responsibilities will be assigned within a company. Again, Jansen warned that the KSA “won’t accept situations that merely look good on paper.”

A Dublin casino has shut its doors due to Ireland’s new gambling rules just as Northern Ireland puts its gambling rules up for public debate.

On Monday, the Fitzwilliam Casino & Card Club announced that it would be immediately closing its doors after 16 years of operation, throwing 78 local residents out of work. A spokesperson said the announcement was made with “great sadness and regret” and the private members Club would now be focusing on seeing its staff through this difficult transition.

The Club said the shutdown was due to the government’s recent approval of its Gaming and Lotteries (Amendment) Act, 2019. The Act, in addition to imposing new maximum stakes and payouts on gambling machines, also contains language that the Club claims has effectively made it impossible to continue operating.

The Act expands the definition of ‘unlawful gaming’ to include any activity lacking a ‘gaming permit’ or ‘gaming license.’ Trouble is, the ‘license’ limits operators to the aforementioned gambling machines while the ‘permit’ allows only gambling in which the player and the banker face equal odds.