Josip Simunic wins the €10,300 High Roller, at the European Poker Tour Deauville, after beating the Frenchman Jean-Noel Thorel in heads-up action.

[Image Credit: PokerNews and DannyMaxwell]

It was a victory the Austrian Josip Simunic described as ‘the sickest story’ of his life, and one he surely never envisaged after starting the final day with just three big blinds.

Before this event played out, almost all of Simunic’s previous live tournament results had come in his homeland. His €309,170 first prize was larger that the entirety of his previous six years worth of effort.

“It’s incredible. It’s unbelievable. I don’t know what to say.” A gobsmacked Simunic told PokerNews after his win.

It was another record-breaker for a tour that continues to go from strength to strength. 102-entrants (26-rebuys) created a total prize pool of over €1.2m, and that was a first for a High Roller at the Casino Barriere de Deauville.

The Belgian Triple Crown winner Davidi Kitai had another deep run ending in 12th place. It cements his place as one of the EPT Season 11 Player of the Year front-runners. Kitai also walked away from Deauville with a victory in the €2,150 No-Limit Hold’em Turbo Cash 8-Handed event.

10-time World Series of Poker bracelet winner, Doyle ‘Texas Dolly’ Brunson, is scheduled to undergo the 12th major surgery of his life after a cancerous melanoma was found in his head.

Can you imagine the fear of heading into surgery not knowing if you’ll ever wake up again?

It’s a hypothetical for most. For Doyle ‘Texas Dolly’ Brunson it’s an all too familiar thought. And yet, even as the deck continues to be stacked against him, he remains a giant – brave, brash and oh so very Brunson like.

“Simple or not, this will be my 12th major operation. Gonna play poker now because I always heard u get lucky right before u die #justsaying.” Tweeted Brunson.

And they say Phil Ivey can find an edge in any situation.

The 10-time World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet winner, and Poker Hall of Famer, will once again face the knife after a cancerous melanoma was found on his head.

“Got my 3rd melanoma confirmed today. Early stages should be simple operation. Fortunately, it’s on my head and everybody knows I’m hardheaded.” Tweeted Brunson.

Full Tilt is turning back the clock by hosting eight days of pure nostalgia with Full Tilt Classic: a tournament series with over $300,000 in guarantees, a sliding scale of buy-ins to appease everyone, and not a single re-entry, bounty or rebuy in sight.

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, there was a card game called Texas Hold’em, with peasants, princes and paupers all playing with the promise of one day becoming king. Those triumphant would receive a crown, born from the ashes of a life or death tournament format known as The Freezeout. 

They were wonderful times. Exhilarating times. Both men and women able to stand shoulder to shoulder – lines of class, gender and race erased. Everyone had a chance. It was what made the game so beautiful. It’s what attracted people in their thousands.

Every great story needs a villain. Someone to spit in James Bond’s Martini and say: ‘shake that little fucker.” The Freezeout format had such a villain. It was known as ‘The Bottom Line.” It sneaked into the very fabric of the poker community. It ate into every tournament. The Freezeout was hunted to near extinction.

But it’s back.

In a nugget of nostalgia, Full Tilt has decided to host an online championship of poker consisting of nothing but Freezeout tournaments. I cannot wait. The thought of eyeballing a tournament lobby and being able to decipher what the hell is going on is getting me wet.

From February 15th-22nd Full Tilt will play host to 16 Freezeout tournaments that will see buy-ins grow from small to big, as the series deepens, culminating in a $100 Main Event on Sunday, February 22nd. A $200,000 guarantee has been slapped on the side of that one.

Silk Road creator Ross Ulbricht faces a lifetime behind bars after a Manhattan federal jury found him guilty in connection with his management of one of the most sophisticated criminal marketplaces on the Internet.

I have a 14-year old son. He lives in a cave. Some people used to call them bedrooms. There is a sign on the door that says: “Adults stay out or die!” People who have survived a visit to the cave have told of a land filled with the lost socks of washing machines all over the world; solidified food that now doubles as a stool, and more electronic gadgets than one would find in Scotty’s garden shed.

I often wonder what he’s getting up to?

I wonder if the parents of Ross Ulbricht often thought the same?

The 30-year old Texan – who in 2013 was identified as Dread Pirate Roberts: the creator, and administrator, of Silk Road – has been convicted on seven counts of naughtiness: including drug trafficking, money laundering and a whole host of other cyber crimes. He faces a lifetime behind bars when sentencing is handed out in New York City on 15 May 2015.

Silk Road is the name given to the dark side of the Internet. The place that exists on a site you don’t want to know about (unless your name begins with Don or Tsar) known as the Tor Network. Think dark side of the force and you’ll get the gist.

The court heard how criminals used the network to buy and sell drugs, and transact on a wide range of illegal practices, including hiring hitmen. I’m not talking about the types of hitmen that Vince McMahon hires for his WrestleMania’s, I’m talking about the types that like to put a cap in your ass. The prosecutors even alleged Ulbricht was trying to hire hitmen to assassinate those who were trying to bring him down.

THE AMERICAS

A federal judge recommended tossing key FBI evidence against accused online betting operator Paul Phua; Nevada sportsbooks took in their second-largest Super Bowl betting handle and baseball’s new commissioner asked for a “conversation” about betting with owners; Gary Loveman said he’d step down as Caesars CEO; two states’ online poker bills died while Sheldon Adelson’s anti-online RAWA legislation resurfaced in Congress; GTECH agreed to ramp up Georgia’s online lottery with einstant games; Maryland casinos’ hot streak grew cold; New York gambling sales fell 2% in 2014; British Columbia’s problem gambling rates fell; Lee Davy analyzed the 2015 World Series of Poker schedule and offered his picks for the inaugural GPI American Poker Awards while independent studies found cocaine and porn were bad gambling companions.

EUROPE

Intertain paid £425m for Gamesys’ Jackpotjoy brand; Spain’s online poker revenue fell despite overall market growth; Betsson’s profit rose while Svenska Spel took a tumble; Mr Green decided to fight the Austrian taxman; PokerStars sued former Full Tilt pro Erick Lindgren to collect a $2.5m debt; The Guardian ended its ill-fated relationship with online sports betting; Playtech inked a 20-year extension with Finland’s RAY; Intel Security got its facts wrong; Betway paid £20m for a West Ham jersey sponsorship; Rafi Farber suggested getting out of Greece before its new finance minister caused an international incident; Rebecca Liggero’s cameras scoped out ICE Totally Gaming Days One, Two and Three, the London Affiliate Conference Days One and Two and all the parties (Fire & Ice, London Baby! and LAC) as well as the iGB Affiliate Awards. Bonus feature: Becky’s hints for readjusting to your pathetic, tragically normal life.

ASIA

Macau casino revenue fell for the eighth straight month and Steve Wynn said Beijing’s crackdowns had destabilized people with money; online betting site IBCBet rebranded as MAXBET; China warned international casinos to stop luring their citizens; NagaCorp’s VIP betting revenue took a healthy jump but Cambodia border casinos saw fewer Vietnamese gamblers; James Packer called rival Echo Entertainment lazy and Sri Lanka told Packer to never ever come back; Macau police busted a South Korean online betting ring; New Zealand spent $2.1b on gambling last year; Richard Yong and Phil Ivey cashed large at the Aussie Millions and our cameras took in all the sights at the grand opening of City of Dreams Manila.

Problem gambling rates in Singapore have fallen to a 10-year low. The latest triennial Gambling Participation Survey saw the city-state’s overall problem gambling rate fall from 2.6% in 2011 to 0.7% in 2014.

The survey of 3k adult Singaporeans showed 44% participated in some form of gambling in the previous 12 months, with the most popular form being the 4D lottery at 35%. That was followed by Singapore Pools’ Toto sports betting (27%) and the Singapore Sweep lottery (16%), with social gambling accounting for 10%. To be clear, the latter category represents casual betting with friends, not online social gaming.

Gamblers are also wagering smaller stakes than three years ago, with the average monthly betting total falling from S$212 in 2011 to just $70 last year. The ranks of those betting over $1k was just 0.3%.

The only significant area of concern was the number of probable pathological gamblers, which, while falling from 1.4% in 2011 to 0.2% in 2014, showed that some gamblers were developing problems at a younger age. Among those defined as exhibiting probable pathological gambling behavior, 17% said they’d developed their bad habits before that age of 18, compared to 5% in 2011.

BRITISH COLUMBIA PROBLEM GAMBLING RATE FALLS 28%

Meanwhile, the Canadian province of British Columbia saw its ranks of moderate or high-risk problem gamblers fall from 4.6% in 2008 to 3.3% last year. Of those deemed to have difficulty controlling their gambling, the ranks of problem gamblers fell from 3.7% to 2.6% while the more serious pathological gambling category fell from 0.9% to 0.7%.

The 2014 BC Problem Gambling Prevalence Study (read it here) of 3,058 adults showed 72.5% had engaged in some form of gambling in the previous 12 months, essentially unchanged from 2008. Over half (56.3%) of gamblers said they spent about the same amount as five years ago, while the remainder were evenly split between gambling more and gambling less.

Online gambling operator Betway has given its profile a serious boost after inking a record-setting sponsorship deal with West Ham United. The Malta-based, UK-licensed Betway will pay the English Premier League side £20m over the next three and a half years, a considerable improvement over the £3m annual fee paid by West Ham’s former sponsor Alpari, the foreign exchange broker whose UK office abruptly closed last month.

The deal represents the biggest commercial tie-up in West Ham’s history. In exchange for all that cash, Betway gets its logo on the team’s jerseys and naming rights to the Boleyn Ground’s West Stand. West Ham is set to move to its new home at Queen Elizabeth Oympic Park in 2016.

West Ham vice-chairman Karren Brady welcomed Betway as the club prepared for its final season at its historic home, saying the team would we “working closely” with the gambling firm as it prepared for the transition. Betway exec director Bob Dutnall said the firm was chuffed to have inked the deal “at a time when the team are performing so well.”

BODOG AND AYR UNITED TO KICK ASS FOR FIFTH CONSECUTIVE YEAR

A little further north, online gambling operator Bodog has re-upped its sponsorship of Scottish League One side Ayr United FC. This marks the fifth consecutive year the parties have been joined at the hip, making it one of the longest partnerships in Scottish football.

Ayr United are currently battling to avoid relegation after a disappointing season that saw former manager Mark Roberts given the boot in favor of Ian McCall. Bodog brand founder Calvin Ayre said McCall has “brought about a tangible change of mood” at the club, priming it for success in the 2015-16 season. Ayre added, “as we say over here, ‘”let’s kick some ass.’”

Ayr United commercial manager Grame Miller said Bodog’s “passion for the club make them a pleasure to deal with.” Miller added that Bodog, who also serve as official Asian betting partner of EPL side Arsenal, “were delighted to enter into talks earlier than ever before this year as we can now get our new strips ready for the fans to buy at our final home game against Stirling on the 25th April.”

Casinos on Cambodia’s border with Vietnam are seeing fewer gamblers after Vietnamese authorities imposed tougher border crossing rules. Vietnam’s Ministry of Public Security said it was responding to increased reports of its citizens being held hostage or even killed after gambling at Cambodian casinos.

Such lurid reports aren’t new. But investigating these cases can prove difficult because, as Ministry official Vu Hoang Kien told Thahn Nien News, the victim’s families are “often too scared to report honestly, if they decided to report to police at all.”

There are 54 casinos and 36 cockfighting pits along Vietnam’s 789-mile border with Cambodia. There are 24 different border gates through which over 1.6m Vietnamese traveled in 2014. Around 234k of these are believed to have made the trip for gambling purposes, while police say others are suspected of loan sharking for Vietnamese clientele while in Cambodia.

Recent “determined actions” to tighten border crossings have staunched the flow somewhat at certain crossings: from 500 people per day to just 100-150 at Tay Ninh and from 1,500 down to 500 per day at My Quy Tay in Long An province. Most of those crossing the border claim to be going for tourism, when all that lies across the border is, in the words of Vietnamnet, “wasteland and the casinos.”

The crackdown has led to a lucrative side business for ‘brokers’ who either guide Vietnamese gamblers across the border via backwoods trails or who pay border guards to look the other way. Kien believes the failure to control the border is the result of poor bilateral cooperation between the two countries.

Or maybe things are going precisely as planned. Back in 2012, Cambodia prime minister Hun Sen told his nation’s parliament that border casino construction had been a “secret strategy” to prevent any potential invasion by Vietnam. “One can remove border markers, but one can’t remove five-story hotels.”

For some time now, Vietnam has been making noise now about lifting its longstanding ban on letting its locals gamble in casinos in their own country. The Grand Ho Tram Strip has bravely offered its facilities for a pilot project but Vietnam continues to stall. Cambodia has suggested it would be forced to follow Vietnam’s lead rather than seeing the current situation reversed, i.e. dealing with media horror stories of kidnap and murder of Cambodian citizens in some other nation’s den of iniquity.

Swedish betting monopoly Svenska Spel is hoping an online casino product will help it arrest its declining revenues. Revenue fell 8% to SEK 2.4b (US $286m) in the three months ending Dec. 31, while profit fell 11.6% to SEK 1.25b. For the year as a whole, revenue fell 8.1% to SEK 8.94b while net income fell 9.6% to SEK 4.76b.

Svenska Spel boss Lennart Käll noted that the company’s overall market share had shrunk four points to 44%, while its online market share dipped one point to 22%. Käll estimates that the market’s online casino turnover topped SEK 2b in 2014, up 18% year-on-year. Svenska Spel has yet to share in this bounty but it has applied to the Swedish government to add online casino to its existing retail betting, casino, lottery and online betting and poker operations.

The company says the total amount spent marketing online casinos in Sweden topped SEK 1b in 2014, the only vertical to attract over 1b in spending, and Käll believes this is creating more problem gamblers. Problem gambling is Svenska Spel’s trump card, in that it believes all operators not named Svenska Spel create problem gamblers while Svenska Spel creates irresistible outbursts of pure unbounded joy and the aroma of freshly baked cookies.

In fact, Svenska Spel says its revenue decline is a result of the responsibility initiative it launched in 2013, including the elimination of certain bonuses and incentives. This newfound commitment to responsibility just happened to coincide with the European Commission formally warning Sweden that its monopoly gambling laws appeared to be flouting European Union internal market rules on the free movement of services.

The Swedish government has defended its preservation of Svenska Spel’s online betting and poker monopoly as a way of keeping a lid on Swedes’ gambling habits, but significant increases in Svenska Spel’s marketing budget in recent years have put significant holes in this theory. In October, the EC formally summoned Sweden to justify its laws before the Court of Justice for the European Union.

Swedish betting operator Betsson saw revenue rise by nearly a quarter in both Q4 and FY 2014. Revenue in the three months ending Dec. 31 rose 24% to SEK 814.7m (US $97m), a new quarterly record, while net income jumped 72% to SEK 243m. For the year as a whole, revenue was up 23% to SEK 3.03b and net income rose 37% to SEK 770.7m.

The numbers were boosted by last February’s acquisition of the Dutch-facing Oranje and Kroon Casino brands, which contributed SEK 89.9m to Q4’s revenue total. Absent these new brands, organic revenue growth was 11%. Betsson also reached a favorable agreement during the quarter regarding the final top-up payment to the new brands’ former owners, Nordic Gaming Group, that boosted Q4 net income before tax by SEK 40.1m.

Betsson’s B2C operations gross profit grew 25% in Q4 to SEK 518.8m, while B2B operations were up 22% to SEK 161.8m. Betsson earned 69% of gross profit from its casino vertical, up from 66%. Sports betting gross profit held steady at 27% of the overall figure, despite a 24% boost in turnover during the quarter. Poker profits fell by 20% to to just SEK 20m due to “a continued decreased level of activity in poker networks” in Betsson’s markets.

Betsson’s mobile channels accounted for 23% of Q4′s overall revenue, twice the amount from a year ago and up 6% from Q3. Mobile sports betting accounted for 43% of sports turnover but poor margins prevented mobile from increasing its share of betting revenue.

Nordic markets generated 71% of Q4 revenue, down from 85%, while EU markets outside the Nordic region rose from 14% to 27%. Customer deposits rose 32% in the quarter and “have never been higher,” despite a small year-on-year decrease in active customers.

Looking forward, Betsson says Q1 2015 has started with revenue “somewhat above” the average level in Q4. The only other notable occurrence to date was the shift to the Nasdaq Stockholm Large Cap on Jan. 1.

Betsson says it’s still developing its online lottery joint venture with a Chinese firm, although it noted that the anticipated new legislation to permit that venture to launch has reportedly been postponed. Regardless, Betsson says it has a “continued positive view” on the Chinese gaming market outlook.

Online gambling is an “extremely easy” method of money laundering, according to an online security researcher. Intel Security Europe CTO Raj Samani (pictured) told the recent NED (Cyber Network Exploitation and Defense) Forum summit in London that criminals were making good use of online gambling sites in regulated markets as well as grey- and black-markets.

“There is no visibility for law enforcement officers of money transfers that happen between players within the gambling site and no documentation is required to register for these services,” said Samani, who singled out Bitcoin-friendly sites as particularly prone to this chicanery.

To which we say, bullshit. Studies have shown that online poker – the only form of online gambling beyond exchange wagering outfits like Betfair in which players have an opportunity to win each other’s money rather than the house’s – is an extremely daft and inefficient method for money laundering. A study of the German gambling market concluded that even if the entire country’s online poker players engaged in money laundering 24/7, their combined effort would still only represent 3.2% of all criminal activity in Germany.

But we get it. Intel is selling security, so they have a vested interest in painting the online world as a scary netherworld of evildoers and villainy. Sen. Lindsey Graham used the recent confirmation hearing of the new US Attorney General to trot out the tired old chestnut about ISIS and Al Qaeda funding their plots via online poker. Much like the Dick Cheney’s of the world attempted to convince us that anyone with an Aladdin DVD in their collection is a potential jihadi, Intel has come to protect you from the digital ghosts under your bed.

Or maybe Intel is nervously practicing some misdirection in order to keep people from learning their terrible secret. See, until early last year, Intel Security was known as McAfee Associates, which was founded by one John McAfee. Shortly before the name change, McAfee the man was accused of unlicensed drug manufacturing, possession of unlicensed weapons and was named a person of interest in a murder investigation in Belize.

Clearly, using the sharp-witted powers of deduction employed above, the only logical conclusion to draw is that Intel Security is a clever front for an international drug trafficking and murder-for-hire ring. Could we be wrong? Sure. And we’ll admit our error when Samani does likewise.

Asian casino operators got a rude awakening Friday after a top Chinese official said the government would crack down on attempts to lure its citizens to international gambling destinations.

Hua Jingfeng, deputy bureau chief at the Ministry of Public Security, told state media that the government had “investigated a series of cases” involving casino operators who had “set up offices in China to attract and drum up interest from Chinese citizens to go abroad and gamble. This will also be an area that we will crack down on.”

Credit Suisse issued a note clarifying that the ‘crackdown’ wasn’t really anything new, as it’s already illegal to directly market gambling services in China. Nonetheless, it doesn’t bode well for hopes that China would loosen its new exit visa restrictions anytime soon.

Credit Suisse also suggested that casinos in Macau would suffer as a result of their increasing reliance on ‘premium mass’ players – gamblers who spend far more than the average but do so with their own money rather than rely on credit advanced by junkets. For years, casinos have been sending agents to China to network with premium mass gamblers but increased scrutiny of these agents’ activities could negatively impact gambling revenue in Macau and elsewhere.

Las Vegas Sands chairman Sheldon Adelson gave a talk at the Institute for Tourism Studies in Macau this week, telling the audience that high-rollers “will stay low and will not be conspicuous in their spending habits until the witch-hunt – or whatever it is called, the crackdown on corruption – levels, goes down.” Adelson said the premium mass segment was also laying low “because they don’t want the government to see them spending what they consider large amounts of money.”

Macau’s VIP market tumbled to 60.5% of gaming revenue in 2014 from 73% in 2013 but Macau’s loss has been a gain for other integrated resort destinations like Singapore, Manila and Australia. Beijing’s crackdown on mainland junket operators has led junkets to shift their attention beyond Macau in the hopes that Chinese VIPs will feel more comfortable betting big away from Beijing’s all-seeing eye.

Macau taxes gaming revenue at 39%, a rate far higher than other Asian gaming jurisdictions, giving junkets even more incentive to diversify their geographical profile. Australian casino operator Echo Entertainment recently reported its VIP gambling turnover nearly doubled over the last half of 2014.

Malta-licensed online gambling operator Mr Green says it has made a provision for SEK 108m (US $12.9m) in its Q4 2014 accounts in the event it’s forced to pay its disputed Austrian tax obligations.

The sum covers a self-assessed period beginning in January 2011 and ending August 2014. The start date coincides with the Austrian government’s imposition of a 40% tax on online gambling revenue generated by Austrian punters, regardless of whether or not an operator holds an Austrian gaming license.

Mr Green says it’s engaged in ongoing discussions with Austrian tax officials regarding a partial payment plan but the company’s legal advisors believe the entire liability won’t survive a court challenge. Mr Green intends to challenge the Austrian government’s cash grab in both Austrian courts and the European Court of Justice as well as with the European Commission. In the meantime, Mr Green says it’s still operating in Austria but is “reducing its market investments.”

In other Mr Green news, the company recently acquired the former Italian-facing operations of German online gambling operator Mybet. Mr Green says the Mybet Italia deal was financed with existing cash assets of unknown quantity. Mybet spun off its money-losing Italian operation in September, after similarly dumping its money-losing Spanish-facing Digidis operation.

Mr Green says it plans to use Mybet Italia’s license to enable the launch of the Mr Green brand in the Italian market and Mybet Italia’s current CEO will stay on to help with the transition. Outgoing Mr Green CEO Mikael Pawlo said the company hoped the launch would happen in Q2, assuming local regulator AAMS offers no objections. Mr Green intends to focus on online casino initially but hasn’t ruled out the possibility of adding a sportsbook. Either way, the company doesn’t believe the Italian operation will make a positive contribution to earnings this year.

Canada’s Intertain Group has pulled the trigger on its latest acquisition, snapping up the Jackpotjoy and Botemania online bingo brands and the Starspins casino brand from UK gaming operator Gamesys.

Intertain will pay Gamesys £425.8m upfront – including 7.4m Intertain shares worth about £57m – with top-ups of a maximum £15m provided Jackpotjoy meets certain earnings benchmarks. Intertain says the Jackpotjoy business recorded earnings of £67m from revenue of £130.9m in the 12 months ending September 2014.

In addition to securing the rights to the brands and player data, Intertain inked a 10-year deal that will see Gamesys continue to supply platform services and gaming content to the Jackpotjoy operation. Gamesys founder Noel Hayden will also join Intertain’s board as a non-executive director.

Hayden described the deal as “a perfect match,” claiming that the two companies were in ideological lockstep “from our earliest discussions.” Intertain CEO John Kennedy Fitzgerald said the acquisition was in keeping with his company’s stated focus on “the female demographic, in regulated markets.” Fitzgerald claims the deal has made Intertain the planet’s largest purveyor of “online, bingo-led gaming.”

Last June, Intertain acquired the UK-facing Costa Bingo brand via a $45m purchase of Mandalay Media. That followed Intertain’s late-2013 $70m acquisition of the B2C WagerLogic business from fellow Canucks Amaya Gaming, which holds a significant stake in Intertain. More recently, Intertain inked a letter of intent to acquire Nordic-facing operator Vera&John.

Intertain has followed Amaya’s acquisitive path to success and Fitzgerald told eGaming Review that Amaya’s blockbuster $4.9b deal to buy the Rational Group and its PokerStars cash machine had “woken up” the investment community to the potential of online gaming deals. Intertain shares rose nearly 4% on the Toronto exchange on the day’s news.

As promised, Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) has reintroduced the Restoration of America’s Wire Act (RAWA), the anti-online gambling legislation written/supported/demanded by Las Vegas Sands chairman Sheldon Adelson. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) has vowed to reintroduce RAWA in the Senate this year after it failed to come up for a vote in the previous legislative session.

The three-page bill (read it here), which is identical to the 2014 model, seeks to undo the late-2011 Department of Justice opinion that confirmed the 1961 Wire Act applied only to online sports betting. The opinion paved the way for the regulated intrastate online gambling markets in Nevada, New Jersey and Delaware, all of which would be forced to close if RAWA were to pass. RAWA would also restrict state lotteries from offering their services online.

Fortunately for those states, RAWA has about as good a chance of passing as President Obama has of joining the faces on Mount Rushmore. RAWA has been publicly slammed by a host of Republican icons, including Ron Paul and Grover Norquist, as an assault on the hallowed ground of state’s rights. The fact that Adelson is a major GOP sugar daddy has also given legislators qualms about the blatant quid pro quo that RAWA entails. To paraphrase Virgil Sollozzo, they don’t want to be seen as one of those politicians you carry in your pocket, Don Adelson, like so many nickels and dimes.

Chaffetz brushed off the controversy, telling reporters that Adelson had never personally funded any of his election campaigns. Chaffetz said he was glad Adelson supported RAWA but insisted the issue was “not just about any one person.” Chaffetz framed his anti-online gambling stance as a response to the DOJ opinion, which he called “yet another example of executive branch overreach.”

Chaffetz said the DOJ had made “what amounts to a massive policy change without debate or input from the people or their representatives.” Chaffetz insisted “that’s not the way we change laws in this country.” Of course it isn’t. If you want to pass a law without debate, you wait until the middle of the night then sneak it into a larger, unrelated piece of legislation, like the way Republicans slipped the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) into the SAFE Port Act back in 2006.

DID NETANYAHU PIMP JAPAN ON ADELSON’S BEHALF?

Adelson appears to be getting a much better bang for his funding dollars in Israel. Local media is in a frenzy over Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s alleged lobbying of Japan’s government about Adelson’s desire to build a casino in the Asian country.

French online poker cash game traffic has dropped 33%, over the past three years, according to a fresh report from the French independent online gaming regulator ARJEL.

If you want to see a lot of art, queue for a exceedingly long time to climb to the top of a very large tower, or visit a cathedral that was once the home to a geezer with a colander tucked under the back of his shirt then go to France.

If you want to play poker, then don’t.

That’s not the view of a xenophobic Englishman chucking stones from across the channel. That’s the view of over a hundred French poker players who now earn their trade playing out of a different country.

And how does that effect the French online poker economy? It affects it quite a lot, actually.

On January 30th 2015, the independent French online gaming regulator Autorité de régulation des jeux en ligne (ARJEL) released the quarterly analysis of the market for online games in France (Q4: 2014).

It was painful reading.

Bertrand ‘Elky’ Grospellier, Patrick Bruel and Paul Tedeschi have taken advantage of a tough stance from the Betclic Everest Group by joining #TeamFrance ahead of the inaugural Global Poker Masters.

Billed as Poker’s World Cup, the Global Poker Masters (GPM) is one of the most eagerly anticipated events of the year. The top eight countries, as ranked by the Global Poker Index (GPI), will compete until one team is declared the champion of the world, and the French are the first to finalize their team.

They were in turmoil earlier this week after two of their stars were forced to withdraw on request of their sponsor. Fabrice Soulier and the current French No.1 Benjamin Pollak, withdrew from the line up after the GPI CEO Alex Dreyfus made it very clear that the live stream would be patchless.

A patch-free live stream didn’t suit the French managerial team at Betclic Everest, and Soulier and Pollak were soon vacating spaces that needed filling. The next two players in line were PokerStars Pro Bertrand ‘ElkY’ Grospellier, and the baby faced assassin Paul Tedeschi.

It seems PokerStars are non-too fussed about the power of the patch – as Vanessa Rousso found out this week – and neither are Winamax. The former World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet winner, Patrick Bruel, was added as the fifth and final member as the team’s wildcard entry.

“The first draft was great, but the second one is also good,” Says PokerNews France Chief Editor Matthieu Sustrac. “I think we have a chance to win, and Patrick is a great wildcard entry, especially for advertising the game in France. I am also delighted for Paul Tedeschi. It’s a great accomplishment for him. He’s young, a nice guy and the future of French poker.”

If the inclusion of Patrick Bruel surprises you (he carries a rank of GPI#1452) then never under-estimate the power of having a singer in your team. It’s all about morale folks, and when you have seen seven of your albums hit the top of the French charts, then the man knows how to warble a tune.

PokerStars have sued former Full Tilt Poker pro, Erick Lindgren, for an outstanding debt worth $2.5m, and have also parted ways with long-standing member of Team Pro Vanessa Rousso.

PokerStars are suing Erick Lindgren for $2.5m

I guess it’s not exactly a surprise. The men and women who once ran Full Tilt Poker strike me as the type to turn a blind eye to a $2.5m cock-up – not PokerStars.

Rational FT Enterprises Limited v. Lindgren is a fight that started on January 30th 2015, and it’s going to be interested to see how this one develops. Lindgren is a former gambling addict. He managed to accumulate a  debt load that Caesars Entertainment would be proud of. Unless he has an empty coke bottle that generates money, like the ones Dynamo uses, I would say he’s screwed.

So how does one manage to owe PokerStars $2.5m?

Here is the direct answer taken from court records.

“Pursuant to an agreement between Lindgren and Full Tilt and in accordance with Full Tilt’s capitalization table Full Tilt Poker would submit distributions via direct deposit into Lindgren’s bank account. The distributions were compensation for Lindgren’s service as a professional poker player pursuant to the agreement, under which Lindgren promoted the Full Tilt Poker brand.”