Former US-facing online sportsbook 5Dimes has reached a financial settlement with the US Department of Justice ahead of a plan to pursue sports betting licenses in the regulated US market.

On Wednesday, the US Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania announced that it had reached a settlement with 5D Holdings Ltd – the parent company of Costa Rica-based online sportsbook 5Dimes – and Laura Varela, the widow of 5Dimes founder William Sean ‘Tony’ Creighton, who was murdered in Costa Rica in 2018 in an apparent botched kidnapping attempt.

The settlement involves 5Dimes forfeiting $46.8m in illegal gambling proceeds derived primarily from US bettors. This sum includes roughly $3.4m in assets seized during the 2016 probe by Homeland Security Investigation into 5Dimes’ use of Amazon gift cards to help US bettors fund their online betting accounts.

Another $26m of this sum will come from 5Dimes and Varela agreeing to “help in the collection and forfeiture of additional assets.” Another $2m comes from funds seized by Costa Rican law enforcement, while the final $15m will come from 5Dimes and Varlea agreeing to “pay and consent to the forfeiture” of additional proceeds derived from the site’s escapades.

An illegal casino operation in Ontario is shedding light on how VIP gamblers have been filling the void caused by the COVID-19 shutdown of legal venues.

On Wednesday, York Regional Police announced the arrests of 32 individuals suspected of operating a “high-end illegal casino” out of a 53-room, 20k-square-foot mansion in Markham, just north of Toronto. The arrests, which were part of a probe titled Project End Game, occurred on July 23 but are only now just making headlines.

The C$9m (US$6.8m) mansion was among the items seized during the raid, along with C$1m in cash, 4,000 bottles of premium liquor, 11 firearms – including a rifle with a fully loaded 30-shot clip kept close to the action, just in case – as well as numerous gaming tables and electronic gaming machines.

The mansion also offered its guests the opportunity to crash overnight, along with unspecified “spa treatments,” leading police to conclude that the underground operation may have had ties to human sex trafficking.

Nevada casino gaming revenue suffered a modest setback in August, despite solid public interest in the state’s sports betting operators.

Figures released Wednesday by the Nevada Gaming Control Board show statewide gaming revenue of $743m in August, a 22% decline from the same month last year and slightly below the $756.8m the casinos generated in July 2020.

The year-on-year decline was significantly greater on the Las Vegas Strip, where casinos reported revenue falling 39.2% to $317m, which was also a slight fall from July’s $330m. Downtown Vegas venues were down 21.5% to $35.6m, while the Boulder Strip rose nearly 30% to $70.9m.

Nevada’s slots revenue was off 14.7% year-on-year to $525.4m, while the ‘table, counter & card games’ segment slid 35.6% to $217.6m. Nearly all table games suffered steep declines, led by blackjack ($58.3m, -40.4%), baccarat ($46.3m, -53%), craps ($28.9m, -20.6%) and roulette ($21.2m, -28.7%).

UK gambling operators – both online and land-based – are facing new restrictions on their dealings with high-rolling customers, but the measures stop short of abolishing VIP programs altogether.

On Wednesday, the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) unveiled “strict new guidance” intended to “clean up the malpractice of so-called VIP schemes.” The changes, which take effect October 31, have particular ramifications for gambling execs tasked with handling high-value customers (HVC). 

The guidance isn’t all that unremarkable or unprecedented, basically ensuring that customers can afford to lose the sums they’re wagering, continuously performing due diligence to ensure an HVC’s financial situation hasn’t changed, and monitoring customer activity for evidence of gambling-related harm.

But the UKGC will now require operators to identify specific individuals by name who will be responsible for VIP account compliance. These individuals should be “at senior executive level or equivalent” who hold a personal management license issued by the UKGC and will be called upon to justify any dereliction of duty in maintaining the new standards.

The two careers of Jamie Vardy and Wayne Rooney have always been interesting to watch as each flourished at different times, with each man’s highlights reel containing spectacular goals, phenomenal personal achievements and more than a few controversial moments along the way.

Viewed as a timeline alongside each other, however, how does each man compare to the other at different ages? As was remarked across the world this past weekend, Jamie Vardy scoring a hat-trick at The Etihad on the same weekend that Rooney, just a year older at 34 years of age, was playing for Derby in a 4-0 home defeat by Blackburn shows that the latter section of each man’s biography read very differently.

Over the course of their careers, when was Rooney the best and at which moments was Vardy on top? Let’s take a look at the seven eras Vardy and Rooney have seen their careers evolve within.

The Youth Club (2002-2004) 

Managing people isn’t a skill everyone comes to naturally. For so many, becoming a manager is a process of being recognized for having a particular set of skills, and they aren’t always being good at leading people. And if they aren’t trained into the job correctly, they might assume that managing people is as simple as watching them do a job, and correcting them if anything goes wrong, because they know how to do that.

Last week I came across ‘My Boss Wants Us On Zoom All Day Long.’ This article on The Cut features an anonymous employee writing in to Alison Green in a Dear Annie type format, and she specifically raises the problem she’s having that her boss expects the entire office to be on Zoom all day long. The boss in this scenario framed the idea as a path to “establishing a work-life balance,” and to “see our co-workers and feel like we’re back in the office.”

The anonymous submission notes that it’s pretty clear what the whole thing really is, “a poorly disguised attempt to micromanage.”

Now, if you’re a senior leader, you’re probably past the stage where you want to watch all of your employees for an entire shift for fear that someone’s bathroom break goes a little too long. The accepted dynamic has rightfully been decided that you judge people on their results, and not how much time they spend at their desk, be it at the office or at home.

XLMedia, an affiliate marketing publisher working with the gaming industry, has released the results of its most recent fiscal period, and it doesn’t like what it sees. The interim report covers the first of this year, and revealed revenue that was off by about $2 million from what the company had expected to see. While some of this is to be expected, given the impact COVID-19 has had on the gaming industry in general, XLMedia also blames the poor results on Google, asserting that its “manual ranking penalties” cost it valuable real estate in the search rankings. 

The revenue taken in by the company in the period was $27.7 million, 35% lower than the $42.5 million it reported for the same period last year. Gross profits for the half fell 42% to $16.1 million, and the adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) was off by 73% at $5.1 million. In addition to the slower performance and Google, XLMedia’s decision to close its media operations also contributed to the downturn.

Explains XLMedia CEO and Director of the Board Stuart Simms, “Our business has endured a number of unforeseen challenges during 2020 but, as we enter the second half of the year, I believe we are seeing signs of recovery in some key areas. These green shoots, coupled with a detailed and diverse plan to mitigate the impact of the Google manual ranking penalty, give me and the Executive team confidence we can enter 2021 with significant positive momentum and enhanced levels of control.”

The ”manual ranking penalty” refers to the intervention of Google’s workforce in ranking results and often leads to a reduction in organic traffic. Google reportedly has 13 different criteria used for the penalties, covering everything from hidden text on sites to hacking attempts to “spammy” website structures. XLMedia was deranked by Google this past January, which has hurt the company’s ability to capture more online traffic that has arisen from the COVID-19 pandemic.