Australia’s online gambling watchdog has uncovered 19 breaches of that country‘s new gambling law in its first investigation since the new rules took effect.

Last week, the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) published its first report into suspected violations of the Interactive Gambling Act 2001, which was amended last year to ban credit betting, in-play sports betting and non-betting products such as online casino and poker.

The ACMA report covers the three-month period starting September 13, 2017, during which the regulator received 108 enquiries and complaints regarding suspected violations of the amended Act. Of these complaints, 38 were found to be valid and led the ACMA to launch 18 separate investigations.

Ten of these investigations uncovered 19 instances of breaches of the Act, including nine related to providing a prohibited interactive gambling service, eight related to providing an unlicensed regulated interactive gambling service, and two related to advertising a prohibited or unlicensed regulated interactive gambling service.

The European Court of Justice (CJEU) has thrown out a petition from the government of Belgium seeking to annul the online gambling guidelines set by the European Commission to member states.

The Belgian government has earlier asked the CJEU to strike down the commission guidelines that aims to develop a high degree of consumer protection, claiming that the European Commission has stepped beyond its Treaty-based competences by issuing the guidelines.

In junking Belgium’s petition, the European court ruled that the commission didn’t see anything wrong when the defendant published a number of practical online gambling recommendations to member states in 2014.

After an analysis, the court rejected Belgium’s arguments that the commission went beyond its mandate and interfered with the sovereignty of member states and their power to regulate national gambling markets.

The Kiwis apparently couldn’t resist the allure of big lottery jackpots last year.

Stuff reported that New Zealanders took out an extra NZ$125 million (US$91 million) from their pockets to gamble last year, citing statistics from the country’s Department of Internal Affairs (DIA).

From NZ$2.2 billion ($1.63 billion) in 2016, the DIA announced that the Kiwi’s gambling expenditure rose by 5.35 percent to NZ$2.33 billion ($1.72 billion) last year. The government said that the residents gambled more money in lottery, followed by pokies machines.

Data showed that money spent on lotteries climbed 28 percent. New Zealand lotteries saw its product sales jump 26.8 percent to NZ$555 million ($408.37 million) in 2017 from NZ$437 million ($321.54 million) in 2016.

Barcelona, ​​February 20, 2018. Casino Barcelona Online, the online division of Casino Barcelona has signed a software license agreement with Prima Networks, powered by Microgaming, to diversify the premium casino games currently offered by CasinoBarcelona.es. Microgaming content is available to Casino Barcelona Online via the software company’s award-winning Quickfire platform.

Xavier Ballester, Director of the Casino Barcelona Online, ​​comments: “This agreement, with one of the major industry providers, is very important for us, because we can increase the number of games we offer to our players, with great titles such as, Immortal Romance, Dragonz, Game of Thrones® and others. At the moment the Quickfire platform will supply us with more than 100 slots in desktop version and the same amount in mobile version. This agreement is part of our strategy. Casino Barcelona (and online casino too) always strives to offer its players the most complete selection of games and content with the highest levels of quality”.

Andrew Clucas, Director of Quickfire at Microgaming, adds: “Casinos Grup Peralada is a flagship casino operator in the Spanish market and it is fantastic to be working with them through their online division, Casino Barcelona Online. This launch reflects Quickfire’s continued expansion in Spain, with a growing list of well-known operators adding Microgaming content to create a more competitive offering and an enhanced gaming experience for their players.

“Through the Quickfire platform, Casino Barcelona Online have access to a large portfolio of top-performing slots, as well as new games each month.”

Breaching anti-money laundering laws and social responsibility protocols entails hefty costs, a lesson that British bookmaker William Hill learned the hard way.

The wagering firm has been fined £6.2 million (US$8.6 million) on charges of turning a blind eye on 10 customers who reportedly managed to deposit dirty money, the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) said.

It was the biggest fine that the UKGC handed to a gambling operator this year and the second biggest penalty imposed by the agency since it hit betting firm 888 Holdings with a £7.8 million fine in 2017.

Aside from imposing fines, the UKGC also ordered Hills to appoint external auditors to review its anti-money laundering and social responsibility protocols. The UKGC pointed out that Hills “failed to mitigate risks and have sufficient numbers of staff to ensure their anti-money laundering and social responsibility processes were effective.”

Caesars went bankrupt because it was part of a heavily leveraged buyout just before the last major financial crisis. It’s been ten years since the last major financial crisis, and Caesars has emerged from that near-death experience leaner, a little bit wiser, and hungry for growth. If it wants to survive the next financial crisis, the best thing it can do is stay conservative and lean out its balance sheet as fast as possible, balancing shareholder expectations and financial health, leaning a bit more heavily towards financial health.

This may not be possible, because shareholders may not stand for it. They want to see growth and they want to see it now, and so does Caesars management. I can’t blame them. Going for growth is fine as long as it’s cheap, but now is definitely not the time to incur more debt or risk for the sake of expansion. According to a report in Bloomberg published in July, expansion is exactly what Caesars is going for:

Las Vegas-based Caesars is chasing opportunities in Japan, Canada, Australia, Brazil and Dubai, [CEO Mark] Frissora said. A planned casino in South Korea catering only to foreigners is still on track, he said, despite a Chinese restriction on travel to the country due to Seoul’s deployment of an antimissile system.

If this was just Frissora sounding off in order to generate some excitement about the company after a long, tiring, depressing bankruptcy, then fine. But expanding into these countries is going to be a problem when core markets in Las Vegas and Atlantic City are at risk of further deterioration.

Last November, tragedy hit Double Bay, Australia, when a well-known professional poker player from the area ran into a cyclist with his car, resulting in the cyclist’s death. Warwick Mirzikinian, a 49-year-old poker player and businessman, crashed into 24-year-old French cyclist Julien Trameaux, who was working as a bicycle food courier at the time.

While Mirzikinian was named as the driver of the car after the incident, he was not officially charged at the time. That has now changed, and he has been cited with dangerous driving occasioning death and negligent driving occasioning death, authorities said.

The first offense carries a possible prison sentence of up to 10 years, and the second provides for up to 18 months behind bars. Mirzikinian could also be fined more than $10,000, and potentially face litigation by Trameaux’s family. He is still a free man, but will have to appear in court on April 18 to respond to the charges.

The Aussie poker pro has a long record of tournament wins behind him. His first cash came at the Aussie MILLIONS series in 2008, and he continued to work the tables until January of this year. He has earned about $756,000 in live tournaments, and his largest single cash win came at the 2017 Sydney Championships where he picked up a little more than $197,000. He’ll have a hard time living up to his promise of winning big at poker. After winning the Star Sydney Championships 6-Max event, Mirzikinian said, “I am going to do so much winning that people are going to get bored of me winning.”