Smokeem

About Smokeem

The job cuts, which represent approximately 3% of Bet365’s workforce, will be made across the company’s offices in Stoke-on-Trent, Malta and Gibraltar.

Bet365 attributed the job cuts to a “highly competitive trading environment, plus increased regulatory and tax-related costs”.

A Bet365 spokesperson said the company was working to limit the number of job losses and support employees affected by the changes.

How to play Smokeem

Because he relied on props, sported a wild look, and established a dominant Las Vegas presence, he fit perfectly into the “anti-showbiz” persona cultivated by both arbiters of Gen-X cool. Across the 1990s and early 2000s, “Carrot Top” became universal shorthand for lazy, cringeworthy comedy.

Nothing could have been further from the truth.

In the late 2000s, we wrote a humor column for the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Titled “Fear and Loafing,” it involved sampling odd jobs around town. One we wanted to try out was working as a personal assistant to a Vegas celebrity.

What is Smokeem?

Days later, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver appeared in Las Vegas for his annual NBA Summer League press conference. Silver took the stage in the wake of a host of betting scandals that have ensnared Pro Basketball Hall of Fame member Chauncey Billups, former Charlotte Hornets guard Terry Rozier and several other ex-NBA players.

There, Silver was asked by iGB if the NBA has expressed interest in forming a coalition with the other leagues to develop a set of best practises on insider trading and other germane betting-related concerns.

In response, Silver noted that the NBA could be a “party” to that, while adding that he may support the establishment of a federal tsar on sports betting.