Italian jobNo wonder Francesco Totti hasn’t been playing for Roma lately. The Italian football club have been cagy on what has been keeping their captain from the field of play in recent weeks, citing everything from knee trouble to flu to an achey wrist. OK, maybe not wristlash, but don’t be surprised if he does pull out of his next game with something along those lines because it seems that El Pupe has been honing his poker skills in preparation for his fledgling career with Party Poker.it. It’s a good marketing move as Totti is idolized in his home country, particularly in...

No worries, I reckon he's got 2-3Everyone knows that the worst hand in poker 2-7 off-suit, don’t they? We all know what it’s like when the pressure’s on to protect the big blind and the dealer hands you the dreaded ‘hammer’. But in fact, it’s an urban myth. Turns out that, statistically, 2-3 is worst of all. And in fact, as this article correctly attests, no matter what hand you’re holding, the worst one of all is the one you can’t put down even though you know you’re beat. Read more.

Touch me... how can it be?The job of the affiliate used to be a piece of piss. It was a case of check out which gambling sites are spending their marketing budgets on television advertising, promote the nuts off them and spend the afternoon down the pub humming late eighties boy band classics. Apparently, though, much like the late eighties, those golden days are no more. TV may have helped build brands and traffic volumes but alas life is more complicated than that. Hold that pint. And that song… Read more.

I never realised dollar bills were so heavy, did you, Marge?Have you seen how much money is being spent on pro-online gambling lobbying at the moment? Harrah’s Entertainment, the world’s largest casino operator, has spent more than $3 million in the past year to promote online gambling, the Vancouver-based Interactive Gaming Council has coughed up $2.3m and PokerStars apparantly paid $300,000 just to get one Representative, Dick Gephardt, a former House Democratic leader, on side. It’s not all one-way traffic though, as the linked article would suggest. The Indian tribes are lining the...

The local sixth-formers will do anything for a free curly wurlyI went to see Thomas Dolby last night. Apparently he named himself after the noise reduction system – you know the one; you always wanted C, but Woolworths only sold units with B. Such was life in the old pick ‘n’ mix days. Anyway, whilst he was blinding me with science my beautiful bets in the appropriately named Waste Management Phoenix Open were slowly coming a cropper. Amazingly my two rather large fancies – Rickie Fowler and Y.E. Yang – were battling it out with ‘I’ve only won once’ Hunter Mahan. If I had been...

Police grew suspicious when a man was seen wearing sunglasses in WalsallThere’s bin a mardah! In Walsall. On the poker tables of the Grosvenor Casino to be precise. Unconfirmed reports have it that nine people met their grisly end on Sunday and that the ruthless individual responsible for the bloodbath was a publican from Ormskirk. The mardah weapon is thought to have been a large stack of chips and a razor-sharp mind. But no one can be sure. What is certain is that the culprit made off with the £57,700. Congratulations to Colin McTaggart for clinching the main event of the second leg of the...

Yes we Can...Where was it I read that Canada were a shoo-in for Olympic gold? Can’t remember. Anyway, well done to the hillbillies from the Arctic for sticking it to the yanks. Dare you to roll up a fat one and smoke it on the playing surface. Can’t remember what happened? Read more.

face the factsIf at first you don’t succeed, try, try and try again. Just ask online gaming entrepreneur Yuri Milner, who has had to start over three times after falling victim to political change and the dotcom implosion before making the big time. Last year his company, Digital Sky Technologies, bought 2% of Facebook and the Russian has some very interesting views on the future of the internet, insisting that social networking, rather than search engines like Google, is where the future is at. “In the next three years, everything on the internet will be becoming social,” he...

Party timeAfter 2009’s annus horribilis and a bad start to the new year Ladbrokes are still struggling to get up and running, with the Magic Sign’s share price falling at the end of the week. William Hill, by contrast, finished the week slightly up but it is PartyGaming who get the gold star and a sweet from teacher after their value soared past the 300 mark. Read more.

And justice for all...There’s nothing like consistency. Remember Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear trying to seize international online gambling domains on moral grounds a few weeks ago? Well, although that witch hunt court battle is still ongoing a bill in the state has just been passed to tax… online gamblers. Genius. The new measure, which cruised through the Kentucky House on Friday, capitalises on federal legislative carve-outs that permit online gambling – as long as it is on horse racing, fantasy sports and state lotteries. And that’s nothing like consistency…...