Japanese casino mogul Kazuo Okada is eyeing to expand its footprint in the Philippines through a possible backdoor listing.

The Philippine Star reported that Okada is toying with the idea to join the Philippine Stock Exchange through a backdoor listing.

Traders in the Philippine bourse are speculating that Okada is on the watch for a Philippine listed company to acquire. Market insiders are particularly keeping an eye on Chemical Industries of the Philippines (CIP) and LMG Chemical Corp.

CIP, which is the principal shareholder of LMG, is reportedly selling 65.92 percent of its shareholdings in the company. The move, according to market insiders, may be Okada’s backdoor entry.

Australia-listed casino operator Silver Heritage Group Ltd. posted US$3.9 million revenue in the first quarter of the year.

In a regulatory filing on Monday, Silver Heritage announced that 61.6 percent of its revenues came from gaming operations at Phoenix International Club (pictured) in Vietnam’s Bac Ninh province, near the country’s border with China’s Guangxi province.

The remaining 33.1 percent of the quarterly group revenue came via operations at the Millionaire’s Club and Casino in Kathmandu, Nepal.

Its reported quarterly adjusted earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) amounting to $654,000. Data also showed that Silver Heritage’s gross profit for the January to March 2017 period was $1.59 million.

A Pennsylvania house panel is now eyeing to legalize video gambling terminals (VGTs) in bars and other businesses to help fill its budget deficit.

WITF reported that the House Gaming Oversight Committee has started its deliberation on whether to pass House Bill 1010, which would allow up to 35,000 terminals in bars, social clubs, and other such businesses.

The bill, according to its proponents, is an answer to plug financial budget gaps since the legalized VGTs will reap the state $100 million in its first year, and $500 million annually once it’s fully implemented.

“Instead of turning a blind eye to an illegal industry that’s going on in the state of Pennsylvania…this really does clean it up for everyone, and lets everyone play on a level playing field,” Democratic Representative Mike Sturla of Lancaster County – one of the bill’s biggest proponents – said, according to the news report.

Gaming markets are looking good across continents these days, but despite the good, and in some cases even euphoric numbers, cautious optimism is the play here. Chasing price is not a good idea right now. Strategy now calls for taking profits on double digit gains with a wait-and-see attitude. The reasons for this are different for each region, United States, Europe, and Macau. Let’s go through them.

United States

The old adage “Sell in May and go away” makes a lot of sense, and I believe there is one main reason for it. The annual dollar supply drop almost always takes place in the last week of April, and I have previously speculated that this may have something to do with Tax Day, which sucks money out of banks and puts it into the US Treasury. The exact reason doesn’t really matter so long as it is predictable. The next Fed Money Stock Measures report is due on Thursday, and it will be a crucial one for the entire US stock market as we head into the summer months.

Not to wade too deeply into mathematical details here, the dollar supply stands at $13.628 trilliion as of the Fed’s last report. While it is uncertain how reliable the numbers from USdebtclock.org are (they claim to be real time sourced from the Fed but I can’t verify that), M2 is now $13.534 trillion according to the clock, which would be a drop of 0.7% from last week. If USdebtclock is accurate here, this would very bullish going into the summer. It would take a drop of at least 2% to cause any significant trouble for stocks.

The battle to reshape to existing landscape of bitcoin protocol influencers has gained a new ally—leading bitcoin researcher Jon Matonis.

Matonis, who refers to himself as an e-money researcher, is credited for creating the first and leading general price index for bitcoin called the Bitcoin Price Index (BPI). He is also known for founding the Bitcoin Foundation, which served as the industry’s first non-profit trade association originally chartered to provide financial compensation for voluntary protocol code developers and to promote the vision of bitcoin worldwide.

This time, Matonis has joined bitcoin technology research and development outfit nChain as its new vice president for corporate strategy.

“It is imperative that we move towards a status quo where the actual protocol standard is separated from its primary reference implementation, similar to the existing architecture of the Linux kernel and its low-level abstraction layer,” Matonis said in a statement.

The double-digit growth of Macau casinos’ gaming revenue is bringing a sense of nostalgia to Melco Resorts & Entertainment Ltd chief executive officer Lawrence Ho, bringing him back to the good old days of 2013.

Macau that year enjoyed a robust and vibrant gambling business, raking in US$45 billion in gambling revenue to stay ahead of its rival gaming destination.

Wealthy mainland Chinese dazzled by fortress-sized resorts such as Sands China Ltd’s Venetian Macao and Galaxy Entertainment Group made it possible for Macau to earn seven times more than Las Vegas.

But the magic of 2013 diminished after the China’s economy cooled down and the Chinese government ordered a crackdown on corrupt government officials. From then on, Macau posted more than 20 consecutive disappointing gaming revenue.

In this interview with CalvinAyre.com’s Becky Liggero, Karolina Pelc of LeoVegas talks about their new offering, which is touted to be a big industry first in product development.

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A Kenyan man has won the largest sports betting payout in the nation’s history after hitting a 17-game accumulator bet.

On Monday, Kenyan sports betting operator SportPesa reported that one of its customers – the man’s name was to be unveiled at a ceremony in Nairobi on Tuesday – had won Sh221,331,602 (US $2.14m) by correctly predicting all 17 outcomes of a Mega Jackpot (MJP) football accumulator wager.

SportPesa CEO Ronald Karauri personally phoned the bettor to alert him of his windfall, which marks the first time the company’s MJP prize had been awarded. Earlier this year, a pair of bettors’ shared a Sh62m prize after coming up one match short on their 17-game MJP sheet.

The bettor earned his record haul after placing two wagers of just Sh 100 each. After the first 15 of his 17 picks had come in as predicted, the bettor and a buddy went out on the town to celebrate early. After alerting the punter as to the outcome of the final two matches, Karauri advised him to call it a night, advice the bettor reportedly heeded.

The ‘Hashtag King’ Salomon Ponte is being treated like a leper after his shocking antics on Poker Night in America resulted in a series of brands severing ties with him.

It isn’t coming.

It doesn’t matter how many showers I have the new brand name for my company, created to help people quit alcohol, is still not emerging from the smoky, dark corners of my mind. I have this sneaking feeling all of my inspirational cells are in there playing an intense cash game.

Branding is everything.

A recent sports betting bust in India illustrates the often unheralded ingenuity that many bookies are capable of employing to ensure that sports bettors are able to enjoy their chosen form of entertainment.

Last week, Indian media outlets reported the arrest of seven individuals accused of operating an illegal cricket betting ring out of a luxury flat in the state of Uttar Pradesh. The bookies reportedly utilized online betting exchange Betfair to set real-time in-play betting odds on Indian Premier League (IPL) matches for their wagering clients.

So far, nothing all that remarkable about this bust. Until you get to the gang’s technology, which was custom designed for the group by a local electrician with skilled hands and a gift for not asking too many questions.

The electrician rigged up a connection of 16 bog-standard Nokia mobile phones (chosen for their long battery life) that enabled the bookies to simultaneously communicate with multiple punters. For this, the electrician charged the bookies the low, low price of Rs 27k ($420), with a 32-handset model available for Rs 50k.

PokerStars Championship Monte Carlo news including PokerNews revealing that Patrik Antonius is keen on opening a poker room in Monaco, and victories for Adrian Mateos and Jack Salter.

I am a bit of a Patrik Antonius fanboy.

It’s not just his perfectly chiselled face. Each time I watched him competing on television, he always looked so goddam cool – the iceman.

So it was difficult for me, in 2011 when he took the lion share of John Eames chips in the €10,400 buy-in World Series of Poker Europe (WSOPE) Main Event because I had a piece and was hoping to retire.

Norway’s gambling regulator has ordered local banks to cut off the flow of money between Norwegian gamblers and unauthorized online gambling operators.

Norwegian media outlet Klassekampen recently reported that the Norwegian Gaming Authority (Lotteri-og Stiftelsestilsynet) had issued an order on March 29 requiring banks to cease processing transactions with seven companies as of April 24 following an audit of suspected illegal activity.

The affected companies include five international payment processors – Worldpay, Earth Port, Trustly, Inpay and Entercash – while the two other companies are local firms linked to gaming operators Stay Cool and Betclic Everest Group subsidiary Mangas Gaming.

Norway maintains a tight grip on its gambling market, reserving most activity outside of small-time lotteries for the state-owned Norsk Tipping. The local government had entertained the possibility of opening up the market to international online operators but these hopes were dashed last December when it was decided that private operators wouldn’t be willing to submit to the government’s idea of social responsibility.

The government of the Bahamas has finally closed the sale of the $4.2b Baha Mar casino resort, albeit under highly favourable terms for the Hong Kong buyer.

Late last year, Chow Tai Fook Enterprises (CTFE) was named as the purchaser of the unfinished Baha Mar resort from the Chinese bankers that assumed control of the property following the Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing of its original developer, Sarkis Izmirlian’s Baha Mar Ltd.

But CTFE later announced that the deal wouldn’t be final until the property’s main contractor finished construction work on the project, leading to howls of protest from Izmirlian, who used the uncertainty to repeat his offer to reacquire Baha Mar and finish the job he started.

That ship has now officially sailed following Sunday’s announcement of the signing of a Heads of Agreement between CTFE and the Bahamian government. The deal, which was signed April 25, formalizes the earlier sale agreement and lays out each parties’ requirements to ensure the resort achieves its economic goals.