For the second year running, sports betting expansion in the US of A was the Western Hemisphere’s dominant gambling story. There were eight states with legal betting markets at the end of 2018, while 2019 will close with 14 active states (thanks to the December 30 launch in New Hampshire) plus six more that have authorized but not yet launched betting.

Even notoriously fractious/legislatively inept California got into the legal betting spirit as the state’s tribal gaming operators hatched a plan for a 2020 ballot initiative that envisioned a role for state racetracks while excluding their cardroom rivals (who continued to demonstrate their apparent unwillingness to uphold basic financial regulatory obligations).

Only nine of the 14 active betting states currently permit some form of statewide digital wagering, which has utterly dominated its land-based counterpart when allowed to go head-to-head (86.5% of November’s handle in New Jersey). Want a more extreme example? Tiny Delaware (which has mobile betting) outperformed New York’s upstate casinos (which don’t offer mobile) in betting revenue in November.

DraftKings surprised onlookers two days before Christmas by striking a three-way merger with a ‘special purpose acquisition vehicle’ and European betting tech supplier SBTech that will see the enlarged DraftKings Inc list on the Nasdaq exchange by mid-2020. The union spells trouble for DraftKings’ current betting tech partner Kambi, which thought it had extended the parties’ relationship in August.

Authorities in Taiwan have disrupted an unauthorized online gambling operation along with the ‘largest known’ underground banking network moving money off the Chinese mainland.

On Christmas Day, the district prosecutor’s office in Taiwan’s Chiayi County announced that it had coordinated raids on 72 locations in multiple cities, including the capital Taipei, searching for evidence of underground banking and illegal gambling.

The raids were sparked after the disruption in August of an underground banking network that the authorities believe was an offshoot of the main network disrupted this week. Police have the alleged ringleader in custody while the man’s partner reportedly fled to the Philippines, where the ring has established a separate betting office.

The authorities linked the case to the online gambling tech support hub that was rumbled in Taichung City earlier this month. The ring offered sports betting and casino gambling via a number of websites, with most of their customers based in mainland China.

What a year 2019 has been. We’re taking a look back at all of our top stories to reminisce about the good and the bad that we experienced in the last year. Here’s the five casino stories that got the most clicks from you, our readers.

Singapore VIP refuses to pay tab over dealer errors

Have you ever handed over a blank check to a casino and had the time of your life? That’s what Wong Yew Choy did at the Star Gold Coast Casino in Queensland, Australia. The businessman expected a week of high stakes gambling and high living, racking up a $30.6 million bill.

Problem is, the check bounced. Wong refused to pay his gambling debts, citing frequent dealer errors that ruined his experience. The casino wasn’t buying that story and filed a case against him in Singapore.

We made it. 2019 is finally over. Maybe. After all of the excitement, repetition, rioting, elections, rioting, elections, and record-breaking tsunamis of mutually respectful political discourse, it’s time to breathe a sigh of *cough*. Anyway, we can all expect a much calmer, peaceful, serene 2020 filled with nongenderly love and good will towards nongender, provided we either drop dead or take enough drugs to keep us in a persistent psychotic break with reality over the next 12 months.

Disclaimer: We make no assurance whatsoever that what we have all experienced as 2019 wasn’t in itself a species-wide psychotic break with reality to begin with.

We can begin our 2019 retelling with the story of Super Bowl LIII, defined as “being three more than 50.” LIII was the first Super Bowl where people could actually place bets without being arrested. Except for all the other Super Bowls where people placed bets without being arrested.  In a possibly related matter, 95% of all bets on the game were placed illegally anyway, for a spectacular improvement of infinite percent in terms of respect for U.S. sports betting law.

The main practical difference for bookmakers was that this time, bookies were able to lose money to bettors without having all their losses viciously confiscated by the Gaming Control Board, the government agency in charge of drinking coffee, watching porn on the taxpayer’s dime, and controlling board games. According to the New Jersey DGE, which stands for I don’t know exactly because I’m too lazy to Google it but probably something about gaming, figures showed that fans won $39,469,147 out of $34,894,900 wagered. Ecstatic about the newfound freedom to legally lose money, a spokesperson for the New Jersey Sports Betting Association of Associates Who Bet On Sports In New Jersey stated, “I guess we didn’t know exactly what we were doing so much.”

As we reach the halfway stage of this season’s Premier League, there are several Golden Boot contenders, but one man stands on his own ahead of them all. Let’s take a look at who the sharpest shooter is in the toughest league in world football.

For many years now, the race for the Premier League Golden Boot has been a source of great excitement and no little competition. Let’s have a look at the last 10 years:

Season

Winner(s)