Atlantic City casinos have started the year off right by posting a 17.9% revenue gain in the month of January. The eight surviving AC casinos that were operational in January 2014 reported revenue of $186m last month, not counting the $11.5m contributed via January’s online gambling revenue.

The brick-and-mortar total is also an improvement over December’s $179.8m. Even if you factor in all online and land-based revenue from both surviving and closed casinos, revenue is up 1%, so happy new year AC.

New Jersey Casino Control Commission chairman Matt Levinson cautioned that while “it is always risky to say we’ve turned a corner or that there is light at the end of the proverbial tunnel, let me say that January’s results are very encouraging.”

Seven of the eight survivors reported year-on-year revenue gains in January, six of them in double-digit territory. Perennial market leader Borgata rose 18.1% to $57.1m while Harrah’s was up 20.1% to $30.8m and Caesars rose 29.8% to $23.1m. The rest of the casinos finished as follows: Tropicana ($20m, +19.8%), Golden Nugget ($15.8m, +50.8%), Bally’s ($15.8m, +6.7%), Trump Taj Mahal (the month’s lone decliner, falling 21.2% to $12.1m) and Resorts ($11m, +31.8%).

Ohio’s casino industry earned nearly $65m in January, up 9% year-on-year. However, January 2014 was a time of epic snowfall that closed some casinos for a couple days. Regardless, three of the state’s four casinos posted gains, led by Hollywood Columbus ($18m, +17%). Horseshoe Cleveland rose 4% to $17.4m, while Hollywood Toledo posted the month’s biggest percentage gain, rising 24% to $14.3m. Horseshoe Cincinnati bucked the trend, falling 6% to $15.2m. The state’s seven racinos earned $63m, down 2.6% from December.

Michigan’s casino industry saw revenue jump 15% to $111m in January. with all three Detroit venues sharing in the extra bounty. MGM Grand Detroit rose 12% to $46.2m, Greektown was up 16% to $26.7m and MotorCity rose 20% to $38.1m. In addition to better weather, Detroit’s improvement is credited to the fall in gas prices, which has left customers with more discretionary income.

New Jersey’s regulated online gambling market generated $11.6m in revenue in January, up 22.3% from the same month last year and up 8.5% over December’s tally.

The Division of Gaming Enforcement says the monthly total is actually up 34.5% if you discount the fact that Ultimate Gaming was still operational last January. Either way, the monthly sum is just $300k off the state’s all-time peak recorded in March 2014.

The casino vertical accounted for $9.3m, up from $8.7m in December, while poker added $2.3m, up from $2.05m. However, when comparing year-on-year numbers, poker revenue is down by a full third from January 2014’s $3.44m, which represents the market’s peak poker revenue score. Meanwhile, the casino vertical is up 54% year-on-year.

Online sites affiliated with the Borgata casino – NJ Party Poker, the Borgata’s own branded sites and recent addition PalaCasino.com – led all comers with a total $3.78m (+2.7%). Borgata sites earned $2.5m (flat) from casino and $1.28m (+16%) from poker. Caesars interactive New Jersey – whose sites include all Caesars brands, WSOP.com and 888.com – earned $2.75m, with casino accounting for $1.74m (flat) and poker earning $1m (+7%).

The Tropicana‘s sites reported $2.56m from their casino-only operations, up 11% over December’s total and finally unseating the Borgata as the market’s casino leader. The Golden Nugget – on whose license Betfair is now piggybacking – earned $2.46m (+12%) from its casino-only operations.

Quebec’s financial regulator is investigating the stock trades of a dozen Manulife Securities brokers prior to Amaya Gaming’s June 2014 acquisition of online poker giant PokerStars.

In December, the Autorité des Marchés Financiers (AMF) launched a probe into trading that preceded Amaya’s $4.9b acquisition of the Rational Group, the parent company of PokerStars and Full Tilt. The AMF and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police paid unannounced visits to branch offices of Manulife Securities – the brokerage arm of insurance giant Manulife Financial, which holds 300k Amaya shares, making it Amaya’s 17th-largest shareholder – and investment bank Canaccord Genuity, as well as Amaya’s own Montreal HQ.

On Thursday, The Globe And Mail reported that 12 unidentified Manulife brokers at the company’s Dorval office west of Montreal were among those being investigated. Sources said the brokers were a “closely knit group” connected by family ties and that the probe included trades made by relatives who didn’t work at Manulife.

Manulife’s Dorval office is located a few kilometers down the Trans Canada Highway from Amaya’s HQ, but Amaya spokesman Tim Foran said neither Amaya nor its execs had ties to the brokers in question. Amaya was “also not aware of any connection between retail brokers at Manulife Securities and any other employee at the company.”

The AMF probe is unrelated to the probe being conducted by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), a US self-regulatory agency that is examining some 300 investors’ trading activities in the run-up to Amaya’s public announcement of its Rational acquisition. Amaya’s stock saw significant rises in both trading volume and share price in the weeks leading up to the acquisition. CalvinAyre.com was first to report the news that Amaya and Rational were holding acquisition talks.