Online lottery betting operators like Lottoland are to blame for ticket price hikes, according to the Irish National Lottery’s chief exec.

On Thursday, the Irish Times quoted Irish National Lottery CEO Dermot Griffin slamming lottery betting operators as “rogues” that are “siphoning off” revenue from his business. Said siphoning is also allegedly shrinking the Lottery’s contributions to good causes, which totaled €226m in 2017.

Griffin (pictured) failed to quantify the effect that lottery betting is having on his outfit’s sales, saying only that hard information was hard to come by “but we know we’re losing something.” Griffin claimed the alleged rogues were responsible for cannibalizing up to 20% of state lottery sales in the UK and Australia. Lottoland received its Irish online betting license in 2016.

National Lottery spokesperson Miriam Donohue said Premier Lotteries Ireland (PLI), which won a 20-year license to operate Ireland’s lottery in 2014, is being forced to up its marketing spending in order to compete with lottery betting operators on Google search results.

Nevada casino gaming revenue took a slight dip in July, snapping a five-month winning streak.

Figures published Thursday by the Nevada Gaming Control Board show the state’s casinos generated gaming revenue of $996.4m in July, an improvement on June’s $933m but a 0.16% decline from the same month last year. The decline was blamed on the Las Vegas Strip, where gaming revenue slipped 5.7% to $565.6m.

Slot machines did their bit to keep July in the black, with revenue up 5.6% to $667.8m. But the GCB’s new category of ‘table, counter and card games’ was off 10.2% to $328.6m, with nearly uniform declines in all table game totals.

Baccarat revenue was an impressive $101m but this was down 16.4% year-on-year despite a 13% win rate. Blackjack was down 6.6% to $93.4m and craps slid 13.3% to $35.1m. Roulette was the outlier, reporting revenue up 1.6% to $32.8m.

Finland’s Veikkaus gambling monopoly reported a slight turnover decline in the first half of 2018 after introducing new problem gambling controls.

This week, Veikkaus announced that its total sales in the six months ending June 30 came to €1.59b, down 0.3% from the same period last year. Despite the turnover decline, revenue improved 1.8% to €875m and profit rose 2.5% to €505.5m.

Veikkaus encompasses three state-run businesses – lotteries, race and sports betting, and land-based slot machines – that were combined into a single unit in early 2017.

Veikkaus gets most of its business via lotteries, but combined land-based and digital slots sales were up 5.4% to €413.6m, while sports betting turnover fell 1.6% to €281.4m, despite the impact of the 2018 FIFA World Cup. Retail betting was fingered as the culprit, as retail turnover fell nearly 10% while digital betting rose 2.1%.

Another interview from the PokerStars European Poker Tour Barcelona, and this time, Lee Davy gets to fire five questions at the European golfing legend Sergio Garcia.

There’s nothing worse that clamping the cans around your ears, turning on Spotify, and forgetting that the volume is at peak level. I am going deaf. A short, sharp blast of a Röyksopp tune is only going to advance my disability.

Yesterday, I felt deaf at the PokerStars European Poker Tour Barcelona, for an hour, at least. And yet, a hazardous madness of noise surrounded me. It was during the press conference for Sergio Garcia and Gerard Pique.

I was a press conference virgin.

Genting Malaysia reported a doubling of profits in the second quarter of 2018 compared to the same period last year, in a filing with the Bursa Malaysia.

The company had a profit of MYR378.3 million ($91.6 million) for the months April to June, 117% higher than MYR174 million ($42.1 million) reported in the same period last year.

Revenue was MYR2.42 billion ($586 million), a 5.7% increase from last year’s second-quarter revenue of MYR2.29 billion ($554 million). The company also noted an adjusted EBITDA for the period of MYR701.8 million ($170 million), 31% higher than the previous year period.

Of the total revenue, MYR1.59 billion ($385 million) came from the casino operator’s leisure and hospitality businesses in Malaysia, where EBITDA grew 24% to MYR540.2 million ($130.8 million).

A recent decision by the Chinese Ministry of Public Security could help pave the way for more mainlanders to hop across the borders. The decision to revamp a visa rule will make it easier for as many as eight million Chinese to visit Hong Kong, Taiwan or Macau, as long as they travel as part of a tour group. The new rule becomes effective on September 1.

Previously, the law stipulated that Chinese citizens had to return to where they maintain their official residence in order to receive a visa. Since a great number of individuals live outside of the city of their official registration, due to work or other obligations, receiving the visa was a tedious process. With the change, they will no longer have to return to their registered city in order to obtain the permit.

The renewed rule expands on previously introduced legislation from 2016. At that time, the MPS implemented a policy that allowed some citizens to apply for an Individual Visit Scheme (IVS) permit, which authorized travel to Macau and Hong Kong from the city in which the citizens were living and bypassed the registered city requirement. However, this was only available for certain citizens in select cities.

During the first seven months of 2018, 70%, or just under 14 million, of the tourists that visited Macau came from mainland China. In that period, 6.84 million mainlanders visited Macau with an IVS permit, 13% more than seen during the same period last year.

Ainsworth Game Technology, an Australia-based manufacturer of slot machines, reports that its previous fiscal year profit was $23.3 million, a 15.8% decline over the previous fiscal year. Its revenue for the period fell 5.8% compared to last year, coming in at $194.2 million. Pre-tax profit also declined, falling about 9.8% to around $30.9 million. All figures are in US dollars.

The company’s EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, debt and amortization) slipped 3.3% year-on-year to $49.7 million. Adjusted EBITDA, accounting for currency impacts and other items, dropped by 19.6% year-on-year to $49.4 million.

If there is a silver lining in the numbers, it’s that sales increased during the second half of the fiscal year. The total brought in for the half was $106.2 million , while only $87.9 million was recorded for the first half. Ainsworth sold 9,714 units during the fiscal year, a drop of 9% from the previous period.

The decline came from “lower Asia, New Zealand and Europe Sales” for the period, according to the report. There was also a one-off impairment loss of $658,207 that stemmed from an “Asian trade receivable.”

Singapore took in around $1.1 billion in the first quarter of the year, thanks to an increase in gaming, tourism and entertainment spending. The figure represents a 6% increase over the same period last year. Total tourism receipts during the period, however, actually decreased by 0.5% over the first quarter of last year to $4.9 billion.

The data was provided by the Singapore Tourism Board this past Tuesday and indicated that an increase in spending on entertainment, sightseeing and gaming made up for a loss seen in spending on accommodations, shopping, eating and drinking. The numbers show that revenues from entertainment, sightseeing and gaming provided 22% of the total revenue. This put it in a tie with shopping for the second-most important tourism-spending component for the first quarter of the year.

The tourism board doesn’t provide a detailed analysis of the services that are listed in each spending category. However, the combined category of “entertainment, sightseeing and gaming” is reported to include entrance fees to nightspots and attractions, day tour purchases and spending on entertainment at Singapore’s casino resorts.

There are two casino resorts in Singapore – Marina Bay Sands, which is operated by Las Vegas Sands, and Resorts World Sentosa, a Genting Singapore property.