CalvinAyre.com returned to London’s Stamford Bridge today to cover the day two of the Betting on Football Conference (BOFCON) 2017.  Despite a heavy, previous night of official networking activities, the expo floor was busy and there was a solid turnout throughout the day in the Marketing & Media conference track and the Trading & Operations track.

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Zynga Poker is nearing its tenth birthday but the venerable free-play game just posted its best quarterly mobile performance in franchise history.

Social gamers Zynga released their Q1 report card on Thursday, which showed revenue rising 4% year-on-year to $194.3m in the three months ending March 31. Despite this gain, the company still reported a net loss of $9.5m, although that’s an improvement over the $26.6m loss in Q1 2016.

Bookings, the in-game sale of virtual goods, rose 14% to $207.4m, of which 85% came via mobile. Mobile bookings were up 27% year-on-year while mobile revenue was up 19%, accounting for 83% of overall revenue, ten points higher than in Q1 2016.

Things were less rosy on the ‘advertising and other’ front, thanks to what Zynga called a “softness” in the gaming ad market. The category’s revenue fell 18% to $40.8m.

Vietnam’s pilot program to allow local residents to gamble in casinos appears to be less restricted than originally advertised, according to local media reports.

Last week, Vietnam’s Ministry of Finance released a draft circular adding more details to the government’s Decree No.03/2017/ND-CP, which authorized a three-year test of relaxing the country’s longstanding ban on allowing its citizens to gamble in the nation’s casinos, which are reserved for international tourists and Vietnamese nationals who hold foreign passports.

This pilot program was said to apply only at two casinos – one in Quang Ninh province in the country’s north and the other on Phu Quoc island in the south – neither of which has been built yet. But this limitation is absent from the draft circular, leading some Vietnamese media outlets to speculate that all of the nation’s casinos will be allowed to participate in the trial.

Regardless of how many casinos are eligible for the trial, the circular further details the financial hurdles local residents must clear in order to cross a casino threshold, including the ability to prove a monthly income of at least VND 10m (US $440).

Vietnamese authorities have broken up an illegal online gambling ring they claim handled wagers worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

On Thursday, local media outlets reported the arrest of Nguyen Thi Kheo, a 34-year-old vice-director of Ho Chi Minh City-based software firm Asian Livetech. Kheo and a number of other individuals are accused of operating online gambling site ibet789.com.

Police reported seizing numerous computers, servers and documents at the company’s offices and at Kheo’s home. Searches are reportedly also going on at the company’s affiliated offices in Hanoi. Ibet789.com’s website remains active, and includes a Vietnamese language option and toll-free number among its various country-specific offerings.

Vietnamese police reportedly launched their investigation into the site’s local connections five months ago, but they claimed the ibet789 site has been illegally serving Vietnamese punters through a network of local field agents for the past seven years.

Macau casino operator SJM Holdings posted higher profits despite lower revenue thanks to increased activity in its premium mass business.

Figures released Thursday show SJM’s gaming revenue falling 5.3% year-on-year to HKD 10.4b (US $1.33b) in the three months ending March 31. Despite the decline, adjusted earnings inched up 0.7% to HKD 843m and profit rose 3.3% to HKD 580m ($74.5m). SJM’s earnings margin improved half a point to 8% during Q1.

Despite the overall Macau market’s recent VIP gaming rebound, SJM’s VIP operations continued to struggle, with turnover down 11.3% to HKD 157.7b while VIP win was basically flat at 3.13%, the net result of which was a 12% fall in VIP revenue to HKD 4.9b.

On the plus side, mass market gaming revenue improved by 1.9% to HKD 5.2b, and SJM CEO Ambrose So Shu Fai credits the improvement to gains in the high-margin premium mass business. Slots revenue fared less well in Q1, falling 3.7% to HKD 257m.