Eastern European gaming operator Olympic Entertainment Group (OEG) is vowing to appeal a court ruling that doomed one of its casinos in Latvia’s capital Riga.

In May 2017, the Riga City Council voted to close all gaming halls in the city’s historic center district, unless they were located in four- or five-star hotels. OEG, which operates seven of the 42 affected venues, vowed to fight the closure order in court.

On Monday, OEG announced that the District Administrative Court in Riga had ruled in favor of the City Council in regards to a specific casino on Raina boulevard 15. Accordingly, the casino must close its doors as ordered by October 2022. OEG CEO Madis Jääger confirmed that the company “will appeal the decision to higher level court.”

Latvia is OEG’s leading market, with a total of 53 gaming venues at the end of last year. Latvia contributed revenue of €69m to OEG’s 2017 annual results, roughly one-third of the company’s overall revenue from land-based and online gambling operations.

UK bookmaker William Hill relied on its online and US divisions to offset a weak retail performance in the first four months of 2018.

In a trading statement issued on Tuesday, Hills reported its overall revenue rising 3% year-on-year in the 17 weeks to April 24. Hills CEO Philip Bowcock called the result a “positive start” to the year and claimed to be making “further progress against our strategic priorities to grow UK market share, drive international revenues and deliver key transformation projects.”

The year-on-year rise doesn’t include Hills’ troubled Australian division, which the company offloaded to local rival CrownBet in March. The Aussie division reported revenue down 22% as online betting turnover fell nearly 40% (primarily due to Hills’ halting marketing efforts). Had those Aussie ops been included, the overall year-on-year gain would have been a more modest 1%.

Overall online revenue improved 12% during the period, driven by a 17% rise in online sports betting, which was itself driven by gross win margins improving 1.3 points to 8.8%. However, taking punters to the cleaners led to “lower recycling” that – in tandem with “client management actions” in international markets – pushed online sports handle down 8%.

The Irish government is hatching yet another plan that will tighten the noose on betting operators in the country.

A new measure seeking to force betting operators to close the accounts of problem gamblers will be introduced on Tuesday as part of the government crackdown on Irish bookmakers, according to The Irish Examiner report. The proposal, which is expected to be presented by Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan before the cabinet, may pave the way for the establishment of an independent gambling regulator that will penalize erring gambling firms.

Political observers also believe that the new law will give the regulator power to force gambling operators to freeze the accounts of cash-strapped problem gamblers who aren’t capable of repaying the large amounts of money they lose in the game.

The state regulator may also deploy undercover agents posing as problem gamblers in order to check whether the bookmakers are faithfully complying and implementing the rules that the government has set, according to the news outlet.

Gaming revenues of Ohio’s casinos hit the brakes in April due to the lackluster performance of one of the state’s four casinos.

Figures from the Ohio Casino Control Commission (OCCC) showed that Ohio’s four casinos raked $71.8 million last month, up by 1 percent from $71.082 million in April 2017. However, monthly comparison indicated that the gaming revenues cooled down last month compared with the 8.3 percent growth that the Ohio gambling facilities posted in March 2018.

The biggest loser for the month of April was Jack Cleveland Casino, which saw its revenues plunging 4.6 percent to $16.7 million. This was the lowest April revenue that Jack Cleveland posted since it opened six years ago.

Jack Cleveland’s revenue was also a surprise since it just recently opened its new electronic table games for millennials called Synergy. The game has 28 electronic play stations, giant video displays, and cool music courtesy of a live DJ.

Investors of Wynn Resorts Ltd. may heave a sigh of relief after Massachusetts gambling regulators agreed to remove the name of embattled casino billionaire Steve Wynn from the license of the company’s $2.5 billion casino resort project near Boston.

In a statement, the Massachusetts Gaming Commission agreed to disregard Wynn as one of the company’s ‘qualifiers’ after a “careful consideration of the evidence and the requirements stipulated by law.”

A ‘qualifier’ is considered to be someone who is a top executive and shareholder of the company. The state regulator conducts thorough background checks on ‘qualifiers’ before deciding whether a casino operator is suitable to be granted a license.

The MGC’s conclusion came after written verification that the casino mogul didn’t exercise voting rights at the 2018 Wynn Resorts shareholders’ meeting. The MGC also recognized Wynn Resorts’ efforts to separate itself from its founder, including the renaming of its casino project from Wynn Boston Harbor to Encore Boston Harbor.

Melco’s spectacular $1.1 billion Klein bottle of a hotel opens next month, and it looks like it’s from another dimension. Morpheus, or to continue the topological pun – the Morpheus strip – looks like something Ayn Rand’s character Howard Roark would have built if he were on psychadelic mushrooms while drawing up the blueprints. It’s going to attract a lot of gamblers looking for an experience, but surprisingly, CEO Lawrence Ho has said that the resort would operate without casino junkets. Maybe so for the first few years, but I have a hard time believing junkets will really have nothing to do with the hotel long term.

The stated purpose of Morpheus is to attract “premium mass market” gamblers. Unlike the qualitative difference between VIP and mass market, there is no qualitative difference between mass market and premium mass market. By qualitative, I don’t mean that VIP patrons bet HK$1 million at time and mass market players bet a few hundred. That’s still quantitative, though it’s a big quantitative. Rather the qualitative difference is that VIP players must come through junkets by virtue of Chinese money laundering regulations.

The primary purpose of a junket is not to connect a VIP with a casino because the casino can’t do it. The casinos could do this themselves if they really wanted to, and save on commissions. The primary purpose of a junket is to provide cover for a casino by providing the credit that a VIP gamer needs in order to stake enormous wagers because he can’t transfer that amount of money across the border by law. The amenities are just a way that junkets compete with one another in order to attract the VIPs in the first place, but their primary function is as a provider of credit, which legally and technically circumvents Chinese restrictions on movement of capital from the Chinese mainland to Macau.

The reason casinos don’t ferry in VIPs directly is not that they can’t, but that it would be, for lack of a better way of putting it, bleeping where you eat. The Chinese government knows very well what junkets do, that their very existence is for the exclusive purpose of circumventing capital controls, and whether Beijing puts up with it or not depends on little more than the prevailing mood in the capital. If casinos were involved in this endeavor themselves, it risks directing regulatory wrath on the casino directly, rather than letting a junket middleman take the fire if the prevailing mood changes.

Last November, an up-and-coming poker player met an untimely ending when the car she was riding in crashed against a concrete post in heavy fog. 42-year-old Emma Fryer, from Nottingham, England, was in Rozvadov, Czech Republic, to participate in the WSOPE, when, on her way back to the tournament, the accident occurred. Fryer was considered by many to be a rising star in the poker world, and her death created ripples across the entire industry. Now, the memory of “The Poker Queen” has been honored through a charity event that raised money for The Donna Louise Children’s Hospice in the UK.

Dozens turned out for the event, held at the Genting Casino in Hanley, an hour south of Manchester. Fryer was close to the charity group when she was alive, so it was only fitting that an event be held in her honor. Fryer’s daughter, Jess, said, “She was close to The Donna Louise so that is the charity we have chosen to raise the money for. Mum was a caring and loving person and was passionate about poker. She was the Poker Queen, so this is a fitting tribute to her.”

The tournament was organized by the Genting Casino and provided an estimated prize pool of just under $9,500. All of the profits went to The Donna Louise. A Genting card room manager, Simon Duckers, said, “I’ve been working in card rooms for 11 years and Emma would play in the card rooms. She was really popular with the poker community, so we wanted to do something for her.”

Fryer had been seen at the tournament tables in the UK for about six years prior to the accident. She played mostly low-stakes games for the first several years, but had been working her way up the ladder. At the time of her death, she was working at bet365.

Melco is set to open a $1.1-billion hotel tower next month in Macau. It is banking on high rollers to drive its success and will do so without the assistance of junkets but, rather, through an anticipated resurgence in activity in the gambling mecca.

Junkets have been around for almost as long as gambling has been available in Macau. Junket operators work as middlemen, attracting wealthy gamblers to the casinos by offering luxury promotions and other personalized services. They also act as bank-like entities, lending money to players and collecting debts. In return, they are given a commission by the casinos for their services.

Macau’s government recently began an initiative to focus less on gambling and more on a diverse set of tourist offerings to the area. It also increased scrutiny of junkets over concerns that they could be used for money-laundering activities. This increase in governmental oversight played a part in Melco’s decision to move away from relationships with the junket operators.

Melco’s chairman, Lawrence Ho, feels that the success the casinos have seen so far this year provide the sector with a strong foundation to become more independent, and not rely on the “crutch” of the junkets. In announcing the move away from junkets, he told Reuters, “Eventually it’s much better to develop your own database than rely on junkets.”

Moldova, Romania’s eastern neighbor, intended for gambling to be a state-controlled monopoly, giving it the ability to reap all of the rewards. It now appears that it might have been a larger task than it was prepared to handle, and the country’s Public Property Agency (PPA) has struck a deal with two foreign companies, according to a Balkan Insight report. That deal will create public-private partnerships for the companies to manage all of the country’s gambling and lottery operations.

Novo Gaming M Technologies GmbH, part of Austria’s Novomatic consortium, will take control of all slot machines in the country. Novomatic is owned by Austrian billionaire Johann Graf and has operations in 45 countries. It exports high-tech gaming equipment to private companies in over 70 countries across the globe. Novomatic has 25,500 employees worldwide and more than 2,100 entities that offer 260,000 gaming and electronic roulette machines.

Lotteries and sports betting activities, meanwhile, will be overseen by NGM SPC Limited. NGM is a conglomerate created out of an alliance between Market AD, NGM and National Lottery AD. All three are a part of National Lottery AD, Bulgaria’s largest licensed gambling operator. National Lottery, according to media reports, has seen the greatest growth rates in all of Southeastern Europe over the past three years.

National Lottery is owned by Vasil Krumov Bozhkov, a Bulgarian that was recently exposed as having possible ties to money laundering after WikiLeaks published U.S. diplomatic telegrams that identified him as “the Skull.” In the documents, he was identified as being involved in “money laundering, privatization fraud, intimidation, extortion and racketeering,” but he has never been charged.

Michigan might be back in the online gambling race after Gambling Compliance chief, Chris Krafcik, tells all that State Senator Rep. Brandt Iden is busy trying to whip up votes for a revised iGaming bill in the state.

I’m on the beach, stones trying to break into my bloodstream via the soft pulp of my sissy feet. I’m knocking a yellow foam ball back and fore to a 14-year-old kid.

“Can we play poker, later?”

“I don’t know.” Said his Mum, standing a few feet away.

Nepal casino operator Silver Heritage Group has bid an abrupt goodbye to its chairman David Green.

On Monday, the Australian-listed Silver Heritage informed investors that its chairman and non-executive director David Green (pictured) had tendered his resignation as director “with immediate effect.” The brief announcement stated only that Green had quit “for personal reasons and also to enable him to focus upon other business interests.”

The company thanked Green for his “considerable effort and input during his tenure as director.” Matthew Hunter, an independent director since 2014, has been installed as interim chairman.

The company offered no guidance on what process might be forthcoming to find a permanent replacement, strongly suggesting that Green’s exit was something of a surprise.

partypoker LIVE become the primary sponsor of the Triton Poker High Roller series in Montenegro, and Matt Kirk and Leon Tsoukernik kiss and makeup ahead of wild swings in the partypoker Big Game.

Phil Galfond tells the world that that Heads-Up Displays (HUDs) are as welcome on RunItOnce (RIO) Poker as Police Battalion 101 was to Poland in the early 1940s.

A bell sounds in my empty head.

In the past week or so, between 22:00 and midnight, I have laid down next to my little bundle of love reading Michael Schrager’s classic tale Who Do You Want Your Customers to Become?

More bad news for the Asian poker community as PokerStars curtail their relationship with the City of Dreams, the Galaxy Macau says zaijian to cash games, and the International Poker Tour curtail Macau event.

I have a feeling I am going to be spending some time in Asia this year. A part of me that wants to track down my biological sperm donor. The faint thought appears like the heartbeat of a dying man, usually when I am in the urinal trying to avoid the splash backs.

Where would I start looking for him?

I know, when he was younger he was deported to Hong Kong for his part in an armed robbery. If there’s such a thing as a gambling gene, I think the best place to start looking may be the poker tables of Macau.

The Global Lottery Monitoring System plans to mitigate illegal esports betting practices after becoming a fully fledged member of the Esports Integrity Coalition, and ESSA reports an increase in Q1, 2018 suspicious betting alerts. 

When Bayern Munich’s goalkeeper, Sven Ulreich, inexplicably rolled over the ball to allow Karim Benzema to send Real Madrid into another Champions League final, I couldn’t help wonder if someone had bribed him.

The thought was instinctual, and yet, it wasn’t that long ago, that a cock-up of Bruce Grobbelaar proportions would have been put down to a simple mistake, and not potential cooking of the books.

How things have changed.

Atlantic City will welcome not one but two new casinos on the same day in June.

On Monday, Colorado developer Bruce Deifik’s AC Ocean Walk announced that it plans to open the Ocean Resort Casino – the formerly bankrupt Revel – on June 28. Defik’s company bought the shuttered $2.4b Revel in January for a mere $200m and has since committed $175m to ridding the property of its heady aroma of mothballs and defeat.

Ocean Resort Casino CEO Frank Leone said June 28 represented “the culmination of all our planning” and the company “cannot wait to reveal what we have been working on” for the property’s prospective guests. Leone added that June 28 would be “a special day for Atlantic City as it turns the page on a new chapter of revitalization.”

Special, perhaps, but it’s also something of a dick move, given that Hard Rock International announced last month that it was opening its Hard Rock Atlantic City – the former Trump Taj Mahal – on June 28. As such, Deifik’s firm could be said to be unnecessarily hogging some of HRI’s spotlight.