The 2018 WSOP Poker Hall of Fame is now open for business, which means fans can now nominate the people they believe should be named among the poker world’s finest.

As it does every year, the WSOP is calling for those with an interest in poker to choose the people they believe have made a significant contribution to the game. Fans can cast their vote online at WSOP.com using a valid email address, but only one submission per person is possible.

Nomination Criteria

To comply with the Hall of Fame eligibility requirements, all nominees must be at least 40 years old, have played for high stakes against the best in the world, and “have stood the test of time.”

For non-players (or less accomplished players) who have made more of their impact off the felt, nominees must have “contributed to the overall growth and success of the game of poker, with indelible positive and lasting results,” according to the official rules governed by the WSOP.

Phil Ivey and Dave “Devilfish” Ulliott became the newest inductees last year. For Ivey, it was a “first ballot” induction, meaning he was selected the first time year in which he was eligible.

Selection Process

Despite turning 40 just before the voting process opened, Ivey was the favorite to make it at the first time of asking. As well as winning 10 WSOP bracelets and more than $26 million in live tournaments, Ivey is considered one of the toughest cash game players in the world.

For Ulliott, the honor came posthumously, two years after he passed. On top of being one of the biggest winners in British poker, Ulliott’s personality endeared him to millions and helped make poker compelling viewing for mainstream audiences.

To be considered a Hall of Famer, any nominations in 2018 will have to meet these lofty achievement standards and more.

Fans will now have the next few weeks to offer their suggestions before the top ten picks are put before a panel of judges that include media members and current Hall of Famers, who will make their picks from the selections the public provides. They’ll then vote, and up to two winners are scheduled to be announced in September before a special induction ceremony will take place at a date to be determined in the fall.

The World Series of Poker (WSOP) is the field of dreams for poker players.

Each summer, thousands of poker players — recreational weekend warriors, hardcore grinders, and well-bankrolled pros — descend on Las Vegas as temps creep up towards the three-digit mark. There, for seven weeks of juicy cash games and tournaments that pay out life-changing money, the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino becomes home.

The first wave of players file into the Rio’s conference center in late May. By the time the Colossus — a bracelet event that’s historically attracted more than 22,000 entries — begins, the wide hallways that lead from one event room to another start to become a sea of humanity.

Buy, Buy, Buy

Anytime you have a captive audience with a very targeted set of interests, you’re going to have vendors hoping to make bank on that demographic. And the WSOP is no exception. Year after year, everyone from those hawking sunglasses that hide your dilated pupils to every sort of cell phone accessory salespeople are at the ready, as eager to make a deal as a cake maker at a bridal conference.

As you walk down the Rio convention center halls on your way to play poker — and with every bathroom or food break that necessitates another stroll down the same — not always friendly salespeople, who desperately need to sell enough products to justify their company’s expensive monthly kiosk rental fee, will ask you the same genre of question you now hear in any major mall as you pass handcream and hair clip vendors.

“Do you need a new cell phone charger case?” is a frequently heard attempt to get you to stop, drop some cash, and roll over for a sale. We didn’t, so no sale today, buddy, sorry.

By Saturday evening, the pushy sales guys asked me that question for what had to be the 15th time in a week. On tilt from a rough cash game session, I decided it was my turn to be a nuisance, so I took my camera out and snapped a photo of them.

Celebrity Central

Next to a free swag bag worth $25K at the Oscars, there’s nothing your average syndicated buyout Hollywood A-list TV and film actors like more than to blow off some of their ridiculously bloated bankrolls at the World Series of Poker. Sports stars are no different: there are only so many homes in the Holmby Hills hood of Hollywood that one person can occupy.

There are actors who show up pretty much every year, like Everybody Loves Raymond‘s Ray Romano and his series sidekick and avid poker player, Brad Garret. Olympic icon Michael Phelps and film actor Kevin Pollak are also comeback kids when it comes to making time for the WSOP most years.

On Saturday, as I was checking out some of the action, I bumped into (literally) James Woods, actor and unabashedly politically conservative tweeter. The coke-snorting villain in one of my all-time favorite movies, Casino, Woods was gracious enough to pose for a picture after he finished a banana on his way back to the table in Event #8, $2,500 Mixed Triple Draw Lowball.

“Got to get that nutrition,” he said with a smile.

After officially retiring from acting in 2017, Woods has devoted much of his time to poker and now competes in numerous WSOP events each year.

Besides thespians and sports stars, poker royalty like Phil Hellmuth, Daniel Negreanu, and Jason Mercier are often spottable walking down the lengthy Rio corridors: after all, they make millions playing the game, but they ultimately have to get up and use the bathroom and eat, just like the rest of us.

Where to Find the Action

There are three main tournament event and cash play rooms, all massive in size. The Pavilion (below) is mostly used for cash games and daily deep stack tournaments. Most bracelet events take place in the Brazilia or Amazon, which may be a familiar sight to ESPN’s TV fans.

The well-lit featured table — which will host many of the 78 bracelet event final tables in 2018 — is located inside the Amazon room. Limited seating is available, free of charge, for fans to rail the action in person.

For those who like to watch in general, guests are free to roam the tournament rooms, as long as they remain in designated areas (if you don’t, a multitude of security guards are at the ready to stop you). Even if you can’t afford to buy into an event (or simply don’t want to), the World Series of Poker offers a unique and exciting fan experience.

Just dodge the cell phone case salespeople, and you can expect to have a fascinating time to talk about when you return to your non-Vegas life.

PokerStars has set a new record for their online slots payouts, as a PokerStars Casino player hit a progressive jackpot on the Millionaires Island game worth more than $3 million.

This win by a player known as “Anchor72” marked the eighth slots payout for PokerStars north of $1 million in the past 18 months.

Millionaires Island and two other internally developed slots are responsible for creating all eight of the new online slots millionaires.

Seven-Figure Wins

The jackpot Anchor72 hit on Thursday set a record — it was the biggest ever for a game developed by pokerstars jackpot ever on Stars. After spinning in the right combination on Millionaires Island, the slots fan scooped $3,047,961, which is the biggest win from the operator’s exclusive games.

In 2018, PokerStars has created three millionaires, with the largest win in March, when zafujohn banked $3.3 million from a non-exclusive slot, Mega Fortune.

As well as congratulating the latest Millionaire’s Island winner, PokerStars Casino Managing Director Bo Wänghammar was quick to state that he wants to see more of the same in the future.

Poker Takes Backseat

The comment from the senior executive comes at a time when poker’s dominance at PokerStars is starting to fade. In its Q1 report for 2018, The Stars Group announced a 23.8 percent improvement in year-on-year revenue.

Although poker rake for the period was up by 2.3 percent, casino and sports betting showed the most promise. Revenue for these two verticals grew a combined 55 percent, and now account for 34.2 percent of overall earnings.

Looking back over the last two years, poker’s contribution has steadily declined. In Q2 of 2017, the total contribution was 66.5 percent, down from 75.5 percent the previous year.

For players concerned that PokerStars is edging more towards a casino and sports betting site, this trend could be a concern.  While the Q1 report shows there has been some crosspollination that’s helped poker revenue improve, the evidence suggests it will play a less significant role in the future.

As noted by Wänghammar, this will lead to more innovations in the casinos space, which should mean more seven-figure slots winners in the coming years.

For players, increased activity in the casino sector could result in more liquidity and bigger poker guarantees. However, it’s equally possible that the increased focus on non-poker products will lead to a decrease in action and value for the company’s core asset.

Jordan Hufty waited 15 years for what happened on Thursday evening at the Rio. He accomplished his poker dream by winning a World Series of Poker bracelet in the $565 Casino Employees event.

The Las Vegas poker dealer and supervisor defeated a field of 566 entries to earn $61,909 and what he’s been dreaming about since 2003.

“I’ve thought about winning a bracelet about every day of my life for the past 15 years,” said Hufty. “So, to actually have it come through today is pretty special.”

Originally from Michigan, Hufty moved out to Las Vegas about five years ago with two of his friends from college. They came out to the desert with poker on their minds and success as their goals. They were both on his rail when the final card was dealt and Hufty became the latest WSOP bracelet winner.

After the final card hit the felt and Hufty locked up a win, he was overcome with emotion. He took a few moments to shed a few tears of joy, embrace his friends and take in the moment.

“There’s not even words for it,” said Hufty. “Whenever you build something up like that for so long, and like especially something, where so much of it is out of your control. Even if you do everything completely perfect, there is still a reasonable chance that you don’t ever come through and get a bracelet. For me to do that and be able to capitalize on that, it’s huge.”

While Hufty credited a ton of study of the game as the main reason for his success on Thursday, he knew that he wouldn’t have gotten that work ethic without meeting his eventual Las Vegas roommates.

“Two people that I definitely want to thank are the two guys on my rail here,” said Hufty. “100 percent I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t meet those two guys right here. They are definitely the biggest influence on my game over the last four or five years, ever since I moved out to Vegas with them.

“When I met these guys, my poker game and my study habits and stuff started to slack a bit. Then, I moved to college and met these two guys. For the first time, I met people that I thought were significantly better than me. That was able to motivate me, and obviously, once I got back into [studying] the game, they were really big into it too.”

Before Thursday’s score, Hufty only recorded two previous live tournament cashes, for less than $2,000 combined. He isn’t a fish by any means, with most of his tournament experience coming online, but he has plenty of experience in high stakes poker, just on the other side of it.

Hufty dealt on old episodes of ‘Poker After Dark’ as well as dealing and flooring some of the highest stakes games in Las Vegas. Having that experience under his belt, he felt right at home playing for all the proverbial marbles on poker’s biggest stage.

“It didn’t feel so out of place to me,” said Hufty. “This is the first time I’ve played on a table like this with the lights, and the people watching, and reporting. I don’t know if it’s from my experience in being around poker for higher amounts of money, but I felt comfortable coming in today. I thought I would feel slightly more out of place coming in.”

With 15 years of poker experience and now a bracelet to his name, it would be easy for Hufty to relax and bask in his accomplishment. Poker is what drives Hufty, though. It doesn’t seem like he’s going to take some time off any time soon and will just continue to push himself to get better.

“Passion is a weird thing,” said Hufty. “I’m not really passionate about a whole lot of stuff and to find something that I actually care about, it doesn’t come very often. Once I found something I really, truly enjoyed and realized that there is a way to make money at that, it’s just a never-ending hunger. The fire is just as strong now as it was two days ago before I bought into this.”

The second and final day of what was the first event on the schedule got underway at noon with 13 players remaining. Just 30 minutes into the day, they were down to 10 players, with Hufty taking his seat at the final table second in chips.

Once they were at one table, however, Hufty took over. He scored a double knockout to eliminate Brad Helm in 10^th place and Jason Pepper in ninth when Hufty’s pocket kings got all in preflop against Pepper’s ace-king and Helm’s ace-seven suited.

That moved Hufty into the chip lead. A lead that he never relinquished.

“Yeah, I came in with a pretty good feel for my table,” said Hufty. “I’d been playing with the same group for a while last night and felt pretty confident coming in.”

He had the best hand in his previous confrontation, but Hufty sent Skyler Yeaton home in eighth place after he spiked a three-outer. Yeaton found the last of his chips in the middle preflop with ace-queen against Hufty’s ace-four.

Yeaton’s rail started shouting for a four, not realizing it was Hufty who needed the four, and unfortunately for Yeaton, they got what they asked for. Hufty spiked a four on the flop and Yeaton never improved enough to stay alive.

Thomas Yenowine lost a flip with ace-king against Sanders’ pocket deuces to leave the tournament with six players. Tom Booker was eliminated by Zachary Seymour in sixth place and then Hufty got back to work.

He moved over the million-chip mark during six-handed play and then eliminated Won Kim in fifth place with his ace-king against Kim’s ace-eight. Just a few minutes later, Hufty eliminated Seymour in fourth place when he won a flip with ace-jack suited against Seymour’s pocket nines.

Three-handed play lasted for about an hour before Kate Kopp fell in third, running into the buzzsaw that was Hufty.  Kopp moved all in on the button for about 13 big blinds with   , but ran into Hufty’s pocket aces in the big blind.

About three hours into the day, the final 13 players were down to heads-up play. Hufty held a nearly 2-to-1 chip lead. Sanders didn’t roll over, however, and over the next 40 hands, pulled back to nearly even with Hufty.

“That heads-up battle, we started off super deep, so it took a long longer than I thought,” said Hufty. “But any time you start 70 plus big blinds deep in a heads-up match with hour levels, that can definitely happen.”

Hufty never let Sanders take the lead and pulled away again, opening a 3-to-1 lead over another 50 hands. After nearly five hours of heads-up play, which was most of the day’s action, Hufty finished off Sanders when his king-queen bested Sanders’ pocket threes.

Final table results:

1st: Jordan Hufty – $61,909
2nd: Jodie Sanders – $38,246
3rd: Kate Kopp – $26,250
4th: Zachary Seymour – $18,332
5th: Won Kim – $13,031
6th: Thomas Booker – $9,432
7th: Thomas Yenowine – $6,953
8th: Skyler Yeaton – $5,222
9th: Jason Pepper – $3,998

The Finnish national betting agency, Veikkaus Oy, eliminated a total of 129 jobs after co-determination negotiations were brought to an end at the beginning of the week.

Veikkaus is currently fully-owned by the country’s Government, which has allowed to impose a legal monopoly on the Finnish lotteries and sports bettingoperations. According to information released by the company itself, Veikkaus has about 2 million regular customers, while approximately 400,000 people use its services every week.

The company, which is currently operated by the Ministry of Education of Finland, was established in 1940 as a result of the joined efforts of the Finnish Workers’ Sports Federation and the Football Association of Finland. Following the decision to start offering the national lottery, Veikkaus gained increasing popularity among local citizens, with approximately 70% of the Finnish people taking part in these services.

For the time being, it is the Ministry of Education which allocates the proceedsgenerated from the state-owned company and distributes them to various art and science projects, as well as to amateur sports. Back in 2010, Veikkaus provided the Ministry with approximately half a billion Euros to be shared with other national organizations. Gambling regulation, however, is regulated by Finland’s Ministry of Internal Affairs.

Co-determination talks started at the beginning of April between representatives of the employees and the company management. At the beginning of the talks the company said that up to 140 employees were at risk of losing their jobs.

Finns Are the Biggest Gamblers in Europe, Survey Says

Despite the fact that Veikkaus holds the monopoly over sports betting and lotteries in the country and the gambling sector is regulated by local authorities, Finland has been among the biggest spenders in terms of gambling. According to a recent survey, local citizens rank fourth among the biggest gamblers on a global scale, with around €2 billion spent on an annual basis on various games of chance.

A 2015 report issued by the National Institute for Health and Welfare, Finnish people were the ones who wagered the most in Europe, with approximately 80% of the country’s population gambling every year.

As mentioned above, the local gambling sector is directly controlled by the Government through a monopoly controlled by the national betting agency Veikkaus. Apart from the profit brought by the company to government ministries, Vekkaus also brings over €200 million in taxes to the Finnish Government budget.

Earlier in May, Veikkaus Oy has terminated a large number of customers’ accounts due to clarification of certain bank account policies. The exact number of accounts closed has not been disclosed by the state-owned agency, but according to media reports they amounted to approximately 30,000.

This spring, Veikkaus has contacted its customers in order to inform them for the bank account policies, with the players being reached by e-mail, letters and text messages. All players were asked to make sure that the bank account used was in line with the terms of use of the national agency.