Singapore casino Resorts World Sentosa (RWS) started the new year off on the wrong foot after part of a ceiling collapsed, injuring four people.

On Tuesday morning, emergency personnel rushed to the integrated resort after a portion of a ceiling board fell off, injuring a member of RWS’ security staff and three external contractors who were carrying out what an RWS spokesperson described as “enhancement works.”

The Singapore Civil Defense Force said the four individuals suffered head injuries, abrasions and cuts. The three contractors received treatment at Singapore General Hospital, while the security staffer was discharged after receiving outpatient treatment at RWS’ onsite medical facilities.

Guests in the vicinity when the accident occurred reported hearing a loud bang before observing non-injured workers fleeing the area. While the accident occurred in the mezzanine gaming area of the casino, no gamblers or other guests were affected by the accident. The affected area has been temporarily closed until a proper safety inspection deems the area secure.

Spain’s gaming regulator has officially approved local online poker operators sharing liquidity with their counterparts in three other European Union member states.

On December 29, Spanish gaming regulator Dirección General de Ordenación del Juego (DGOJ) announced that it had signed a Resolution to authorize Spanish-licensed online poker licensees sharing liquidity with their counterparts in France, Italy and Portugal.

The four nations agreed on their liquidity sharing plan last July as a way to give a boost to the flagging online poker revenue in each of their regulated markets. The plans have accelerated in recent months, including French regulator ARJEL issuing its first shared liquidity license to PokerStars.fr in December.

The DGOJ says its resolution will take effect once the language is published in the Official State Gazette later this month. The regulator plans to issue its own shared liquidity licenses shortly thereafter, with the aim of allowing cross-border play with French players “in the coming weeks.”

A top Egyptian cleric has warned Muslims that cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin are forbidden under Islamic law, although he appears more concerned with protecting the power of the government rather than the souls of the pious.

This week, Egypt’s Grand Mufti Shawki Allam (pictured) issued an official fatwa in which he declared that “virtual currency” was an unacceptable “interface of exchange.” Allam likened cryptocurrency trading to gambling and thus is similarly forbidden under Sharia law “due to its direct responsibility in financial ruin for individuals.”

This is the third anti-crypto fatwa issued in recent months. In December, Turkey’s Directorate of Religious Affairs slammed both gambling and crypto, calling the latter a potential “means of deception” that could be used to obtain “unjustifiable and unjust enrichment.” A Saudi minister has similarly declared Bitcoin haram (forbidden) for giving “namelessness to crooks.”

These three countries share not only the Islamic faith but also intolerant authoritarian governments. While Egypt has yet to officially ban crypto usage, the Egyptian Financial Supervisory Authority warned the public in December that it considered dabbling in cryptocurrency trading to be a “form of deception that falls under legal liability.”

Casino operator Silver Heritage Group has finally received the official okay to launch gaming operations at its new casino in Nepal.

Late last week, the Australian-listed Silver Heritage informed the markets that the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation of Nepal had issued Silver Heritage subsidiary SHL Management Services a casino operation license at the Tiger Palace Resort Bhairahawa in accordance with Nepal’s Casino Rules 2070.

The announcement brought an end to the company’s prolonged delays in opening its gaming venue at Tiger Palace. The company opened the property’s hotel to guests in September, and the casino floor was supposed to open in November. However, construction delays forced the company to push back the filing of its gaming license application.

Tiger Palace is located mere minutes away from the border with the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, from which the company expects to attract the majority of its casino customers. India has authorized casinos in only three of its jurisdictions, and Uttar Pradesh – the country’s most populous state with over 200m inhabitants – is not one of them.

2017 was the year of the boom. Everything went up and fundamentals were only a bonus. Almost all gaming markets went way up, along with almost everything else in the world. 2018 is not likely to repeat this by a long shot. Here is what we are likely to see this year and what should be done about it.

Cryptocurrency Craze Will Calm, Culling Coins and the Cocky

First and foremost, when economic historians look back at 2017, it will be labeled the year of the cryptocurrency craze, first and foremost. The advance completely blew away any other in recorded human financial history since tulip bulbs. From January 2 to December 19, 2017, the total market cap for all cryptocurrencies traded went up from $18.5 billion to $642 billion. That’s an absolute inflow of $623 billion.

For true believers this heralds the dawn of a new monetary age. Maybe it does, eventually, but it probably won’t take root in 2018. In order for that to happen people have to start using digital currencies as bona fide money in retail transactions, not as speculative holdings where they can log in to their wallets and count their paper gains in fiat. The vast majority of people who bought into the rally have no intention of using any of their digital currencies as money, and even the most ardent bitcoin investors still count their holdings in terms of fiat currencies. What this incredible rally really signifies is that there is a lot of loose money out there looking for something to fall on. It found something and it fell.

Blockchain & Bitcoin Conference Philippines

For the first time ever, Smile-Expo will be hosting one of their specialized crypto-currency and Blockchain conferences in Manila, Philippines.  The purpose of this event is to bring together professionals who have succeeded in integrating blockchain into the government control sector, banking, trading, media, healthcare, gaming and more.  Crypto-currency regulation in the Philippines and beyond will also be covered, along with a variety of keynote speakers representing major companies and authorities.

What: Blockchain & Bitcoin Conference Philippines

When: January 25, 2018

Authorities in mainland China rolled out a new policy limiting the amount of money that people can withdraw from their accounts while overseas.

On Saturday, China’s State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) announced that the annual limit of bank card withdrawals has been updated to RMB100,000 (USD15,000) per customer. This replaces the old policy of RMB100,000 per account per year.

The old policy did not stop people from having multiple supplementary cards attached to their main account as well as using multiple accounts with different banks. The new rules, however, will apply to all bank cards and accounts that an individual has, according to the government agency.

In a statement, SAFE also warned people against borrowing others’ bank cards or lending their own bank cards to circumvent the new rules. Those who have exceeded the annual quota will be suspended from holding domestic bank cards to withdraw cash outside China.