The B2B arm of online bookmaker Pinnacle has inked its first client thanks to the company’s eSports betting experience.

On Thursday, Pinnacle Solution announced it had reached a deal with Asian BGE, part of the AsianLogic family of gambling brands and parent company of Dafabet, Nextbet and Zipang Casino, among others.

The deal calls for Pinnacle Solution to supply its eSports iFrame API to Asian BGE’s gaming brands. The iFrame includes a sportsbook skin, mobile-compatible site and risk management service.

While eSports’ popularity is rising in Western markets, it enjoys a much wider following across Asian markets, making it a welcome alternative to Asian-facing bookmakers’ traditional sports offering.

The gambling monopoly in the Canadian province of Quebec reported annual online gambling revenue over the C$100m mark for the first time.

On Thursday, Loto-Quebec released its fiscal 2017-18 report, which showed overall revenue of C$3.77b (US$2.88b) in the 12 months ending March 31, 2018. The sum is 3.7% higher than the monopoly generated in its 2016-17 fiscal year, while net profits improved 8.5% to C$1.33b.

Loto-Quebec’s biggest gainer was its online gambling site, EspaceJeux.com. Online revenue improved 37.5% to C$118m, better than the 29.7% growth in the previous fiscal year. Online lottery sales were up 34% to C$53.7m while online casino improved 40.6% to C$64.3m.

By way of comparison, the provincial gambling sites in British Columbia and Ontario reported revenue of C$157.6m and C$58.4m, respectively, in their most recent annual reports.

New Jersey’s legal sports betting market is off and running, while New York’s efforts to join the betting brigade appear to be stuck in the starters’ blocks.

On Thursday morning at 10:30am, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy placed the state’s first legal wagers at the William Hill-powered sportsbook at Monmouth Park racetrack. Murphy placed a pair of $20 futures bets on the New Jersey Devils to win the 2019 Stanley Cup and Germany to claim the 2018 FIFA World Cup trophy.

Half an hour later at Atlantic City’s Borgata casino, basketball legend Julius ‘Dr. J’ Erving placed a $5 bet on the Philadelphia Eagles “to repeat” as Super Bowl champions in 2019. State Sen. Stephen Sweeney, a staunch supporter of the state’s seven-year quest for legal wagering, bet $200 on the Greeen Bay Packers hoisting next year’s Lombardi Trophy.

Murphy signed his state’s betting legislation into law on Monday and the Division of Gaming Enforcement (DGE) released its temporary sports betting regulations on Wednesday. Online wagering can theoretically commence by July 12, assuming the DGE can process operators’ applications for transactional waivers by that date.

Macau’s casino regulators won’t authorize any new gaming tables at Melco Resorts & Entertainment’s new Morpheus property this year.

MRE’s architecturally striking $1.1b Morpheus tower will have its formal grand opening ceremony on Friday, June 15. But the new addition to MRE’s City of Dreams property won’t receive any new-to-market gaming tables from Macau authorities, at least, not this year.

On Thursday, GGRAsia reported that Macau’s Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau (DICJ) had confirmed that it had granted MRE the right to transfer 40 gaming tables from its other properties to Morpheus. But the DICJ said any decision on whether to approve new table allocations to Morpheus won’t happen until 2019, if at all.

The DICJ justified its decision as necessary to ensure the regulator doesn’t exceed its principle of limiting annual table growth to 3% until 2023, one year after the government will have (hopefully) sorted out its casino concession renewal process.

Italy’s gambling operators are slowly learning that the country’s new leaders aren’t joking about their plans to rein in the industry.

On Thursday, Luigi Di Maio, Italy’s new deputy premier and leader of the Five Star Movement (M5S) party, made several unflattering references to the country’s gaming industry, in particular the thriving online gambling sector.

Last month, Italy’s new coalition government unveiled a platform that included a more than one-third reduction in the number of amusement with prizes (AWP) machines and video lottery terminals (VLT) in retail venues, plus “strong limitations on forms of gambling with repeated bets” and an “absolute ban on [gambling] advertising and sponsorships.”

On Wednesday, Di Maio (pictured) issued a ‘dignity decree’ that, among other things, calls for “the prohibition of gambling advertising.” Speaking with radio station Rtl 102.5, Di Maio said the coalition had a lost list of grievances with the gaming industry but would “start with advertising.”