Gaming-related receipts in Macau rose 18.7% year-on-year to MOP268 billion ($33.2 billion) in 2017, according to the city state government’s latest Gaming Sector Survey.

In its press release, the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) noted that it was the first year-on-year increase since 2013. Much of the growth was “driven by the growth in VIP gaming business.”

The figures affirm data that DSAC had released earlier this year showing the Special Administrative Region’s gross domestic product (GDP) was up 9.1% to MOP404.2 billion ($50 billion), its best economic output since 2013, when GDP grew 11.2%.

The latest data was collected from the 10 enterprises engaged in gaming activities, whose total expenditure amounted to MOP114.9 billion ($14.2 billion), 18.5% higher than in 2016. Of the total expenditure, the purchase of goods, commission paid and customer rebates increased 23% year-on-year to MOP60.9 billion ($7.5 billion), for 53% of total expenditures.

888 is finally underperforming for once, with earnings for the first half of 2018 scheduled for release by the end of the month. Since May 1 just before the overturning of the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act, shares are down 8%. Compared to its gaming peers it hasn’t had a great quarter, at least not in terms of price action. William Hill is up 4.2%, Paddy Power Betfair is up 17%, and Sportech is up 16%. Even the FTSE 100 is up just barely. True, 888 outperforms all of them on a longer timeframe, but as investor attention spans get shorter and shorter, along with everyone’s attention span for that matter brought down to about the length of an average Tweet, the question always goes back to What have you done for me lately?

Now looks like a good entry point for a establishing or adding to an 888 position, though not all at once. There is still quite a bit of roller coaster ahead for the United Kingdom, and stocks of all shapes and sizes in all industries are going to be whipsawed back and forth all the way through April from here, probably including 888. What makes now a decent entry point is that 888 is over 30% below highs and doesn’t typically underperform for too long, so even if it goes down further from here, it probably won’t go down as much as its competitors.

Most UK gambling stocks began falling towards the last week of May. Blame it on misplaced euphoria from the overturning of PASPA when it began to sink in for investors that the United States is still, sort of but not really, a confederation of independent states, and that sports betting would have to be legalized in each of them separately for a market to exist. We were never going to see a unified, homogenous, American sportsbook market materialize overnight. Leave it to Great Britain to overlook that, being that King George is kind of the one that inspired the Founding Fathers, minus Hamilton but that’s another story, to forego a strong central government.

888 had the highest initial jump on the PASPA news due to the combination of it already having a small foothold in the US market and that its sports segment had been its fastest growing at 45% in 2017. That initial momentum may have contributed to bringing it down since. That, and as has happened several times in 888’s recent past, earnings had already been smashed by a tax that had nothing at all to do with any fundamentals surrounding its business operations. An additional fine levied for not filtering out self-excluded customers well enough brought exceptional charges in 2017 up to the stratospheric $51 million. Had it not been for those two unfortunate incidents, 2017 earnings would have been up on 2016 by about 15%. Instead they were down 68%.

Earlier this year, casinos in Goa were hit with a service tax on their license fees by Goa’s indirect tax department. Casino owners and operators balked at the idea, asserting that Goa had no legal authority to demand the tax. It now appears as though they are probably correct, as the Bombay High Court is demanding that the Goa tax department justify why the service fees were introduced.

This past January, the tax department issued ten notices to the largest casinos in Goa and asked them to pay a tax on license fees for a three-year period that ran from 2014 to 2016. The casinos didn’t agree and filed their case with the courts.

A writ petition filed with the Goa bench of the High Court by attorney Abhishek Rastogi after the service fee was introduced argued that it amounted to a statutory levy, as opposed to a fee for services implemented by the state government. As such, it was outside the definition of a service tax. “Demanding tax on statutory license fees is absurd. It’s like demanding a tax on passport fees paid to the government. Based on a circular, the DRI has initiated an investigation for applicability of service tax,” he said.

He added, “The issue is expected to be pragmatically resolved by the GST Council, as has been the past experience. The repercussions of the unresolved issue are very serious and huge impact could be on other activities.”

Last year, Kazuo Okada was ousted as the chairman and director of the company he founded over allegations of fraud. He denied all wrongdoing, but last month was arrested by Hong Kong authorities, supposedly on fraud charges, and subsequently released. Now, the embattled businessman is asking that his operations be returned to him and has turned to the courts to try and make this happen.

Okada’s company, Tiger Resort, Leisure and Entertainment, Inc. (TRLEI), founded the Okada Manila casinos resort. In a filing with the Parañaque City Regional Trial Court from August 29, he claims that his removal from TRLEI was unlawful and asks that the court give him back control of the company.

The complaint lists TRLEI, Tiger Resort Asia Limited (TRAL) and several directors of both TRLEI and TRAL. The TRLEI directors named in the complaint are Steven Wolstenholme, Manuel Lazaro, Antonio Cojuangco, Kenji Sugiyama, Reynaldo David and Yoshinao Negishi. The TRAL directors are Takako Okada and Kenshi Asano.

The 24-page filing argues that “Mr. Okada’s removal as a shareholder, Director, Chairman and CEO of TRLEI is null and void ab initio pursuant to Section 28 of the Corporation Code. It produces no legal effect whatsoever.” It further states, “Under Section 28 of the Corporation Code, only TRAL, which owns 99.9 percent of TRLEI, may remove Mr. Okada as a shareholder and director of TRLEI.”

A popular Texas Hold’em poker video game has met its demise. The game is one of many offered by Tencent Holdings in China, but a recent increase in government scrutiny of the country’s gaming industry is causing a number of companies to rethink their offerings.

The “Everyday Texas Hold’em” was shut down yesterday. The game’s server will be turned off as of September 24 and all users will be compensated in according with Ministry of Culture regulations.

Tencent is based in Shenzhen and collects a significant amount of its profits from gaming. However, government censorship and increased regulations have been seen this year. The pressure has already forced Tencent to pull one successful game and censure others.

Due to the exaggerated government control being introduced this year, Tencent has already suffered serious financial defeats. On top of the losses related directly to the games, the company saw its market value plummet around $20 billion in a single day in August over increased concerns that the government was going to begin limiting all gaming.

Zynga and the World Poker Tour (WPT) first announced a new partnership toward the end of last year. Now, the relationship is being taken to the next level as Zynga has announced that players can experience the “authentic tournament style play that the [WPT] is known for.” It is Zynga’s largest ever in-game partnership.

According to a press release, Zynga said, “We are incredibly thrilled to see the next step in the transformational multi-year partnership between the World Poker Tour and Zynga Poker come to life with the launch of WPT®-themed tournaments on the world’s largest free-to-play poker platform.”

Zynga’s President of Publishing, Bernard Kim, said, “Our Zynga Poker players are an extremely passionate group who aspire to feel like true poker champions. Our World Poker Tour-themed tournaments enhance our free-to-play Zynga Poker social casino experience and bring the most premier name in the sport of poker directly into the player’s hands. We are thrilled to invite the World Poker Tour into our virtual world to create an even more authentic and immersive experience that players will love.”

The upgraded platform will offer several features, including an authentic WPT experience, higher stakes and bigger payouts and faster tournaments. It will offer a new “WPT Tournament mode,” a wider range of stakes and the ability to compete in nine-person tables, as well as five-person tables.

Wynn Macau Limited is warning of an increase in “fraudulent online gambling and investment websites” using the ‘Wynn’ name, as well as names of other legitimate businesses and governmental authorities.

In its interim report, the Hong Kong-listed casino operator said these websites often prominently display logos and trademarks of known entities. “We do not offer online gambling or investment accounts. Websites offering these or similar activities and opportunities that use our names, such as ‘Wynn Resorts (Macau) S.A.’, ‘Wynn’-related trademarks, including our marks for ‘Wynn Macau’ and ‘Wynn Palace’, or similar names or images in likeness to ours, are doing so without our authorization and possibly unlawfully and with criminal intent,” it said.

In the company’s view, its intellectual property assets, “especially the logo version of ‘WYNN,’ are among our most valuable assets.” It is actively reporting such websites and pursuing legal remedies, but also said litigation for this “may be costly and may not be successful in protecting and preserving the status and value of our intellectual property assets.” Wynn Macau operates both the Wynn Macau and Wynn Palace hotel-casinos.

Just last month, in China’s Jiangsu province, police reportedly arrested 56 suspects connected to a ‘transnational’ internet gambling ring whose business amounted to about $1.1 billion. In a separate bust in the same province, police arrested 63 people suspected of involvement in the operation of five gambling sites that were using trademarks of SJM Holdings’ New Lisboa Casino and Sands China’s Venetian.

The future of a $1-billion casino in Massachusetts is beginning to fade. A ruling by the US Department of the Interior (DOI) last Friday confirmed that it will not be able to hold land in trust for the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe, which had hoped to bring the casino to the state’s landscape. The ruling reverses a decision that was made by the DOI when Barack Obama was still president of the US.

According to the 28-page ruling, the tribe doesn’t qualify to have land placed in a trust since it wasn’t under federal jurisdiction when the US government passed the Indian Reorganization Act in 1934. The tribe, which asserts that its ancestors can be traced back almost four centuries, was only recognized by the federal government in 2007.

The ruling is a “tremendous blow” to efforts by the tribe to preserve its reservation, which was granted to it by the DOI a few years ago. The DOI gave the tribe 321 acres through a trust in 2015, later declaring it sovereign land of the Mashpee people.

A land in trust is a special status awarded by the federal government that holds the title of a particular property. It allows the tribe to which the trust is awarded to use the land freely and make its own decisions regarding things like natural resources and development.

The first Sunday of legal wagering on National Football League games outside Nevada brought plenty of excitement, but much of Monday’s talk was about a casino operator’s ties to a completely different league.

New Jersey sports bettors got their seventh digital wagering option on Monday via the first stateside appearance of 888sport, the sports betting brand of UK-listed online gambling operator 888 Holdings.

The new 888 sports product is available via desktop and mobile devices and is powered by European betting tech provider Kambi, which providing similar NJ betting backbones for DraftKings and PlaySugarHouse. Kambi and 888 have been linked since 2013, when 888 debuted its first Kambi-powered sportsbook.

888 CEO Itai Freiberger called the New Jersey wagering launch “a major milestone” for his company, which now offers sports, casino and poker products in New Jersey. Freiberger says 888 is hungrily eyeing expansion into other US states that may eventually realize that online gambling doesn’t actually carry cooties.

Brandon Adams takes the early lead in the 2018 Poker Masters after taking down Event #2: $25,000 No-Limit Hold’em, a few days shy of finishing fourth in Event #1: $10,000 NLHE.

Maxence Cyrin sends a melody into my mind, racing ahead of a piano desperate to slam its teeth into the tools of her trade.

Clubbed to Death. 

That’s how I feel.