Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is the favorite to be re-elected as the PM of Israel says online prediction website PredictIt.org. The site, which sets its odds depending on public volume coming in on either side of a specific bet offer, listed Netanyahu as an 81% favorite when the country holds its elections for the 20th Knesset on March 17, 2015.

Based on recent events, it appears that Netanyahu’s recent address before the US Congress had a big impact on the voters. Just before his address, public polls in Israel had the PM race a lot closer than the latest returns. PredictIt.org even posted his chances as being below 50% as recently as January 2015.

But over the past few weeks, that number has steadily gone up and it now appears that Netanyahu is all but certain to retain his status as Israel prime minister.

Speaking of election betting, UK bookmaker Ladbrokes isn’t the only one reaping the rewards of what has become an action-packed election betting prop in the UK. Fellow oddsmaker Betfair is also getting in on the action. According to CEO Breon Corcoran, Betfair has already received £2.2 million in bets on the company’s exchange and is expecting to generate close to £2.2 million £40 million in bets before the general election takes place on May 7.

Betfair is predicting that the elections will result in a hung parliament and the odds of that happening – 1/4 odds – indicate that such a scenario is the overwhelming favorite to happen. the betting company has also priced an overall Tory majority at 11/2 and an overall Labour majority at 18/1.

If the Scottish referendum last September 2014 was an indication, it’s safe to say that Betfair’s odds are right in line with what’s expected to happen in the UK elections. Corcoran even said as much when he said that it expects its posted odds as a reflection of a similarly accurate outcome with the Scottish referendum, which Betfair supposedly called earlier than a lot of other oddsmakers.

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Over 250+ of Asia’s leading sports betting, online casino, lottery, social and mobile gaming executives are expected to attend. iGA 2015 is a great place whether you’re looking to form new partnerships, learn about the Asia’s latest innovations, opportunities, strategies, and developments for interactive gaming and to network to discover new opportunities.

Take Our Poll

Bitcoin-only online poker site SealsWithClubs (SwC ) has been shut down due to what was described as technical issue after the home of its founder Bryan Micon was raided at gunpoint by the police, which is why we decided to ask our readers, “Were the Seals and Clubs’ technical issue and police operation related?”

It would be easy to connect the raid with the technical issues that took down SwC around the same time and most of our readers seemed to agree as 77% voted “Yes” and only 23% voted, “No.”

Prior to the raid, Seals With Club users complained a series of technical problems that made the room unavailable on Feb 11, then after few days Bryan Micon’s video came out, describing how police raided his home on the same date; served with a warrant from the Nevada Gambling Commission accusing him of violating Nevada Revised Statutes NRS 463.750(10b) and the operation of an interactive gaming site without all required licenses, but wasn’t formally charged with any crime.

Micon said that the timing might be suspicious but he hasn’t been able to make a connection between the two occurrences himself. “It’s true, there have been some irregularities with our server that coincided exactly with the time that my front door was broken down, and it seems too unlikely for these things to not be connected. Right now, however, it’s simply impossible to understand what exactly happened,” Micon said.

SEO for 2015

One really popular topic right now on the SEO forums and pertinent blogs is 2015. That is right, 2015, the year. What does it mean for SEO to be in 2015?

There is also some serious debate raging in the SEO forums I frequent right now about this. Does SEO even matter anymore?

I am going to look at these 2 questions in this article. In short, 2015 is very similar to 2014 and SEO matters.

SEO DOES MATTER!

This is a topic I have a lot to say on. I am talking years of experience. SEO trench work and consulting all day long. I have had sites on the first page of google for the term ‘poker.’ Yadda yadda, this isn’t my first rodeo.

That said, I don’t consider myself an SEO guru or master. I am merely someone that respects it and enjoys working hard at it. I am not at 10k hours, getting closer every week.

MARK STRIEGL TO MAKE ONE CHAMPIONSHIP DEBUT AGAINST CASEY SUIRE

EUGENE TOQUERO RETURNS TO ACTION OPPOSITE INDONESIA’S BRIANATA ROSADHI

TICKETS FOR ONE: VALOR OF CHAMPIONS ON SALE NOW AT SM TICKETS

6 March 2015 – Manila: Asia’s largest mixed martial arts organization with a 90% market share, ONE Championship™ (ONE), has announced two additional bouts for ONE: VALOR OF CHAMPIONS. In the co-main event, Filipino superstar Mark Striegl will make his promotional debut when he takes on the undefeated Casey Suire. Accomplished kickboxer Eugene Toquero also returns to action when he faces Indonesia’s Brianata Rosadhi. ONE: VALOR OF CHAMPIONS will be headlined by a ONE Welterweight World Championship bout between incumbent champion Ben Askren and the number one contender, Luis Santos.

Tickets for ONE: VALOR OF CHAMPIONS are available now at www.smtickets.com. Ticket categories begin with the full Red Carpet and cageside experience for VVIPs at PHP5380. Tickets priced at PHP3180, PHP1280, PHP640 and PHP220 are also available. Early bird promotions for Gold, Silver and Bronze categories are available until 20 April. Prices include ticketing fee.

CEO OF ONE Championship, Victor Cui, stated, “ONE: VALOR OF CHAMPIONS is set to be the biggest sporting event to be held in the Philippines this year. Mark Striegl is a Filipino MMA superstar who has proven that he has what it takes to compete with the best in the world. He now tests himself against the best in the world in ONE Championship’s stacked Bantamweight division, beginning with the undefeated Casey Suire. Both mixed martial artists are known for their exciting styles. Get set for a night of adrenaline pumping mixed martial arts action as ONE Championship goes live around the world on 24 April!”

Mark Striegl is a Filipino mixed martial arts superstar who has found success in every promotion he has competed in. Striegl has a proven grappling pedigree, and has won eleven of his bouts by submission. Striegl will be making his ONE debut in the bantamweight division after exploding onto the MMA scene with twelve straight wins in the featherweight division.

Pennsylvania casino slot machine revenue nudged up 1.1% to $183.2m in February. Seven of the state’s 12 casinos posted year-on-year gains, including the market leading Parx Casino, which rose 7.3% to $29.6m. Rivers Casino ranked second with $22.5m (-3%), relegating Sands Bethlehem to third place with $22m (+5.5%). February’s tally was $2.2m more than January’s total.

Across the border in Maryland, the state’s five casinos earned $82.8m in February. That makes three straight months of declines since the state peaked at $90.2m in November. Revenue records had been falling left right and center since Horseshoe Casino Baltimore opened in late August but the thrill has apparently worn off.

As ever, Maryland Live! topped all comers with just under $47m, down $2.4m from January. The aforementioned Horseshoe suffered a much smaller decline, falling only about $150k to just under $23m. As for the state’s lesser lights, Hollywood Casino Perryville earned $6m, unchanged from January. Rocky Gap earned $3.5m (+16%) and Ocean Downs was unchanged from January at $3.3m.

Looking at things from a year-on-year perspective, the four casinos that were open in February 2014 had a much rougher time. Maryland Live! was down 10.2%, Ocean Downs fell 4.9% and Perryville fell 14.7%. Rocky Gap bucked the trend by rising 11.7% year-on-year. Minus the Horseshoe, the state’s year-on-year total is off 9.4%.

Operators insist that February’s decline was in part due to wretched weather. But since the snow didn’t seem to stop Pennsylvania’s casinos from posting gains, concerns are mounting that Maryland’s market is saturated. Meanwhile, MGM Resorts is on track to open its new National Harbor venue next year and the state legislature is considering a measure that would slots at BWI Thurgood Marshall Airport in Baltimore (informally known as the Bad Idea Act of 2015).

The Shoe’s revenue has been remarkably constant, averaging $22.8m in its six full months of existence, but that’s about 35% below projections. In January, the Shoe got the okay to exchange around 300 of its slots for 30 extra gaming tables, while Maryland Live! traded in 300 slots for 13 tables. Not that it helped either casino that much.

Lee Davy continues his confessions series with an op-ed inspired by a 2+2 thread asking if poker players are especially self obsessed and selfish?

Whilst browsing 2+2 I read a thread called: Are Poker Players Especially Self-Obsessed and Selfish?

If that’s not worthy of a point of view I don’t know what is.

There are only a handful of poker players who have allowed me to peek under the hood. Most of them only show their shiny veneer. If you haven’t had a good look at the guts, it’s difficult to understand what makes a poker player tick. I am aware of the size of the sweeping arc my brush is about to make.

A lot of poker players are self-obsessed because they feel they need to be. If you want to be an outlier then you need to get 10,000 hours of practice in the books. You need to be self obsessed, you need to make sacrifices, and this means you have to be a little selfish.

There’s also the eternal search for sponsorship. Everybody has that dream. After Jason Somerville signed for PokerStars recently he said it was like the Holy Grail. These days, that comment could apply to any form of sponsorship. In a recent interview with Kristy Arnett she said, “It’s tough playing on your own dime.” She’s right. It’s one of the toughest aspects of professional poker.

Poker, especially tournament poker, is all about staying in the game. You know that if you stick around long enough you will eventually win that big score. You only hope that when it actually arrives it isn’t used to pay off your make up. This is why sponsorships are so important. They keep you in the game. You can spend your money on other important things like eating and paying rent.

Mihai Lacatos, 61, has pleaded guilty to 18 different charges of fraud relating to a six year spree where he cheating UK casinos out of thousands of pounds using a technique known as ‘card marking.’

Life must be tough for casinos these days.

The ingenious trickery of the fraudsters is challenging the security standards of the casino industry like no time before.

Take 61-year old Mihai Lacatos for example. A criminal mastermind if there ever was one. The Daily Mail broke the story that Lacatos has been found guilty of cheating UK casinos out of thousands of pounds using an innovative technique known as ‘card marking.’

Card marking I hear you ask?

What’s card marking?

Brace yourself. It gets a whole lot more technical from hereon on.

Jason Koon delivers a Tuesday double whammy after taking down the Super Tuesday $1,000 buy-in event on PokerStars, before heading to Los Angeles and winning the $50,000 High Roller Turbo Six-Handed event at the World Poker Tour LA Poker Classic.

The Boomtown Rats didn’t like Monday’s.

The Rolling Stones missed their Ruby Tuesday’s.

I’ll stick with the Tuesday’s. I have always been more Stones than Rats. I think Jason Koon probably feels the same.

Whilst the chiseled jaw man mountain of muscle may be too young to remember either aforementioned giants of the UK music scene, he will have fresh memories of recent Tuesday’s when he felt on top of the mountains he often likes to climb before breakfast.

24 Feb 2015; Jason Koon, an American who is not allowed to play online poker in his home country because his country is a fucked up mess, travels to Canada to play in the $1,000 Super Tuesday on PokerStars.

I can hear the Muggles from here.

Exchange betting specialists Betfair saw its shares rise nearly 18% on Thursday after posting better than expected fiscal Q3 results.

For the three months ending Jan. 31, Betfair revenue rose 20% to £114.6m, the fourth consecutive quarter of double-digit growth. Earnings rose 17% to £23.6m, despite a £7m hit from the UK’s new 15% online point-of-consumption tax, which kicked in Dec. 1.

Betfair CEO Breon Corcoran (pictured) said the company had “momentum” and was focused on finishing its fiscal year strongly. Previous full-year fiscal 2015 earnings estimates were in the range of £97m to £103m but Betfair now expects the numbers to come in between £113m and £118m.

Sports betting revenue was up 16% to £76.7m, driven by a strong mobile performance. Four of five Betfair sports bettors are now using the company’s mobile channel, resulting in a 96% growth in mobile betting revenue.

Mobile also helped drive a 30% rise in gaming revenue to £24.1m. Betfair notched a first in January, during which mobile bettors accounted for the majority of gaming revenue. Gaming revenue also benefited from better cross-sell with sports bettors.

Betfair US revenue rose 30% to £13.5m, spurred by a 17% gain in horseracing operation TVG. Betfair has greater expectations for its US division following last month’s acquisition of the HRTV network from the Stronach Group. Betfair didn’t break out separate revenue stats for its New Jersey online casino product.

Revenue from ‘sustainable’ aka the regulated markets of UK, Ireland, USA, Italy, Denmark, Malta, Spain and Bulgaria was up 27% to £92.9m, while revenue from other markets fell 2% to £21.7m. Active customer ranks in sustainable markets rose 50% while other markets fell 11%.

Election prop betting isn’t as big as its sports counterpart, but bookmaker Ladbrokes expects the forthcoming UK elections to be the biggest betting elections in history. That might seem wishful thinking, but the company’s head of political betting, Matthew Shaddick, believes that bettors are going to spend in excess of £100 million in this election.

Should Shaddick’s estimate prove to be right, it would represent a quantum leap from the amount of money bookmakers took in during the last election in 2010. “We are pretty sure it’s going to be the biggest betting election, probably two or three times as big as we saw in 2010,” Shaddick said.

Certain areas and pockets in the UK are also tipped to be more active with betting on the election, specifically the seat in Kent where candidates Nigel Farage and Al Murray are locked in a heated battle that could go in any direction with the Labour and Tories also in the mix.

The Ukip leader is still considered the favorite at 1/3, but other contenders like the Tories (3/1) and Labour (8/1) both not far behind.

Meanwhile, BetVictor brings back an old friend to star in its new TV campaign to boost its non-football bet offering. The firm’s betting mascot, Maurice, has been tasked to headline three TV adverts created by creative agency VCCP.

“Our Maurice character has quickly become one of the most instantly recognizable advert stars on TV today and Maurice in the hot seat provides us with a platform to communicate to the wider betting audience, across the many sports set to dominate the British spring and summer,” BetVictor Chief Marketing Officer Anton Bell said in a statement.

The adverts, which will focus on one specific sport—horse racing, tennis, and cricket, are created to encourage bettors to bet on these sports in addition to the always popular bets on football. The first ad, called Jockey, was launched earlier this week to help promote BetVictor’s horse racing offerings as the countdown to the annual Cheltenham Festival begins.