Hellmuth: "Jay Z loved my singing"
We round up a few stories you may have missed this week, including speculation about UK gambling taxation and a Polish hat-trick at EPT Malta.
Hellmuth's latest celebrity brag
You probably knew already that Phil Hellmuth is the world's best poker player, capable of dodging bullets, inherently superior to anyone from northern Europe, AND great friends with just about every American sports star who's ever lived - but I bet you didn't know he was also a talented rapper!
"Jay Z and I had a really...yeah...I was MC'ing an event he was at and singing lyrics to him, his own lyrics. He loved it!" Sure Phil, whatever you say pal.
The end of the UK's poker tax haven?
After a recent study headed by researchers at Nottingham University concluded that poker "could not be merely a game of chance", speculation has been growing that the UK government will consider taxing its residents on winnings accrued at the game.
The study itself - which drew evidence from a database containing 456 million hands of online poker - found that the success rate of better performing players only increased considerably over larger samples (after 1,500 hands or more), and that the top 10% of performers in the first six months of the sample year were more than twice as likely as others to produce strong results again in the future.
Big winners at the WSOP such as Peter Eastgate and current champion Martin Jacobson have dodged massive tax bills back home by relocating to Britain in the past; but if poker is widely legitimised as a profession by findings like these, it is feared by some that policy makers in the UK will eventually put an end to the country's gambling tax haven.
Note that this is purely speculation by the Daily Mail, no evidence has been given to suggest that the government has requested this study to inform their stance on gambling taxation.
WSOP partners with 888
The WSOP announced earlier this week that 888poker would be granted rights as an official sponsor of its 2015 festival, and handed exclusive permission to hold official online satellites.
“We’re proud of the comprehensive offering 888poker will have for any player outside the US who dreams of playing in our flagship events", said the WSOP's Ty Stewart.
"We see 888poker’s expanded sponsorship as an important step to qualify players affordably and bring additional prize money to the tournaments.”
Multi-step WSOP satellites are now running around the clock at 888poker, with buy-ins starting at just $0.01 and packages worth $14,000 up for grabs.
Hat-trick for Poland, but not Lewandowski
You'd be forgiven for automatically associating the phrase "hat-trick for Poland" with the glorified Bayern Munich front man, but it was an entirely different Pole writing that headline at EPT Malta.
In quite incredible fashion, Dzmitry Urbanovich won the €25K High Roller event, a €1K Deepstack event, and a €5K Turbo event all in the space of a few days for a combined haul of over €700,000.
The amazing hot streak bumped Urbanovic up to 4th in Poland's all-time money rankings, and simultaneously catapulted him to top spot on the GPI's prestigious 2015 Player of the Year leaderboard.
