Gambling operator GVC Holdings’ new CEO Shay Segev is placing a seven-figure bet on his company’s future success.

On Monday, GVC announced that its new chief executive had exercised options to boost his holdings in the company from 111k shares to just over 1.6m. Segev’s options entitled him to acquire the shares at the discounted price of £3.17, well below Monday’s opening price of £7.66.

Segev’s options, which are now fully exercised under the company’s 2016 Management Incentive Plan, required him to draw down a £2m loan from a ‘third party bank.’ Said bank received a pledge from Segev involving his GVC shares as security for this loan.  

Segev, who until last month was GVC’s chief operating officer, assumed the CEO position following the abrupt resignation of Kenny Alexander in July. Alexander came under sharp criticism in March 2019 when he and then-chairman Lee Feldman sold off the bulk of their GVC shares, reaping a combined windfall of nearly £20m.

Former Indian cricket captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni has announced his retirement from international cricket. The former skipper has not played international cricket since the 2019 50 over World Cup in England.

The news of Dhoni’s retirement came as the former skipper announced he will be joining the Chennai Super Kings for the upcoming Indian Premier League (IPL) in the United Arab Emirates.

Dhoni cemented his place in Indian cricket history by leading India to their only 50 over World Cup, T20 World Cup and the Champions Trophy. He finishes as one of the best wicketkeeper batsmen that the game has seen. Dhoni retired from Test cricket in 2014 and was dropped from India’s centrally contracted players in January this year.

Dhoni posted news of his retirement on Instagram. “Thanks a lot for your love and support throughout. From 19:29 hours consider me as retired,” he wrote.

With the French and German champions both involved, the Champions League semi-finals are sure to provide huge drama and plenty of excitement as goals go flying in.

Underdogs RB Leipzig and Lyon will be full of hope they can repeat their heroics from the previous round when they eliminated Atletico Madrid and Manchester City respectively.

Will Bayern Munich reach their 11th European Cup final? Could Paris St. Germain finally reach a final and equal the efforts of other French teams like Reims, Marseille, Monaco and Saint-Etienne?

Over the next 48 hours, we’ll find out.

When it was given a $5 million guarantee back in April, the GGPoker WSOP Mini Main Event might have been expected to scrape past that ambitious total.

That was GGPoker and the WSOP completely blew everyone out of the water with bumper attendances, WSOP bracelet celebration videos and enough excitement to make people almost forget that it was all going on behind closed doors and computer screens instead of catching your death of cold in the Rio, shivering in the air conditioned climate more akin to living in Siberia than Las Vegas.

Once the dust settled on registrations in the Mini Main Event, the prizepool was huge, and at $7.2 million represented a serious success story for GGPoker, the poker site on which the tournament – and the final 54 of the 85 planned events – took place. 

It took over 16 hours at the felt to crown a winner and award that famous WSOP bracelet and when it was won, it went to Ivan Zufic, who won his first-ever WSOP gold. Costing just $500 to enter, the event welcomed 15,205 entries. Zufic won $843,460 to add to his monumental achievement in grabbing the gold.

It’s easy to look back at 1989 in the poker world and see it as a completely different world. The footage looks slightly grainy, almost like you’re looking back at it through sepia-tinted sunglass that would prevent any opponent looking into the whites of your eyes.

However, if you break it down, the 1989 World Series of Poker Main Event has more in common with modern poker than you might initially think. A young hopeful who was a wizard at mathematics overcame an established, battle hardened pro. Prize money was up, coverage was bigger than before and headlines reached the mainstream media.

A lot of the similarities between 1989 and modern poker are down to the presence of Phil Hellmuth, Johnny Chan’s opponent in the 1989 WSOP Main Event heads-up. It’s easy to say that The Poker Brat is a bigger draw even than ‘The Orient Express’, as Chan was known back then. In 1989, however, it was all about Chan, and for good reason.

Chan had won both the 1987 and 1988 WSOP Main Event.

It’s easy to look back at 1989 in the poker world and see it as a completely different world. The footage looks slightly grainy, almost like you’re looking back at it through sepia-tinted sunglass that would prevent any opponent looking into the whites of your eyes.

However, if you break it down, the 1989 World Series of Poker Main Event has more in common with modern poker than you might initially think. A young hopeful who was a wizard at mathematics overcame an established, battle hardened pro. Prize money was up, coverage was bigger than before and headlines reached the mainstream media.

A lot of the similarities between 1989 and modern poker are down to the presence of Phil Hellmuth, Johnny Chan’s opponent in the 1989 WSOP Main Event heads-up. It’s easy to say that The Poker Brat is a bigger draw even than ‘The Orient Express’, as Chan was known back then. In 1989, however, it was all about Chan, and for good reason.

Chan had won both the 1987 and 1988 WSOP Main Event.

Daily fantasy sports doesn’t exactly fit the profile of booming business right now, but that hasn’t kept the main publicly traded DFS stock from skyrocketing in the meantime. DraftKings (DKNG) has more than tripled since basically all sports took a sledgehammer to the knees.

Does that make sense? Sure, why not? In the current context just about anything makes sense. If you point out some sort of financial abnormality and dare point out the emperor has no clothes, you may as well stop showering or cutting your nails, don a “The End is Nigh” double-sided billboard, and chew on some Alkaseltzer tablets for that added foaming-at-the-mouth effect. Then go out and say something’s wrong. See how many people listen.

Despite my eye-rolling tone at this DraftKings mega-rally in response to all sports being majorly curtailed for the first time since World War II, there is still actually a pseudo bull case for DraftKings. Not really a “bull case” per se in the sense of a long term bullish thesis on the business itself. It’s more of a binary option-type play on DraftKings which could turn out to be profitable by March or so, assuming the global financial system stays globbed together with multitrillion dollar spitballs thrown from the Mariner Eccles building until then.

The bet is pretty simple. It’s that Sleepy Joe beats The Donald in November, at which point the media dials back a bit on COVID-19 hysteria trying to make Sleepy Joe look good, who then proceeds to reopen the United States eagerly playing the American hero role, and with that, the world follows. Under that scenario, DraftKings, and pretty much every other stock on the planet including stocks of companies that sell fermented toe jam exclusively to gnomes who live in the Alpha Centauri star system, will explode higher.

Electronic Arts may deny that loot boxes are gambling, but they will soon have to prove that’s the case before a court. A class action lawsuit has been filed against the video game publisher with a request for $5 million worth in damages.

Video Games Chronicle reports Kevin Ramirez filed the class action lawsuit with the Northern District of California on the behalf of 100 other plaintiffs. In the suit, they allege EA “relies on creating addictive behaviors in consumers to generate huge revenues.” They specifically call out EA’s Ultimate Team Packs, which allow gamers to assemble their favorite teams for online play, saying they “are predatory and designed to entice gamers to gamble.” They go on to add:

“EA’s Ultimate Team Packs are Loot Boxes. Buying the Packs are nothing more than a gambling bet. Purchased using real money, the Ultimate Team Packs are simply wagers on completely randomized chances within the game to win valuable professional players and other items for the EA gamer’s virtual sports team.”

They will have to prove that loot boxes rise to the level of California’s definition of gambling. That definition defines a gambling device as “a machine, aperture, or device; something of value is given to play; and the player may receive something of value by element of chance.” The lawsuit goes on to say:

What do Boulder Station casino workers really want? That’s the question at the heart of a new fight between the Station Casino operated Las Vegas Casino and the Culinary Workers Union Local 226 (C 126), after Boulder Station declared it will no longer recognize or bargain with unions.

The Las Vegas Review Journal reports that a majority of employees at the Station casino have signed a petition to no longer be represented by C226, or Bartenders Local 165. Station Casinos followed up by noting they would no longer bargain with the unions, respecting their employees wishes.

“We look forward to having the same direct relationships with this group of Team Members as we do with the other Team Members at Boulder Station,” Chief Operating Officer Bob Finch said in a statement.

C 126 doesn’t think this petition drive came naturally and are already getting ready for a fight. “Station Casinos continues to waste time trying to bust the union,” union spokeswoman Bethany Khan said in a Monday statement. “The Culinary Union has filed an unfair labor practice charge regarding the withdrawal and has demanded to negotiate immediately.”