Casino operator Boyd Gaming has struck a Nevada sports betting deal with International Game Technology (IGT), while FanDuel is prepping its Illinois market launch courtesy of a local Boyd casino and DraftKings is urging bettors to direct their rage at Illinois politicians.

On Wednesday, IGT announced a “long-term” deal to supply Boyd’s Nevada properties with its PlaySports platform for both retail and online wagering, while the venues will also feature IGT’s self-service PlaySports Kiosks. The deal expands on the firms’ existing sports betting partnerships in Indiana, Iowa, Mississippi and Pennsylvania.

The deal comes just two weeks after IGT convinced betting operator FanDuel to utilize the PlaySports platform at the latter firm’s retail sportsbooks, while FanDuel will also access IGT’s PlayCasino online games.

FanDuel also has an online gambling partnership with Boyd that is poised to take root in Illinois, although the timing remains a mystery. FanDuel received its temporary betting permit from the Illinois Gaming Board a month ago but Boyd’s Par-A-Dice Casino in East Peoria has yet to receive formal permission from the Board to launch betting operations.  

The World Series of Poker Main Event is the flagship tournament upon which all live poker rides. This year, the tournament famed for costing $10,000 to enter, as it has since 1971, the first year that cost an entry at all. Back then, Johnny Moss proved the 1970 vote to name him the best correct as he won the 7-man single-table WSOP Main Event the following year.

Since then, of course, it has grown and grown, and this year’s Day 1a featured a massive 464 players, each contributing $5,000 to the prizepool. The guarantee for the event is a humungous $25 million, and that means the Main Event will need 5,000 entrants. Players can re-enter a different flight this year, a facility that has never happened before, of course. 

After the first flight concluded, 99 players made it through to Day 2, which doesn’t take place until the 30th of August. There were plenty of big names who entered but missed out on making Day 2, including Scottish poker legend Ludovic Geilich, four-time WPT winner Darren Elias, Chris ‘Big Huni’ Hunichen and Ben Farrell to name just four, but some poker luminaries did make the cut. 

The chip leader from flight 1a was Samuel Vousden, who ended with 717,497 chips. The Finnish player was follows in the counts by some other well-known names, such as former WSOP bracelet winner Julien Martini (576,965), Rui Ferrera (385,142) and Alexandros Kolonias (381,459), who will all have hope of running deep in one of the biggest online tournaments to ever take place.

The latest online super-festival to hit players computer screens in August and September will be the World Championship of Online Poker on PokerStars, otherwise known as WCOOP.

Taking place from Sunday August 30th and lasting until September 23rd. With big guarantees coming out across the board in recent months, possibly as a result of the global COVID-19 pandemic, there was always going to be a lot put forward in the 2020 WCOOP and it doesn’t disappoint, with $80 million up for grabs.

With 225 tournaments taking place in just over three weeks, there are low, medium and high-level buy-ins, with all the events set out in a full schedule on PokerNews. Each event of 75 has a low, medium and high entry level, with the Main Event the outstanding tournament, costing $5,200 to enter and coming with a $10 million guarantee.

As well as dozens of terrific events during the series, there is also a Player of the Series leaderboard to scale, with a massive $100,000 being paid out throughout. There’s also a return of Fast Track, a successful part of the recent Stadium Series, which saw players such as ‘Stars own Lex Veldhuis win big.

A battle to the death that should be taking place on an island between 100 players is about to go down between three technological business giants. Epic Games is at war with Apple and Google Play.

Unlike Fortnite, the 100-player ‘Battle Royale’ game which has become one of the world’s most popular games in history, this fight between three global superpowers doesn’t feel like it’s taking place on a level playing field, as all Fortnite games start.

A battle to the death that should be taking place on an island between 100 players is about to go down between three technological business giants. Epic Games is at war with Apple and Google Play. The battleground is profit and after reducing prices for their players and building a new Epic Games Store function let players save 20% on all purchases in a bid to permanently reduce the cost of in-game purchases, Fortnite updates for the next season are being blocked by Apple and Google Store.

Why are they doing it? Their monopoly of the App Store earns them 30% of the money from in-game purchases and they aren’t willing to move on that. With Epic Games offering the reduction, Apple and Google play are both threatening to block the update that takes place in nine days’ time.

Australian betting and lottery operator Tabcorp Holdings is looking to raise AU$600m after posting a net loss of AU$870m in its most recent fiscal year.

Figures released Wednesday show Tabcorp generated revenue of AU$5.2b in the 12 months ending June 30, a 4.8% decline from fiscal 2018-19. Before deducting a billion or so bucks in significant items, earnings fell 11.5% to AU$995m and net profit after tax (NPAT) tumbled nearly one-third to AU$271m.

However, the impact of COVID-19 meant Tabcorp was forced to book AU$1.14b in goodwill impairments, most of which involved its Wagering & Media unit. The unit took a major hit in March when Australia ordered all non-essential businesses – including TAB retail wagering outlets – to shut their doors.

Wagering & Media revenue fell only 10% to just under AU$2.1b, thanks primarily to a strong showing by digital betting. Online wagering turnover was up 3.8% to AU$7.1b while retail was down 27.9% to $5.4b, marking the first year in which digital has outperformed retail.

Saipan casino operator Imperial Pacific International (IPI) has been officially put on notice that it can either pay its gaming license fee post-haste or it will no longer have said license.

On Wednesday, Ralph Torres, governor of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI), of which Saipan is a part, sent a letter to IPI CEO Donald Browne warning him that the company’s gaming license would be suspended or revoked unless IPI paid its annual $15.5m license fee along with a required $3m payment toward the Community Benefit Fund.

IPI has been bleeding red ink for years, leading to lawsuits by unpaid contractors and questions as to whether the company owes the CNMI government some $37m in unpaid Benefit Fund payments. IPI slow-rolled the government on its 2019 license fee and announced last week that it was reneging on a promise to pay its 2020 fee by the August 12 deadline.   

Late last month, the chairman of the Commonwealth Casino Commission (CCC) warned Browne that paying the fee on time was “non-negotiable.” Browne replied that IPI had “no bad intentions” and that the company had “some funding that would satisfy that.”