The casino resort market in the Russian Far East continues to move forward and one of the anchors of the massive project, the Tigre de Cristal is helping shape the future. The Summit Ascent Holdings property has already discovered how much VIP gambling will drive growth and, despite Suncity Group having purchased a majority stake in the casino project last year, Summit Ascent wants to keep its marketing efforts in-house as much as possible. To that end, it doesn’t want Suncity to get overly involved in attracting high-rollers to the property.

Analysts with Goldman Sachs provided an update on the state of affairs at Summit Ascent, based on information provided by the casino operator last week. The company held a “corporate day” last week to discuss what’s going on behind the scenes and asserted that it wants to work on bringing in its own VIP customers and wants to extend credit directly to players, but will rely on Suncity’s large database of names to direct traffic. Suncity owns over two-thirds of Summit Ascent, which owns a little more than 77% of the casino in Vladivostok. 

According to the analysts, “While this would allow the company to preserve more profit without having to pay junket commission, it would also mean Summit Ascent has to bear credit risk on its own. Management believes it is manageable, given its limited VIP exposure initially. Overall, they believe US$200 million EBITDA is achievable in the longer run.” 

Tigre de Cristal shut down in March of last year, like casinos around the world, because of the COVID-19 pandemic. It reopened in July, ready to get back and pick up where it left off. Prior to the shutdown, the property had seen huge gains in slot and VIP operations, with profit increasing to $10.57 million from the $980,000 it had seen a year earlier. The post-shutdown picture has improved, as well, with the casino showing positive EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) for the last six months of the year, as opposed to a loss in the first half. That was backed by a significant jump in VIP revenue, despite continued international travel restrictions, and Summit Ascent believes it can manage its VIP activity on its own going forward. 

FuboTV, the sports streaming service, has taken another major step into the gambling industry. The company has announced their purchase of online sportsbook Vigtory.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but FuboTV disclosed they expect the deal to be concluded in the first quarter of this year. The streaming service’s plan is to integrate Vigtory into their TV platform, while still making it available for those not currently subscribed to FuboTV. The full integration is expected to happen before the end of 2021.

Sam Rattner and Scott Butera, founder and co-CEO of Vigtory respectively, will take on roles as COO and President at FuboTV. The pair came to Vigtory after leaving BetMGM in 2020. who joined the company last year following a stint at BetMGM, are joining FuboTV’s gaming division as chief operating officer and president.

Shares of the streaming service quickly climbed on the news, climbing 34% to $36.48. This marks a steady step in the company’s recovery, which peaked at $68 a share last year, but then bottomed out at $24.24, as skeptics sold the company based on its sub-par offering against the competition.

About ten months ago, Penn National Gaming decided to sell the physical land under the Tropicana Las Vegas to real estate investment trust (REIT) Gaming and Leisure Properties (GLPI) while it continued to operate the casino and the rest of the amenities at the Las Vegas Strip property. Now, Penn is prepared to walk away completely and is accepting offers from potential buyers who want to purchase the property and the operating rights. While the casino operator is reducing its Vegas presence, another is still trying to get in, but Virgin Hotels Las Vegas is finding it difficult to get going amid a global coronavirus pandemic. 

The link between Penn and GLPI is solid, given that the REIT was part of the casino operator’s operations until 2013. It now holds a lot of the real estate Penn operates, and the plan to unload the Tropicana may have been in the works from the time GLPI took possession of the real estate last year. The new sale was confirmed by Michael Parks, the VP of CBRE Capital Advisors, but adds that there is no official sales price. 

Two years ago, the property may have been able to go for around $700 million, double what Penn received when it sold the real estate to GLPI, but the COVID-19 situation has caused a lot of movement in real estate values. Still, the Tropicana has outperformed expectations and could command a higher price than other venues that are being put up for sale. 

As Penn is potentially considering a smaller Vegas footprint, Virgin is anxiously awaiting the opportunity to enter the market. The site of the former Hard Rock Las Vegas has been completely converted to carry the Virgin logo and design, but sticking to a schedule as COVID-19 continues to pummel Las Vegas is proving difficult. The grand opening of the new property has been delayed once again.

Worldplay Gaming CEO Warren Tristram predicts that we will see a major shift towards digital wallets very soon Tristram took some time out to share his thoughts with our own Becky Liggero Fontana.

Tristram thinks that a shift in player demographics is forcing casinos to explore more options with digital wallets. Convenience will force a shift in payment preferences for the casino and gambling industry, he predicted:

“I think that firstly we’d all recognize that a younger customer demographic will more easily adapt to mobile and digital payments. I think they’re naturally more comfortable to do so and I think from a gaming perspective and we’re not necessarily looking to reinvent the wheel. We’re looking to incorporate proven solutions that consumers are already comfortable with today and interact as part of their normal daily lives.”

“I think the key thing that we’ve seen over the last nine months is that customers who might have previously rejected a new payment experience are more readily considering it spurred on by the push factor of COVID. I believe consumers are looking for convenience, security and expect a consistent payment experience underpinned by contactless technology and casino floors would be no different to cashless payments as they use in everyday retail environments,” he added.

Detroit’s three commercial casinos saw their 2020 gaming revenue more than halved due to the pandemic, while the state’s online gambling market is now mere days away from launching. 

Figures released Tuesday by the Michigan Gaming Control Board (MGCB) show the city’s three casinos – MGM Resorts’ MGM Grand Detroit, MotorCity Casino and Penn National Gaming’s Greektown – generated combined revenue of $639m last year, down 56% from 2019’s record $1.45b showing. 

MGM posted the biggest annual decline, with its table games and slots revenue falling 58.8% to $257.1m. MotorCity fared only slightly better, slipping 54.9% to $222.7b, while Greektown tumbled 58.3% to $140.6m. 

Legal sports betting had yet to launch in Michigan in 2019, and the three casinos’ retail betting operations added $18.3m to 2020’s total. It’s a pretty meager total, but with no online betting, and the casinos forced to shut for nearly five months mid-year and a second closure that started in November and ended in late-December, it’s as good as one has any right to expect. 

Greek player Alexandros Kolonias will go into tonight’s GGPoker Super MILLION$ final table with the chip lead after his 24th entry into the weekly $10,300 buy-in event saw him reach his first final table. 

Kolonias is an entertaining player and should be good value for a thrilling finale if his previous play at the felt is anything to go by. Don’t believe us? Check out this hand from the 2019 MILLIONS North America Main Event when he lost out to Kevin Rabichow to eventually bust in 4th place for a score of $275,770. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d16qBjIEVGIVideo can’t be loaded because JavaScript is disabled: Alexandros eliminated in 4th | Main Event | MILLIONS North America 2019 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d16qBjIEVGI)

Going into the Super MILLION$ final table with the chip lead hasn’t been a precursor to that much success in recent weeks, but that won’t put on Kolonias, who with 4,179,268 chips is just a little way clear of… yes, you’ve guessed it – Kevin Rabichow! The Run it Once coach has 3,987,317 chips and is followed in the chipcounts by Carlos Villamarin (3,861,580).

Philippine-licensed online gambling operators may have won a tax reprieve but their numbers continue to shrink due to uncertainty over the future. 

This week, the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (PAGCOR) updated its list of Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators (POGOs), which showed 51 operators licensed to offer online services to residents of other Asia-Pacific countries. That’s two fewer than the list showed in December, reflecting the absence of Easy Access Ltd and Pride Fortune Ltd. 

PAGCOR also updated its list of POGOs that had received the regulator’s blessing to resume operations following their forced pandemic shutdown in March 2020. This week’s update shows 34 names, one fewer than the list contained on December 8. 

Gone from the current list are the aforementioned Easy Access and Pride Fortune, while a new name – AG Interpacific Resources Ltd – has been added. AG Interpacific, which operates the W66.com site (among others), was previously listed as one of the recipients of the 61 original POGO licensees. 

Gambling operator/technology supplier Playtech says its full-year 2020 results will come in better than expected, as different divisions shone at different points during the pandemic-impacted year. 

On Tuesday, the London-listed Playtech alerted investors that its FY20 performance was “expected to be ahead of consensus,” with adjusted earnings projected to be “at least €300m.” That’s only about 78% of 2019’s total, but investors still pushed the stock up 4.3% by the end of the day. Official results will be released on March 11. 

Playtech noted that its various divisions took turns holding the fort during the pandemic’s uneven progression. The first half of the year saw Playtech’s TradeTech financials division shine as gamblers left high-and-dry by halted sports play chose to investigate financial betting options. But the financial product surge faded as sports returned, leaving TradeTech to endure a “challenging” H2.

Since the new year began, Playtech rebranded TradeTech as Finalto, an odd move considering Playtech said Tuesday that it “continues to be in discussions regarding the possible sale” of its B2B/B2C financial unit. You’d think they’d leave any remodelling up to the new owner, but whatever. 

The bitter feud that kicked off the heads-up high stakes match between Daniel Negreanu and Doug Polk was an entertaining one, with Polk claiming that odds of 4:1 against him were lucrative ones and at the same time he would soon be backing up a truck to fill with his rival Daniel Negreanu’s money.

After 10,000 hands, Polk was up by close to a million dollars and while the balance had levelled out a little by the 12,500-hand halfway stage, many thought it obvious that Daniel Negreanu’s best play at that stage would be to quite while he was behind by six figures.

Kid Poker decided to fight on.

Since then, fortune has certainly favoured the Canadian, with five straight wins in sessions amounting to 2,750 hands meaning that the six-time WSOP bracelet winner is now down by a much more manageable $484,073.

Online gambling operator Kindred Group reported record revenue in the final quarter of 2020 on stronger sports margins, higher customer engagement and aggressive cost-cutting.

In a trading update released Tuesday, the Stockholm-listed Kindred reported all-time high revenue of £365m in the three months ending December 31, 2020, up 55% from the same period last year and around 30% better than the company reported in Q3 2020. Final figures won’t be released until February 10 but eager investors sent the stock up 5% by Tuesday’s close.

Kindred credited the revenue surge to a variety of positive benchmarks, including a record 1.78m active customers during Q4, up 11% year-on-year. Another contributing factor was a 10% sports margin, up around 1.5 points from the long-term average. 

Kindred expects Q4 earnings to come in around £115m, a nearly four-fold rise from Q4 2019’s £30.7m and only £15m below the company’s full-year 2019 earnings. Possibly fearing a media and/or regulatory backlash from such a bottom-line surge, Kindred played down the gains, saying only that the result was “significantly higher than the current consensus.” 

Casino titan Sheldon Adelson has died following complications from cancer treatment, bringing down the curtain on a life of incredible success and equally incredible controversy. 

Early Tuesday, casino operator Las Vegas Sands announced that Adelson had passed away on Monday night at the age of 87 due to complications from his treatment for non-Hodgkins lymphoma. The company announced just last week that Adelson was taking medical leave, the second such round following the original announcement of his cancer diagnosis in the spring of 2019. 

From humble origins in Boston, Adelson founded Las Vegas Sands in 1989 through his purchase of the faded Sands Hotel in Las Vegas. Adelson is largely credited with pioneering the ‘integrated resort’ casino model, relying on non-gaming amenities – particularly the meetings, incentives, conferences and events (MICE) aspect – to draw guests who would then mosey on over to the gaming floor during their stay. 

Sands eventually became the world’s largest casino operator, with highly lucrative properties in the US, Singapore and Macau. The latter market bolstered Adelson’s reputation as a visionary when he chose to build up a then-swampy area known as Cotai on which the region’s most impressive gambling palaces now stand. 

The 78th Golden Globe Awards are set to take place February 28, 2021, and despite a year that’s been terrible to movie box offices, there’s a lot of great contenders, both in the worlds of film and TV. Although nominees haven’t been announced yet, we have a whole slew of potential bets you can make on your entertainment of choice, thanks to Bodog.

In the area of Film Comedy and Musicals, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm figures prominently in the odds, ranking as a contender for best film, and with the two leads, Sacha Baron Cohen and Maria Bakalova, favored to win their categories. Although the comedy doesn’t seem likely to beat out more timeless competition (I like Palm Springs), Bakalova was talk of the town when Borat returned, so she’s worth a few bucks.

In drama, Nomadland and its lead actress, Frances McDormand, are favored to win. It’s a critical darling, and while Mank could beat it out at the Oscars (due to Hollywood bias), it’s hard to bet against it here.

TV comedy looks like a shoe in for Schitt’s Creek, not having to contend against last year’s winner Fleabag. The show is favored in nearly every category it’s in, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see it upset by Ted Lasso, considering the Golden Globes are voted on by a bunch of ‘football’ loving foreigners.

The December purchase of a Caesars Indiana Casino was meant to bring long term prosperity to the North Carolina-based Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (ECBI). But a portion of the tribe are now objecting to how it went down, fearful that it may give away long term control of their resources.

14 tribal members, with two Tribal Council members and a former principal chief, are attempting to reverse the December 17 vote that allowed the purchase of the casino. They point to section 16 of the Tribe’s Charter and Governing Document, believing the deal violates two portions. The segments state the tribe:

“Shall direct the management and control of all property, either real or personal, belonging to the Tribe”

As well as:

Betfair has a big decision to make. It introduced its sports gambling exchange to the Italian market in hopes of expanding its offerings, but was then met with a temporary turnover tax instituted by the country to counter the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. That tax spans all sports gambling verticals, including anything related to retail, digital and virtual sports activity, as well as sports betting exchanges. However, the 0.5% rate on the exchange segment is where Betfair could see the biggest hit, and efforts to have Italy reconsider its scheme have fallen flat. As a result, the operator might have to take a long, hard look at what it is able to offer to Italian sports gambling enthusiasts.

The tax was announced last summer by Italy as a stop-gap measure to help the country pull in revenue that was seeping out because of the pandemic. It was part of Italy’s so-called Covid Revival Decree and, almost as soon as it was announced, Betfair challenged the idea, asserting that the temporary tax meant that it would operate at an effective tax rate of 111%, making the operator’s access to the Italian market a losing proposition.

Betfair appealed the decision, suggesting that a better alternative might be an additional 3% tax on gross gaming revenue or even a tax based on the exchange commission. However, the tax authority is sticking to its guns, asserting that the tax will have to be calculated based on a “summation of all amounts matched between lays and bets, minus the betting tax, calculated for each individual market.”

As a result, Betfair asserts that its exchange users could potentially end up paying more in taxes than what they won, which would mean a quick death for the platform. With almost complete control over the sports gambling exchange market in the country, the operator is convinced that the tax structure is going to force virtually customers to quit using the exchange product. This, predicts Betfair, means a sure demise of the platform in the country.

As if trying to come to grips with Brexit weren’t enough, the U.K. is also having to deal with repeated jabs to the gut by COVID-19. A new wave of coronavirus issues, fueled, in part, by a mutated form of the virus, is forcing Great Britain to increase restrictions once again. The good news is that the U.K., weathering so many major challenges at once, will emerge stronger than ever. In the meantime, different industries will do what they can to overcome the mounting obstacles and the gambling industry, already having taken a beating by COVID-19, will do what it can to survive, as well. Greyhound racing will give fans and gamblers some entertainment and distraction during the chaos, with the Greyhound Board of Great Britain (GBGB) promising to keep racing alive, even if behind closed doors.

The U.K. was recently forced to bring back tighter COVID-19 restrictions as new spikes began to appear. Prime Minister Boris Johnson said in a public address to the nation, “With most of the country already under extreme measures, it is clear that we need to do more, together, to bring this new variant under control while our vaccines are rolled out. In England, we must therefore go into a national lockdown which is tough enough to contain this variant. That means the Government is once again instructing you to stay at home. You may only leave home for limited reasons permitted in law.”

At the time, Johnson said that the Premier League and “elite sports” would be allowed to continue, provided they followed strict policies to thwart a spread of the virus. The British Horseracing Authority also planned on pushing forward, and the GBGB is stepping in, as well. The managing director of the group, Mark Bird, explains that it had “not been informed of any intention to temporarily halt greyhound racing,” adding via the GBGB website, “I have seen the comments being made on social media regarding the apparent pausing of elite sports by the government. There appears to be no substance to these assertions and certainly not from the government. We remain in close contact with DCMS as to any changes in government advice.” 

The Irish government acknowledged last week that greyhound racing would be allowed to continue, along with certain approved horse races and events, but that they would all have to take place with no spectator presence. While not the most ideal solution, it’s better than nothing at this point and the GBGB and the other groups can only do what they can to survive. The GBGB has already received £1 million ($1.36 million) from the government to help with that survival, but will need to be creative to overcome another prolonged COVID-19 battle.

Whether a mainlander working in Macau who hopes to head home for the holidays or a mainlander hoping to travel to Macau for a little R&R, Macau and China want everyone to stay at home. That is the general recommendation ahead of the Chinese New Year (CNY) next month, which has found the governments of both locations urging against making travel plans. The suggestion comes as China has begun to see new spikes in COVID-19 cases and fears are mounting that travel might cause the virus to spread more.

Macau’s Labour Affairs Bureau (DSAL, for its Portuguese acronym) said yesterday that businesses should encourage their Chinese mainland employees to stay put and not consider traveling home for the CNY. However, it emphasizes that it’s just a suggestion and not an order, adding that avoiding travel can help keep Macau safe. A spokesperson for Macau’s Health Bureau added, “The call is not compulsory. We hope to reduce the risk of transmission within the community. It doesn’t mean that Macau is in an urgent situation, but we want to prepare early to deploy various works and coordinate with different departments and institutions.”

February 11-17 will mark the CNY Golden Week holiday period and, like last year, won’t bring a lot of relief to Macau. Visitation was down over 78% last year, falling from 1.21 million in 2019 to just 261,100 in 2020. With a major decline expected this year, and citing logistics issues, Macau has already called off its traditional CNY fireworks display and parade.

Macau receives most of its Mainland China visitation from the Guangdong province, which accounted for 60% of the arrivals recorded last year. However, the provincial health office has stated that residents, of which there are around 100 million, shouldn’t consider traveling to Macau, or anywhere else, this year to celebrate the CNY. If last year’s numbers are any indication, Macau can prepare now for a boring Golden Week once again.