The launch of South Korea’s first major integrated resort casino failed to reverse the flagging fortunes of its parent company.

South Korean casino operator Paradise Co Ltd reported gaming revenue of KRW41.6b (US $37.1m) in the month of May, representing a 30.4% decline from the KRW59.7b the company reported in the same month last year. Table game revenue was down 30.9% to KRW39b while machine gaming was off 20.3% to KRW2.54b.

On the surface, those are somewhat alarming figures, because May was the first full month of contributions from the company’s new Paradise City integrated resort, which opened its doors on April 20. The resort, a joint venture of Paradise Co Ltd and Japanese pachinko operator Sega Sammy Holdings Inc., is the first large scale foreigners-only gaming venue to open in South Korea.

While May’s total was up 7.5% from April’s numbers, the launch of Paradise City, conveniently located in the Incheon area near Seoul’s international airport, might have been expected to move that needle a little further into the black. Paradise Co Ltd didn’t break out how much the new resort contributed to April’s results versus contributions from the company’s other three small casinos in Seoul, Busan and Jeju Island.

A Singapore casino cheat has discovered the hard way that the (big) house always wins.

On Wednesday, Toh Hock Thiam was sentenced to seven years and four months in prison for his role as the mastermind of a counterfeit chip-cashing scam that took the casino at Las Vegas Sands’ Marina Bay Sands (MBS) integrated resort for nearly S$1.3m (US $934k) over a single night in late 2015.

According to prosecutors, the 55-year-old Toh led an unknown number of accomplices in a scam to redeem counterfeit S$1k chips at MBS. Between the evening of November 22 and the early morning hours on the following day, the gang redeemed a total of 1,291 of the chips for cold hard cash.

The Straits Times reported that the crime went undetected for a week due to the high quality of the counterfeit chips. It was only after an MBS cashier noted a slight flaw in the color of a single S$1k chip that staff realized the chip lacked the usual security features. A subsequent examination turned up the rest of the bogus chips.

Seventy-six entertainment venues have been shut down across China while 26 others had their operations suspended as the Beijing government intensified its crackdown on gambling, Chinese media outlets reported.

China, as we all know, likes to keep a tight leash on the fun stuff. Gambling is banned in the country, and the government is making good on its promise to “severely punish” both land-based and online gambling operators who target Chinese gamblers.

This year, law enforcement officers have investigated more than 38,000 entertainment venues nationwide, according to the China Youth Daily. Of this number, 355 cases have been busted.

The Ministry of Culture (MOC) was quoted by the news outlet saying that “any entertainment venues that allow their customers to gamble or contain video machines on which people can gamble will be shut down and have their business licenses revoked.”

Connecticut legislators have approved a joint venture casino project by the state’s two tribal gaming operators, but MGM Resorts says it will continue to fight the plan in federal court.

On Tuesday, with the clock ticking on the legislature’s current session, the state Assembly voted 103 to 46 in favor of a bill that will allow the Mashantucket Pequot and Mohegan tribes’ MMCT joint venture to build a casino off tribal land near East Windsor. The Senate has already approved the plan, and Gov. Dannel Malloy is expected to sign the bill into law any day now.

The tribes, which operate the state’s Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun casinos, sought the third casino as a hedge against MGM Springfield, which will open just over the Massachusetts border in September 2018, and is expected to siphon Connecticut gamblers away from their state’s tribal casinos.

MGM had supported a rival bill that called for an open tender for the third casino license, but the tribes argued that this would violate their gaming compacts, which guarantees them slot machine exclusivity in exchange for 25% of their slots revenue. The bill passed on Tuesday requires the tribes to ante up 25% of slots and table game revenue from the third casino.

UK-listed online gambling operator GVC Holdings’ flagship betting brand Bwin is prepping a Russian launch.

On Wednesday, Russian media outlet Kommersant reported that local billionaire Alexander Mamut planned to launch a Bwin.ru online sports betting platform in conjunction with GVC. The report claimed the betting site, along with a new mobile betting app, would make its debut in “a few months.”

Bwin’s Russian launch will be a partnership with Russian-licensed bookmaker Digital Betting LLC and online technology firm Rambler & Co, two companies that operate under Mamut’s A&NN Investments umbrella.

Digital Betting CEO Dmitry Sergeyev will also serve as Bwin Russia’s chief executive. Sergeyev emphasized the importance of Wednesday’s announcement, noting that it represented the first entry by a major international bookmaker into Russia’s nascent online sports betting market.