Loretta Lynch (pictured center), President Barack Obama’s proposed nominee for US Attorney General, was quizzed about her views on online gambling during a confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who sponsored the Sheldon Adelson-supported Restore America’s Wire Act, asked Lynch whether she was familiar with the 2011 Department of Justice opinion that the 1961 Wire Act referred only to sports betting. Lynch, who is looking to replace outgoing AG Eric Holder, said she was familiar with the opinion but hadn’t studied it in detail.

Graham (pictured, on the right) then unleashed one of the anti-online gambling crowd’s favorite mythical hobgoblins, asking Lynch whether she agreed with the idea that “one of the best ways for a terrorist organization to enrich themselves” is via online gambling. Lynch responded by saying terrorists will use whatever means at their disposal. Undeterred, Graham promised to send Lynch his source material, which likely consists of a series of Rorschach ink blots and an audio book of Grimm’s Fairy Tales read by Dick Cheney.

Meanwhile, Adelson (pictured, on the left) participated in an informal summit with GOP members of the House Judiciary Committee earlier this month. It’s not known whether Adelson’s lobbyists or the Committee members initiated the meeting. Sources suggested the meeting was both a strategy session and an update but The Hill reported that none of the GOP reps in attendance nor their staff members were all that comfortable with questions regarding further details.

Adelson is one of the GOP’s top campaign contributors but he was unable to convince his elected minions to bring RAWA up for a vote in the lame duck session of the last congress. Adelson is believed to be pushing for the new GOP-controlled Congress to make a fresh push in 2015 but the GOP is wrestling with the contradictions between Adelson’s ‘big ask’ and their oft-stated belief in state’s rights, which RAWA would effectively trample.

The Netherlands gaming regulator has slapped Malta-licensed online gambling operator ComeOn Europe with a €180k fine for illegally serving Dutch punters. The fine is the latest in a series of six-figure fines the Kansspelautoriteit (Dutch Gaming Authority, or KSA) has levied against unauthorized operators as the country prepares to launch its own regulated online gambling market.

The KSA accused ComeOn Europe Ltd. (now Co-Gaming Limited) of targeting Dutch gamblers via Comeon.com. The site featured a Dutch language option, a Dutch flag and a Dutch-language chat service. The KSA says it repeatedly contacted ComeOn reps with various cease-and-desist messages, to which ComeOn reportedly replied by promising to amend its errant ways. However, the KSA says that the site was never updated to its satisfaction, leaving it no option but to levy the fine.

The KSA has also put eight associated companies and eight directors and shareholders of ComeOn on notice that they appear to be “more or less” involved in the unauthorized activity. The KSA cautions that their investigation is ongoing, so it does not at this time feel comfortable labeling the individuals as offenders.

Over the past year, the KSA has levied similar fines against the operators of 7Red.com, RoyaalCasino.com, Mansion Online Casino Ltd. and associated support companies. Most recently, Titanbet.com operator Imperial E-Club was dinged for €200k, the largest fine to date. The KSA even went after a Belgian couple for offering an online house lottery in which Dutch was a language option.

Netherlands’ legislators are in the process of passing the country’s new Remote Gambling Bill, which was supposed to take effect on Jan. 1 but has run into the traditional legislative snags. The latest word is that the upper house may bring the bill up for a vote before its summer break, making it more likely that the new regime won’t take effect until early 2016.

Notwithstanding, the KSA continues to ink info-sharing deals with its counterparts in other gaming jurisdictions. In November, the KSA inked a deal with gaming regulators in Malta and the KSA has since signed a letter of intent with the Alderney Gambling Control Commission. The letter is the prelude to a memorandum of understanding that will spell out the details of cooperation on a number of online gambling issues, including licensing, compliance and enforcement.

A Delaware judge has approved Caesars Entertainment’s choice of Illinois as the venue for the bankruptcy hearing of the casino operator’s main unit.

In an oral ruling on Wednesday, US Bankruptcy Judge Kevin Gross rejected a bid by some of Caesars’ junior creditors to force the bankruptcy hearing to be heard in Delaware. It was hoped the junior creditors would get a fairer shake in Delaware than in Illinois, where courts have traditionally been more lenient about assigning liability to non-bankrupt holding companies and affiliates. Caesars is owned by private equity funds Apollo Global Management and TPG Capital.

The junior creditors filed papers in Delaware on Jan. 12 to force Caesars into involuntary bankruptcy, beating Caesars’ own filing in Illinois by three days. Caesars is attempting to restructure its Caesars Entertainment Operating Co. (CEOC) unit into a real estate investment trust. The plan, which has secured the backing of most of CEOC’s first-lien note holders, would trim nearly $10b off CEOC’s $18.4b debt.

But most of the pain of this restructuring would be borne by second lien note holders, who can expect to receive around 10¢ on the dollar. This has led junior creditors to file multiple lawsuits, accusing Caesars’ hedge fund owners of “looting’ CEOC of its most profitable assets in a bid to shield these assets from creditors’ grasp. Last week, a federal judge in Manhattan said these controversial asset transfers and Caesars’ decision to remove debt guarantees represented an “impermissible” violation of the federal Trust Indenture Act of 1939.

In Wednesday’s oral ruling, Gross said “the interest of justice narrowly supports” Caesars’ desire for the proceedings to be heard by the Illinois court. Gross said the junior creditors’ involuntary bankruptcy filing “was clearly an anticipatory filing” and that they had “raced to the courthouse” to beat Caesars to the punch. Gross said letting the creditors dictate the venue would set a “bad precedent.”

But Gross also said Caesars’ asset shifting “on its face is suspect” and that he was confident his Illinois counterpart would put Caesars’ antics “under a magnifying glass.”

Metric Gaming has found a new partner that could help expand its operations into Central Europe, opening up a whole new market for the sports betting services provider. The firm has signed a partnership deal with gaming operator Hattrick Sports Group, which has a strong foothold in the Central European region.

The two companies agreed on a licensing deal that would allow Metric Gaming to integrate its flagship SuperLive products into Hattrick’s gaming platform. Not only would this create a more diversified gaming offering for the latter’s customer base, but it would also help Metric Gaming tap into a market that can aid in expanding its business tentacles. Sounds like a good deal from both sides.

Metric Gaming President and Chief Executive Officer Peter Bertilsson shared that sentiment, expressing high expectations that the partnership between Metric Gaming and Hattrick Sports Group would be “a successful one for us both.”

The deal was equally attractive for Hattrick Sports Group, which can now offer a new betting product to complement its existing live betting services. That was the company’s objective in signing up on this deal and it certainly looks the company made the right choice doing so.

“Hattrick prides itself on staying at the forefront of gaming innovation and technology, so offering SuperLive was an easy choice,” Hattrick CEO Carsten Sandberg said in a statement. “We are excited to be working with Metric and eager to see what our companies can do together.”

Meanwhile, online gaming software provider Leander Games has agreed to a new partnership of its own, signing up with Betsson to begin offering its casino content to the Swedish operator’s customer base. The specifics of the deal involve Leander integrating its proprietary content onto Betsson’s sites through its LeGa open gaming platform. This content integration will also include third-party development partners, including Core Gaming and Nektan.

In addition to the aforementioned system migration, the deal between Leander Games and Betsson also allows the former to update and modernize seven of the most popular games Betsson acquired in a separate deal with Dutch-facing operator Oranje Casino last year. The games will eventually be re-released on the LeGa platform, ensuring that Dutch customers migrating into the Betsson platform will continue to enjoy the same games they played on Orange Casino.

Bloomberry Resorts Corp. is laying the proverbial foundation for its first overseas resort and casino project after announcing the company’s agreement with a handful of parties in South Korea over a huge parcel of land located within the Incheon Free Economic Zone.

The specifics of the acquisition were not divulged, but Bloomberry disclosed to the Philippine Stock Exchange that it had signed four real estate agreements with several land owners for an area totaling 12.2 hectares Muui Island.

Muui Island, also known as Muuido, is located at the south of Yongyu Island and  can be seen from Incheon International Airport. The company called the land acquisition as the first step of its plan to turn the island into a “leisure and tourism complex with entertainment facilities and mixed use developments.”

Bloomberry said that the acquisition will fall under its Korean subsidiary, Solaire Korea Co Ltd. and that “more details will be disclosed as soon as conditions of the agreements are complied with.”

Bloomberry chairman and CEO Enrique Razon mentioned the company’s plans to expand its casino business last year, specifically mentioning Japan and South Korea as the two likely targets for this expansion, which would be the company’s second integrated resort and casino after Solaire Hotel and Casino in Manila.

News of the land purchase also ignited the company’s healthy shares gain at the Philippine Stock Exchange, reaching as high as Php13.46 per share on Tuesday before closing the day at Php13 flat. That represented a 0.93% increase from Monday’s closing price of Php12.88.

The land purchase follows the company’s share sale back in November 2014 that raised close to Php5.65 billion. Bloomberry has previously said that the share sale was done to help finance its overseas expansion.

Former Macau junket operator Paul Phua, accused of running an illegal World Cup gambling operation in Las Vegas, has prior conviction in Malaysia for the same offense.

Paul Phua Wei-seng, a Malaysian native from Sarawak, was arrested in Miri in 2004 and convicted for his involvement in an illegal betting scheme during the European Championship soccer tournament, reported by independent news outfit Malaysiakini.

He was slapped with a hefty fine and left the country soon after his conviction, reportedly to Vietnam to escape people who lost money when the betting operation was going bust.

The convicted criminal was even barred from re-entering the country during the World Cup in 2008.

This adds to what has become an ongoing saga of Paul Phua’s case, following a controversial announcement of Malaysia’s minister of home affairs Ahmad Zahid Hamidi last month that Phua was assisting the government on issues of national security.

Phua was one of eight individuals arrested in July on charges of operating an illegal FIFA World Cup betting business out of three luxury villas at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.

Just weeks before this arrest, Phua was also among two-dozen individuals arrested in what Macau officials called the largest illegal sports betting bust on local record. Prosecutors submitted the documents alleging that Phua had secured his Macau release via “under the table” payments to local police. The feds claim to have learned of these alleged bribes via instant messages sent by Phua’s 23-year-old son Darren, who was also among those arrested in Vegas.

Gaming device maker and social gaming operator International Game Technology (IGT) saw revenue and profits tumble in its fiscal Q1, but social gaming continued to shine. Total revenue fell 17% to $451m while net income fell 56% to $35m in the quarter ending Dec. 31. It could have been even worse, but fiscal Q1 2015 had one more week than the same period the previous year, which boosted revenue by $22m and operating income by $2m.

IGT CEO Patti Hart acknowledged that “market challenges remain in the land-based casino business” but tried to play up the performance of the interactive division, which includes the lucrative DoubleDown Casino social gaming operation.

The interactive division saw revenue rise 23% to $91.5m, of which social gaming accounted for $79.4m (also up 23%). DoubleDown’s daily average users (DAU) rose 11% to 1.9m, while average daily bookings (the sale of virtual goods and credits) per DAU rose 2% to $0.43. Average monthly users fell 16% to 5.2m, which the company credited to marketing targeting “higher-quality players.” Mobile users accounted for 39% of DoubleDown revenue, an improvement of 68% year-on-year. Meanwhile, revenue from the real-money IGTi operations rose 23% to $12.1m.

IGT’s gaming operations division saw revenue fall 5% to $211.1m, which the company attributed to a 16% decrease in the installed base of machines. Product sales revenue tumbled 39% to $148m due to lower machine unit volumes and the fact that the previous Q1 enjoyed a 2,800 video poker unit sale a further 825 VLT units in Illinois.

On the bright side, costs fell 7% despite the extra week in Q1, which the company credited to the March 2014 ‘business realignment’ aka laying off 7% of its global workforce. IGT declined to offer any guidance as to how it expected to fare in 2015 as a whole.

Last July, Italian lottery and gaming technology firm GTECH announced it would pay $6.4b to acquire IGT. A Feb. 10 date has been set for IGT shareholders to vote on the proposed merger of IGT and GTECH. Assuming the vote is favorable, the parties hope to conclude the merger by April.

90 Digital CEO Nick Garner talks about trust optimisation and why you will get higher click through rates in this edition of CalvinAyre.com’s SEO Tip of the Week.

It’s a mental framework covering a basket of factors which are neither link acquisition or onsite optimisation.

If you trust optimize your website, you will get higher click through rates which then should reflect well on Google search results.  When doing SEO projects, I suggest you think about three things: onsite optimisation, link acquisition, trust optimisation.

Rationale for Trust Optimisation

Rand Fishkin from Moz recently did an experiment where he did a longtail search query ‘IMEC Lab’. His post ranked 7th. He then asked his Twitter followers to go and click on his post in this set of search results.  After 228 visits from Google, mostly through this search query,  Rand checked again and his search listing was number one.  Source: http://moz.com/rand/queries-clicks-influence-googles-results

Another was in negative SEO

Bartosz Goralewicz did an experiment where he created a bot designed to click on every search result except for his own, which was ranking number 1 for keyword  ‘penguin 3.0′ .

Sports betting side bets aka ‘spot’ wagers aren’t serious threats to game integrity, according to a new study by the Asser Institute’s International Sports Law Centre.

The Odds of Match Fixing report (read it here) used data supplied by sports integrity specialists Sportradar and UK betting exchange Betfair to conclude that the markets for side bets were too illiquid to pose a significant threat.

Side betting is widely perceived to be more susceptible to fixing than match results because (a) a bet might hinge on the activities of a single player, thereby lowering the barriers to entry, and (b) the activity in question may not have much impact on the match result, thereby assuaging players’ moral qualms.

A data set using 120 English Premier League matches over a three-month period in early 2014 showed main betting markets (match odds, total goals) accounted for 86% of bets made via Betfair. Main derivative markets (half time score, extra time, etc.) captured 11.7%, Asian handicap bets garnered 0.7% while side bets scored just 1.54%.

Goalscorer markets accounted for about 61.5% of all side betting volume, while bets on which players would be carded/booked came to 20.8%, corner kicks earned 15.4% and penalties just 2.2%. In terms of pounds wagered, goalscorer markets accounted for just 0.59% of all sums wagered on that match.

The study concluded that the lack of liquidity in side betting markets “offers the unattractive prospect of limited profits.” And if a nefarious sort were to place side wagers large enough to make a significant profit, they would “arouse a great deal of suspicion” for a market in which the average wager was £41.

Another study examined data compiled by Sportradar’s Fraud Detection System (FDS), which analyzes over 53k sporting events per year. Some 1,625 football matches were flagged as highly suspicious between May 2009 and November 2014, representing less than 1% of the total. Of these flagged matches, 1,468 were subject to Sportradar’s Suspicious Market Values function.

The Bulgarian Atanas Kavrakov has taken the title, and top dollar, at the partypoker sponsored World Poker Tour National Main Event in Cyprus, after beating Majid Ejlal Noubarian in heads-up action.

[Image Credit: Pokernews]

They say when Noah opened his Ark the animals went in two-by-two, but that wasn’t the case at the recent partypoker sponsored World Poker Tour (WPT) National Series Main Event at Noah’s Ark Hotel and Spa in Cyprus, as only one sole Bulgarian made it to the final table and left with all the money.

Atanas Kavrakov moves into the Bulgarian Top 10 all-time live tournament money earners, after he defeated the Iranian Majid Ejlal Noubarian, in heads-up action, at the most recent WPT event.

172 entrants ponied up the €2,000 buy-in amount to create a total prize pool in excess of €3m and it attracted an interesting mix of local players and established overseas stars.

Four of the most recognizable faces included the former Full Tilt UK ambassador Sin Melin, French star Erwann Pecheux, and World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet winners Barny Boatman and Michael ‘The Grinder’ Mizrachi. Melin wasn’t one of the 21 names that earned a payday, but the other three were, with Boatman finishing in 15th, Mizrachi finishing in 17th and Pecheux finishing in 18th.

The final hand of a 12-hour shift was one of the easiest of Kavrakov’s short career. Noubarian four-bet jamming with [As] [Td], and Kavrakov calling with pocket kings. The [Kc] [Ks] [6c] flop making the rivered [Ad] look about as effective as an ice cream stand at the North Pole.

EUROPE’S biggest online bingo company has unveiled their new international managing director.

Former University of Newcastle student Murray Chisholm, 41, was appointed managing director of tombola international at the end of last year.

Tombola has its group headquarters in Wylam Wharf, Sunderland, but Murray will be based in the company’s Gibraltar office.

“It’s long been an ambition of mine to work with tombola, so I’m thrilled to have joined the company,” he said.

Manchester-born Murray moved to Newcastle to study and earned extra money by working as a croupier at a Tyneside casino.

In 2003, Murray spotted a job advert for gaming company Victor Chandler (now BetVictor) in Gibraltar in 1999. “I was recruited to manage, develop and expand the casino, poker and gaming customer support teams”.

When children came along, Murray moved back to the UK, having found a job helping to set-up a poker software company (Tribeca Tables Poker). Which was sold for $140m in 2007.

Macau casinos lost 34 junket operators in 2014, as VIP gaming promoters respond to a world in which VIPs are becoming an endangered species. High-rollers accounted for just 60.5% of Macau’s 2014 gaming revenue, down from 73% in 2013.

Public broadcaster Radio Macau reported that the number of licensed junkets fell from 217 in January 2014 to just 183 by the end of the year. Nineteen of the 34 missing junkets formally requested that their licenses be cancelled while the other 15 simply didn’t bother to file for renewal.

This reduction in junket ranks doesn’t include the three rooms David Group recently announced it would be closing. Nor does it include Gold Moon Group’s closure of its VIP room at Sands Cotai Central.

On Sunday, Macau Chief Executive Chui Sai On told a press conference that it was “normal to have changes or adjustments” in the number of VIP rooms serving Macau. On Tuesday, Ponto Final quoted Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau (DICJ) director Manuel Joaquim das Neves saying the issue “deserves no special attention” because the junkets that opted not to renew were “small-size gaming promoters that already had no activity.”

Analysts at Daiwa Securities Group released a report rejecting the popular wisdom that junket consolidation will improve the situation, saying they’d yet to see any evidence that smaller junket closures were resulting in a shift of capital to larger operators. The larger junkets are still facing “a deteriorating climate and plan further cuts in VIP room numbers.”

Daiwa also reported that Macau’s top-six junkets control 76% of all VIP gambling turnover. Suncity Group led the pack with an estimated 25% share of the pie and 219 tables in operation. The Guangdong Group (aka Neptune Group) has more tables (228) but a smaller share (15%).

Tak Chun Group placed third (10% of the market, 78 tables), tied with Golden Resorts Group (10%, 73 tables). David Group placed fifth (8%, 84 tables), although these numbers don’t reflect the planned closures at the end of this month, tied with Hengsheng Group (8%, 75 tables).

Beirut’s Casino du Liban was the planned target of Islamic suicide bombers, according to local media reports. The casino, Lebanon’s only legal gaming venue, was to be bombed on New Year’s Eve.

Last week, the Lebanese army arrested three individuals said to be acting on behalf of the al-Nusra Front, an Al Qaeda-linked militant group. Lebanese newspapers reported that the detained suspects told investigators the casino plot was hatched by two fugitive terrorists, Shadi al-Malwlawi and Osama Mansour. The group had targeted a number of major facilities popular with westerners, including the Le Royal hotel.

It was the job of one of the three arrested men, Elie Warraq, a recent convert to Islam, to use the Christian designation on his ID card to gain access to the casino then detonate a car bomb. Warraq failed to carry out his plan because of what Naharnet reported as “logistic difficulties.”

Lebanese security forces remain on the hunt for several other would-be suicide bombers. In response to the news, the US Department of State issued a travel advisory warning to US citizens in Lebanon, advising them to “take appropriate measures to ensure their safety and security.”

Casino du Liban has definitely known better days. On Tuesday, the gaming joint’s owners announced they were laying off 191 employees. The casino has been struggling to pay the bills, leading it to sever its ties with staffers it claimed were “absent, undisciplined, unorganized and unproductive.”

News of the layoffs, not to mention the insults to their characters, prompted a number of the affected staffers to protest outside the casino. The Daily Star said employees have asked legislators to intervene based on their claims of management’s ‘corruption, political favoritism and embezzlement.’ Management has so far refused to reconsider its dismissals.

9 months ago, Wynn was trading at a P/E ratio of 30. It is now down to 19. When I last covered the stock in April, I warned it was very expensive, and should not be bought without OTM put options to hedge any capital loss. Since then, WYNN has collapsed 24%. Even so, now is not yet the time to buy.

The latest news surrounding them is that, for whatever reason, the board has slashed Steve Wynn’s base salary and limited him to $250,000 in private jet travel a year as opposed to having an unlimited global ticket to anywhere he wants. The troubles of a billionaire CEO, as they say. By contract, he must use the private company plane for security reasons, even for personal trips. A proverbial prisoner of his own success.

This is mostly a non-item. Wynn doesn’t need a dollar in salary, travel subsidies, or anything else. It’s his company and he’ll continue to run it well regardless of whether his base salary is $4M or $2.5M. The change won’t save the casino any significant amount of money so who knows why they’re doing it. To project an aura of fiscal responsibility maybe? The stock jumped $10 yesterday so maybe investors like the fact that Steve is getting a pay cut.

Wynn is already quite a fiscally responsible company regardless of CEO salary savings. What is most impressive by them are two things. First, while Wynn does carry $7.34B in debt, $5.6B (page 70) of that debt is fixed-rate, and of the remaining floating rate debt, $753M (page 17) is hedged with swaps out until 2017. This leaves only 3.2% of its long term debt load unprotected. You can’t get much safer than that.

The other impressive feat Wynn accomplished is to secure a guaranteed maximum price for construction of the Wynn Palace in Macau through one of its subsidiaries, Palo Real Estate, to be completed by next year. I’m really not sure exactly how that works financially, getting a guaranteed maximum price from your own subsidiary. But it sounds impressive if convoluted. So far they are $1.4B into a $4.1B maximum project. That leaves $2.7B more until completion, and Wynn has more than that ($2.9B) just in cash on its balance sheet. Not to say that will spend it all on finishing up, but the jist of it is they can easily afford the project.

Wynn has put itself in a very interesting position for when Macau recovers, and I still believe the worst is ahead of us. Besides being completely safe in terms of interest rate troubles, Wynn could have a field day with foreign exchange earthquakes. This goes for the rest of Macau stocks as well, but especially Wynn, for the following reason.

From Wynn’s last 10-Q:

Derek Schroeder tops a huge field of 1,370 entrants, in Event #4: $365 No-Limit Hold’em Re-Entry, after defeating Jonathan Moseley, in heads-up action, at the Horseshoe Casino in Tunica Mississippi.

The American poker community are loving their live tournament poker lately, and one tour that seems to be benefiting more than most is the World Series of Poker Circuit (WSOPC).

After setting a few records in Choctaw, the tour has moved onto the Horseshoe Casino in Tunica, Mississippi, and the field sizes are equally as impressive.

1,370 entrants participated in Event #4: $365 No-Limit Hold’em (NLHE) Re-Entry, and it was a Missouri web developer who took home the biggest pot of gold.

When the action reached an unofficial final table of 10, Derek Schroeder was sitting behind the second shortest stack at the table. Back then, his only thoughts were about getting it in and doubling up – now he’s thinking of how to spend over 70-grand.

“$70,000 is awesome, but the best part is the ring. Anybody can have money. Not everyone can get one of these,” Schroeder told the WSOP after his win.

The runaway chip leader at that point was Justin Booth, and after half of the table was sent to the rail – including the former Heartland Poker Tour (HPT) champion, Quentin Crossley – Booth held 7m of the 13.7m chips in play.

Angelina Rich becomes the first female poker player to win a gold ring at the 2015 Aussie Millions after defeating John Thomson, in heads-up action, to capture the first prize of $25,905 in Event #12: $1,150 No-Limit Hold’em Terminator.

Angelina Rich has become the first female gold ring winner, at this years 2015 Aussie Millions, after beating everyone put before her in Event #12: $1,150 No-Limit Hold’em (NLHE) Terminator event.

[Image Credit: PokerAsiaPacific & Kenneth Lim]

The Terminator format means $500 bounties are handed out each time a player is eliminated, and Rich was the only player who kept her bounty in tact, after going all the way.

243 entrants created a $2,490,075 prize pool, and Rich took home the winners check of $25,905 (I was going to use the Rich by nature pun, but felt better of it). It was a largely unrecognizable final table, although Rich did defeat a man in form in heads-up action: John Thomson was making his fourth cash of the series – and he finished ninth in the NLHE Shotclock event.

It was the second title of Rich’s short career, her most prestigious, and her largest payday. Her previous victory coming at the 2014 Women’s Event at the European Poker Tour (EPT) San Remo.

Rich was the chip leader going into a final table the PokerAsiaPacific blog said she ‘dominated.’ An ICM deal was agreed when play reached fourhanded, and Rich took the best part of it. There was an additional $905 to play for, during heads-up, and that went the way of Rich after turning a flush on [Js] [6s] [4h] [7s] [6h] – Thomson rivered trip sixes and had moved all-in on the river.