UK gambling operators have received rare praise from the local advertising watchdog for reducing the number of gambling promos on ‘kid-friendly’ websites.

Last Friday, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) released the latest report on its new program of occasionally ‘sweeping’ the interwebz for signs of ‘age-restricted’ advertising appearing in children’s media.

In the previous report this summer, the ASA’s search of 50 YouTube channels and kid-friendly sites found 159 incidents of age-restricted ads, of which nearly half involved gambling. The other verboten products included alcohol, e-cigarettes/tobacco, weight control products and food high in fat/salt/sugar (HFSS).

In the most recent report, the ASA scanned 49 websites and seven YouTube channels from July to September 2020, ultimately detecting 127 age-restricted ads posted by 44 different advertisers. Miracle of miracles, only five gambling ads from three operators were found on six sites and zero YouTube channels.

Ocean Casino Resort was the sole Atlantic City gaming venue to post an annual operating profit gain in the third quarter of 2020, while the normally omnipotent Borgata only narrowly staved off a rare operating loss.

Figures released Monday by the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement (DGE) show AC’s nine casinos (and its two online-only offshoots) generated net revenue of $629.3m in the three months ending September 30, down 32.3% from the same period last year. For the first nine months of 2020, revenue is down 44.4% to slightly less than $1.35b.

The market combined for an operating profit of just $150.5m in the most recent quarter, down 37.2% from Q3 2019. However, that’s a damn sight better than the $112m loss the casinos reported in Q2 2020, during which all of their land-based operations were shut due to COVID-19 and the market was forced to rely on its online casino and sports betting options.

Ocean Casino Resort (OCR) posted an operating profit of $24.4m, up nearly 139% year-on-year as the property finally put its 2018 (re)opening costs behind it. Apart from the two online-only operators, the closest any other casino came to posting a net year-on-year improvement was Bally’s AC, which saw its Q3 profit decline only 8.3% to $13m.

New Jersey’s leading online casino operator Golden Nugget is out to prove that its Garden State dominance is more than just a fluke.

On Monday, Golden Nugget Online Gaming Inc (GNOG) announced that it had secured West Virginia online gambling and sports betting market access through a deal with the Greenbrier Hotel Corporation, which operates the swanky resort of the same name.

The deal, which is subject to GNOG securing local regulatory approval, will see GNOG pay Greenbrier an undisclosed percentage of online gambling revenue, subject to minimum royalty payments over the term. The parties also exchanged the usual platitudes about how their lives were miserable and incomplete until they met.

The Greenbrier previously inked a similar deal with the FanDuel Group, which launched mobile sports betting in August 2019 but has yet to follow up with an online casino product. At present, West Virginia has only two online casino options; DraftKings and BetMGM (the latter outfit also operates off the Greenbrier’s online permit).  

Sweden doesn’t appear interested in revising its pandemic online casino strategy even as COVID-19 forces the government to revise its land-based gambling strategy.  

On Monday, Sweden’s Spelinspektionen gambling regulatory body announced that restaurant casinos and other alcoholic watering holes featuring slot machines will need to halt gambling activity after 10pm each night. The new rules, which took effect Friday (20), are currently slated to extend through the end of February 2021.

The change comes as the government ordered a halt in the sale of alcohol between 10pm and 11am each day in a bid to blunt the sharp rise in new COVID-19 infections over the past month or so. Along with the alcohol curbs, the number of Swedes allowed to gather in public has shrunk from groups of 50 to just eight.

Sweden formerly bucked the global pattern of strict lockdowns, relying instead on optional recommendations that initially seemed to be achieving the elusive ‘herd immunity.’ But the country’s number of cases is nearing 210k while deaths have jumped to over 6,400, leading Prime Minister Stevan Löfven to issue blunt instructions on Sunday to cancel or postpone “all the things you would like to do but that are not necessary.”

The latest partypoker Caribbean Poker Party event has been completed and the $25,000+$500 Super High Roller was only for the nosebleed-stake players.  

With interest from around the world, the final seven players would cash, and it produced an exciting final table of action to round out the event.  

The final table kicked off as it went along, at a fast pace and with plenty of drama. American player Daniel Colpoys was the first player to leave the action as Colpoys moved all-in with pocket jacks and was coolered by Stoob Claas’s pocket aces.  

Team partypoker ambassador Isaac Haxton would bust in 6th place as he was rivered by a one-outer. Haxton had pocket sevens, which had picked up a set against Trickett’s pocket aces. With an ace already having been folded, ‘Tricky’ was drawing to one out, but it popped up on the river to condemn Haxton to the rail.  

Having a champion kind of week? Maybe your Monday started like getting one-outered on the river. If so, never mind! We have seven quotes from World Series of Poker Main Event World Champions for you to absorb and be inspired by.

Despite protestations to the contrary, we haven’t included any from WSOP $5,000 Rebuy Main Event Stoyan Madanzhiev, although as he told us himself last week, maybe he should be considered a World Champion too.

Let’s seek solace in these wise words from seven World Series Main Event winners.

“I respect anyone that pulls a chair up to a poker table, no matter what the stakes are.”

This week sees the return of the UEFA Champions League and while there will be hope in the hearts of players from such legendary teams in the competition as Real Madrid, Manchester United, Barcelona and Bayern Munich, there may be more expectation coming from some camps compared to others.  

The Champions League has long produced the kind of football that other club competitions can only dream of. Not only is the tournament filled with the best of the best, that somehow filters through to the kinds of goals we see week in, week out.  

Check out these Champions League classic goals as a warm-up to the sportsbetting preview of the midweek action that lies ahead.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08GY0GusyCc&list=PLhjLO-ekrsRu1FXl1Sx3yAl0pL_5c75bvVideo can’t be loaded because JavaScript is disabled: BABEL, IBRAHIMOVIĆ, KAKÁ: Classic #UCL Matchday 4 GOALS! (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08GY0GusyCc&list=PLhjLO-ekrsRu1FXl1Sx3yAl0pL_5c75bv)