China’s online lottery clampdown will result in a healthier industry, according to financial services firm North Square Blue Oak (NSBO).

In January, Beijing ordered provincial lottery administration centers to suspend online lottery sales as of March 1. NSBO, which specializes in China’s public policy moves, said the clampdown was prompted in part by the fact that some online operators were “not registering all of their sales.”

In some cases where the odds of a bettor’s wager made a win unlikely, NSBO said some online operators were not registering the sales with lottery centers, allowing the operator to pocket the profits. NSBO believes the current investigations by provincial centers will weed out unscrupulous agents. NSBO also suggested Beijing could boost operators’ minimum capital requirements to eliminate smaller, less committed operators.

Provincial administrators have also been complaining to Beijing about “lost revenue from the growth in online sales.” The current system grants commissions to the province where the operator is licensed, rather than the location of the punter. NSBO suggests Beijing may rejig its revenue distribution scheme to allow a point-of-sale commission.

Irish betting operator Paddy Power has tapped London-based mad men Beattie McGuinness Bungay (BMB) to handle its creative account.

Paddy announced late last year that it was looking to shake up its creative advertising after three years with Crispin Porter & Bogusky, who elected not to push for a renewal. The list of potential replacements was eventually narrowed down to four with final pitches made this week in London.

The £20m account will see BMB handle television and radio spots, while Paddy’s in-house team will continue to handle much of its outdoor and print campaigns. London-based agency Lucky Generals will also continue to work with Paddy on its notorious promotional stunts.

BMB co-founder Trevor Beattie said his firm was chuffed to be working with the Irish pranksters, calling the deal “a marriage made in mischief.” Paddy’s head of brand Paul Sweeney said the company couldn’t wait to see “how much trouble we can get into with our new friends at BMB.”

The New Mexico Senate voted, 35-7, to approve a proposal that would create a new gambling compact that would replace the one that’s set to expire at the end of June 2015, allowing Native American tribes in the state to continue with their gambling operations.

If a new compact won’t put in place at that time, casinos belonging to the Navajo Nation, the Corilla and Mescal Apache tribes and Coma Pueblo would be forced to close down.

Now that the proposed compact is moving at a steady pace, it at least validates the time spent by the office of Gov. Susana Martinez to get an agreement in order that would appease the state and the tribes involved. The most important thing, according to supporters of the new compact, was to have an agreement in place that would bring some semblance of stability to the state’s gambling industry in order to increase state revenue and protect the employment of residents working in these casinos.

Despite getting approval in the senate, some legislators continued to express their concerns about possible legal liabilities in the new compact while others kept their opinions that gambling in the state should’t be allowed to begin with.

If you didn’t know any better, you would think that you were attending some kind of lavish awards ceremony. The media came in droves. The red carped was rolled out. Those who walked it came in dapper suits, posing for photographers as if they were attending the Oscars. It had all the elements of a gathering of the stars. The only notable exception was there were only two stars on this warm Los Angeles afternoon, the same two men who will finally share a boxing ring together on May 2.

The Mayweather – Pacquiao Press Conference held at the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles on Wednesday, March 11, officially announcing the mega fight. The live press conference will be the first and only time we see the both Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao in the same room together until fight week.

That’s probably a big reason why both camps pulled out all the stamps to give the press conference an awards-show feel to it. It worked, too.

Over 700 media credentialed media members were in attendance. Even for the hyperbolic standards of Hollywood, that turnout represents a gigantic number, emblematic of the anticipation surrounding the only boxing fight the world wants to see.

ADRIANO MORAES AND RIKU SHIBUYA MAKE WEIGHT AHEAD OF

ONE FLYWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP SHOWDOWN

CATCH ALL THE ACTION LIVE ON TV9 AND ON PAY-PER-VIEW AT WWW.ONEFC.COM/LIVESTREAM

12 March 2015 – Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: ONE Championship™ (ONE) announced today that all mixed martial artists competing have made weight and are ready for ONE: AGE OF CHAMPIONS. The event takes place on Friday evening, 13 March at Stadium Putra in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The card is headlined by Adriano Moraes who puts his ONE Flyweight World Championship on the line when he takes on Japan’s Riku Shibuya.

A coalition of influential California Indian tribes has given state legislators a simple message: keep PokerStars out.

The six-tribe coalition – led by the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians and the Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians – issued a letter to Assemblyman Reggie Jones-Sawyer stating their opposition to his “fatally flawed” AB 167 online poker legislation. The coalition tribes were already understood to have thrown their support behind Assemblyman Mike Gatto’s AB 9 legislation.

The bulk of the coalition’s letter focuses on ‘bad actors’ aka companies that took wagers from Americans post-UIGEA. The letter goes into detail on the Black Friday indictments, in particular the three online poker companies’ mismanagement and occasional grifting. Such “unscrupulous entities and brands … defrauded poker players of over $300 million.”

The letter basically lumps in the financial shenanigans at Absolute Poker and Full Tilt Poker with the comparatively squeaky clean PokerStars, without whom Full Tilt’s defrauded players would never have been made whole. Without mentioning Stars by name, the letter describes Stars writing that $731m check solely to avoid “the looming possibility of criminal convictions – which certainly would have prevented those firms from obtaining gaming licenses in U.S. jurisdictions.”

In this weeks confessions series Lee Davy talks about authenticity and how it has reared its beautiful head in poker this week.

Mukul Pahuja called Phil Hellmuth a cheeseburger salesman. The World Poker Tour Player of the Year knows he will one day sit opposite him. There will be an uncomfortable silence broken by a gesture of some kind. He doesn’t care. I love it. It was a glimpse of authenticity.

Mike Sexton called out the World Series of Poker. He believes they have devalued the prestige of winning a bracelet, have put their bottom line before their customers, and have spread their brand too thin. He will play at the event. He will mix and talk with the powers to be at the WSOP. I love it. I saw another glimpse of authenticity.

Jason Somerville attracted over 9,500 viewers during his Sunday Grind live stream on Twitch. Do PokerStars keep their sponsored pros on a leash? From the outside in, I can see how people may formulate the opinion that they do. I have never believed that. I believe the pro has put that leash on. They have chosen to be inauthentic. Somerville is proof of that. Stars have let him loose on the world. The man, who had to be inauthentic for so many years of his life, is currently flying on a cloud of Monkey Magic proportions.

Stop us if you’ve heard this one before, but legislators in Japan think they’ve come up with a way to push through their long-delayed casino bill.

Casino supporters among Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) plan to utilize some procedural sleight-of-hand to ensure the casino study bill has a shot of passing in the current legislative session, which ends June 24.

The legislators hope to resubmit last year’s aborted legislation to the Land and Transport Committee, a minor legislative body that traditionally deals with mundane issues like utility pole management.

The idea is to bypass the casino bill’s traditional path through the Cabinet Committee, which is up to its neck in higher priority legislation – including national defense issues stemming from the recent beheading of a Japanese citizen by ISIS fanatics – and likely wouldn’t choose to waste its time on comparatively minor and highly divisive issues like authorizing casino development.

A man is arrested in Illinois after stealing $420,000 poker chips from a LA apartment, and another is behind bars after losing his entire life roll playing cards, and then deciding to rob a bank to fill it back up.

Poker continues to attract the world dumbest criminals.

This time it’s Illinois man Dustin Campbell, 32, who has looking at some serious porridge after being charged with grand theft.

WGEM.com told the tale of Campbell’s woe.

Chris Csik has taken down the first World Series of Poker Circuit event, to be held in the state of Maryland, after defeating Faisal Sidiqui, in heads-up action, to take the first prize of over $200,000.

It was the first time the World Series of Poker (WSOP) had visited the state of Maryland.

It won’t be forgotten.

In only the second event of the series, a $365 re-entry event, they broke the Maryland record for a live tournament, after 2,403 players turned up to party. Jesse Mills walked away with $106,305 for first.

Oscar Alache Orrego has won his second Latin American Poker Tour Main Event, after defeating Renata Teixeira de Paulo, in heads up action, to take the first prize of $131,962.

[Image Credit: PokerNews]

Chilean, Oscar Alache Orrego, became only the third player to win two Latin American Poker Tour (LAPT) Main Event titles, after victory in front of his home crowd at the Casino Enjoy in Vina del Mar. In 2014, he defeated 692 players to capture the first prize of $135,488 in the Peruvian leg of the PokerStars.net sponsored event.

The Chilean didn’t have to wade through quite as many players to capture his second crown, but 410 is impressive enough. The buy-in was also a grand higher, leading to a much larger prize pool. PokerStars collected $904,460 and $131,960 now belongs to Alache, after a four way deal.

A subsidiary of Austrian gaming firm Novomatic Group has acquired US-based social and mobile games developer AbZorba Games.

Novomatic’s Malta-licensed online software subsidiary Greentube acquired a 100% stake in Abzorba for an undisclosed sum. Greentube supplies gaming content to operators including Rank and Sky and holds B2C licenses in Italy and the German state of Schleswig-Holstein.

AbZorba, which is based in Delaware but keeps its R&D in Athens, Greece, notched 4m installs of its social casino games as of last March. AbZorba CEO Andrew Hughes said his group was “absolutely thrilled” to be joining the Novomatic family, while Greentube CEO Thomas Graf said AbZorba’s game library “perfectly supplements” the Novomatic Interactive offering.

PLAYSTUDIOS ADDS ALLEGIANT AIR REWARDS

Denmark’s regulated online gambling market grew 20% last year, according to new stats by Danish gaming regulator Spillemyndigheden.

Former state gaming monopoly Danske Spil lost its iron grip on the Danish market three years ago but remains the market leader, although it suffered an annual profit decline of 5.8% in 2014. There are currently 29 operators licensed to offer online casino services in Denmark, while 15 operators have acquired online sports betting licenses.

Online operators reported gross gaming revenue of DKK 2.85b (US $403.7m) in 2014. Sports betting accounted for DKK 1.78b of that total, up 29% from 2013. The results were spurred by wagering on the 2014 FIFA World Cup, which generated revenue of DKK 760m. The online casino vertical rose by a comparatively paltry 5% to DKK 1.25b while poker fell 13% to DKK 170m.

Things weren’t so rosy at the country’s seven land-based casinos, which saw revenue fall 3% to DKK 325m. The 25,500 gaming machines scattered across the country’s small gaming halls and restaurants reported revenue of DKK 375m, down 5% from 2013. Making matters worse, land-based gaming operators pay significantly higher tax rates than online gambling operators, a system that was upheld by the European Union’s top court last September.

Online poker giant PokerStars has been accused of a €300m tax fraud by Italy’s financial police, charges the company has vehemently rejected.

On Wednesday, Italy’s Guardia di Finanza accused PokerStars of using subsidiaries of Stars’ parent company the Rational Group to “willfully erode” its Italian tax obligations for the period spanning 2009 to 2014.

The fiscal cops said the Halfords Media Italy subsidiary had used transfer pricing methods to shift Italy-generated income to other Rational subsidiaries in more tax-friendly jurisdictions in the Isle of Man and Malta, while keeping its Italian costs in the country, thereby reducing the amount it owed the Italian taxman.

The Italian police have said the managing director of PokerStars’ Italian operations would be charged with tax evasion for “the implementation of this complex criminal design.”

UK-listed online gambling operator Bwin.party digital entertainment recorded a pre-tax net loss of €97.9m in 2014 thanks to falling revenue and a massive writedown of its struggling PartyPoker division.

Bwin.party’s 2014 revenue fell 6% to €612m, although mobile revenue doubled to €153m. Earnings fell 5% to €102.2m, marking the third consecutive year of negative trajectory. The black ink turned to red thanks to a non-cash impairment charge of €104.4m against “poker-related” and other intangible assets and non-core investments.

Revenue from regulated/taxed markets – Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the UK and New Jersey – rose 1% to €345.2m while Bwin.party’s remaining grey/black market business fell 14% to €266.7m.

Bwin.party’s operations in New Jersey’s regulated online market recorded a €9.8m loss for the year. The Win social gaming division, which Bwin.party has been unsuccessfully trying to sell, lost €6.7m.

Nepal’s Department of Industry has opened its doors to another foreign gaming company to begin operating a casino in partnership with a local firm.

The latest nod was given to Goa-based gaming company Goa Coastal Resorts, which will be partnering with Nepal-based Entertainment and Recreational Pvt Ltd. to launch and operate Casino Pride at the Hyatt Hotel in Kathmandu

“We have registered a company under the name of ‘Casino Pride’, which is scheduled to come into operation by one and a half month,” one of the promoters of the company told Nepalese news site eKantipur.

Tourism Department Director General Tulasi Gautam confirmed that the company has already registered at the Department of Industry, but noted that it hasn’t applied for the permit with the tourism department.

Spanish football has once again found itself embroiled in another match-fixing scandal after two former presidents and for ex-board members of football club Osasuna have been charged with a host of misgivings, including misappropriation of funds, false accounting, falsifying documents and corruption.

The investigation reportedly involves the disappearance of €2.4 million from the club’s coffers, which went missing between November 2013 and June 2014. The two former presidents, Miguel Archanco and Patxi Izco, and the four ex-board members, Txuma Peralta, Angel Vizcay, Juan Pascual, and Diego Maquirriain were all arrested over a period of two days, the regional court of northern Navarra confirmed on Twitter.

Izco, Vizcay, Pascual, and Maquirriain have since been released, with Archanco’s bail set at €500,000. Unfortunately for Peralta, he was the only one who was denied bail.

If these administrative issues are enough to give Osasuna massive fits, it must be really rough going for the club these days because it’s still dealing with match-fixing allegations involving the same former figures in its management.

The National Retirement Fund (NRF) has removed Caesars’ three Atlantic casinos from its multi-employer pension plan, demanding a $462m withdrawal liability.

NRF, which handles pension plans for employees in casino, hotel, laundry and apparel industries, voted to expel Bally’s, Harrah’s, and Caesars Atlantic City casinos in January, forcing Caesars Entertainment to withdraw and pay the liability before it could protect its prime assets beyond the reach of the creditors.

“We did not start this. Caesars started this, and had Caesars not done what they were going to do, and did do, we would never have taken those actions,” Brubaker said on Monday.

“The ongoing bankruptcy is going to divide the company and the ownership group,” Brubaker added. “When that happens, we no longer have the ability to pursue the other parts of Caesars — the so-called good Caesars — for the obligations of the bad Caesars. So we had to act before the bankruptcy.”