Those who read this column know I have a tendency to paranoia on a bearish tilt. Still, when I see a good company I point it out. I’ve always had a soft spot for Melco Crown (MPEL), and though I don’t think it is a particularly good buy right now, I’ve never been overly bearish on it in comparison with other gaming stocks.

It continues to be well-managed, conservative, and a relatively safer place to put your money if you are intent on sticking it in Macau, macro situation be damned. If that’s your thing, Melco should not be traded, but rather held long term and used to ride out the storm. I don’t expect it to gain much if at all in the next few months considering that globally, things are just now coming to a head. But on the way back up, Melco will outperform, mostly because it seems financially equipped to handle the crisis, or at least semi-crisis about to hit. I’ll venture a timing guess and say by September/October global capital markets could be in full panic mode.

First, what exactly is converging now, and then why Melco can ride it out without too much damage, or at least a lot less damage than other casinos will sustain.

If you’ve ever wondered why most stock market crashes and semi-crashes seem to repeatedly happen around September/October, I believe I’ve found the proximate cause. The ultimate cause is of course a slowdown or reversal in money growth after a long period of strong money growth. But October 1907, October 1929, October 1987, October 1997, October 2002, and of course late September/October 2008, can’t be a coincidence.

BetVictor Ltd. has sold its 18 racecourse betting points in the UK to bookmaker Star Sports as it focus to its online business.

Under the deal, the terms of which were not disclosed, Star Sports will acquire facilities at 11 racecourses in the UK including Cheltenham, Newmarket, Ascot, Goodwood, and Sandown Park.

Star Sports operates a number of betting facilities such as Lord’s Cricket Ground and The Oval sports ground in London. The acquisition will take effect immediately and Star Sports is expected to be seen at Royal Ascot starting next week.

“It’s a real honour to be taking over these prime pitches from a firm with such a strong heritage in the bookmaking industry and we are equally thrilled that they have chosen Star Sports as the ideal buyer,” Star Sport’s owner Ben Keith said. “This acquisition marks a new chapter in the exciting Star Sports story and, from a personal point of view, I am completing a lifetime ambition to bet on some of the best pitches in the country, including Royal Ascot and Cheltenham.”

Evan Jarvis: Talking About the Real Magic in Life Video

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90 Digital CEO Nick Garner talks about analysing a website using tools such as URL Profile and Screaming Frog, in this edition of CalvinAyre.com’s SEO Tip of the Week.

Summary: sometimes it’s really useful to investigate your competitors websites. The catch is Google won’t make it that easy for you to diagnose somebody else’s website. With their public mobile testing tool, you can only test one URL at the time. However, there are some very useful tools to get around this problem.

Tip: if you want to analyse a competitor’s website, or if you don’t have Webmaster tools in place there is a tool called URL profiler which can be connected to Google’s mobile testing API. Simply, it’s makes it easy for you to use Google’s mobile testing tool on thousands of pages. The best way to set this up is to use a crawler like Xenu link sleuth or screaming frog and crawl the website. You then get a long list of URLs which you can run through URL profiler with. Bonus… URL profiler has a 14 day trial period with unlimited usage, so it’s worth having a play with it.

Tip: I mentioned screaming frog earlier, one of its pro features is that you can make it crawler website as if it were a Google bot or a mobile phone user. This way, you can get accurate lists of pages which are accessible by mobile and you can see things like title tags, description tags and so on which render for mobile only.

Lee Davy talks about the gratitude he feels after finding a backer to put him into some World Series of Poker action, and the conflicting feeling that comes with that.

Let me tell you something.

Every time I ask the universe for something, it delivers. It might not turn up in the first class mail, but it always arrives.

Coming into the 46th Annual World Series of Poker (WSOP) I was worried. It was the first time since I started coming out here that I didn’t have all of my expenses covered. Santa Claus went on strike, the Easter Bunny was infertile, and the Tooth Fairy ran off with Ant Man. The belt buckle was tightened. There would be no money to play.

Casino operator SkyCity Entertainment Group is catching hell in New Zealand for launching a free-play online gaming site.

The video poker, slots and casino table games at the new Skycityonline.com cost nothing to play but Problem Gambling Foundation CEO Graeme Ramsey told Auckland Now that he doesn’t “for a second believe this is altruistic.” Ramsey called it “pure promotion” on behalf of SkyCity, which he accused of devising “a way to try and reach out with a new form of advertising.”

Well, duh. But SkyCity is just keeping pace with the rest of the global brick-and-mortar casino industry, which has embraced free-to-play sites as a valuable tool in their promotional arsenal. The Skycityonline site was launched this week via invitations to the operator’s Premier Rewards members and rewards won online can only be redeemed by members at SkyCity’s casinos in Auckland, Hamilton or Queenstown.

A SkyCity spokesman said the company had taken steps to minimize overuse of the site, like limiting free credit refills to twice a day, and not selling virtual chips to virtual degens. Players can win spot prizes of SkyCity Vouchers and Premium Bonus Dollars for Premier Rewards members, but here as well, these can also only be redeemed in brick-and-mortar world.

Dan Callaghan: The Horse Whisperer Video

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