After revolutionising poker on Twitch, PokerStars ambassador and long-time Twitch king Jason Somerville has decided that his ability to ‘Run It Up’ is over.

[Image credit: Pokerstars]

Somerville’s decision to leave PokerStars can’t be labelled a big surprise, purely for the number of recent players he follows in the footsteps of in walking away from the poker brand.

In the last 10 weeks alone, Daniel Negreanu, Liv Boeree and Igor Kurganov have said goodbye to the Red Spade, and Somerville branching out from PokerStars won’t have shocked many observers. It is, however, a surprise announcement, purely because Somerville sees himself moving in very different spheres in the near future.

Two days of thrilling ATP Cup action has wowed Australian crowds and raised money for the victims of the bushfires sweeping the country.

Top Seeds Come Up Trumps

With some of the biggest names of the game in action, only Roger Federer has been missing from the world’s top eight players taking part in the ATP Cup on Aussie soil. Rafael Nadal kicked off his own campaign with a victory against Georgia as the world number one beat Nikoloz Basilashvili 6-3, 7-5. That gave Spain a 2-0 lead, unassailable in the best-of-three group stage format.

World number two Novak Djokovic helped his Serbian side to a win too, as he eventually got the better of Grand Slam finalist Kevin Anderson by winning two desperately tight sets in tie-breaks.

Two days of thrilling ATP Cup action has wowed Australian crowds and raised money for the victims of the bushfires sweeping the country.

Top Seeds Come Up Trumps

With some of the biggest names of the game in action, only Roger Federer has been missing from the world’s top eight players taking part in the ATP Cup on Aussie soil. Rafael Nadal kicked off his own campaign with a victory against Georgia as the world number one beat Nikoloz Basilashvili 6-3, 7-5. That gave Spain a 2-0 lead, unassailable in the best-of-three group stage format.

World number two Novak Djokovic helped his Serbian side to a win too, as he eventually got the better of Grand Slam finalist Kevin Anderson by winning two desperately tight sets in tie-breaks.

2019 saw several casinos across the U.S. change hands, most notably with MGM International Resorts looking to lighten its portfolio and Eldorado Resorts and Caesars Entertainment working diligently on a merger. These series of negotiations were just the beginning, though, and analysts predicted that even more consolidation and property shuffling could take place in 2020. It didn’t take long for that prediction to find a foothold, as Penn National might be considering an offer for the iconic Tropicana Las Vegas property.

Vital Vegas, who somehow manages to know what’s going on in Vegas even before Vegas knows, reports that a Tropicana sale is “imminent.” Penn National had received unsolicited bids last year and wasn’t ready to make a deal then. However, if Vital Vegas is correct, one of the bids may have caught the company’s attention and has now been accepted, with a sale currently taking place.

The deal is said to be worth over $700 million. Considering the fact that Penn paid $360 million five years ago when it purchased the property from Onex Corp., it’s a nice return on investment (ROI). It will also go a long way toward helping Penn reduce its outstanding debt, which currently hovers around $11 billion.

As is typically the case with sensitive deals, Penn National won’t offer any details or even confirm whether or not something is in the works. Casino.org tried to get some type of confirmation from the company, but its SVP for Public Affairs, Eric Schippers, would only say, “Unfortunately, we are unable to comment on rumors or market speculation.”

Nebraska may not yet have joined the almost two dozen states in the U.S. to offer legal sports gambling, but this doesn’t mean that its residents don’t understand the rules of the game. Two Cornhuskers recently teamed up to participate in the annual Westgate SuperContest, hosted by Westgate Superbook in Las Vegas, and showed off their talents in superior fashion. By the time the contest was over, they had converted $3,000 into $1.47 million.

According to a report by the Omaha World-Herald, Eric Jensen and Matt Kucera decided to join forces to participate in the football handicapping contest at Westgate and a couple of very precise bets helped them maneuver their way to the top of the charts, as well as the top prize. With an evenly split investment of $1,500, the pair most likely never expected to take down a contest that saw a record 3,328 entries and which always attracts professional sports gamblers.

However, that’s exactly what happened. The duo formed a team called It Ain’t Breezy, and chose five NFL games every week of the season to bet on against the spread (ATS). Every Friday, they would sit down and work out their next moves and ultimately wound up with a winning record of 58-25-2 ATS. In the most recent NFL action, New Orleans Saints and quarterback Drew Brees would help the pair secure their destiny, with the Saints beating the 13-point spread when they took out the Carolina Panthers 42-10. Jensen stated about that game, “We felt really good about the Saints. That game is what clinched it.”

Jensen and Kucera aren’t novices when it comes to sports wagers, even though they don’t participate in the activity full time. They were both athletes throughout school and are part of a fantasy football league in Nebraska. They had teamed up for the 2018 Westgate SuperContest and came in at just above .500 when the final tallies were presented.

Online sports betting operator 1xBet has been issued a Nigerian gaming license, despite ongoing uncertainties regarding the government’s attitudes towards the local gaming industry.

This week, 1xBet celebrated the news that Nigeria’s National Lottery Regulatory Commission (NLRC) had issued the company a National License, allowing 1xBet the right to offer sports and proposition wagering across all of Nigeria’s states and cities through the year 2024.

1xBet began life as a Russian gambling site but has since split into the domestic business and a Cyprus-based offshoot that caters to international markets. 1xBet has made Africa a primary target of its international expansion, with customer bases in Burundi, Cameroon, DR Congo, Ghana, Senegal, Uganda and Zambia.

Its license may have only come this week, but 1xBet already had a significant number of Nigerian clients, thanks in part to its sponsorship ties with the Nigerian Football Federation, the Nigerian Premier League and the Nigerian national team.