THE AMERICAS
Amaya Gaming’s PokerStars and Full Tilt brands were finally approved to operate in New Jersey and the state introduced a seal of approval for licensed sites; daily fantasy sports operator DraftKings was caught in an alleged insider trading scandal; DraftKings and FanDuel spent $107m on TV ads in one month but the NCAA Southeastern Conference banned DFS ads and SuperLobby.com’s David Copeland said regulation of the DFS industry was inevitable; the slow pace of US online gambling regulation cut into GAN’s profits and Connecticut’s Foxwoods casino ditched GAN in favor of Greentube’s social casino platform; Turner Broadcasting announced plans to air eSports tournaments; a study found men make riskier bets after exposure to male stereotypes; Baha Mar’s main contractor returned to the site of the stalled $3.5b project; Wynn Resorts got planning approval on its Massachusetts casino but Steve Wynn got angry (again) with Boston’s mayor; Tatjana Pasalic snared Sorel Mizzi for her latest episode of Chats With Tats and Rebecca Liggero prowled the floor of the Global Gaming Expo 2015, offering video recaps of Days One, Two, Three and Four.
EUROPE & MIDDLE EAST
Bet365 continued to embarrass its competition by posting annual profits of over £400m; PokerStars and PartyPoker each rolled out new rules for third party software usage; German sports betting firm Tipico let it be known it was open to being acquired; Sweden began its long awaited gambling law revamp; Sky Betting & Gaming debuted their new eSports betting product and Dafabet inked a sponsorship deal with pro eSports organization Fnatic; Israel pondered opening its very first casino; mLabs’ Derek Coetzee explained why mergers & acquisitions are bad for innovation; Traffic Generation’s Andy Caras-Atlas said land-based casinos should embrace online convergence; Isai Scheinberg was rumored to have purchased PokerNews; Lee Davy recapped the main event action at the 2015 World Championship of Online Poker, which was the richest in its 14-year history, and industry figures confessed the worst bets they ever made.