Poker News – While the company risks becoming the first operator to ever be charged with criminal sanctions in Belgium, Betclic Everest has announced its decision to pull out from the country. Starting Monday, Betclic Everest’s four different brands including Betclic and Bet-at-Home will no longer be available to Belgium residents. The decision comes while Belgium’s Public Prosecution Office (PPO) carries an investigation on Betclic operations that could result into a €1.2m fine for the company. As reported by eGaming Review, a spokesperson from Betclic confirmed the group’s withdrawal from the Belgian market, but refused to issue any further statement…

Poker News – Sheldon Adelson’s opposition increased this week, as the North American Association of State & Provincial Lotteries (NASPL) issued a letter to Sen. Lindsey Graham, contesting his proposed federal ban on online poker. “Our Association believes, and is on record, that all gaming should be left up to the individual states to determine the games that are offered, as well as the manner in which they are being delivered to their customers,” writes NASPL Executive Director David Gale. “This is, and has always been, a state’s right to make these decisions as they relate to gaming within its…

Poker News – As the Greek Organization of Football Prognostics (OPAP) announced its decision to focus on the creation of a new online sports betting platform in cooperation with GTECH, the risk of Greece running the next online poker monopoly in Europe is now considerably thinner. Although many thought Greece’s government could opt to close its market to international operators in 2014 and put a brand new monopoly in OPAP’s hands, the decision to focus on sports betting and not on poker is a game changer that is going to keep the country’s market open for a while longer. Even…

Las Vegas Review Journal – Nearly a year after the launch of real money online poker in Nevada, there’s a new wave of players who must pay taxes on Web poker winnings from 2013. In the years before regulated online gambling, offshore sites that skirted the law to attract U.S. players may not have cooperated with the Internal Revenue Service. But the legislation passed in Nevada and two other states means that the IRS has the means to easily trace online winnings. Nevada’s first regulated real money site, UltimatePoker.com, launched in April 2013, and WSOP.com followed later in the year….

Poker News – If there will hardly be a pan-European online poker market before 2015, it’s about time Spain’s brick-and-mortar casinos start investing more in developing their online offer. A few months away from the new opening of the country’s regulated market, DLA Piper Spain partner and gambling specialist Albert Agustinoy Guilayn spoke to PokerNews about the future of the national gambling industry, highlighting some interesting opportunities for the future. Right when eGaming Review published a report that shows how over 40% of Spain’s online poker players are still active on non-licensed operators, Agustinoy Guilayn explained how the nearest future…

Card Player – Another round of remission for victims of the old Full Tilt Poker went out on Tuesday, the group hired to help facilitate the massive process said. Garden City Group announced on its website that an additional $5 million of missing funds entered the hands of 2,200 players, collectively. Both figures are approximate. To date, around 30,000 poker players have been repaid around $81 million. In February, $76 million of player money was released, $1 million of which belonged to a single player. In the initial collection of the financial data, more than a million potential victims were…