Casino operator Hard Rock International (HRI) has unveiled the first details of its proposed integrated resort project near Barcelona, Spain.

HRI recently found itself the sole remaining bidder for a casino license in Spain’s Catalan region after its former joint venture partner Melco International Development bowed out and a rival bid from Malaysian operator Genting was withdrawn ahead of the June 30 deadline for submissions.

On Monday, HRI revealed the first details of the project it’s calling Hard Rock Entertainment World. The project, which carries an estimated price tag of €2b (counting land costs and infrastructure upgrades), hopes to occupy a maximum of 745k-square-meters in the Vila-seca and Salou (Tarragona) areas that the Catalan government has designated as its Center for Recreation and Tourism (CRT).

The project’s first phase will be known as Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Tarragona. The €600m project will include a 500-room “family-oriented” hotel in collaboration with the adjacent PortAventura World theme park. A collaboration with Value Retail will see the rise of a 10k-square-meter retail space encompassing over 75 shops. The property will also host a 6k-square-meter pool and deck, plus a 15k-seat Hard Rock Live performance venue.

Kenya-based sports betting operator SportPesa is walking back threats to close its local operations if the government doesn’t rethink proposed gambling tax hikes.

On Friday, SportPesa made headlines by announcing that it would shut its Kenyan operations by January 1, 2018, the same day that the new uniform 35% tax on gambling revenue is set to take effect. Company officials stated that the hike from the existing 7.5% tax on betting revenue would render their local operations unsustainable.

But Sunday saw the official Twitter accounts of both SportPesa and its founder/CEO Ronald Karauri post a series of statements to its “esteemed customers” indicating that the company was “the first and remains the best gaming brand in Kenya and SportPesa will be the last gaming operator to ever close in Kenya for whatever reason.”

Friday’s Kenyan media reports were awash in quotes from SportPesa Global CEO Gerasim Nikolov regarding the planned closure, while Karauri was quoted saying “every single local player in the industry will be kicked out” once Kenya’s tax plans took effect.

Daily fantasy sports giant FanDuel may be forced to take out a tithing basket once again and gather more funds from investors after the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) blocked its proposed merger with rival DraftKings.

The Sunday Times reported that FanDuel investors could be forced to inject further funds after the FTC thumbed down the historic merger of the industry’s two biggest DFS operators. FanDuel’s current investors include KKR, Shamrock and Scottish private equity group, Pentech and Scottish Enterprise.

The funding, according to the report, would be on top of the $350m (£270m) investors have already put into FanDuel since it was founded in 2009.

FanDuel’s merger with DraftKings would have been its saving grace especially that its accounts for the period to December 31, 2015 are overdue as of 30 June.

New details have emerged in the Shanghai trial that saw 18 Crown staffers, including three Australians, face short jail terms in China.

The Australian Financial Review obtained a copy of the written judgment by the Shanghai Baoshan district court, which stated that the Australian casino operator issued A$38.5 billion (US$29.26 billion) in “rolling chips” to its Chinese VIP clients last financial year.

In return, Crown Resorts generated A$875 million (US$664.91 million) in VIP revenue from its mainland Chinese visitors. The court ruling noted that the sales plan, profit targets and performance details obtained from Crown indicated the casino company had “increased its targets in mainland China over recent years,” according to the report.

At the center of Crown’s push into China was Jason O’Connor, the casino group’s head of international VIP services. Documents obtained by the Shanghai Public Security Bureau include O’Connor’s itinerary, which, according to the new outlet, showed that the Crown executive “planned to meet important existing clients” as well as “develop potential new clients in mainland China.”

Pennsylvania legislators are now in a deadlock over plans to legalize video gaming terminal in a bid to break the 9-day-old budget stalemate.

Pennlive.com reported that the House and Senate are divided over plans to legalize slot-style video gaming terminals at thousands of bars, restaurants and private clubs across the state in order to support Pennsylvania’s $32 billion 2017-18 state budget.

On one hand, the senate had been pushing for providing new, repeating revenues in the range of $450 million to $550 million for the new fiscal year, with the balance made up by fund transfers and other one-time moves.

The House of Representatives, on the other hand, has been dangling the gambling expansion card as a solution to the budget stalemate. Lawmakers talked about the expansion of “satellite casinos” in secondary markets across Pennsylvania, and the legalization of Internet-based casino games.

Gross gaming revenues of Philippine casinos will bounce back in July following the June 2 Resorts World Manila rampage that left 38 people, including the gunman, dead.

In a note it issued on Saturday, International brokerage Morgan Stanley Asia Ltd. pointed out that the tragic incident in RWM will only have a short-term, negative impact on Philippine casinos. It’s a different story, however, for RWM which it says to have difficulty recovering.

“GGR growth in July should rebound from [the] 5 percent to 10 percent [experienced] year-on-year in June,” Morgan Stanley analysts Alex Poon and Praveen Choudhary pointed out. “Resorts World Manila reopened on June 29, and we expect business for the overall market to recover in July, but Resorts World Manila could see difficulty recovering its lost share completely.”

Last month, state regulator Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation admitted that the suspension of the gaming license of casino operator Travellers International Hotel Group, Inc. has put a dent on the state-regulator’s target revenue for the year.

As more and more companies invest into developing new technologies that could eventually shape the future of humanity, businesses and operators—especially in the online gambling industry—need to be armed with information that will help them prepare for the inevitable.

The upcoming iGaming Super Show 2017 will feature a brand new open conference track designed for suppliers and developers to showcase their newest, innovative and exciting products or software to the entire iGaming industry.

But more than that, the upcoming four-day conference will also host the iGaming Executive Conference, which, for this year, focuses on “disruptive” innovations.

The iGaming Executive Conference, which will be held on July 12, will feature different panels that will discuss technology. Hew Leith, founder and CEO of 10X, will discuss how artificial intelligence will benefit the society at a time when we need it the most.

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has granted Google Ventures-backed bitcoin options service LedgerX the status of a swap execution facility (SEF).

Last week, the U.S. regulator issued an Order of Registration for the Delaware-based institutional derivatives exchange platform for digital currencies. The CFTC registration makes LedgerX “the first federally regulated bitcoin options exchange and clearing house to list and clear fully-collateralized, physically-settled bitcoin options for the institutional market.”

SEFs are platforms that provides pre-trade information like bid and offer prices and a mechanism for executing swap transactions. These facilities operate under the CFTC’s regulatory oversight for swap trading.

After reviewing LedgerX’s application, which was first submitted in January 2017, CFTC said it “has determined” the company has complied with the necessary regulations.

U.S. federal authorities are seeking to forfeit more than $475,000 in alleged net proceeds from an illegal gambling business in Guam that they took down less than seven years ago.

In 2010, members of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Internal Revenue Service busted the unlawful operations of the Overseas Chinese Association Center (OCAC). The organization has permission to run bingo games and was granted tax exempt status based on its stated mission of providing money for off-island travel for the medically indigent, but the feds got suspicious that something was up when the alleged charity’s claims to have disbursed over $400,000 couldn’t be corroborated by receipts showing only $8,000 in payouts.

A federal probe revealed the organization offered cash poker games, with the “house” reportedly taking a 5 percent rake on each pot as well as offering loans to players who’d busted out.

Betsy Ho and Peter Tsai were indicted on two counts of illegal gambling business and 42 counts of money laundering and criminal forfeiture, while five other people—including Ho’s husband—were charged with conspiracy, illegal gambling business, 36 counts of money laundering, as well as three counts of structuring and criminal forfeiture.

Lee Davy continues his poker routines column with a look at the habits of the former Irish Open Champion, and Unibet Ambassador, Ian Simpson.

With close to a million bucks in live tournament earnings on his Hendon Mob resume, an Irish Open championship in the vault, and an ambassadorial position with one of the brightest online poker rooms in the world: Unibet, it’s time to see what goes on underneath the poker hood of Ian Simpson.

When did your aspirations to become a poker player begin?

“I learned the game when I was around five years old when my dad taught me on a rainy day in the Lake District. But I guess it was once I saw poker on TV  that I started having a hunger for the game and wanting it to be a big part of my life.” 

Two stars of the game win their first bracelets after James Calderaro takes down the $25,000 Pot-Limit Omaha High Roller, and Chris Klodnicki wins a $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em event.

I wouldn’t like to be in an interrogation room with James Calderaro and Alexy Rybin either side of me, but I bet that’s how the dealer felt during the heads-up phase of Event #67: $25,000 Pot-Limit Omaha High Roller.

The two businessmen, who view poker, in the same way, a random visitor to a beach views water-skiing, cut an impressive pair when they made the heads-up stage of one of the largest buy-in events of the summer.

205 players posted the $25,000 buy-in hoping to recycle it into a gold bracelet and seven-figure score, 11% more than when Jens Kyllonen took the gold in 2016.