Full Tilt PR man Eric Hollreiser is having a very busy day, it seems. The head of corporate communications for FT’s parent company Rational Group had this to say about a surprising mobile pop-up message that got a lot of New Jersey online poker players pretty excited: “Full Tilt has identified and corrected the cause of […]
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Multiple grade I winner Palace Malice turned in his first breeze of 2015 on Jan. 22 in Aiken, S.C., his initial recorded move since returning to training in mid-November after a layoff at Three Chimneys Farm.
The first reported foal for the stallion Alternation was a colt foaled Jan. 20 at Jim and Pam Robinson’s Brandywine Farm near Paris, Ky.
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BIG:T;he sale of the Revel will continue without delay. According to a report from the Press of Atlantic City, a federal judged has denied requests from former tenants and the casino’s former power provider to halt the sale of the casino.
Chief U.S. District Judge Jerome Simandle issued a 50-page opinion on Wednesday that put an end to an attempt to block the $95.4 million sale of the Revel to Florida real estate developer Glenn Straub. Straub was the backup bidder in the initial Revel auction and was awarded the backup bid after Brookfield Holdings failed to close on their deal.
Judge Rules City Could Be Irreparably Harmed if Straub Walks Away
The key to the judge’s ruling on Wednesday was two-fold. First, Straub made it clear that he would walk away from the deal if he did not have clear title to the property. Second, Straub was the only remaining bidder and there are no parties currently waiting in the wings to take a gamble on the casino.
The Wisconsin Lottery says a ticket sold at American Petroleum, 211 Michigan St., matched all five numbers in Tuesday’s Badger 5 drawing. The winning numbers were 6, 12, 14, 27, and 28. The ticket holder has 180 days to claim the prize by mail or in person at the lottery’s Madison or Milwaukee office.
Citing flaws in the process that cost it the Greater Boston casino license, Mohegan Sun today joined a Massachusetts Superior Court lawsuit against the Massachusetts Gaming Commission, which awarded the license to Wynn Resorts. The suit, filed earlier by the City of Revere and the union representing about 145 workers at the Suffolk Downs racetrack, alleges the commission “acted arbitrarily and capriciously, and abused discretion,” while also ignoring provisions of Massachusetts’ gaming law.
Keynote speaker Steve Wynn, CEO of Wynn Resorts, speaks during a seminar at the Global Gaming Expo at Sands Expo and Convention Center in Las Vegas Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2014.
We need a new set of props if we are going to bet the Super Bowl.
I’ve already established that betting on prop bets at the Super Bowl is pretty fun. But every year, it seems that the same type of props are being offered. Some involve the national anthem and the halftime show. Others involve the color of the Gatorade, the coin toss, and the first scoring play of the game.
All these props are cool, but they’ve been offered so many times that they’ve lost a little bit of originality. That’s where I come into the picture.
In the second part of my prop series on Super Bowl XLIX, I’m taking a short detour and present a handful of props that I want to see get offered, even though sportsbooks are unlikely to take that course of action, for one reason or another.
Who knows, maybe a sportsbook gets to read this and decides to offer them. Just give a hat tip if you do.
If Richard Sherman wins Super Bowl MVP, will he ignore Commissioner Roger Goodell and instead shake the hand of and/or talk to Cardboard Cut-Out Roger Goodell?
Given the manner by which Sherman and Doug Baldwin mocked the NFL a few months ago with that pre-meditated press conference, this one could get interesting if Sherman somehow wins Super Bowl MVP and has to stand on the podium next to Goodell for the trophy presentation. Normally, a handshake between the MVP and the Commish happens in these moments, but wouldn’t be the ultimate slap in the face of Goodell if Sherman refuses to shake his hand and/or talk to him, instead bringing out a cardboard cut-out of Goodell and then shaking the hand of said cardboard and talking to him…or it.
If that happens, forget about the game itself. That would be what everyone will be talking about for years to come.
An accident occurred on Tuesday at the construction site in the grounds of City of Dreams Macau casino resort, resulting to a death of a local construction worker.
A 29-year-old local worker died yesterday around 11 a.m., after falling 10 meters with a lifting machine he was operating at the City of Dreams construction site.
The accident took place near Gate No. 3 of the retail arcade expansion project site of City of Dreams in Cotai. The gross floor area of the expansion site occupies 17,000 square metres, according to the main contractor of the project, Chun Wo Development Holdings Ltd.
The Macau government ordered a contractor at City of Dreams Macau “to immediately suspend the use of all lifting appliances and requested an examination of the lifting procedures and equipment at the site.
“The Bureau will continue to investigate the cause of the accident and to pursue the legal responsibilities of relevant parties,” said Macau Labour Affairs Bureau in a statement.
The Bureau has also issued a suspension order to the City of Dreams retail arcade expansion site and an analysis report of the accident and updated measures of compliance to safety standards have to be submitted before work can resume at the site.
Head of Corporate Communications for Melco Crown Maggie Ma, told GGRAsia that the suspension will not delay ongoing extension works.
Eric Fisher, 33, a single dad who lives in Elk Grove Village with two children, won $1 million in the Illinois Lottery on New Year’s Eve. “My children cheered nonstop when I told them we’d won a million dollars,” Eric Fisher told Illinois Lottery staff when he presented his winning $300,000,000 Cash Spectacular instant ticket at the Illinois Lottery Prize Center in Des Plaines.
The winning strategy employed by Alberta’s latest lottery millionaire is bound to irk those involved in office lottery pools that snap up dozens of tickets to boost their chances. “I often talk about all the things I’d do if I ever won the lotto,” she said in a news release.
Echo Entertainment has bared a few items about its plans for its multi-billion-dollar casino and resort project in Brisbane. Some of the key highlights of the development will include five hotels, three residential towers, an underground mall that will be linked to a Ritz-Carlton hotel that will have its own casino, more than 50 restaurants and bars, a moonlight cinema, an infinity pool, and 12 football fields of public event space.
Echo is barred from divulging specific commercial details about its development because of rules in the competitive tender process issued by the government of Queensland. The Australian Business Review, quoting its sources, reported that Echo’s proposal will include close to 1,000 hotel rooms and a pair of residential skyscrapers rising up to 50 storeys with around 1,200 apartments.
The company also plans to relocate its existing casino from the Treasury building and move to The Arc, which will rise on the space where the government’s old Executive Building is located. A high-end mall developed by Chow Tai Fook, as well as an underground department store just below Queens Park, are also part of Echo’s proposal, as are Dorsett and Rosewood-branded hotels, and the aforementioned Ritz-Carlton hotel stretching across the top two floors of the Treasury building.
The Australian casino operator is making a bid for the casino license with the backing of Hong Kong-based firms Chow Tai Fook and Far East Consortium. Echo’s only competition for the license, James Packer’s Crown Resorts, has yet to divulge its own proposal, although it is believed that it will include two luxury hotels, a six-star hotel, and up to 2,500 apartments, among other items.
Despite the competing bid coming from its fierce rival, Echo remains bullish on its own proposal and has even indicated that it would generate as many as 8,000 jobs and attract around 1.4 million visitors in just its first year. The company said as much in a filing to the Australian Stock Exchange, adding that around 2,000 jobs would be created during the construction phase.
The Queensland government is expected to announce the winning bidder in the first half of 2015.
Innovation is at the heart of the gambling industry and a good percentage of the innovation comes from our start-ups.
Start-up focused events have become a popular feature at conferences such as GiGse, EiG and now ICE Totally Gaming with everything from “start-up zones,” to carefully planned out “Launch Pads” and “Pitches”.
For the first time ever, we’ll be seeing a dedicated space at ICE for start-up pitches, hosted by Clarion and organized by GamCrowd. The partnership between these two companies began at EiG 2014 and has continued into 2015 with the creation of “Pitch ICE”.
A total of twenty start-ups signed up for Pitch ICE through GamCrowd. Each company has submitted a two-minute video about their product to GamCrowd’s site so interested parties can watch and get an idea of what pitches they want to attend live at ICE.
During the expo, each start-up will be granted a fifteen-minute time slot for both Tuesday and Wednesday on the Pitch ICE stage at booth N7-460. Each pitch will be filmed and then posted on GamCrowd’s website after ICE finishes to provide further exposure, solicit voting and ultimately determine the winner.
“Pitch ICE offers start-up companies a unique opportunity to present their business ideas directly to the most important movers and shakers in the gambling industry,” GamCrowd CEO Chris North told CalvinAyre.com. “That type of exposure and access to potential investors is priceless and would often take similar start-ups a long time to achieve, if ever”.
Clarion, the organizers of ICE Totally Gaming, also feel that Pitch ICE provides start-ups with a unique opportunity for exposure.
Professional poker player and avid hockey fan Daniel Negreanu is championing a push to bring an National Hockey League (NHL) team to Las Vegas.
Negreanu has identified himself as one of the founding members of Founding 75, a group of business people in Las Vegas that are pushing to generate interest among people to commit on making down payment on season tickets. The group is determined to collect 10,000 deposits after the ticket drive, the threshold the NHL suggested in sanctioning the trial ticket run last December 2014.
According to ESPN, if the campaign is successful and the city somehow gets awarded an expansion franchise, the deposits, which range from $150 to $900 for specific seats and season-ticket packages, will be non-refundable. If the league ends up giving the city the equivalent of a body check, then the deposits would be returned back to the people who shelled out the money.
The group is pushing to convince the NHL that a Las Vegas team would be able to thrive in the city, despite its status as America’s premier gambling town. For one, the team will have no issues finding a new arena to play in given that one is already being built by AEG and MGM Resorts International. That arena can accommodate as much as 17,500 fans and is scheduled to be completed by the spring of 2016, giving it a few months to prepare for the 2016-2017 season.
The group, which Negreanu is a part of, is trying to pool up the collective interest of individuals and small-business owners instead of going after major casino operators. The belief is that the NHL would strongly consider giving Las Vegas an NHL team if it sees that there’s overwhelming interest from local residents and businesses. The drive to bring an NHL team in Las Vegas is real and Founding 75 is aggressively pushing to make it happen. The group is already spreading its reach to social media and has even set up temporary office space in the city, which will house office staff who will follow up with potential ticket buyers.
The stakes are high and the league is likely keeping a close eye on what happens during the ticket drive. If it works out, then the league would likely have discussions on the possibility of putting a team in Las Vegas, specifically the financial windfall all existing owners stand to receive from the imposed $450 million expansion fees. But if the drive struggles to gain any traction from local residents and business owners, then any chance of Las Vegas having its own NHL team could be put to pasture.
Ladbrokes returns to the Mexican market through Sportium, a joint venture with Spanish operator CIRSA.
This week, Sportium, a multi-channel betting operator in Spain and official betting partner of La Liga, had launched a new regulated website in Mexico, leveraging the regulated, offline operations of Casino Life, Cirsa’s Mexico casino business.
The new website can be found at www.casinolife.com.mx and comprises sports betting & casino products, bingo and over 200 slot games. SportiumBet is the sports betting service on the site and carries a broad range of betting markets with particular focus given to the popular sports of football, basketball, baseball and American football.
Ladbrokes first outlined plans to enter the Mexican igaming market in august 2013 but regulatory issues forced a delay until this year.
A statement released by the company said that the online gambling site was authorized by the Mexico’s Ministry of the Interior and that it “meets all legal requirements and measures necessary to ensure a fair and safe gaming environment.”
“Sportium continues to grow strongly through our retail and digital channels in Spain and we see further growth opportunities in that country. However the strength of Cirsa’s extensive offline presence across Latin America now allows the joint venture to expand in that region. This digital entry into Mexico is very much a first step in our plans not the culmination,” said Damian Cope, managing director of Ladbrokes International.
“Our ongoing International expansion offers Ladbrokes an opportunity to diversify away from the UK market. The success we have had at building and launching brands in Belgium, Spain, Australia, and now Mexico gives us confidence that we remain on track to build a portfolio of strong International businesses,” Cope added.
Rebecca Liggero talks to Chris Searle of Compact Global Limited. He shared that the key to building and maintaining a positive public image, especially with complex, global and fragmented industries such as alcohol and online gambling, is by developing one, unified voice.
A couple of new hirings have happened in the iGaming industry, specifically involving Irish bookmaker Boylesports and British counterpart Gala Coral.
Boylesports has tabbed former NordicBet Managing Director Neill Garfield to be the company’s new Chief Marketing Officer.
Garfield’s new role with Boylesports is to lead the company’s efforts in expanding its presence past the Irish gaming market and into the UK market. The move is the latest indication that the Irish bookmaker is following through on its new #BetonBoyle re-branding plans, featuring a multi-content ad campaign that will now be spearheaded by Garfield.
According to EGR Magazine, Garfield is initially working out of the company’s Irish headquarters in Dundalk but is expected to move to Boylesports new office in Gibraltar.
The appointment also ends Boylesports’ three-month search for a replacement for former Marketing Director James Arnold. To its credit, the bookmaker seemed to have picked a good man for the job, at least when you consider Garfield’s track record in the industry. Before assuming his role with NordicBet, Garfield also spent time as a Marketing Manager for Paddy Power and heading Tom Waterhouse’s marketing services.
Meanwhile, Gala Coral made some management reshuffling of its own, promoting Robert Fell to head the company’s web and mobile division. The decision to promote Fell came after Gala Coral embarked on a reshuffling go its digital business. Once Fell assumes his new position to lead the development of the betting firm’s desktop and mobile products, he leaves behind his old mobile product development manager role, a position he took up shortly after joining Gala Coral in January 2014.
Before signing up with Gala Coral, Fell was a Product and Operations Manager of Paddy Power, a position he took up for almost three years. Fell’s promotion also comes at a few months after Gala Coral announced the merger of the Gala Interactive and Coral Interactive management teams. The merger led to the departure of the Coral Interactive Managing Director John O’Reilly.
Warilla Grove store Grove Gifts & Cards has kept up its run of of selling winning lottery tickets, with one very lucky customer pocketing a cool $10 million from Oz Lotto last night. John Ledda’s Grove Gifts & Cards has kept its lucky streak alive with a customer pocketing a cool $10 million this week.
Michael J. Bruder’s Guys Reward will look to defend his title in the $150,000 Tampa Bay Stakes (gr. IIIT) Jan. 24 when he faces a full field of older horses going 1 1/16 miles on the grass.