British Columbia’s government-owned gambling monopoly earned record income in its most recent fiscal year, thanks in part to an equally record-breaking online performance.

This week, the British Columbia Lottery Corporation (BCLC) released its fiscal 2017-18 report for the 12 months ending March 31, 2018. The Crown Corporation reported record revenue of C$3.27b (US$2.53b), up C$123m over 2016-17’s result, while net income rose C$61.5m to a record C$1.4b (US$1.08b).

BCLC’s casino and community gaming division – 15 casinos, 18 community centers, two racecourse casinos and five bingo halls – reported record revenue of C$1.95b. The revenue gain was largely due to slots rising nearly 7% to C$1.37b, while table games were up less than 1% to C$492.7m.

That meek table game performance is almost certainly to increased regulatory scrutiny following the ongoing scandal involving rampant money laundering at BC casinos, most prominently Richmond’s River Rock Casino, which is managed by Great Canadian Gaming Corp.

Mobile casino operator LeoVegas has officially launched its new BetUK brand, the company’s first operation that hails sports betting as its primary focus.

On Wednesday, LeoVegas announced the formal relaunch of its new BetUK betting brand, which the company acquired – along with 21co.uk and other online casino brands – in January from Intellectual Property & Software Ltd (IPS) for £65m.

Leovegas CEO Gustaf Hagman said his company adheres to a “successful global brand strategy” that, under the right circumstances can be “complemented with a local multi-brand strategy.” Hagman said the UK market is “very large and mature, which creates scope to work with more brands that attract different types of customers.”

In July, LeoVegas announced a deal with sports betting solutions provider SBTech to power BetUK’s revamped sportsbook. BetUK recently made news as the new shirt sponsor of footballers Swansea City AFC, which will further elevate the brand’s profile.

Two UK online gambling operators have agreed to lift restrictions on customer withdrawals and regulators are warning other sites to adopt similar policies or face the consequences.

On Wednesday, the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) announced that Jumpman Gaming and Progress Play had agreed to scrap rules that required some customers to withdraw their account funds in stages over an extended period and to stop confiscating funds from so-called ‘dormant’ accounts.

The CMA announced in March that it had launched an “enforcement action” against gambling sites that placed “unfair obstacles” in the way of customers withdrawing their funds. These obstacles included daily, weekly or monthly withdrawal limits and impossibly short timelines under which customers were required to respond to identification checks.

The CMA singled out Progress Play as having agreed to forego its ID-check response times. The CMA said operators “cannot justify confiscating someone’s money simply because they do not provide information within a specific time frame.”

According to the Japanese media outlet Nihon Keizai Shinbun, there are now almost 40 municipalities in the country that are interested in joining the bidding process for Japan’s recently approved integrated resort (IR) market. It’s going to be a tough competition, however, as only three IRs are expected to be authorized in the initial round. Any additional IR approvals won’t come for another five to seven years following the launch of the first three.

Earlier this month, Japan’s Cabinet held an “IR Explanation Meeting” with local governments and tourism officials. The turnout was better than expected and the licensing process is going to be more arduous than originally anticipated.

The Cabinet stressed in the meeting that the government wants to move quickly on selecting the finalists for the first three IR locations. If a municipality wants to be considered, it is going to have to start making preparations immediately to ensure that its bid is accepted properly.

Many anticipate that some of the municipalities will back off and decide not to try for an IR during round one. However, as indicated by the media outlet, there was little indication that so many municipalities were interested in being considered.

In October 2017, Stephen Paddock launched a cold-blooded attack from the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas that took 57 innocent lives and wounded over 500 more before taking his own life. This past Sunday, David Katz brutally killed two people before killing himself after he lost a competition during the Madden NFL 19 eSports tournament in Jacksonville, Florida. Now, according to Poker Hall of Famer Mike Sexton, it might be time for casinos and other gaming facilities to consider installing metal detectors.

Sexton posted his thoughts on Twitter, saying, “It’s a sad state of affairs but it should be obvious by now that if we want to curb senseless shootings (inside buildings anyway), we need to install metal detectors at every school, arena, and store/building where there is substantial traffic.”

Card Player Magazine got in touch with Sexton for more insight on his comments and was told, “Sadly, I’ve always worried about some poker player who went broke or felt he got a bad ruling to come back and start blasting. It’s a concern. I predict casinos will all go to metal detectors in the not too distant future.”

It’s certainly not an idea that is without merit. Despite areas such as Nevada having laws that allow its citizens to carry firearms, there are some areas where they simply don’t need to be present. Having metal detectors may seem like an infringement of individual rights; however, what is better for society is more important than what is better for the individual.

Danish iGaming tool provider Better Collective posted revenue of €9.7 million ($11.3 million) during the second quarter of 2018, up 93% from last year’s €5 million ($5.85 million) for the same period.

In its interim report, company CEO Jesper Søgaard said, “Q2 2018 not only turned out to be the best performing quarter in the company’s history. It also saw Better Collective’s entry on the Nasdaq Stockholm stock exchange, our largest M&A deal to date, and a breakthrough in sports betting legislation in the US.”

Revenue for the first half of the year was €17.2 million ($20.1 million), up 68% from January to June 2017.

The company, however, posted a second-quarter loss of €1.26 million ($1.47 million), in contrast with last year’s €1.47 million ($1.72 million) profit for the same quarter. The loss was attributed to “special items of -3,854 tEUR,” which “include certain IPO-cost and M&A cost that were expensed over the P&L.” For the entire first half of the year, the loss was limited to €123,000 ($144,000).