House Speaker Greg Stumbo made the proclamation at the close of the state legislative session last week, essentially making it his “personal agenda” to push Kentucky casino bill at the 2016 General Assembly next January.

Stumbo filed casino bill HB 300 during this year’s session that if approved, would allow up to six casinos in counties of at least 85,000 people that have approved expanded gambling in a local-option vote. No congressional district could have more than one casino. The casinos would be overseen by the Kentucky Lottery Corp.

But the casino bill never called for a hearing, perhaps understanding the tricky nature of talks in a state that has repeatedly pushed off discussions of expanded gambling in recent years, be it due to the horse industry’s incessant squabbles or the reluctance by other lawmakers to talk about the issue.

Stumbo sees an opportunity in bringing back talks to the table in 2016, citing the upcoming gubernatorial elections as an opening to get the new governor on board with his proposal. It’s easier said than done and some analysts even believe that he’s only wasting his time pressing the issue in a climate where there doesn’t appear to be enough support for his proposal to gain any sort of legitimate traction.

The Godfather of poker, Doyle Brunson, has suggested on twitter that Dave ‘Devilfish’ Ulliott should be inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame, after news spread, via social media circles, that Devilfish was battling cancer.

Dave ‘Devilfish’ Ulliott is one of the reasons that I got involved in poker, and am doing what I do today.

I won’t be alone.

Each story will be a little different, but they will all share a theme.

Mustapha ‘potta_x_potta’ Kanit continues his tremendous run of form with victory in the Full Tilt Online Poker Series XXVIII Main Event.

Mustapha Kanit has won the Full Tilt Online Poker Series (FTOPS) XXVIII Main Event.

The young Italian, who has amassed over $2.8m in online tournament earnings, picked the title up after wading through a field of 1,260 entrants, in the $1,000 single re-entry main event. The prize pool of $1,197,000 ensuring the million-dollar guarantee was met.

It’s Kanit’s best online score since picking up $392,375 for finishing third in a World Championships of Online Poker (WCOOP) event, on PokerStars, back in the autumn.

The PokerStars sponsored Eureka Poker Tour is heading to Germany after the tour announced that they will be heading to Hamburg for the second leg of the Season Five extravaganza.

The PokerStars sponsored Eureka Poker Tour have taken a leaf out of the World Series of Poker’s (WSOP) books, by deciding to take their brand to Germany.

Season 5 of the Eureka Poker Tour will take place in Hamburg. Germany’s second largest city will entertain poker players from all over Europe during a 14-event festival held at the Spielbank Schenefeld 22-31 May 2015.

It’s the first time in the tours history that Germany has been selected as a host country, and comes on the back of the WSOP’s decision to host the 2015 World Series of Poker Europe (WSOPE) festival in Berlin.

Byron Kaverman wins back-to-back Aria $25k High Roller events, Anthony Gregg cashes in both, and Jason Koon continues his fine 2015 form.

Byron Kaverman has been the subject of much conjecture this week.

[Image Credit: PokerNews / Joe Giron]

Numerous top professionals went to Twitter to vent their frustration over the time some players take when making their decisions. Kaverman was one of the tankers that seemed to occupying most of the water.

Greek betting operator OPAP saw profit rise 41% last year thanks to aggressive cost-cutting, new product launches and the 2014 FIFA World Cup.

OPAP reported revenue up 14.8% to €4.26b and profits up over €58m to €199.2m in its first full year of operations since the Greek government sold its one-third stake to the Emma Delta consortium. The new bosses imposed a raft of cost controls, including a voluntary redundancy program, a 56.5% drop in donations/grants and a 31% cut in sponsorship expenditure.

OPAP CEO Kamil Ziegler credited the uptick to the successful launch of a new lottery scratch card that contributed revenue of €203m. OPAP also enjoyed a solid performance by its Joker lottery product, which reported revenue up 28.5% to €267m. OPAP’s Stihima sports betting product saw revenue rise 21% to €1.5b thanks to the World Cup but revenue from OPAP’s flagship Kino product fell 1.6% to €2b. Gross gaming revenue rose 20.5% to €416m in Q4, the sixth consecutive quarter of positive traction.

Ziegler took pains to point out that OPAP contributed “significantly higher proceeds” to the cash-strapped Greek government in 2014, making OPAP “the largest taxpayer” in a country notorious for its tax-evading nature.

Canada’s Amaya Gaming has taken another major step toward divesting itself of its B2B assets via the sale of land-based gaming machine division Cadillac Jack.

On Monday, the Montreal-based Amaya announced it had struck a deal to sell Cadillac Jack’s indirect parent company Amaya Americas Corporation to American Gaming Systems (AGS), an affiliate of funds managed by Apollo Global Management. Apollo is one of the two hedge funds that control struggling casino operator Caesars Entertainment.

AGS, which designs and manufactures gaming products for US tribal casinos, has agreed to pay Amaya C$461m in cash plus a $15m payment-in-kind note bearing 5% annual interest that matures eight years from the deal’s closing date. The parties expect the deal to close later this year.

In January, Amaya announced its plans to shed its B2B assets in order to focus on its Rational Group B2C operations – including online gambling sites PokerStars and Full Tilt – that Amaya acquired last June for $4.9b. Amaya had already announced its intention to flog Cadillac Jack several months prior to the January announcement. The Cadillac Jack sale follows hot on the heels of last week’s announcement that Amaya would spin off its Diamond Game Enterprises lottery unit via an initial public offering.

Philippine-listed Belle Corp, the company that owns the property where City of Dreams Manila stands, has reported a 30% year-on-year drop in consolidated net income in 2014.

Belle, which now focuses on real estate development, saw its 2014 overall net income drop to Php2.56 billion compared to Php3.6 billion in 2013. But according to the company, its net income in 2013 was inflated by net non-recurring gains by Php 1.5 billion. Despite the drop in net income, the company still saw its operating income improve by 21% on the strength of earnings it made from Melco Crown’s lease on the 6.2-hectare land in Entertainment City.

The integrated resort and casino only opened on February 2, 2015 after a soft opening on December 14, 2014, but Belle indicated in its results filing that accrued payments were still made in the pre-opening period of the resort.

The company also said that it had posted operating revenues of Php3.16 billion in 2014, up from the Php2.62 billion it posted in the same time period the year before. Likewise, increased income from listed subsidiaries, including Premium Leisure Corp and Pacific Online Systems Corp, contributed in the company’s increase in income. Part of the earnings from Premium Leisure Corp is tied into the gaming revenues of COD Manila.

Lee Kuan Yew, considered as the founding father of Singapore, was a loved and well-respected man in his country. Over the weekend, those emotions came pouring out when the country formally held the funeral service for its departed pioneer.

Respectful tributes were made throughout Singapore, even extending to the country’s two casinos – Resorts World Sentosa and Marina Bay Sands – both of which closed operations from 2 pm to 6 pm on Sunday to pay their respects to Lee.

Resorts World Sentosa also asked its staff to wear somber colors on the day of the state funeral. The operator canceled its Crane Dance and Lake of Dreams night shows from March 23 to March 31 while also suspending most business operations in other attractions from 2 pm to 2:05 pm on Sunday.

“Together with the rest of the nation, we mourn the loss of a great leader. We apologize for any inconvenience caused,” Resorts World Sentosa said on its website last week.

For the second straight year, the WWE proved that betting on Wrestlemania odds is harder than it looks. In the run-up to the event, numerous sportsbooks released odds on the matches scheduled for Wrestlemania 31. But as the saying goes in the world of professional wrestling, “results are subject to change at the last minute” and yes, the dramatic swing in odds from some of those matches late in the weekend proved as much.

The most significant swing happened in the match between Triple H and Sting. For the better part of last week, sportsbooks had Sting as the overwhelming favorite at 1/7 odds with Triple H the heavy underdog at 4/1 odds. But once the smart money arrived the days leading up to Wrestlemania 31, the odds on the two wrestlers flipped with the WWE COO the heavy favorite at 2/25 odds compared to Sting who was now on the receiving end of 4/1 odds. The lesson: if you had bet on Triple H to win when he was still the prohibitive underdog, you would’ve cashed out on some pretty sweet odds.

Another example of a 360-degree flip in odds was the WWE World Heavyweight Championship match between champion Brock Lesnar and Roman Reigns. From the onset, it appeared that WWE was ready to coronate Reigns as the next face of the company. The odds certainly reflected as much since the young Samoan was the 2/7 favorite compared to Lesnar who was a 9/4 underdog. Part of the rationale behind those odds was the belief that Lesnar wouldn’t renew his contract with WWE, which was supposed to expire the day after Wrestlemania 31, to make a return to the UFC. But Lesnar went on ESPN early last week and announced his contract extension with the WWE. That was more than enough for sportsbooks to drop his odds to even money compared to Reigns, who saw his own odds rise to 10/11.

Turns out, the unstable line movements in the match amounted to nothing as neither Lesnar nor Reigns came out of Wrestlemania 31 as the champion. Seth Rollins, who cashed in his Money in the Bank briefcase, is the new WWE World Heavyweight Champion. Who saw that coming?

Betfair has appointed PoliticalBetting.com Founder Mike Smithson as it ramp up its political betting offer for the UK General Election in May.

Under the agreement, former Liberal Democrat politician Smithson has been hired on a consultancy basis for creating new betting props for the coming election. He also started contributing articles for Betfair.com and BetfairPredicts.com—operator’s devoted site for UK General Election, which was released on the Apple App Store on Wednesday.

“Betting markets have an impressive track record of predicting outcomes and Betfair is offering its most comprehensive range of markets ever for those looking to get involved,” said James Midmer, Betfair political spokesperson. “This is the tightest election for years and people will want as much insight as they can get.”

Meanwhile, Gambling betting technology provider BetConstruct has announced its odds provisions partnership with Gaming 1, giving access to 20,000 potential markets via Gaming1 brand website Circus.be.

Gambling event and expos organizer Clarion Events has signed a two-year content and event partnership, which has a renewal option, with GamCrowd.

Under the deal, gambling crowd-funding site GamCrowd will reprise Pitch ICE at ICE 2016 and will host Start-Up LaunchPad competition at GiGse and EiG 2015.

GiGse 2015, which takes place at Hyatt Regency, San Francisco, from April 20-22, will be the first edition covered by the new partnership.

In Start-Up LaunchPad competition, similar to Pitch ICE, will see companies pitch their business propositions in front of investors and a room full of top-level executives and will be judge by a panel led by Chairman Ian Hogg.

So it’s set.

The NCAA men’s basketball tournament is down to four teams.

In a lot of ways, this was the kind of Final Four that many would’ve predicted. Three of the four top seeds are in and the only outlier—if you can even call it that—is a 7 seed in Michigan State that isn’t lacking in big game experience.

There are no Cinderellas in this dance, folks.

The Tournament Director’s Association anger the poker community after announcing plans to hold their biennial event at The Venetian in Las Vegas. A casino owned by online gambling destroyer Sheldon Adelson.

Face palm moment.

All three of Daenerys Targaryen’s dragons could not create as much heat as the Tournament Director’s Association (TDA) are currently facing, after board member Matt Savage tweeted their intention to host the 2015 event at The Venetian, Las Vegas, June 16-17.

The Venetian.

Jean Montury is the latest European Poker Tour Main Event champion, after beating Valentin Messina, in heads-up action, to take the first prize of €687,400 on the tiny island of Malta.

[Image Credit: PokerNews / Danny Maxwell]

That’s it!

Draw a line under it.

Dzmitry Urbanovich has taken the lead in the 2015 Global Poker Index Player of the Year race after winning four side events at the European Poker Tour festival in Malta.

Dzmitry Urbanovich.

PokerStars EPT Media Coordinator, Mad Harper, suggested the guys and gals in the European Poker Tour (EPT) media room should create a short cut on their keyboard for that name.

It was sound advice.

[Image Credit: PokerNews/Danny Maxwell]

American star, David Peters, has won the European Poker Tour €10k buy-in high roller event, after beating Ivan Luca in heads-up action to capture the biggest score of his live poker career.

David Peters has won the €10,000 buy-in, European Poker Tour (EPT), High Roller Event, in Malta. The American defeated the Argentinian, Ivan Luca, in heads-up action, to take the €597,000 first prize. It was the biggest score of his live

tournament career.