Bloomberry Resorts Corp. incurred a net loss of PHP1.3 billion in the first six months due to higher expenses at its Solaire Resort and Casino.

Bloomberry, in its filing to Philippine Stock Exchange on Thursday, said that Solaire’s operating costs and expenses increased 32.3% to PHP10.98 billion primarily related to the full operation of Sky Tower and related amenities in the first half of 2015.

The expenses included PHP960.3 million in depreciation and amortization, up 70% year-on-year; a PHP867.7 million increase in provision for doubtful accounts; PHP487.5 million in additional payroll; and PHP153 million in additional rent to the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. for land used for a new parking structure for Sky Tower. The company also spent PHP115.3 million for outside contractors, primarily in engineering related capacities, and PHP104 million for additional supplies utilized in the larger facility consisting of Bay Tower and Sky Tower.

Meanwhile, offshore investments Solaire Korea and Jeju Sun accounted for P325.2 million in operating costs and expenses for the period.

Aspers Casino in Swansea has decided it’s time to open their doors after three years in the wilderness, and one of their own, Roberto Romanello, cleans up online. 

Swansea.

Dylan Thomas once called it an ugly, lovely town. In the movie Twin Town, Dougray Scott’s character Terry called it a pretty, shitty city. If you take the words lovely and town out of those two quotes you won’t be far off the mark.

Once upon a time it was one of the most vibrant places in the UK. Debauch, drugs and a city full of Dai’s. It was positively dai iawn. It was a stag and hen weekend paradise. When it came to nightlife Cardiff couldn’t keep up. Then they built the Millennium Stadium. Then they closed Wembley. The FA Cup, the League Cup and all the other tin pot trophies held their finals in Cardiff. Swansea died on its ass.

PokerStars Head of Live Poker Operations, Neil Johnson, has revealed a series of changing to the twelfth iteration of the European Poker Tour including changing the first card off the deck rule, introducing new chips and tables, and more.

The European Poker Tour is back (nearly) and Neil Johnson, Head of Live Poker Operations for PokerStars, has dipped his quill in ink and painted the Stars blog with some interesting changes.

John Duthie created the first snowball when he had a bath time Eureka moment back in 2004. People like Johnson are now rolling it down the Alps. It started small. It’s become huge. It’s about to get even bigger.

EPT11 broke all of the records: 7 festivals, 375 events, 66,000+ entrants and more than €139,000,000 in prize money doled out.

Full Tilt continue to roll out their changes with a revised loyalty scheme system that aims to reward both grinders and recreational players with the introduction of Player’s Club and revisions made to the existing Edge program.

Full Tilt used to be my bloodiest scene of combat.

I couldn’t take it anymore.

I left before one more sniper nailed me for the last time.

California’s internet sweepstakes cafés are proving harder to kill than Freddy Kruger and/or Dan Bilzerian’s (alleged) sexually transmitted diseases.

Last year, the California legislature passed a law explicitly banning so-called sweepstakes cafés – essentially internet cafés in which users pay for time on computers offering games that mimic slot machines – which have proliferated in strip malls across the US. The American Gaming Association estimates that these cafés take in around $10b annually.

Sweepstakes owners challenged California’s law, claiming the outcomes of their games were predetermined and thus they were no different from lottery scratch tickets. In June, the California Supreme Court disagreed, ruling that since a sweepstakes user “causes the machine to operate, and then plays a game to learn the outcome, which is governed by chance, the user is playing a slot machine.”

Despite this ruling, California café owners aren’t going quietly. This week, Bakersfield’s CBS affiliate KBAK reported on one café operator that had reinvented itself as a ‘social gaming’ facility using its own proprietary ‘alt coin’ currency.

Lee Davy rolls up this week’s poker news including Vanessa Selbst winning another seven figure score, Dan Bilzerian writing a book and not contracting sexually transmitted diseases, and much more.

The exalted rise towards the ceiling of poker greatness continued for Vanessa Selbst this week as she won her third seven-figure score of her career.

The three-time World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet winner left nine men with faces looking like a leather hat that had been left outside in the rain too long as she took them apart at the seams to win the inaugural Super High Roller Celebrity Shootout.

The event was a $1m winner takes-all event that created a tug of war between five celebrities well known for being poker players, and five poker players well known for being celebrities.

Could former National Football League great Lynn Swann lose his personal fortune if creditor lawsuits go against casino operator Caesars Entertainment Corp (CEC)?

Swann, the former Pittsburgh Steelers wideout who was inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame in 2001, has been an independent director of CEC since the company was taken private in 2008. Swann was one of three CEC directors who approved the controversial transfer of profitable assets out of CEC’s main unit Caesars Entertainment Operating Co (CEOC) before it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy this January.

On Thursday, the New York Post quoted two sources saying that lawsuits brought by junior creditors protesting these asset transfers could lead to claims of personal liability against Swann and the other two directors who gave thumbs up to the suspect deals.

However tantalizing that prospect from a media perspective, the existence of corporate liability insurance means Swann isn’t likely to be out on the street hawking pencils out of a cup, even if the courts do side with the creditors. That is, unless reducing said insurance was among the cost-cutting moves CEC elected to make on its way to bankruptcy court.