Voters in the Bahamas have elected a new government that could spell trouble for the $4.2b Baha Mar integrated resort and casino.

On Wednesday, Bahamian voters overwhelmingly opted for change, unceremoniously turfing incumbent Prime Minister Perry Christie in favor of Free National Movement (FNM) leader Hubert Minnis, while reducing Christie’s Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) to just five seats – possibly four, pending a recount – in the 39-seat House of Assembly.

Minnis (pictured) was a vocal critic of the Christie government’s handling of the Baha Mar bankruptcy process, the property’s subsequent sale to Chinese conglomerate Chow Tai Fook Enterprises (CTFE) and the sweetheart terms of operation that CTFE was able to extract from the government. Baha Mar held a ‘soft opening’ late last month but won’t begin accepting actual guests until May 29.

The night before Wednesday’s vote, Christie warned supporters that Minnis’ FNM would likely “try to sell Baha Mar, which would mean court cases, which would mean delays and thousands of jobs at risk.”

Irish online gambling operator SeanieMac’s financial difficulties have resurfaced in the media after a punter went public with his inability to withdraw nearly a quarter of a million pounds from the site.

On Thursday, The Guardian reported that an unidentified punter was threatening to take legal action against SeanieMac’s parent company, Sportsbetting and Gaming Services (SGS), due to the site’s unwillingness and/or inability to honor his attempts to withdraw £245k from his online betting account.

The punter claims to have opened his SeanieMac.com account last December, after which he went on a prolonged hot streak. The punter made his initial withdrawal request in March but has yet to receive a penny, despite repeated follow-up requests.

The last communication the punter had with the site was on April 21, when SeanieMac’s COO Garreth Core informed him that “our partners are not in a position to release the funds until we send the funds from the US … please believe I am doing everything I can to get you paid as soon as possible.”

The UK bookmakers industry association is aggressively pushing back against the Labour Party election manifesto’s position on reducing fixed-odds betting terminal (FOBT) betting stakes.

A draft of Labour’s 2017 general election manifesto was leaked late Wednesday, revealing the party’s shift further to the political left. In addition to calls for re-nationalization of some privatized interests, including British Rail and the Royal Mail, the manifesto also calls for a reduction in maximum FOBT stakes from their current £100 to just £2.

The manifesto says a Labour government would also “legislate to increase the delay in between spins on these games in order to reduce the addictive nature of the games.” The machines currently allow players to make a fresh wager three times a minute.

Labour’s anti-FOBT stance isn’t new, as former party leader Ed Miliband railed against the machines ahead of the 2014 general election. The ruling Tories have suggested some types of restrictions are in the works, but as the government, they are more conscious of how much tax revenue the machines generate, and the party had to be more or less publicly shamed into taking action.

Spain’s regulated online gambling market saw revenue jump by one-fifth in the first quarter of 2017, despite reduced marketing activity by locally licensed operators.

Figures released this week by Spanish gaming regulator Dirección General de Ordenación del Juego (DGOJ) show total online revenue of €122.7m in the three months ending March 31, nearly 20% higher than the same period last year but a 2.4% decrease from Q4 2016’s total.

While nearly all gaming verticals posted year-on-year improvement in Q1, only sports betting improved from Q4 2016. Betting revenue was up 2.6% sequentially to €71.6m, a 22% rise over the same period last year. Sports betting turnover rose 4% to just under €1.4b, of which nearly 70% was spent on in-play wagers.

The casino vertical reported revenue rising 30% year-on-year to €32.5m, although this was down 9.5% from Q4’s total, while casino spending rose 31.3%. Slots and roulette reported nearly identical revenue of €13.7m, representing 42% year-on-year gains for both products. Blackjack improved nearly 18% to €5.1m while baccarat revenue managed to stay flat at €2.5m despite turnover falling nearly 60%.

Is poker gambling or a game of skill?

That was the question posed by the Gujarat High Court to the state government following the recent raids by state police on several poker rooms in Ahmedabad and Surat.

Last week, the Indian Poker Association (IPA) filed a plea asking the high court for “urgent adjudication” after Gujarat police took down three poker rooms in less than a month. The first raid involved a poker room operated by AAA Gaming in Surat, followed by another club operating in the Navrangpura Hotel in Ahmedabad, then finally the Headquarters Poker Room, operated by Vasim Rozani, in Gujarat’s largest city.

In its petition, the association claimed that poker is a game of skill and playing the game “is an activity that is protected under the right to free trade and commerce, which is guaranteed under Article 19(1)(g) of the Constitution.”

The gloves are off, at least on the part of Bitcoin Core, as the fight over the future of the bitcoin cryptocurrency continues.

If you haven’t heard, there is a debate raging over bitcoin’s underlying blockchain technology’s current 1MB block size limit. A number of camps, including Bitcoin Unlimited, believe the block size should be scaled upward to alleviate congestion on the network, but the other side—aka Bitcoin Core—insists that the blockchain’s original design is doing fine in its current form.

Core knows best?

According to Core developer Luke-Jr, the 1MB limit is already far too large for today’s blockchain use, given that all legitimate uses of the blockchain currency “amount to approximately 750k/block average.”