THE AMERICAS

A federal judge recommended tossing key FBI evidence against accused online betting operator Paul Phua; Nevada sportsbooks took in their second-largest Super Bowl betting handle and baseball’s new commissioner asked for a “conversation” about betting with owners; Gary Loveman said he’d step down as Caesars CEO; two states’ online poker bills died while Sheldon Adelson’s anti-online RAWA legislation resurfaced in Congress; GTECH agreed to ramp up Georgia’s online lottery with einstant games; Maryland casinos’ hot streak grew cold; New York gambling sales fell 2% in 2014; British Columbia’s problem gambling rates fell; Lee Davy analyzed the 2015 World Series of Poker schedule and offered his picks for the inaugural GPI American Poker Awards while independent studies found cocaine and porn were bad gambling companions.

EUROPE

Intertain paid £425m for Gamesys’ Jackpotjoy brand; Spain’s online poker revenue fell despite overall market growth; Betsson’s profit rose while Svenska Spel took a tumble; Mr Green decided to fight the Austrian taxman; PokerStars sued former Full Tilt pro Erick Lindgren to collect a $2.5m debt; The Guardian ended its ill-fated relationship with online sports betting; Playtech inked a 20-year extension with Finland’s RAY; Intel Security got its facts wrong; Betway paid £20m for a West Ham jersey sponsorship; Rafi Farber suggested getting out of Greece before its new finance minister caused an international incident; Rebecca Liggero’s cameras scoped out ICE Totally Gaming Days One, Two and Three, the London Affiliate Conference Days One and Two and all the parties (Fire & Ice, London Baby! and LAC) as well as the iGB Affiliate Awards. Bonus feature: Becky’s hints for readjusting to your pathetic, tragically normal life.

ASIA

Macau casino revenue fell for the eighth straight month and Steve Wynn said Beijing’s crackdowns had destabilized people with money; online betting site IBCBet rebranded as MAXBET; China warned international casinos to stop luring their citizens; NagaCorp’s VIP betting revenue took a healthy jump but Cambodia border casinos saw fewer Vietnamese gamblers; James Packer called rival Echo Entertainment lazy and Sri Lanka told Packer to never ever come back; Macau police busted a South Korean online betting ring; New Zealand spent $2.1b on gambling last year; Richard Yong and Phil Ivey cashed large at the Aussie Millions and our cameras took in all the sights at the grand opening of City of Dreams Manila.

Problem gambling rates in Singapore have fallen to a 10-year low. The latest triennial Gambling Participation Survey saw the city-state’s overall problem gambling rate fall from 2.6% in 2011 to 0.7% in 2014.

The survey of 3k adult Singaporeans showed 44% participated in some form of gambling in the previous 12 months, with the most popular form being the 4D lottery at 35%. That was followed by Singapore Pools’ Toto sports betting (27%) and the Singapore Sweep lottery (16%), with social gambling accounting for 10%. To be clear, the latter category represents casual betting with friends, not online social gaming.

Gamblers are also wagering smaller stakes than three years ago, with the average monthly betting total falling from S$212 in 2011 to just $70 last year. The ranks of those betting over $1k was just 0.3%.

The only significant area of concern was the number of probable pathological gamblers, which, while falling from 1.4% in 2011 to 0.2% in 2014, showed that some gamblers were developing problems at a younger age. Among those defined as exhibiting probable pathological gambling behavior, 17% said they’d developed their bad habits before that age of 18, compared to 5% in 2011.

BRITISH COLUMBIA PROBLEM GAMBLING RATE FALLS 28%

Meanwhile, the Canadian province of British Columbia saw its ranks of moderate or high-risk problem gamblers fall from 4.6% in 2008 to 3.3% last year. Of those deemed to have difficulty controlling their gambling, the ranks of problem gamblers fell from 3.7% to 2.6% while the more serious pathological gambling category fell from 0.9% to 0.7%.

The 2014 BC Problem Gambling Prevalence Study (read it here) of 3,058 adults showed 72.5% had engaged in some form of gambling in the previous 12 months, essentially unchanged from 2008. Over half (56.3%) of gamblers said they spent about the same amount as five years ago, while the remainder were evenly split between gambling more and gambling less.

Online gambling operator Betway has given its profile a serious boost after inking a record-setting sponsorship deal with West Ham United. The Malta-based, UK-licensed Betway will pay the English Premier League side £20m over the next three and a half years, a considerable improvement over the £3m annual fee paid by West Ham’s former sponsor Alpari, the foreign exchange broker whose UK office abruptly closed last month.

The deal represents the biggest commercial tie-up in West Ham’s history. In exchange for all that cash, Betway gets its logo on the team’s jerseys and naming rights to the Boleyn Ground’s West Stand. West Ham is set to move to its new home at Queen Elizabeth Oympic Park in 2016.

West Ham vice-chairman Karren Brady welcomed Betway as the club prepared for its final season at its historic home, saying the team would we “working closely” with the gambling firm as it prepared for the transition. Betway exec director Bob Dutnall said the firm was chuffed to have inked the deal “at a time when the team are performing so well.”

BODOG AND AYR UNITED TO KICK ASS FOR FIFTH CONSECUTIVE YEAR

A little further north, online gambling operator Bodog has re-upped its sponsorship of Scottish League One side Ayr United FC. This marks the fifth consecutive year the parties have been joined at the hip, making it one of the longest partnerships in Scottish football.

Ayr United are currently battling to avoid relegation after a disappointing season that saw former manager Mark Roberts given the boot in favor of Ian McCall. Bodog brand founder Calvin Ayre said McCall has “brought about a tangible change of mood” at the club, priming it for success in the 2015-16 season. Ayre added, “as we say over here, ‘”let’s kick some ass.’”

Ayr United commercial manager Grame Miller said Bodog’s “passion for the club make them a pleasure to deal with.” Miller added that Bodog, who also serve as official Asian betting partner of EPL side Arsenal, “were delighted to enter into talks earlier than ever before this year as we can now get our new strips ready for the fans to buy at our final home game against Stirling on the 25th April.”

Casinos on Cambodia’s border with Vietnam are seeing fewer gamblers after Vietnamese authorities imposed tougher border crossing rules. Vietnam’s Ministry of Public Security said it was responding to increased reports of its citizens being held hostage or even killed after gambling at Cambodian casinos.

Such lurid reports aren’t new. But investigating these cases can prove difficult because, as Ministry official Vu Hoang Kien told Thahn Nien News, the victim’s families are “often too scared to report honestly, if they decided to report to police at all.”

There are 54 casinos and 36 cockfighting pits along Vietnam’s 789-mile border with Cambodia. There are 24 different border gates through which over 1.6m Vietnamese traveled in 2014. Around 234k of these are believed to have made the trip for gambling purposes, while police say others are suspected of loan sharking for Vietnamese clientele while in Cambodia.

Recent “determined actions” to tighten border crossings have staunched the flow somewhat at certain crossings: from 500 people per day to just 100-150 at Tay Ninh and from 1,500 down to 500 per day at My Quy Tay in Long An province. Most of those crossing the border claim to be going for tourism, when all that lies across the border is, in the words of Vietnamnet, “wasteland and the casinos.”

The crackdown has led to a lucrative side business for ‘brokers’ who either guide Vietnamese gamblers across the border via backwoods trails or who pay border guards to look the other way. Kien believes the failure to control the border is the result of poor bilateral cooperation between the two countries.

Or maybe things are going precisely as planned. Back in 2012, Cambodia prime minister Hun Sen told his nation’s parliament that border casino construction had been a “secret strategy” to prevent any potential invasion by Vietnam. “One can remove border markers, but one can’t remove five-story hotels.”

For some time now, Vietnam has been making noise now about lifting its longstanding ban on letting its locals gamble in casinos in their own country. The Grand Ho Tram Strip has bravely offered its facilities for a pilot project but Vietnam continues to stall. Cambodia has suggested it would be forced to follow Vietnam’s lead rather than seeing the current situation reversed, i.e. dealing with media horror stories of kidnap and murder of Cambodian citizens in some other nation’s den of iniquity.