Monthly Archives: March 2015

Silicon Valley Patent Office to start hiring examiners next month

Alexandra Sepulveda, associate general counsel at Kabam, noted an increase in legal activity by non-practicing entities in the social gaming industry. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office branch that’s preparing to open in Silicon Valley will start recruiting for up to 80 patent examiners next month.

Caesars loses bid to prevent wide-ranging probe into asset transfers

Casino operator Caesars Entertainment has lost a bid to prevent a wide-ranging probe of its controversial asset transfers.

On Thursday, US Bankruptcy Judge A. Benjamin Goldgar approved Caesars’ request for the appointment of an independent examiner to look into transfers of certain assets out of Caesars’ main unit Caesars Entertainment Operating Co. (CEOC) into other Caesars divisions. CEOC, which holds 80% of Caesars’ industry high debt load, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in January.

The asset transfers resulted in multiple legal challenges by junior creditors, who claimed Caesars had ‘looted’ CEOC in order to shield its more profitable assets from the bankruptcy proceeding. Caesars has proposed a restructuring plan that would transform CEOC into a real estate investment trust but the plan calls for junior creditors to recoup only about 10% of the $5b they are collectively owed.

Caesars had asked the bankruptcy court to appoint an outside examiner and offered to provide $10m to fund the examination. But Caesars also asked that the court shut down more invasive probes by junior creditors, who’d argued that Caesars was trying to limit the scope of the examiner’s investigation.

Partypoker Software Update Offers Re-Entry Tournaments

Partypoker announced yet another development to its online poker network this week by confirming timebanks will be changed and a new software update will bring re-entries to certain tournaments. Re-entry formats, although similar to re-buys, differ in that a player must bust to re-enter and the amount of times the person can return to the […]

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Real Madrid Looks To Turn Pay Fantasy Into A Winner For Fans

Real Madrid Looks To Turn Pay Fantasy Into A Winner For Fans
By: Joe Favorito @JoeFav

The pay fantasy space keeps growing in interest in the United States as well as now, globally. In recent months a host of European soccer clubs like FC Barcelona, Chelsea FC and AS Roma have launched pay fantasy games in hopes of drawing in new dollars and engaging a worldwide audience, especially one in the US that is now soccer savvy and used to playing pay fantasy in American football and baseball especially. The developer on many of these is Mondogoal, with offices both in the States and in Isle of Mann.

However this past week another high powered soccer club launched their own game, this one with a Million Dollar payoff. It was Real Madrid, and in partnership with US-based Hotbox sports, they created a game where a $5 wager can turn into a big winner. After months of quiet speculation and some difficult logistical hurdles which had to be cleared, the contest was unveiled before this coming weekend.

Unlike the traditional salary cap games that fantasy consumers are used to, the Real Madrid game is pretty simple; supporters pick nine players from any position for the match. There is no cap limit on stars. There are a series of analytics that will rally points for your nine players ranging from shots to saves to passes to time on field, all based on the playing roster the club has that day. Your best points totals overall will help net a winner, no pun intended. A series of tiebreakers will also help create the best possible winning scenarios.

“The concept of the game is simple, and the potential payoff is huge,” said Terry Lyons of Hotbox Sports, who has created a similar pick em game with the NHL New Jersey Devils, the first ever for a US sports league. ‘While many pay fantasy games are complicated and sometimes difficult to understand, we have taken a concept with a global brand and made it very understandable for everyone who follows the team. You control the roster and you root for your team. The better your guys do, the better the chances are of cashing in. We think it will be a big hit with the global audience Real Madrid has.”

Real Madrid hosts Levante in a La Liga match on the 15th before their showdown with FC Barcelona on the 22nd.

Unclaimed $1 million California Lottery ticket expires

The California Lottery says a winning Powerball ticket that was sold in Rosemead for the Sept. 13 draw officially expired on Thursday at 5 p.m. The lottery says one person came into the lottery’s Santa Fe Springs district office but he couldn’t produce the ticket and the rules say you have to show the ticket to claim the prize.

Wall Street's Macau delusion has really gone far enough

A newly-wed couple from South Korea waves with Sheldon G. Adelson, Chairman of the Board and CEO Las Vegas Sands Corp and his wife Miriam Adelson during an opening ceremony at the Venetian in Macau August 28, 2007. President Xi has made it clear he doesn’t want Chinese mainlanders gambling, Macau gambling revenue during the Lunar New Year disappointed, and the island’s economy shrank by 17% in the Q4 2014 without the government as much as batting an eyelash.