My weekly column, “Becky’s Affiliated”, is released every Thursday morning and this series of mine has been running strong for over three years now.  I cover everything in the gaming industry from affiliate advice to Bitcoin, regulation, innovation, key conference takeaways and everything else in between.  Sometimes my column includes an interview with an industry expert or two, other times I share my own opinion on a particular topic, but no matter what form it comes in, each installment of Becky’s Affiliated comes to you straight from my heart.

2016 proved to be an exciting year with Trump’s election, advancements in Bitcoin and Blockchain, Virtual and Augmented Reality innovation, eSports and so much more.  Looking back on the year, these are my top five favorite Becky’s Affiliated editions spanning a variety of topics, nicely recapping some of the highlights from the year.

5)Advice for iGaming Affiliates with Roo Wright: Its never too late to start (again)

Roo Wright is one of my oldest friends in the business, an incredibly successful iGaming affiliate with well over a decade of experience in the industry.  Wright is the co-founder of BingoPort.co.uk and he sold his online bingo businesses, including Bingo Port, in 2014 for 10.5 million pounds.  While most would think retirement is the next step after a sale this large, Wright could only stay away for a few years and now he’s back in affiliate land with the website Hityah.com.

A daily fantasy sports operator has failed in its attempt to convince a federal court that its business model is agin’ the law.

In September 2015, DFS operator Emil Interactive Games, which operated under the DraftOps brand, inked a marketing deal with the National Hockey League’s Minnesota Wild franchise. The deal gave DraftOps certain advertising privileges and use of the Wild’s trademarks for a period of one year, for which Emil agreed to pay $1.1m, with late fees and interest charged at 1.5%.

The Nevada-based Emil Interactive was dissolved in October 2015, the same month Nevada’s Attorney General declared DFS to be a gambling product that required a gaming license. The company later reincorporated in Delaware, but DraftOps suspended operations shortly thereafter.

As a result, Emil never made any payments to the Wild, leading the Wild to sue Emil, its management company Full Boat LLC and Full Boat’s president Ronald Doumani for breach of contract.

Gaming technology supplier Entertainment Gaming Asia (EGT) continues to streamline its operations with the sale of its remaining Cambodian slots business.

On Wednesday, the NASDAQ-listed EGT announced that it had sold the remnants of its gaming assets in Cambodia, including 278 electronic gaming machine (EGM) seats at the Dreamworld Club (Poipet), an additional 72 EGM seats held in storage as well as various spare parts and accessories, to the Dreamworld Poipet venue owner for $900k in cash.

The parties also agreed to terminate the EGM operations and participation agreement they’d entered into in April 2012. As a result, ownership of the Dreamworld Club building – which EGT had paid to construct – reverted to the venue owner upon termination of the agreement.

The sale follows EGT’s termination in June of its deal to operate 670 EGMs located in NagaCorp’s NagaWorld casino in Phnom Penh. EGT simultaneously announced that it had sold the EGMs to an undisclosed third party for $2.5m. In October, it sold its 71 EGMs in operation at Cambodia’s Thansur Bokor Highland Resort for $250k.