Gambling operator Churchill Downs Incorporated (CDI) is replacing its fledgling sports betting/iGaming brand with its far more established race betting brand as it tries to run with the big boys in the US online market.

On Tuesday, CDI announced that it was moving to “a single brand strategy for its online wagering segment,” which currently encompasses both the popular TwinSpires advance deposit wagering site and the far less familiar BetAmerica brand, which is currently operational in only six states.

Henceforth, TwinSpires will be the brand under which all CDI’s online gambling operations are conducted, starting with the expected launch later this month of CDI’s online sportsbook and iGaming platform in Michigan. After that, retail and online sportsbooks in Colorado, Indiana, Michigan, New Jersey and Pennsylvania will undergo a similar identity refresh.

CDI president/COO Bill Mudd said TwinSpires “has consistently delivered over 13 years” and this legacy “offers a unique point of difference in a competitive space.” Translated, that means CDI has belatedly realized that brand recognition is a major differentiator in the rapidly expanding US sports betting market and BetAmerica just isn’t gaining traction. 

Poker is represented on television in many different guises. It’s the elite game in the European Poker Tour, it is a game where you can lose your life as well as your chips in Casino Royale and sometimes, it’s a cheap injection of colour into a movie that is lacking it, such as Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.  

But what happens when poker, an already funny game, enters a show such as Seinfeld? The smash hit ‘comedy about nothing’ that ran from 1989 to 1998 featured poker and gambling in a number of forms through the series. But did it do it well? Let’s take a look back at those moments first, courtesy of Zachary Elwood’s excellent montage.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2wRV58SXzkVideo can’t be loaded because JavaScript is disabled: Seinfeld – All The Poker and Gambling (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2wRV58SXzk)

Oddly for a sitcom, gambling and Seinfeld went together like soup and Nazis in the comedy series that would later come to define the 1990s in more ways than one. In a way, this comes directly from the characters, all of whom has critical flaws that are not just left to fester and mutate, but actively encouraged to grow by the petri-dish of the foursome’s collective relationship.  

The latest GGPoker Super MILLION$ final table takes place today and there are legends of the felt in with a chance of winning the title.

With a massive top prize of $448,842 on the table, it is the former WSOP bracelet winner Enrico Camosci who goes into the final with a lead, holding 4,798,699 chips (80 big blinds) but it’s a slim one and chasing him down are two of the biggest names at the felt in Swedish player Niklas Astedt (4,579,388, 76 big blinds) and Brazilian Rui Ferreira (3,435,920, 57 big blinds).

Astedt in particular could hardly be more motivated to claim the top prize, with his eight appearances at Super MILLION$ final tables without winning a title a record that he’ll be anxious to eradicate. The Swede goes into play second in chips and just a three-bet off the lead.

Camosci himself will be looking to add to what has already been a great year, with a 2020 World Series of Poker bracelet from the Online Series already winging its way to him. Behind Camosci, however, are some other big, big names. Two of the biggest will be four-time World Poker Tour Main Event winner Darren Elias (2,660,693, 44 big blinds), who comes into play fourth in chips, has the heart of a lion and is one of the most skilful poker players on the planet.

China’s war on ‘cross-border’ gambling claimed a lot of scalps in 2020, although a new report claims 11m Chinese citizens still gamble online on any given day. 

On Tuesday, China’s Ministry of Public Security issued a statement on its anti-gambling activity in 2020, which saw the Ministry resolve more than 3,500 cross-border (land-based and online) gambling cases and arrest some 7,500 suspects. The Ministry also claimed to have ‘destroyed’ 2,260 gambling platforms, 890 technical support hubs, 1,160 marketing affiliates and 1,960 illegal payment platforms and ‘underground’ banks. 

Of the arrested individuals, over 600 Chinese nationals were detained overseas, thanks to increased cooperation between the Ministry and its counterparts in the Philippines, Malaysia, Myanmar, Vietnam and other Asia-Pacific countries. 

The Ministry also hailed its ‘blacklist’ of countries that lure mainland residents abroad to gamble, while still refusing to identify the countries that have been labeled with this scarlet letter. The Ministry warned mainland residents to “consciously resist” traveling abroad to gamble or to participate in illegal online gambling from the mainland. 

It’s still looking like Japan is going to make real progress with its integrated resort (IR) plans this year after having met a few challenges along the way. If the rollout continues as expected, the gaming world might know by the end of the year some of the details on the who, what, when and where of the projects. Yokohama, Osaka and Nagasaki are still on the shortlist of locations to host a venue, and Yokohama and Nagasaki are particularly busy trying to put their plans together. However, not everyone is on board. 

The mayor of Yokohama, Fumiko Hayashi, isn’t making any friends. She’s already been a target of attempts to be removed from office because of her unwavering support for an IR, and her latest move isn’t sitting well with her detractors, either. Hayashi, who has led the city since 2009, promised that she would allow a public vote on the subject of an IR if enough signatures were gathered on a petition to support the vote. The group behind the initiative, Yokohama Citizens’ Group to Decide on a Casino, accepted her challenge, gathered the voted – more than had been required – and presented its results to the mayor. That was when Hayashi pulled a fast one. 

The mayor decided that there was no need to allow the ballot referendum, asserting that it would cause further delays in a project that is going to proceed, no matter what. She explained, “A referendum means shelving the discussions that have occurred to date. Based on the discussions of the council, it is important to proceed steadily with the legal procedures.” 

The citizen-led opposition group can still petition the council to allow the referendum; however, it shouldn’t get its hopes up. A representative of the group will reportedly make that petition this Thursday at a city council meeting, after which Yokohama’s IR course will be better understood.

After several delays over the past couple of years, the new Majestic Las Vegas hotel is finally about to emerge on the Las Vegas skyline. The project is the brainchild of developer Lorenzo Doumani, who is converting the site of the former Clarion hotel into a massive property. Unless something happens between now and then, construction will start on the new hotel this July and will take around three years to complete. 

The Clarion, two blocks off the Las Vegas Strip, was razed in 2015 to make way for a new project. Doumani received approval for his hotel in 2019, but the onset of the COVID-19 debacle forced all plans everywhere out of whack. Now that there is the glimpse of a light at the end of the tunnel, it’s time to get back on track, even if it’s going to be slow-going. 

The new property has been designed, to a degree, with future pandemics in mind. It stands 620’ tall and will offer 720 rooms and a medical spa – but no gaming. There will be 35 corporate suites once everything is completed, with price tags ranging from $10 million to $100 million. These suites will be located on the top floors of the building, occupying anywhere from a quarter of the floor to the entire floor, and can be used for conventions, expos, meetings or other events designated by the suite’s owner. 

These suites, which will make up around 25,000 square feet of the hotel’s footprint, are meant to break away from the traditional large event space typically used for conventions and reunions. Las Vegas has not only seen its casinos take a hit from the coronavirus, but its convention market has suffered, as well, and Doumani believes the smaller spaces will become more attractive. He told the Las Vegas Review-Journal, “I think people are going to [be] very wary of large spaces. We’re not a typical leisure tourist destination at all.”