While Typhoon Mangkhut may have caused a considerable amount of damage and loss of life, it doesn’t appear to have impacted greatly Macau’s gross gaming revenue (GGR). GGR growth forecasts have been lowered slightly, but September revenue is still expected to increase by as much as 10% year-on-year.

Two brokerage firms have released their forecasts, indicating that GGR will see a reduction of only a handful of percentage points compared to previous forecasts. Sanford C. Bernstein issued its forecast on Monday, stating that the GGR will be between $2.72 and $2.77 billion. This represents an uptick of around 3-4% than what was taken in last year. Just after the typhoon passed through the region, Bernstein had predicted between 0-3% growth. The newest forecast is based on an increase in the average daily GGR expected for the last week of this month.

Bernstein added in its note, “GGR growth over the last 18 months was boosted by a strong VIP growth trend, we continue to view the industry as a secular growth story driven relatively stronger mass growth over the longer run. This dynamic has become more apparent in the second quarter, as Macau has experienced deceleration in VIP growth relative to mass as higher-end customers were more impacted by concerns around the macro China environment.”

The typhoon spared the majority of the casino operations in the city. Bernstein analysists Zhen Gong, Vitaly Umansky and Kelsey Zhu pointed out that there was virtually no material damage to the casinos, in spite of the order by the government to shut down all gaming operations.

Macau casino operator Galaxy Entertainment Group (GEG) has rolled out a new high-roller area in its flagship Galaxy Macau property.

On Wednesday, GEG announced the debut of JinMen8, its new VIP gaming club at the top of the Ritz-Carlton hotel at Galaxy Macau. The opening has been three years in the making and the company claims to have spent MOP300m (US$37m) making sure there was exactly the right amount of gold leaf, marble and Ming vases lying about.

Over 200 GEG staff have been allocated to attend to the whims and needs of JinMen8 guests, including an “exclusively appointed Executive Chef,” who has no doubt spent the past three years force-feeding Beluga caviar to ducks and geese to create an even more expensive version of foie gras.

The new VIP area encompasses a main floor featuring 18 gaming tables at which the merely semi-rich can feel free to get their gamble on (maximum betting limit at these tables – HK$1.5m, around US$186k).

It’s no secret that the legislative body of New South Wales (NSW) isn’t exactly a huge fan of gambling. There has been a push to reduce the amount of gambling machines, or ban them completely, and the push just found more support. The Northern Beaches Council has approved a plan to reduce the number of machines and is now calling on the NSW government to do the same.

The council met this past Tuesday and discussed a measure that would see a reduction in the gambling activity. Council members put the idea to a vote, where it passed 8-6. The Northern Beaches is now the second municipality to adopt such a policy.

The measure was introduced following the suicide of Gary Van Duinen. His death, according to his parents, was due to his gambling addiction. Gary’s moth, Joy Van Duinen, led the push for the changes, which will include restricting the amount of money that can be withdrawn from ATMs, reducing playtime on gambling machines every time a button is pressed and changes to self-exclusion laws to allow a family member – not just the gambler – opt out of gambling.

Northern Beaches councilor Pat Daley stated, “This is a real milestone for local government. We want to work very closely with the pubs and clubs, not against them, and incorporated into this policy is ongoing consultation and regular meetings.”

Caesars Entertainment has raised the curtain on a “100 Year Partnership for Japan” campaign. The casino operator is one of the many that is hoping to grab a license to set up a resort in the newly approved Japanese integrated resort (IR) market. As part of its campaign, Caesars has included a number of announcements tied to initiatives in the country, all designed to help set it apart from the competition.

Included in the initiatives are concept imagines of an IR that could be located at the Yamashita Pier in Yokohama. The concept is based on The Great Wave, an ukiyo-e piece crafted by Japanese artist Hokusai. The IR would carry the name “The Yokohama Art & Culture Park and Entertainment Resort,” but is up some strong opposition. Yokohama citizens have already overwhelmingly said that they opposed an IR, as has Yukio Fujuki, chairman of the Yokohama Transport Association (YTA). The YTA controls the area around the Yamashita Pier.

Caesars also said that it was designed an innovative casino entry system exclusively for use in Japanese IRs. The system uses smartphones to initially register the customers and then to subsequently track each entry into the casino, as well as to monitor for possible problem gamblers.

That system, apart from sounding very intrusive, doesn’t meet Japan’s requirements. Japanese regulators require that a “MyNumber Card” be produced each time a customer enters a casino.

Wendy Freedman is no slouch at the felt. She has two WSOP Circuit rings, two WSOP final table appearances and a number of cashes at tournaments around the US. She just improved her résumé this week when she wiped out the Heartland Poker Tour (HPT) Black Hawk Main Event in Colorado, picking up an additional $167,696. Freedman has now tipped the scales and has picked up over $1 million in live action, according to Hendon Mob.

With the win, Freedman became only the second woman to ever win a HPT Main Event title, and the first to do so within the past five years. Her most recent tournament final table was this past May, when she finished fourth at the #365 NLHE event as part of the WSOP Circuit in New Orleans.

The Main Event attracted 496 entries – not a bad turnout for a tournament with a buy-in of $1,650. Cord Garcia, who has twice taken down the event, cashed, but couldn’t make it to Day 2. Likewise, Chris Tryba and Ben Keeline weren’t able to find Lady Luck and fell in 41st and 21st place, respectively.

As the final nine players sat down to battle for the win, Freedman was sitting on the biggest stack of chips at the table. It wouldn’t take long for players to start hitting the rail, beginning with Carl Oman. Rich Alsup followed next after Chris Barrett wiped out most of his stack. Barrett, who was the short stack going into the hand, doubled thanks to Alsup, who was left with only 20 big blinds. Freedman stole his diminished stack soon after when she scored a turn flush to beat Alsup’s pair of Aces.

Massachusetts’ gaming regulatory boss has resigned just one day before a meeting that could affect Wynn Resorts’ Boston casino project.

On Wednesday, Stephen Crosby announced his resignation as chairman of the Massachusetts Gaming Commission (MGC), effective immediately. Crosby’s letter to MGC staff (read it here) said he was leaving with “a profound sense of sadness, regret – and yes, frustration.”

Crosby said he’d decided to leave after the past few weeks saw him twice accused of “prejudging the outcome of the Investigations and Enforcement Bureau’s ongoing investigation regarding the suitability of Wynn Resorts.”

In January, the MGC launched a probe into how much Wynn execs knew of a $7.5m payment their former boss Steve Wynn made to a woman he allegedly sexually assaulted. The MGC is trying to determine if Wynn execs hid the existence of the payment from commissioners while the company was undergoing suitability vetting for its $2.4b Boston-area casino project (now known as Encore Boston Harbor).

A new character flies into the poker Marvel universe as India’s PokerDangal swoops in to save the day for disgruntled Pokermet customers. 

My boy has found a website that for a fee enters you into a raffle where you can win anything from the insides of a balloon to the latest high tech gadgetry that turns people on.

My son asks: “I want to know if it’s safe to deposit money?”

I advise him that it’s not a problem giving your bank details to reputable companies, it’s the dishonest ones that cause you to set fire to your belly button hairs in frustration.

The weekend was a whitewash for the French online poker room, Winamax, thanks to Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks, prompting the question why not attack PokerStars or partypoker? 

In February of this year, a group that watches too much Mr Robot subjected the world’s dopest software development platform, Github, to the most substantial Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack in history.

Techworld had this to say about the attacks.

“A new type of DDoS amplification attack hit the site {Github} for an astonishing 1.35 terabits per second through 126.9 million packets per second.” 

The World Poker Tour bang out another champion, the third in a week, as Tony Ruberto wins title number two at WPT Maryland Live! 

Why is it easier to win a World Poker Tour (WPT) Main Event title than a PokerStars European Poker Tour (EPT) title?

Are the European players of a higher calibre?

Variance?

Casinos Austria is shaking up its senior management ranks as director-general Alexander Labak heads for the exits.

On Tuesday, Casinos Austria announced that Labak would be leaving the company when his current contract expires at the end of 2019. Labak will “continue to work actively” to ensure Casinos Austria goes on making scads of money but the company will “immediately” commence the hunt for his replacement.

Labak was only appointed to his current position a little over a year ago, but he never seems to have fit in. News of his exit comes just a couple weeks after he sent a letter to the board of directors suggesting there were “indications of maladministration” within the company that “raise the fear that the well-being of the enterprise is massively endangered.”

Labak’s letter also mentioned his “suspicion of breach of confidentiality obligations” by two members of the board who he believed were creating “power structures” within the company in order to engineer his ouster. (If nothing else, Labak can’t say he didn’t see it coming.)