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Station Casinos has started keeping phones off the poker table at its Las Vegas rooms, and at Boulder Station the posted rule also bars card protectors and other electronics. Players can still use their phones, but they cannot leave them sitting on the table.

According to Card Player, the rule applies across the company’s Las Vegas poker rooms, including Red Rock Resort, Boulder Station, Santa Fe Station and Green Valley Ranch. Station Casinos has 17 properties in Southern Nevada, and Green Valley Ranch reopened its poker room at the end of last year. PokerNews reported last month that Red Rock had already adopted a partial phone ban, with calls forbidden while seated and phones barred during a hand.

The move comes as poker rooms in Las Vegas have been tightening security around possible hidden-camera cheating. Card Player pointed to a 2024 Europe case in which authorities arrested a duo after a player used a microscopic camera on the side of his phone to look beneath the dealer’s pitch, while an accomplice watched a video feed and relayed card information through an earpiece. The article said that kind of setup had crossed into the U.S., and that removing electronics from the rail or the felt would help protect players from a similar ring.

Card Player said there have been no confirmed reports of recent cheating in Las Vegas. As reported in August, South Point switched its poker room to slide dealing, where dealers slide cards instead of pitching them, as another way to make exposed-card cheating harder.

RunGood Poker Series is taking its Golden Expedition to Downstream Casino Resort for RGPS Golden Expedition Joplin, a Sept. 15-20 stop built around a $700 Main Event with a $150,000 guarantee.

It will be on site to live report the Main Event action in Joplin.

The series opens on Sept. 15 with a $300 Seniors Ring Event and a $300 Opening Day Ring event.

The $300 PokerNews PowerStack begins its first of three flights on Sept. 17 and carries a $25,000 guarantee. The $700 Main Event also starts on Sept. 17, with four starting flights on the schedule, and it plays down to a winner on Sept. 20.

The closing day also includes a $400 Black Chip Bounty NLH Ring Event, which wraps the festival. A $150 Flip and Go is listed on demand throughout the series as well.

The Joplin stop comes after an earlier RGPS Passport Joplin Main Event drew 752 runners and generated a $379,760 prize pool. Cody Hughey beat William Romine heads-up there to win $67,940 and his first RunGood title, while Kyle McConnell, William Margo and Jeff Copeland were among the final-table finishers noted in the earlier report.

Eric Wasserson won the biggest pot in High Stakes Poker history on PokerGO’s Monday-night finale, scooping $4.26 million from Texas Mike Moncek when his rivered flush held. The Monday-night hand was sponsored by CoinPoker, and the session had already pushed well over $10 million onto the table at one point.

The session also included Alejandro “Papo MC” Lococo, Andrew Robl, Justin Gavri, Sameh Elamawy and Rick Salomon. As covered in our Aug. 31 report on Saturday’s hand, Wasserson had already set the show record two days earlier with a $2.478 million pot, and the new score blew past that mark. It also topped the old U.S. televised-poker record of $3.1 million from Hustler Casino Live in 2023.

The record hand built street by street. Wasserson opened to $20,000 with 9♦7♦, Moncek three-bet to $80,000 with 10♣7♣, and the flop came A♦K♦9♣. Wasserson checked, called a $100,000 bet, then called another $330,000 on the 4♥ turn after about 30 seconds in the tank.

The 5♦ river completed Wasserson’s flush. He checked again, Moncek shoved, and Wasserson called after saying he had a big hand and asking for a second. Poker.org said Moncek was down to about 5% equity once the board completed. Moncek later called it “the biggest nit-roll of all time,” but Wasserson tabled the flush and took the $4.26 million pot.

Wasserson said afterward that he had never played a pot that big before. He finished the night up $2.4 million, while Moncek ended with a $296,500 loss.

Zynga Poker launched a new multichannel campaign with Keegan-Michael Key as its “Inner Winner,” the confident inner voice the release says tells players to “grab life by the chips and go all in.” The same announcement says Key will also debut as the in-game host of Poker Dash, a new fast-paced feature coming soon.

In a Business Wire release, the campaign is built around Zynga Poker’s free-to-play format and its pitch of putting players straight into action against real people, with “zero bots.” The release describes the game as one of the largest free-to-play mobile poker games and says its competitive spirit draws millions of players every day.

According to the press release, the new spots were directed by Jody Hill of Caviar. The announcement says the campaign brings together Hill’s storytelling and Key’s comedic energy, with Key appearing when players least expect him and urging them to listen to their Inner Winner and make their next big move at the table.

Key said playing everyone’s Inner Winner was “an absolute blast,” and added that players will hear him cheering them on both when they watch the campaign and when they play Zynga Poker. Yaron Leyvand, Zynga’s executive vice president of Mobile Games, said poker is about “that moment of truth,” where players trust their instincts, make their move, and play to win.

The campaign is also tied to Zynga Poker’s broader presence across its social channels, including Instagram, Facebook and YouTube. Players can catch Key in-game now, and the release says they can get ready to channel their Inner Winner in Poker Dash when it arrives.

The background material says Zynga’s mobile games have been downloaded more than 10 billion times and reach more than 175 countries and regions. Zynga is described as a wholly owned publishing label of Take-Two Interactive Software, the parent company behind the Zynga brand.

Benjamin Rolle will enter the $1,500 WSOP Millionaire Maker final table with the chip lead after a field of 5,518 entries was cut to nine players. The winner is set to collect $1,366,929, a WSOP bracelet and a $30,000 Super Pass to the 2026 WSOP Paradise Super Main Event. Final table action begins at 7:00 p.m. BST on September 1.

According to PokerNews, Rolle sits down with 127 big blinds. Adrian Strobel is next with 67 big blinds, and Loris Gauthier returns third with 44, so Rolle starts the last table with a clear stack advantage.

The tournament generated a $7.86 million prize pool. Every finalist is already guaranteed at least $92,950, and a finish in the top four pushes take-home pay to almost half a million dollars.

As reported in August, our earlier WSOP final-table story also came down to nine players in Las Vegas. This time, the question is whether Rolle can close it out or whether Denys Chufarin and Andrii Derzhypilskyi can stage a comeback.