Odds courtesy of OddsShark.com

NFL owners recently officially approved the league adding one playoff team to each conference this season and going forward, meaning there will be seven teams from both the AFC and NFC to play extra football. In theory, that improves each team’s chances of making it and would improve each team’s betting odds of doing so this season.

But, that’s just mathematically. Does it really improve the Cincinnati Bengals’ chances of making the postseason in 2020? They were the NFL’s worst team last year, and are +625 to make it this year and -1300 to miss again.

The additional playoff spot will shorten the odds a bit for the better teams. For example, the defending Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs are -1900 to make the playoffs for a sixth straight season and +750 to miss. Almost worth betting a few dollars on no just in case Patrick Mahomes suffers a major injury.

On Thursday night, a very special poker tournament take place in the United Kingdom. With the Coronavirus outbreak restricting movement across Britain, the poker-playing public will get another chance to donate much-needed funds to the National Health Service by playing in the £50 buy-in UK NHS Charity Tournament.

Taking place tonight, Thursday April 16th at 8.30pm BST, the no-limit hold’em event will have no registration fees and a minimum of 50% of the prizepool will be matched by partypoker then donated to the NHS.

While the event has no guarantee, hundreds of players will be expected to take part at the last minute, with £5-entry satellites each guaranteeing five seats into the action taking place around the clock in the build-up.

There is a minimum threshold of 50% for donations to the NHS from the prizepool, but it could end up as high as 56% , with between 44%-50% being paid out to players as usual. Everyone at partypoker is excited, none more so than their illustrious President, former Poker Million winner, John Duthie:

Some of poker’s most seminal works appeal to the simplest instincts in us all. One such book is a volume of poker strategy that since it was released in 1999 and has continued to sell well and be recognized as one of the classics ever since then.

David Sklansky’s Theory of Poker explains several different variations of the game of poker, from the most popular of the game formats, No Limit hold’em, to lesser-known variants such as Five Card Draw, Seven-Card Stud and Lowball Draw to name just three.

Sklansky is by no means lacking in confidence when it comes to explaining his thoughts on the game, and his ‘Fundamental Theorem of Poker’ is something that he applies to your game. The presumption is definitely that you’re picking up this book as a gateway to playing poker, so if you’re already a very competent NLHE player, for instance, you’re not likely to learn too much other than rebuilding any fundamentals you might struggle with or have slipped into bad habits in.

Even if you’re a NLHE expert, however, you might learn a thing or two about other ways to play poker. If you believe that you’ve already mastered one format, you can probably adapt your skills to another by following the path laid out in The Theory of Poker.

There are a lot of different ways to lead people, and finding the method that works for your operation is essential for maintaining and increasing productivity. That’s true during normal times, and it might be especially true in our current work-from-home, COVID-19 inspired experiment.

Not having direct access to your team can be a scary thought. Is everyone working as hard as they could be? Are we being productive enough to hit our targets, and is there more that we can do to surpass them?

Thankfully, the business world, and the ever maturing world of online gaming operations, has a lot of experience to pull lessons from, and scientifically tested ways of motivating staff to be the best they can be.

In my experience, getting the most out of employees means getting three key areas right: trust, communication and training. Each area can be approached many different ways, but there are a few ways to ensure they are done well, and always a way or two to muck them up.

In the fast moving world of gambling, sometimes you might miss news that could be important to you. To make sure you’re all caught up on gaming industry news, be it online or brick and mortar, we’re rounding up the some of the announcements and partnerships from the last week that you might have missed.

ORYX Gaming joins forces with SBTech

ORYX Gaming, a Bragg Gaming Group company (TSXV: BRAG, OTC:BRGGF), has signed a deal to supply its wide-ranging portfolio of casino content and marketing tools to premium platform provider SBTech.

The agreement follows several high-profile operator deals and will see ORYX’s entire RGS portfolio of casino and slot content made available to SBTech’s platform partners.

As we still wait to find out when major league sports will resume their action, the Nevada Gaming Control Board (NGCB) is finding new esports options for Vegas sports books to offer. On April 14, the regulator approved three new leagues for wagering.

The first new league to get approval was the 2020 Overwatch League. Las Vegas books are now permitted to offer lines on the team-based first person shooter for Head to Head matches, the winner of each match and the overall winner of the 2020 season.

If that’s not enticing to punters, they also now have two League of Legends options to bet on. The 2020 North America League of Legends Championship Series is now open for wagering, as well as the 2020 League of Legends European Championship. Just like with Overwatch, books can offer head to head, winners, and overall winners of each league.

With each of the three leagues, the NGCB has laid out similar rules to recent esports offerings that have been cleared for wagering. Sports books must provide all of the terms and conditions operators will need to follow if they want to get into the virtual racing action, post all of the rules to their website, and communicate all of their terms to the NGCB. Also, no other kinds of wager can be offered without first getting permission.

We’ve already written about the emotional impact of Jake Cody’s vlogs in this series all about the world of poker on the smallest screen of all, namely cameras used to bring YouTube video series to life on social media. We’ve rounded up why you should watch Daniel Negreanu in his Vegas-based video odyssey and why you should also binge on Brad Owen’s riveting rounder lifestyle.

This week, we’re looking at why Johnnie Vibes is one of the most popular poker video bloggers, and we’ll start with his impressible numbers.

With over 9,000 followers on Twitter alone, Johnnie Vibes is a very popular man indeed on social media. It is on YouTube where almost all of his content goes, however, with his videos detailing his cash games raking in 37,500 subscribers.

The videos themselves mirror a few others, with the popular style of cards being shown to camera and then the viewer being given just enough time to make the decision as to what they would do in their mind before Johnnie Vibes makes the real-life decision and either wins or loses the pot in question.

It’s highly unlikely that government officials in Arkansas anticipated such a massive negative response to the idea of putting a casino in Pope County, but that’s what they’re getting. In hindsight, the writing was on the wall when state residents approved casino expansion in 2018 – Pope County dwellers overwhelmingly disagreed with the idea. Since then, several ideas have been floated about how the casino development could be rolled out before the Cherokee Nation Businesses (CNB) and the Arkansas Racing Commission (ARC) struck a deal. That agreement only added fuel to the fire and resulted in several lawsuits against the gaming regulator, but these didn’t stop the plan completely. Now, the ARC is expected to meet today and the subject of a casino in Pope County is most likely going to be the center of attention.

The CNB had worked out a deal with Legends Hospitality, a company included in the portfolio of Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, for the gambling property and the plan was then accepted by the ARC. However, some people complained that the commission hadn’t followed proper protocol and that the approval of the project was unconstitutional. A judge has already thrown out that argument, but the ruling didn’t stop the anti-gambling groups, such as Citizens for Pope County (CPC), from continuing their fight.

Exacerbating the situation was the fact that another company, Gulfside Casino Partnership out of Mississippi, wanted a Pope County casino and submitted its own official complaint over the CNB/ARC arrangement. The entity had tried to argue that the decision to award CNB the deal was unfair and hadn’t allowed for competitive bids, adding that it was the only company that was able to completely comply with the guidelines laid out in the state’s Amendment 100, which had authorized the gambling expansion.

Despite the court’s determination that the CPC’s unconstitutionality complaint wasn’t valid, the ARC was still found to have possibly not considered all the facts when it agreed to give the CNB rights to the casino. Pulaski County Circuit Judge Tim Fox reviewed the ongoing dispute last month and sent the CNB license application back to the ARC for further review.

Not everything in the world has to come to a stop because of the coronavirus. Plenty of attention is being given to the pandemic where it is needed most, but life is still going to continue, and things will return to normal. If anything, the COVID-19 fiasco should force companies and governments to work more diligently at building up their financial situations sooner, not later, so the rebuilding process can begin as soon as possible. Japan has suffered from the virus just like everyone else, but the country’s government is ready to ensure that the launch of integrated resorts (IR) isn’t delayed any more than absolutely necessary. Those prefectures or cities hoping to win one of the first three IR licenses will need to be ready to submit their bids during the first six months of next year, the coronavirus be damned.

From January 4 through July 30, Japan’s federal government expects contenders to be ready with their applications and proposals, according to Minister of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Kazuyoshi Akaba. He asserted that the bidding period is not going to be delayed and that local governments must be prepared to move forward with the national agenda. The government’s position makes sense – prefectures and cities must be able to multitask if they want to be responsible for a multibillion-dollar project designed to change the face of Japanese tourism.

Nagasaki, one of the contending prefectures, isn’t overly concerned with having to juggle its priorities between combatting the coronavirus and preparing for an IR bid submission. It has already stated that it is fully prepared to move forward and is ready to launch its request for proposal (RFP) plan to start pooling responses from local businesses interested in joining forces. That process is expected to begin sometime this spring.

Osaka, on the other hand, not so much. The prefecture’s government has previously indicated that it would prefer to slow down its IR efforts in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and is convinced that a delay is in order. The governor of Osaka, Hirofumi Yoshimura, has closed all recreational and sports facilities until early May and believes this will impact discussions with possible business partners, despite the fact that any discussion to be held in person can just as easily be held over the phone or through video conferencing. Osaka already has a standing agreement to bring in MGM as its casino partner.

All businesses are worried about the impact caused by the forced closures as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, but some are less concerned than others. The gaming industry has been considerably impacted by government orders to close operations, and a number of casinos have already determined that they don’t have the money to withstand a prolonged hiatus. However, some companies with strong ties to the gaming industry, such as Scientific Games (SG), aren’t sweating it. In fact, SG is confident that it can survive with little damage, in spite of the losses the global gaming company is incurring during the shutdown.

SG’s leadership asserts that it has taken measures to ensure that it has the liquidity to help it survive the coronavirus nightmare. It issued a press release yesterday, asserting that it has figured out how to save $100 million and has another $680 million in cash that will give it enough of a cushion to stave off massive cuts anytime soon. SciPlay, of which SG controls 82%, also has a great deal of liquidity, with $130 million at its disposal and no outstanding debt. Another $150 million is available through a revolving credit facility if the company needs to access additional funds.

SG explains, “The Company anticipates that the operational and capital cost-saving measures it has already implemented, together with additional measures now being implemented, will reduce its quarterly costs in Q2 by over $100 million. The workforce cost reductions implemented by the Company, including hour and pay reductions, furloughs, and reductions in force, are expected to result in more than $50 million in cost savings in Q2, while capital expenditures in Q2 are expected to be approximately $50 million lower than previously planned. For 2020 as a whole, the Company now anticipates that capital expenditures will be in the range of $210-240 million, as compared to the $300-330 million estimate set forth in the release accompanying our 2019 10-K. The Company plans additional cost saving initiatives, including reductions in other operating expenses, that will lead to further potential savings.”

The gaming giant just picked up a new contract with the Iowa Lottery that will guarantee sustainable income for the next ten years. Additionally, it has expanded its existing agreement with the Connecticut Lottery Corporation. SG has had an agreement to supply instant games to the organization for over 40 years, but the expansion will see it increase the number of games that are included in the Connecticut Lottery’s portfolio.

This is a guest contribution by Charles Miller, Writer and Producer of CoinGeek. This article first appeared on CoinGeek.com.

If you want to learn about Bitcoin SV technology, where do you start? One of the best places must surely be the Bitcoin SV Wiki, a new venture from the Bitcoin Association. The wiki is an authoritative source for anyone trying to educate themselves about—to take a few random examples—pushdata opcodes, Merkle trees, directed acyclic graph (DAG) or that old favourite, the Byzantine Generals Problem. 

Like any good wiki, this one is not set in stone (to coin a phrase), but evolves and welcomes contributions, which are recorded on its Recent Changes page. The wiki is still being written, so users will have to forgive finding the occasional Under Construction page.

I asked Brendan Lee, training and development manager at the Bitcoin Association, to explain how the wiki was created, and what he hopes it will achieve.