The thinning ranks of Macau’s casino junket operators could grow even thinner if local authorities proceed with plans to boost capital requirements.

Last year, Macau’s government announced plans to impose new controls on junkets, partly as a reaction to a rash of scandals in which junket investors were left high and dry following internal thefts and shoddy accounting practices.

On Thursday, Bloomberg reported that the special administrative region was crafting new rules that would require new gaming promoters to provide evidence that they had at least MOP 10m (US $1.3m) in working capital, 100x the current base of MOP 100k. The new rules would also require that at least one junket shareholder be a resident of Macau.

The plan assumes that anyone is still interested in starting a new junket operation in Macau. CLSA gaming analyst Aaron Fischer told Bloomberg that his firm didn’t expect “many, if any, new junkets in Macau as the current ones are fighting for survival.”

The thinning ranks of Macau’s casino junket operators could grow even thinner if local authorities proceed with plans to boost capital requirements.

Last year, Macau’s government announced plans to impose new controls on junkets, partly as a reaction to a rash of scandals in which junket investors were left high and dry following internal thefts and shoddy accounting practices.

On Thursday, Bloomberg reported that the special administrative region was crafting new rules that would require new gaming promoters to provide evidence that they had at least MOP 10m (US $1.3m) in working capital, 100x the current base of MOP 100k. The new rules would also require that at least one junket shareholder be a resident of Macau.

The plan assumes that anyone is still interested in starting a new junket operation in Macau. CLSA gaming analyst Aaron Fischer told Bloomberg that his firm didn’t expect “many, if any, new junkets in Macau as the current ones are fighting for survival.”

Daily fantasy sports, sports betting and online gambling will all be topics of (presumably lively) discussion at a Congressional hearing next month.

On Thursday, ESPN’s David Purdum broke the news that the House of Representatives’ Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade will hold a hearing on Wednesday, May 11 to consider the legal status of DFS, online gambling and sports betting.

The hearing comes at the request of New Jersey Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. (pictured), the ranking Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, who’d called for some form of federal grilling of DFS last September. Pallone’s home state currently boasts the country’s largest regulated online gambling market and has led the charge to lift the federal sports betting prohibition, although it’s been somewhat laggard in dealing with DFS.

In recent months, a growing number of state attorneys general have declared DFS to be illegal gambling according to state law, while other states are pushing to give DFS a legal shield through the introduction of so-called consumer protection measures. But legal eagles suspect DFS may represent illegal sports betting under the 1992 PASPA prohibition, and next month’s hearing will reportedly consider the federal role (if any) in overseeing DFS activity.

Daily fantasy sports, sports betting and online gambling will all be topics of (presumably lively) discussion at a Congressional hearing next month.

On Thursday, ESPN’s David Purdum broke the news that the House of Representatives’ Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade will hold a hearing on Wednesday, May 11 to consider the legal status of DFS, online gambling and sports betting.

The hearing comes at the request of New Jersey Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. (pictured), the ranking Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, who’d called for some form of federal grilling of DFS last September. Pallone’s home state currently boasts the country’s largest regulated online gambling market and has led the charge to lift the federal sports betting prohibition, although it’s been somewhat laggard in dealing with DFS.

In recent months, a growing number of state attorneys general have declared DFS to be illegal gambling according to state law, while other states are pushing to give DFS a legal shield through the introduction of so-called consumer protection measures. But legal eagles suspect DFS may represent illegal sports betting under the 1992 PASPA prohibition, and next month’s hearing will reportedly consider the federal role (if any) in overseeing DFS activity.

Gambling-related subjects dominate a recent list of the most expensive (and occasionally misspelled) keywords in the UK’s paid search market.

On Thursday, Search Engine Watch published a list of what it claims are the 100 most expensive keywords in the UK online market. The list was gleaned from a SEMrush dataset of 12m keywords and the average price paid for each on Google AdWords during March 2016.

Topping the list at a whopping £148.51 per click was the phrase “play live blackjack.” In fact, gambling-related terms occupied the entire top-10, all but three positions in the top-25, and 77 out of the entire 100-strong list.

Even the three non-gambling positions in the top-25 are only technically out of step with the pack. All three are lumped into the ‘finance’ category, and the highest ranked of these (at #12) is ‘spreadbetting offers’ (£118.03). To find a truly non-gambling/finance product, you have to go all the way down to #28, when ‘big data systems’ (£97.76) makes an appearance.

The proposed merger of UK gambling giants Ladbrokes and Gala Coral Group may have hit a snag over how many retail betting shops the companies will be forced to sell.

The UK’s Competition Markets Authority (CMA) was expected to issue a provisional decision by April 18 on whether to permit the £2.3b Lads-Coral merger to proceed. On Thursday, City AM quoted sources saying that this timeline was now ‘highly unlikely.”

While the CMA’s final ruling on the merger is still expected to be released on June 24, City AM’s source claimed a potential hiccup had arisen over how many of the two operators’ combined 4k betting shops would need to be sold off to address competition concerns.

Scuttlebutt had it that the two operators would be required to reduce their retail presence by between 300 and 500 shops, but City AM claimed the CMA may require as many as 1k shops to be sold to smaller betting operators to ensure a healthy and competitive market for retail punters.

The proposed merger of UK gambling giants Ladbrokes and Gala Coral Group may have hit a snag over how many retail betting shops the companies will be forced to sell.

The UK’s Competition Markets Authority (CMA) was expected to issue a provisional decision by April 18 on whether to permit the £2.3b Lads-Coral merger to proceed. On Thursday, City AM quoted sources saying that this timeline was now ‘highly unlikely.”

While the CMA’s final ruling on the merger is still expected to be released on June 24, City AM’s source claimed a potential hiccup had arisen over how many of the two operators’ combined 4k betting shops would need to be sold off to address competition concerns.

Scuttlebutt had it that the two operators would be required to reduce their retail presence by between 300 and 500 shops, but City AM claimed the CMA may require as many as 1k shops to be sold to smaller betting operators to ensure a healthy and competitive market for retail punters.

Melco Crown Philippines Resorts Corp. net losses continued its stumble with net losses in 2015 widening by as much as 45 percent to PHP9.14 billion (US$269 million), compared with the previous year’s PHP6.3 million.

In a filing with the Philippine Stock Exchange, Melco Crown said its swelling losses were caused by the “increase in total operating costs and expenses arising from the full year resort operations in 2015, as well as the interest expenses (net of capitalized interest) as a result of lower interest capitalization since the project completion in the first quarter of 2015.”

The first full year of City of Dreams Manila’s operations contributed to the spike in Melco Crown’s total net operating revenues, which surged to PHP13.73 billion from P430.20 million in 2014. However, the total operating costs and expenses also rose year on year to PHP20 billion from PHP4.66 billion in the previous year.

Casino revenues, on the other hand, added PHP11.9 billion to Melco Crown’s profits. That figure represents about 87 percent of the casino operator’s total net operating revenues, while rolling chip volume reached P150.6 billion with a low win rate of 2.3 percent.