Monthly Archives: February 2015

Bill to outlaw online gaming resurfaces in Congress

A Utah congressman on Wednesday reintroduced a bill that would reimpose a federal ban on wagering over the Internet, reigniting a debate that has split the gaming industry and sparked a broader discussion over the spread of gambling. The measure by Rep. Jason Chaffetz would roll back a Department of Justice opinion made public in December 2011 that held the Wire Act of 1961, the law that prohibits transmitting wagers, applies only to sports and not to other forms of gambling.

Higher ed chief, Senate finance chairman at odds on New Mexico's struggling lottery scholarship

The head of the state Higher Education Department asked the Senate Finance Committee on Wednesday for $6.5 million to shore up New Mexico’s sagging Legislative Lottery Scholarship fund for another year and a half. But Sen. John Arthur Smith, D-Deming, who chairs the committee, is against that idea.

Erick Lindgren Owes PokerStars $2.5M, Rational Group Claims in Lawsuit

Former Full Tilt poker pro Erick Lindgren is being sued by the Rational Group, parent company of both PokerStars and Full Tilt, for more than $2.5 million, as the company is hoping to recoup a debt that goes back to the days when Full Tilt Poker was an independent poker room, before Black Friday. The […]

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Powerball Jackpot Zooms to $317 Million

Got dreams of quitting the rat race and retiring to a tropical island or a remote mountaintop? If you’re the winner of the next Powerball lottery – and that’s a big if -you’ll take home $317 million. Here are the cold hard facts: Your odds of winning are 1 in 175,223,510, according to the folks at the Virginia Lottery.

NagaCorp reports increased GGR; Success Universe eyes Macau license

Vietnamese casino operator NagaCorp reported a 17% increase in gross gaming revenue to $381.4 million on the strength of VIP betting volume increasing 35% to $6.2 billion.

The company that operates Cambodia’s biggest casino, NagaWorld, takes full advantage of Macau’s gambling slowdown, especially among VIPs and high rollers who are beginning to explore other gaming venues in the region. To its credit, NagaCorp isn’t wasting any time trying to attract these gamblers out of Macau and into Cambodia.

“The downturn in gaming in Macau offers opportunities for the Group to further penetrate the Chinese gaming market in both the VIP and Mass Gaming segments, by offering better commercial terms to junket operators and agents as a result of NagaWorld’s low cost structure,” the company said in its financial statement.

An important part of the company’s success has been attributed to these junket operators, who routinely fly in VIPs to play in their casino partners in exchange for a commission. With Macau junkets becoming more receptive to sending their clients to neighboring casinos, NagaCorp takes the predictable yet important step of signing up more of these junkets to come to NagaWorld in Cambodia instead.

“The 35% increase in VIP rollings in 2014 demonstrates NagaWorld’s incentive program’s success in promoting NagaWorld to a wider range of operators and players, particularly from China,” the company added.

This plan of offering higher incentives to junket operators comes with a cost. Despite the sharp increase in gross gaming revenue, NagaCorp’s net profit only grew nine percent to $136 million.

Meanwhile, Macau casino operator Success Universe Group Ltd. isn’t sweating the downturn in business over in Macau. On the contrary, the company is actually setting its sights on bidding for a new gaming license in the event the government decides to follow through on rumors that it will issue one gaming license to a local enterprise to break the dominance of Chinese and US-owned casinos in the world’s largest gambling hub.

SBTech partners with Evander Holyfield; Scientific Games online casino games arrive in NJ

Sports betting solutions provider SBTech has partnered with four-time World Heavyweight Champion Evander Holyfield to launch a new online gaming brand based on the former World Heavyweight Champion’s nickname “The Real Deal.”

RealDealBet.com, mainly a sports betting site, will be hosted on SBTech’s platforms and will use the supplier’s managed services marketing solutions, covering more than 60,000 events each month across more than 30 sports, including 150 football leagues.

Customers will have access to casino games, with a range of jackpot, video and 3D slots available, alongside live dealer blackjack and roulette products and classic table games, with content supplied by BetSoftGaming, Net Entertainment and Microgaming.

“He’s an inspirational individual, not to mention a champion many times over, and we’re confident as experienced industry frontrunners that we can achieve the same levels of success for this new endeavour,” SBTech CEO Itai Zak said of Holyfield. “This will be a site developed by champions for champions.”

Meanwhile, gaming solutions provider Scientific Games has announced that its online casino games will be rolled out in New Jersey, through its partnership with bwin.party digital entertainment.

Customers of websites such as BorgataCasino.com and NJ.partypoker.com will now have access to a range of online slots games developed by the Scientific Games Williams studio, including online versions of land-based titles on casino floors throughout Atlantic City such as Gold Fish, Zeus III, and Spartacus Gladiator of Rome.

Partypoker’s group director of poker Jeffrey Haas said that providing players with great games and entertainment was its number one priority.

Fire and Ice – The Reign of Queen Vic Highlights Video

CalvinAyre.com takes us to the highlights of the Fire & Ice 2015 – The Reign of Queen Vic, at the Troxy London. We talked to Michael Caselli of Lyceum Media. He tells us that this event is 6 months in the making they search everywhere the best entertainer on earth to really make this happen.

New York posts decline in gambling sales, lottery and racinos take direct hits

Gambling sales in the state of New York in 2014 experienced its first decline in years, prompting concern that the state’s decision to award three casino licenses could end up becoming a bad investment.

According to data provided by the State Lottery, gambling sales in the Empire State totalled $9 billion in 2014, a 2% decline from the $9.03 billion the state received in 2013.

The decline in sales affected a handful of industries, including the lottery and the state’s race track casinos. Traditional lottery games, which accounts for a majority of gambling sales in the state, dipped 2.2% to $7.2 billion in 2014. Betting sales from multi-state big jackpot games Powerball and Mega Millions, plummeted 43.5% and 11.8%, respectively.

Sales from lotteries, which has lost a lot of steam since its robust years of generating close to $500 million in sales per year, sunk to under $86 million in 2014, a 16.8% drop from the $103.4 million in sales it earned in 2013.

New York’s gambling sales in 2014 dropped for the first time in years, potentially signaling a saturated market just as three new upstate casinos are in development.

The only redeeming form of lottery for the state has been scratch-off instant games, but even its $3.7 billion in sales in 2014 only represented an increase of less than 1% from its 2013 numbers.

As far as the state’s nine racetrack casinos are concerned, the unsettling thought of less and less people coming and betting in these places became a reality when only two of the nine casinos posted improved revenues in 2014 compared to 2013.

Iowa is one step closer to legalizing fantasy sports

Iowa lawmakers have introduced a bill which would would clarify fantasy sports as a skill game and authorize cash pay offs to participants in the state.

Senate Study Bill 1068 was introduced at the end of January by Senator Jeff Danielson and was approved by the Senate State Government Committee on a voice vote with only one dissent on Wednesday.

Danielson said the proposal would simply declare that fantasy sports in Iowa are not considered gambling and are not governed by the state’s regulatory framework.

“Fantasy sports as defined by the U.S. government is a game of skill. It is not a game of chance,” Danielson added.

The bill states that winning outcomes must reflect the knowledge and skill of the participants, and “are determined predominantly by accumulated statistical results of the performance of individuals in multiple actual sporting events, and no winning outcome is based on the score, or performance of any single actual ream or combination of such teams or solely on any single performance of an individual athlete in any single actual sporting or other event.”

Once approved, Iowa casinos could offer fantasy sports with cash payoffs but they would still be banned from allowing gamblers to bet on athletic events like the Super Bowl.

The games are offered through major league sports websites, as well as through ESPN, Yahoo and other online content providers. An estimated 264,000 Iowans participate in the games but no Iowans have been prosecuted for playing fantasy sports games, according to the Iowa attorney general’s office.

Caesars’ Gary Loveman stepping down as CEO; remains as chairman

Caesars Entertainment Corporation Chairman Gary Loveman will step down from the company’s chief executive role on June 30 and will be replaced by the former chairman and CEO of Hertz Global Holdings.

“After 12 years as CEO, Caesars has accomplished more than what we could have imagined when I arrived in 1998. Now, with the company in the midst of a formal restructuring of one of its subsidiaries and a merger between entities, the time is ripe for a transition,” said Loveman.

“It has been an honor to be the Chairman and CEO of Caesars Entertainment. My decision to begin to transition management now comes with the confidence that we have taken the steps necessary to ensure the company’s long-term success. I am confident that the efforts underway to address the capital structure of CEOC and the announced merger of Caesars Acquisition Corporation and Caesars Entertainment will position Caesars for growth and prosperity for many years to come. I look forward to working with Mark, the Board of Directors and the Senior Management Team to effect a seamless transition,” Loveman added.

According to a statement from the company, Mark Frissora, who has seven years of experience with the automobile and equipment rental car company, will be CEO designee—a title which allows him to join the board of directors for Caesars immediately until July 1 when he formally becomes CEO.

Frissora was appointed CEO of Hertz in 2006. He oversaw Hertz’s 2012 acquisition of Dollar Thrifty Automotive Group Inc. Prior to joining Hertz in 2006, Frissora was Chairman and CEO of Tenneco, an auto parts maker.

The announcement comes less than a month after Caesars placed its largest operating unit into a pre-packaged bankruptcy to eliminate almost $10 billion in debt and was shot down as US Bankruptcy Judge Kevin Gross ruled that Chicago was the appropriate venue to handle the proceedings.

Loveman, who has been with Caesars since 1988, is one of the gaming industry’s longest-tenured CEOs, making him one of the highest-paid casino executives in recent years. According to the company’s recent statement, Loveman earned more than $7.6 million in salary and other compensation in 2013. In 2010, Loveman earned more than $18.2 million in total compensation.