Do you remember what it’s like working at an office? For some of us, going back to the office may be a pipedream. Whether we ‘love it’ or ‘loathe it,’ working from home is the new normal for the foreseeable future. While the home office maybe your dining room table and you’re going to work in your PJ’s, the situation can take on a “Groundhog Day” feel. Repeating that same routine can become a little monotonous.

The flexibility of working at home can prove to be challenging; there are no co-workers but you’re your own worst enemy. You lose your inhibitions to get shit done in a timely manner and the debate of getting out of your three-day old pyjamas can be a long conversation.

All it takes is a little adjustment to your game to help you get the most out of your day. Check out our productivity hacks below to help you stay focused.

Let there be Great Lighting

Kenya’s gambling regulator is warning its licensees not to follow SportPesa’s lead, while SportPesa is warning a major shareholder to button his lip.

On Friday, Business Daily reported that Kenya’s Betting Control & Licensing Board (BCLB) had sent a letter to its licensees warning them that “compliance with all operating requirements and directives issued by the board from time to time is mandatory. Any deviation from the same will attract severe regulatory consequences.”

The BCLB said “some operators are ignoring important operating procedures and directives,” specifically citing unannounced changes in shareholding and directorship. The BCLB insisted that it had “an inherent obligation of conducting due diligence” on the individuals seeking licensing as well as variations in its licensees’ operations, particularly those involving brands, domains, mobile paybill numbers, etc.

The BCLB appears to have been responding to the ongoing controversy surrounding SportPesa’s efforts to restart its local operations after a major tax dispute with the Kenya Revenue Authority forced the company to exit the market in September 2019.

The return of the Premier League after International break will, for some football fans, be just what they’ve been missing. The fastest, most exciting league in world football is back and fans can’t wait to bet on the action. Let’s take a look at the biggest games and then analyse the current sportsbetting market for the best value.

Tottenham Hotspur vs. Manchester City (Saturday, 5.30pm GMT kick-off) 

Spurs, second in the table, welcome a Manchester City who have so far blown hot and cold in the Premier League this season. Excellent in their dismissal of teams such as Wolves, Arsenal and Sheffield United, The Citizens also performed well against Liverpool in the 1-1 draw before the International break.

Worrying performances such as the 5-2 home drubbing they received at the hands of Leicester City, however, will need to be avoided and while Pep Guardiola’s signing of a two-year extension to his stay at the Etihad, confirming it as his longest period in charge at a football club, will buoy City fans’ hopes, they are an unfinished project. With weaknesses in defence and midfield, City will face a side in Spurs who are primed for their arrival.

Argentina’s lawmakers have made good on their threat to hike taxes on online gambling, while Buenos Aires is gearing up to fight internationally licensed gambling competitors.

This week, Argentina’s Chamber of Deputies followed their Senate counterparts in approving the country’s 2021 National Budget, which contains a clause boosting the tax on ‘digital’ gambling from 2% to 5% of the “gross value of each bet and/or game.” The tax rises to 10% for operators based in jurisdictions that Argentina considers to be tax havens.

The task of monitoring for tax haven gambling traffic will be split between the state telecom regulator Enacom and the state-owned telecom outfit Argentine Company of Satellite Solutions Sociedad Anónima (ARSAT), which will receive a 5% cut of the new online tax. (Try not to spend it all at once, guys.)

Argentina has no federal online gambling regulatory structure and the new tax has been criticized by the Association of Lotteries, Casinos and State Quinielas of Argentina (ALEA), which believes taxing state-approved operators will only drive further the flow of cash to those online gambling tax havens.

Online gambling operator Aspire Global has struck a Russian lottery partnership just as that market appears poised to saddle its gambling operators with tough tax hikes.  

On Thursday, the Stockholm-listed Aspire Global announced that it had reached a deal to provide online and land-based lottery games for Russian National Lottery operator Sports Lotteries LLC. The deal involves Aspire’s BetoBET online sports betting platform, which will provide both gaming content and its Player Account Management module platform.

Aspire will provide Sports Lotteries with 10 instant lottery products for retail operations plus five draw-based products for both online and retail. The deal is for a three-year initial term with options for an extension of unspecified length.

The Moscow-based Sports Lotteries – a partnership of Russian betting giant Liga Stavok and the Boxing Federation of Russia – is one of only two companies licensed to offer online lottery products in Russia, the other being Stoloto. Sportslottery.ru launched in June after receiving its Russian license in August 2019.

Australian casino operator Crown Resorts has apparently reached the ‘bargaining’ stage of the five stages of grief over the delayed opening of its new Crown Sydney property.

Late Wednesday, Crown issued a statement acknowledging the decision earlier that day by the New South Wales Independent Liquor & Gaming Authority (ILGA) to pause approval of the gaming license for Crown Sydney, which the company hoped to open in mid-December.

Crown said it would focus on opening Crown Sydney’s non-gaming operations ‘in consultation with the ILGA.” Crown subsequently unveiled a management plan for the public Sky Deck on Crown Sydney’s 66th floor, which Crown hopes to open in March.

But in the shorter term, Crown is pressing the ILGA to permit gaming at Crown Sydney under the supervision of ILGA inspectors. Crown also pledged to honor strict anti-money laundering (AML) rules, restructure the company’s management and submit daily activity reports to the ILGA as part of this “working test.”

The European Poker Tour has its first Online Main Event winner, and that winner is Swedish player ‘WhatIfGod’ from Sweden. A former winner in other EPT in live tournaments at Prague, ‘WhatIfGod’ sealed the deal with an outstanding heads-up victory against Canadian player Timothy Adams, who incidentally holds the current record for live earnings in 2020.  

With a total of 1,304 entries comprising 924 unique players and 380 re-entries, the prizepool of $5,000,000 guaranteed was well and truly overtaken, with the eventual pot on offer as prizes totalling $6.52 million. That meant a million-dollar top prize and the action on the final day was worthy of such a title and prize money.  

The first player to leave the final table, Kazakhstani player ‘vip25459’ barely got past the velvet rope. With a short-stack and king-jack, they were all-in, but succumbed to the pocket aces of Jon Van Fleet, who came into the final table with real momentum, having made Day 2 of the partypoker Caribbean Poker Party Main Event at the weekend.  

Despite that hand, Van Fleet would be next to go, his ace-king unable to improve against the pocket jacks of Russian pro Viacheslav Buldygin. Three players had gone in less than 40 minutes when Cypriot Andreas Christoforou was busted by David Yan as Christoforou’s pocket aces were agonisingly overtaken by Yan’s ace-king. Yan, hailing from New Zealand, was running hot and his queens then cracked Brazilian player Enio Bozzano’s pocket kings to reduce the field to five.  

Odds courtesy of OddsShark.com

The small weight classes don’t often headline UFC main cards, but that is the case for UFC 255 on Saturday night from the organization’s Apex facility in Las Vegas as flyweight champion Deiveson Figueiredo defends his belt against Alex Perez. The main card begins at 10 p.m. ET and is available on pay-per-view.

This originally was to feature Figueiredo against former UFC bantamweight champion Cody Garbrandt (he’s currently the fourth-ranked bantamweight), but Garbrandt had to pull out in early October due to injury. Perez was already on the card to face Brandon Moreno but now gets a shot at the title.

The 32-year-old Figueiredo, from MMA-crazy Brazil, is 19-1 in his professional career with that lone loss in March 2019 via unanimous decision to Jussier Formiga. “Daico” has won four straight since. He faced Joseph Benavidez for the vacant flyweight title in February and beat Benavidez by second-round TKO (punches).