CoinGeek Live Day 2  begun! If you haven’t signed up already, you can register for free to watch the whole conference at CoinGeekConference.com.

The agenda for Day 2 begins at 7:00 am EDT (Noon BST) on October 1, but you can login now to check out exhibitor booths and begin networking with others in the Bitcoin world. You can login here.

There’s still lots of great reasons to sign up and catch Days 2 and 3 of the conference, especially if you’re in the gambling industry. Day 2 will have talk about the data capabilities of Bitcoin SV, including the implementation of tokens, and Day 3 will have a dedicated gambling track you’ll need to see. You can check out the conference agenda to see what CoinGeek Live has in store, and some of our most anticipated panels

You can watch our coverage of everything that happened in Day 1 here. And of course, register now so you don’t miss another minute.

The town of Sihanoukville in Cambodia garnered a lot of attention recently, but not necessarily for the right reasons. It had become a hotspot for casinos and gained even more popularity when operators discovered that it was a great place to set up online gambling operations. A number of problems, including the unexpected collapse of a building under construction that killed more than 24, led to Cambodia revamping its gambling laws and shutting off the online gambling segment. Then, COVID-19 struck and made things even worse. As quickly as Sihanoukville became a gambling town, it is on a path to become a ghost town if things don’t reverse course, and another casino has decided to pack up and move elsewhere.

Century Entertainment International Holdings, which was Amax International Holdings until last September, is going to move its gaming tables out of Sihanoukville, fulfilling a plan first announced a few months ago. The company had expected to be able to move its action from the Sunshine Bay Hotel to the Ming Guan Hotel, also in Sihanoukville, but those plans fell through. Now, it has turned its sights on a hotel in Dara Sakor, an investment zone spanning 138 square miles on Cambodia’s southern coast that is primarily backed by China. 

The move is apparently coming after Century’s CEO was enticed by a generous package for the company. The new casino will provide just over 113,000 square feet of gross space, in which Century will put up 40 mass gaming tables, 80 slot machines and 55 VIP tables. There will also be a Chinese restaurant, a night club and a spa, and at least some of the gambling operations and amenities will be ready to go by the end of January of next year. 

Dara Sakor seems to be everything a jet-setting gambler would want – a tropical environment, beautiful beaches and all types of amenities. It has been in the works since 2008, when Tianjin Union Development Group, a Chinese real estate development company, was given the go-ahead to launch the project. Since then, it has continued to grow, and plans are to put in a high-speed rail system to connect the area to Phnom Penh and Siam Reap, docks capable of welcoming large cruise ships, hotels, golf courses and more. An international airport is also coming to the area, and is expected to be open sometime next year.

There is finally some closure coming for victims of the unprovoked massacre of concertgoers that took place in Las Vegas in 2017. Stephen Paddock used a room at the Mandalay Bay in Vegas from which he staged his attack on unsuspecting people attending the Route 91 Harvests Music Festival, ultimately killing 58 and injuring 851. It was the largest unprovoked attack on U.S. soil ever, and victims’ families wanted MGM Resorts, the owner of the Mandalay Bay, to be held accountable. Following a lawsuit lodged against the casino operator, the case has now been brought to a close, and MGM has learned its fate. 

MGM was facing a number of lawsuits related to the incident, all of which had essentially asserted that the casino did not do enough to prevent Paddock from being able to walk in with luggage full of guns and ammo and wanted to know why he was able to access normally off-limit service elevators. After the lawsuits were launched, the company took a major cheap shot at victims by countersuing in an attempt to have the lawsuits dismissed. It failed. 

Realizing that it was most likely at the losing end of a legal battle, MGM said over a year ago that it was preparing itself to pay out as much as $800 million to be able to put the issue behind it. 

The Associated Press reports that a judge, Clark County District Court Judge Linda Bell, has signed off on the payout amount. 2,000 plaintiffs, represented by attorney Robert Eglet, had been involved in this lawsuit, and another approximately 2,400 relatives and victims were included through other attorneys and legal representation. Judge Bell explained in issuing her ruling that almost all of them agreed to the deal. Eglet told the AP, There’ve been no objections and we expect no appeals. We’ll send out notices of the order. After 30 days, the $800 million will be deposited.” 

Just in case you’ve missed our invites to CoinGeek Live 2020 which is now on its second of three days, I wanted to personally invite you to join us tomorrow, October 2nd, for the special gambling industry track taking place between 9:25 and 11:35 EST.

This digital event is free for everyone to attend, no matter where in the world you are. All you have to do is sign up via the CoinGeek Conference website and you can learn about the exciting intersection of the gambling industry and blockchain, in addition to hearing from 90 cutting-edge speakers, all completely live.

Completely live means absolutely nothing is pre-recorded and you can digitally interact with speakers, submit questions and network in real time, as much as you like. The sessions will also be available on-demand for registered attendees, so feel free to dip in and out as your schedule permits.

CoinGeek Live 2020 represents several “firsts”, including the dedicated gambling industry track which will feature 14 C-level speakers from the esports, land-based and online gambling space.

Albania’s proposal to license casinos in the nation’s capital may turn out to have been a mirage, or just another example of political cronyism run amok. 

Last week, the Albanian Gambling Supervision Authority officially announced a tender for the right to operate casinos in a designated area in the heart of the capital Tirana. Interested operators were told to ensure their submissions were received by October 22.

The notice remains posted on the Authority’s website but local media outlet Exit reported Wednesday that Prime Minister Edi Rama was denying that his government had any intention of reversing the anti-gambling policy of recent years. Rama said Wednesday that there was no “reopening of gambling in Albania” and “no casino license.”

Rama (pictured) attempted to clarify that “a specific procedure has been created which is related to the expiration of the license of the only casino operating in Tirana.” That’s a reference to Adria Entertainment (formerly known as Apex-al), which runs a gaming floor at Tirana’s Regency Hotel featuring around 240 slots and 20 gaming tables.

China’s lottery operations posted their second straight month of year-on-year sales increases, while the investigation into Baidu’s alleged links to illegal online gambling sites continues.

On Wednesday, China’s Ministry of Finance reported that August’s lottery sales totaled just under RMB34.8b (US$5.1b), a 2% rise from the same month last year but 3.7% below the sum earned in July 2020, which marked the first year-on-year increase in 18 months.

August’s gains were entirely due to the sports lottery, which rose 2% to RMB21.5b, while the welfare lottery product slipped 9.3% to RMB13.25b. For the year-to-date, overall sales are off 30.3% to RMB194.8b.

September’s sales may extend the two-month winning streak but the government will shut down all lottery sales – with an exception made for instant lottery products – for a four-day period starting October 1 for the annual National Day holiday. So don’t count on this streak extending to four months.

The latest Super MILLION$ event on GGPoker was a very popular one, with 196 entries coughing up $10,000 to take part. In the end, it was Bert ‘girafganger’ Stevens (sometimes known as ‘girafganger7’) who won the $393,362 top prize, defeating a highly talented final table including players such as Sean Winter and Jake Schindler.

With a massive $2million guarantee, math sharps amongst you will note that the entries were just four short of reaching that number, so a little overlay was in the pit by the time late registration ended. Stevens himself would enjoy a cool profit of 393 times his stake having won through in a satellite costing just $1,000 compared with the full $10,000 buy-in.

The final day saw Stevens head into play second in chips, after 196 players were reduced to just the final nine. With other players such as Andras Nemeth, Matthias Eibinger, Dominik Nitsche, Steve O’Dwyer, Daniel Dvoress and Ali Imsirovic all failing to cash, others snuck into the money, such as Stephen Chidwick, who min-cashed for $22,798.

While plenty of recognizable names made the money but failed to make the final such as Bertrand ‘ElkY’ Grospellier (23rd for $22,798), Christoph Vogelsang (18th for $22,798) and Mike Watson (10th for $35,953). 

For the last few years, debate has raged in English football about whether Jose Mourinho still has what it takes to manage at the top level. Despite winning the Europa League with Manchester United, the Portuguese manager could get the Red Devils no nearer to a Premier League title they haven’t win since Alex Ferguson retired in his three years at the club.

Likewise, while Mourinho excelled in his first Chelsea stint between 2004 and 2007, his return yielded one title and a lot of trouble, eventually leading to his acrimonious exit from the club. Last night, a year into his role as Tottenham Hotspur manager, Jose Mourinho welcomed not just his old team in Chelsea in the Carabao Cup , but his former midfield general Frank Lampard, who currently holds the reigns at Stamford Bridge.

We followed last night’s game in the company of a professional football coach in English football, who will remain anonymous. He’s worked with some of the biggest names in the game, going through the coaching process, and is currently part of the team at an English league side… and that’s all we’re telling you. He’ll be honest each week about what he sees as he sees it. As ever, The Secret Coach pulls no punches!

Pre-match, Mourinho has often been known to send out messages rather than talk too much about what he and his team intend to do during the game and last night’s Carabao Cup tie was no different.

Calvin Ayre wasn’t always the rich entrepreneur he is now; He had to work his way up the hard way. He did well for himself, building up a gambling brand, and has now moved on to the Bitcoin world. Before the CoinGeek Live conference kicked off, Ayre joined Dustin Plantholt on the Life’s Tough podcast to discuss how he got to where he is now.

Ayre grew up in the farmlands of Saskatchewan, telling Plantholt that he walked to school with pig shit on his boots, just like all the other kids. But after gaining a college education and starting a business in Vancouver, Ayre quickly saw there was a market opportunity in the nascent world of online gambling. He gave his theory of how he did so well in those early days:

“I think my secret sauce was early on, coming up with a better branding strategy and marketing plan. A lot of the incumbents in the earliest days were actually street bookies who’d just kind of said ‘Lets go online.’ So they weren’t very flamboyant and they just didn’t really understand the concept of marketing. You don’t market yourself in a traditional manner when you’re doing street bookie stuff, because you don’t want people to know other than your customers.”

Plantholt asks if a drive for money motivated Ayre. “Actually, I never really thought I’d be this successful in my career,” Ayre answered. “I actually was more driven by challenges. I think I can do this, and I do it. It was incremental and it kept getting bigger, and bigger and bigger. I kind of just like building things, I’m kind of a builder.”

UK-listed online gambling operator 888 Holdings saw its shares spike by more than one-fifth on Wednesday on impressive H1 earnings and speculation that it could buy William Hill’s European online operations.

Figures released Wednesday show 888 generated revenue of US$379m in the six months ending June 30, 37% higher than the same period last year, while adjusted earnings jumped 56% to $70m and pre-tax profits soared 130% to $50.9m.

The casino vertical remains 888’s bread-and-butter, and there was a whole lot more butter this year. Casino revenue shot up 48% to $260m as first-time depositors rose 72%. Poker revenue increased 56% to $36.1m as first-time depositors more than doubled. In fact, poker was responsible for nearly one-quarter of all first-time depositors in H1.

Sports betting started 2020 off strong, with revenue up 22% in the first two months, then came COVID-19 and the subsequent halt to major sports activity. But the resumption of play and a sportsbook launch in Sweden meant H1 betting revenue slipped only 1% to $44.1m – and would have risen 2% at constant currency – while June’s betting stats were 59% ahead of June 2019.

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.