Cyprus-licensed bookmakers saw their betting handle cut in half in the second quarter of 2020 but online revenue rose as punters found themselves betting on unfamiliar sports.

Figures released this week by the Republic of Cyprus’ National Betting Authority (NBA) show locally licensed online and land-based bookmakers handled just €88.4m worth of wagers in the three months ending June 30, half the sum they handled in Q2 2019 and 53.4% worse than Q1 2020. Betting revenue slipped 44% year-on-year to €10.6m.

The figures look even worse compared to the final quarter of 2019, during which betting handle hit €215.5m and revenue totaled €27m, but that was a far simpler time when no one outside an infectious diseases lab had heard of something called a coronavirus.

COVID-19 forced the country’s six ‘Class A’ retail bookmakers to shut their doors from March 16 until May 23, and their numbers suffered accordingly. Retail handle totaled just €16.6m, down from €57m in Q2 2019, while revenue fell from €12.5m to less than €4m. Fortunately, the retail shops maintained Q1’s absurd 24% margin in Q2, which was six points higher year-on-year.

The poker world has been waiting for Mike Postle to express his thoughts about the cheating scandal he has been caught up in for the past 12 months for a very long time.

This week, the silence that has lasted through the serving of a subpoena, the attendance in a court of law and a global pandemic finally ended. Mike Postle declared his innocence.

Poker is not an exact science, and as a matter of fact, Postle will never and has never been declared innocent, because no court in the land can do such a thing. He’s either guilty or not guilty and in that sense, when his case was dismissed earlier this summer, the latter applied.

Despite the judge scratching the case for geographical and evidentiary reasons, there were many questions that still hadn’t been answered. These included but were not withstanding to:

Pennsylvania’s gambling market continued its post-pandemic rebound in August, thanks to a record performance by its online gambling and sports betting operations.

Figures released Wednesday by the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board (PGCB) show statewide gaming revenue of $310.7m in August, 5.9% higher than the same month last year and nearly 10% better than July 2020’s total.  

The individual gaming vertical revenue totals reflect the ongoing capacity restrictions on the casinos’ physical gaming floors. Retail slots revenue fell 19% year-on-year to $167m, while retail table games were down 14.5% to $65.1m.

August 2019 was the first full month of Pennsylvania’s regulated online casino market, and a lot has changed since then. August 2020’s online slot revenue hit $39.6m, up from just $2.5m a year ago, while online table games went from $903k to nearly $13.6m. The state’s lone online poker operator (PokerStars), which hadn’t yet launched in August 2019, added $2.7m to August 2020’s total.

Casino operator Las Vegas Sands has hired a law firm to probe cash transfers at its Singapore resort, while Sands boss Sheldon Adelson is once again making it rain for the former casino boss in the White House.

On Wednesday, Bloomberg reported that Marina Bay Sands (MBS) had hired law firm Davinder Singh Chambers LLC to conduct a fresh probe into employee transfers of over a billion dollars in gamblers’ cash to third parties. Sands reportedly hired the firm after Singapore authorities launched their own probe into alleged shenanigans at the integrated resort.

In June, Sands reached an out-of-court settlement with Wang Xi, a former MBS high-roller who sued Sands one year ago after casino staff transferred SG$9.1m (US$6.6m) of his funds to a third-party, allegedly without his authorization. The company claimed it had letters bearing Wang’s signature authorizing the transfers, while Wang claimed he’d never seen these letters.

Transfers of this nature are commonplace in Asia-Pacific casino markets, particularly when junket operators are involved. But Singapore keeps a much tighter rein on junkets than other local regulators, and Sands used to maintain that it doesn’t work with the few ‘international market agents’ approved by Singapore’s Casino Regulatory Authority (CRA).