Dutch gambling venues have been hit with new pandemic restrictions on their hours of operation, while London’s casinos desperately try to fend off fresh limits.

Last Friday, the Netherlands’ Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport issued “new regional measures to control the spread of coronavirus.” The restrictions, which took effect at 6pm on Sunday, require all venues with catering licenses to stop accepting guests after midnight and all guests must leave the venues by 1am.

The new rules apply to venues in six geographic regions currently facing “the sharpest increase in coronavirus infections.” These regions are Amsterdam-Amstelland, Rotterdam-Rijnmond, Haaglanden, Utrecht, Kennemerland and Hollands Midden, which contain most of the country’s major cities, including Amsterdam, Rotterdam and the Hague.

The news is a bitter blow for the state-run Holland Casino, which just last week was celebrating plans to extend operating hours at some venues from 3am to 4am. The rationale behind this change was that staying open longer allowed the venues to accept more guests under existing COVID-19 restraints, which limit the number of guests allowed inside at any one time to 30% of normal capacity.

Legal online sports betting could be coming to the Indian state of Maharashtra as the local government mulls ways of topping up its depleted treasury.

Last Friday, the Times of India quoted an unidentified National Congress Party minister in the state of Maharashtra saying the local government was reviewing a report detailing the impact of legalizing online betting and possibly other forms of gambling.

The government established a task force headed by a former finance minister a few months ago as the state’s financial taps began to run dry due to the COVID-19 pandemic’s economic impact. The task force was asked to consider the obstacles to legalizing and regulating online gambling.

For the record, this isn’t the first time that Maharashtra has publicly mused about legalizing online gambling. But as of the end of August, the state is estimated to have suffered a revenue shortfall of over Rs610b (US$8.3b) due to the pandemic, making any and all potential revenue sources newly attractive, despite previous qualms about their alleged social harms.

You’ve kicked off your Fantasy Football League and already you’re behind Auntie Pam who you last saw aged five, that guy at the office who you can’t stand and your little brother, whose team is called Hands-Yöur Butt. Your squad is in desperate need of help and you’re tempted to blow your season’s Wild Card option and it’s only Gameweek #2.

Fear not. We’ve crunched the numbers and come up with the top scorer and a couple of solid value options to remedy your defence, midfield and attack. 

Goalkeepers

The top scorer for this position after the season’s delayed kick-off if Alisson, the Liverpool goalkeeper, having scored 15 points. This is surprising in one sense because the champions conceded three in their first game but not in another sense because the Brazilian saved a penalty and kept a clean sheet at Chelsea in Gameweek #2.

Ganapati continues to spiral around the globe, as new documents confirm their troubles in Estononia. Documents obtained by CalvinAyre.com confirm Ganapati NEO Estonia OÜ filed for bankruptcy on May 27, 2020, with proceedings now nearly reaching their end.

In the document from the Harju County Court, dated from August 10, the court resolved to terminate the hearings due to the extinction of the company. They outlined Ganapati’s situation locally going into the bankruptcy:

“The debtor has obligations at least EUR 672 149.70 ($792,333) and assets EUR 521 238.65 ($614,438.73). The reason for insolvency is the recession caused by the coronavirus. The debtor considers himself to be permanently insolvent and asks declare bankruptcy.”

The court agreed with Ganapati’s given reason for bankruptcy. “The insolvency developed in March 2020 at the latest,” the document shows.

Even if the Philippines wants to tax online operations at a higher rate, a decline of the industry might wipe out any gains. The Bureau of Internal Revenue has revealed that a Covid-19 caused exodus has resulted in reduced tax revenues from Philippine Offshore Gambling Operators (POGOs).

BIR Deputy Commissioner Arnel Guballa has admitted that recent tax collections from POGOs have reduced from pre-Covid levels, reports the Philippine Daily Inquirer. “The issue is still the same, Pogos are closing down, because they are afraid of COVID-19,” said Guballa.

Actual figures are not available at the moment, but only 29 of the confirmed 55 operational POGOs have returned to work, while 99 service providers have also reopened. A lack of workforce could be a contributing factor to the other 26 not reopening yet. “Plenty of Chinese workers’ visas were canceled and they went back to China because there are plenty of COVID-19-positive cases in the Philippines,” Guballa said.

The return of the POGO industry has been worrying since May, when Covid lockdown measures were eased and operators were given the greenlight to reopen, assuming they could meet their tax obligations. By July, only 11 POGOs had been given that permission, with lawmakers speculating that payments were made under the table to get things moving.

The gambling industry can find a lot of benefits from Bitcoin SV (BSV), but it’s easy to get confused by all of the other blockchain offerings out there. Thankfully, the CoinGeek Live conference is here to clear up all the questions you might have, and Bitcoin Association Founding President Jimmy Nguyen joined our Becky Liggero Fontana on this week’s episode of the Long Con to extend an invite.

Nguyen began by explaining just how the industry got to the point it’s at. “Bitcoin and blockchain came out with this promise of excitement, and then people kind of got bored with it,” he said. “And the reality is because of two things. The Bitcoin blockchain under the form taken by what we call BTC, Bitcoin Core, which many people think is Bitcoin, did not effectively scale. Meaning, it didn’t grow to be able to support huge numbers of transactions, fast, at super, super low cost. So people stopped using it for what it was born to be, which is in the title of the Bitcoin whitepaper, ‘A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System.’ Electronic cash we use every day. Its network became congested and slow. The fee it costs to send a Bitcoin transaction would spike anytime there’s huge amounts of traffic on the network, to sometimes $4, $6, $8, at one point $40 per transaction. You’re not going to use Bitcoin in daily life if it might cost you $40 just to send a transaction, including for gaming.”

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nD_XN2Hd2-E]

“And then in addition, there became too many blockchain and cryptocurrency projects,” he added. “Everyone started looking at creating their own coin, Becky Coin, Jimmy Coin, Whoever’s Coin, to make a quick buck in that ICO (initial coin offering) craze that happened. And so we live in a world today with over 5,000 digital currencies and well over 100 blockchain projects. That’s way too many, and it’s caused confusion among businesses as to, ‘Well wait a minute, what am I supposed to use? How are they supposed to interoperate with each other?’ And I think that confusion really slowed down the growth of blockchain technology.”

Until earlier this month, Chan Weng Lin (also known as Levo Chan) held less than 1% of the shares in Macau Legend Development, the company behind Macau’s Macau Legend casino and other activity. Chan, the CEO of junket operator Tak Chun Group, then bumped that stake to 20.65% when his wholly-owned subsidiary Perfect Achiever Group (PAG) spent $137 million to increase its holdings a few days ago. That share acquisition didn’t come without a few strings attached, though, and Chan was only allowed to make the purchase by agreeing to buy an even larger stake. He has now confirmed that this is going to happen and, when the ink on the paperwork is dry, Chan will own 49.94% of Macau Legend. 

 PAG is an investment firm out of the British Virgin Islands, and Chan used it to purchase holdings previously belonging to Macau Legend Chairman David Chow and All Landmark Properties Ltd. As a result of that deal, Chow and his wife, Melinda Chan, reduced their stake from 20.89% to 9.89%. Melinda is the current CEO of Macau Legend, having been given the title following the appointment by her husband this past March. Sheldon Trainor-DeGirolamo, an executive director at the company, was involved in the transaction, as well, reducing his stake from 1.38% to 0.73%.

The latest share acquisition comes as part of the rules of the game in Hong Kong, where Macau Legend was, until recently, listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Trading has been suspended as a result of all the movement, and the rules stipulate that Chan could only make his initial purchase if he agreed to buy all publicly held shares, of which 29.08% are held by unidentified shareholders and another 0.11% by company director Carl Tong. 

Chan won’t get access to the shares held by certain executives, directors or former directors. Nor will he be able to purchase those controlled by Vast Field Investments Ltd, a subsidiary of SJM Holdings. SJM is the owner of the gaming license that Macau Legend uses to provide gaming services to three casinos in Macau, Babylon Casino, Landmark Casino and the Legend Palace. In addition to those venues, Macau Legend is also behind the Macau Fisherman’s Wharf hotel and a resort in Laos, and is also hoping to get a new resort up and running on the island of Cape Verde sometime next year. 

Casinos are expected to adhere to a number of laws and regulations designed to prevent money laundering and other illicit activity. Questions have arisen lately over whether or not Crown Resorts in Australia has been fulfilling its obligations in accordance with those guidelines, and the possibility of it being forced to give up its license no longer seems far-fetched. However, if New South Wales (NSW) thinks it will go quietly into the night, the government should think again. Crown asserts that it has an ace up its sleeve and that it’s not afraid to pull it out. If it does, it could cost the government billions of dollars in compensation. 

Specifically, if Crown is denied the ability to work with Asian junkets, NSW could be on the hook for a massive amount of money. According to The Sydney Morning Herald, there’s language in the original agreement established between the casino operator and the government that addresses the company’s financial stability in the event the government makes changes to its license. The language in that clause, asserts Crown, gives it the right to demand a payout of 10.5 times the amount the change would make to its bottom line. The clause reportedly covers all of Crown’s “assets, liabilities, properties … operating results, operations, reputation or prospects.”

Crown, in a recent financial filing, indicated that its VIP segment, which comes mostly from junkets, was worth AUD$398.2 million ($290.6 million) in fiscal year 2020, which ended this past June. The year prior, the one without all the COVID-19 drama, had been worth $374.6 million. As a result, according to Crown, should the government make any changes to its license, the operator could request over ten times that amount in restitution. 

Crown has been accused of not doing a sufficient job in preventing money laundering activity, allowing war criminals to gamble at its venues, rigging machines, engaging in shady marketing tactics and playing games with regulations. The fallout comes as the company hopes to launch a new, $2-billion venue in NSW, which has put it under the regulatory microscope. A decision on whether or not it should retain its license isn’t expected to be announced until at least the beginning of February next year. 

South Korea has only one casino that is able to provide its gambling services to country residents, and it has been dealing with a lot of pressure this year because of COVID-19. Kangwon Land first closed everything down in February because of the global pandemic, then got things back up and running in May. At the time, the idea was to allow high-rollers to visit in a test to see how well everything would go. That test fell flat as the coronavirus decided to make another run in the country, and the casino shut down once again. Confident there would be a stronger, healthier light at the end of the tunnel, Kangwon Land worked diligently to prepare for today, September 21, the day it would get back to business. However, based on an update provided last Friday, today’s not looking good either, and the gambling venue won’t be back up and running until sometime next month. 

Kangwon Land provided the Korea Exchange with new information on Friday, explaining that the property will remain closed until 6 AM local time on October 5. The decision follows a move by South Korean officials to extend health protection measures in the country for an additional week as they continue to try to keep COVID-19 from spreading. The officials also plan on turning the screws on travel and other activities, which will impact the upcoming fall holiday that typically runs at the end of September. 

Located only 93 miles from the 9.73 million people who live in Seoul, the country’s capital, the continued shutdown is bad news for the property’s bottom line. Already this year, revenue is substantially off, with the property reporting a 91.4% year-on-year drop across the first six months of 2020. That put the company’s take in the red, and it now expects to lose an additional $46.4 million from this Wednesday until it reopens next month. That figure is based on the daily average of casino sales across the first half of the year, but the actual losses could be higher if July and August activity were included. 

There are now 22,975 record cases of COVID-19 in South Korea, according to the country’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Of these, 82 were identified over a 24-hour period from Saturday to Sunday, an indication that, while control efforts are helping, there is still more work to be done. Earlier this month, it had been reported that the daily total of new positive cases had been in the triple-digit range since August 14.