New York’s sports betting hopes took a modest step forward on Tuesday after Gov. Andrew Cuomo included legalization plans in the state’s new budget plan.

On Tuesday, Cuomo delivered his 2019 State of the State Address, during which he claimed sports betting was “here and it’s a reality” following last spring’s US Supreme Court ruling that overthrew the federal betting prohibition. The question now facing the state is who will be permitted to offer betting in New York State.

The 2013 legislation that authorized construction of four new upstate commercial casinos allowed those casinos to offer sports betting pending a change in federal law. Those casinos have all inked prospective deals with betting operators and are positively gagging to welcome a new revenue stream.

Cuomo’s betting ambitions are short on specifics but the governor said he wants to “authorize sports betting in the upstate casinos” because “it will help generate activity” at those venues, which have so far failed to deliver on their original gaming revenue projections.

Macau’s Studio City casino plans to curtail its VIP gambling operations early next year, marking the second about-face the property has undertaken on this front.

On Tuesday, Melco International Development informed investors that Studio City “will cease VIP rolling chip operations” on January 15, 2020. Melco International is the parent company of Melco Resorts & Entertainment (MRE), which holds a majority stake in Studio City.

Melco’s announcement offered no justification for the decision, although CEO Lawrence Ho noted last November that Macau’s VIP spending had “fallen faster than we had expected” while the remaining VIPs were playing luckier, leading to a 91% fall in MRE’s Q3 profit. Studio City proved particularly vulnerable to these factors, and Ho warned that there was “no assurance” that the property would continue its VIP activity “beyond November 2019.”

Last week, Nomura analysts projected Macau’s VIP market would fall by 7.5% in the first half of 2019 before enjoying a “low single digits” rise in H2. On Monday, Maybank Kim Eng analysts agreed there was a “weak outlook’ for Macau’s VIP revenue due to China’s contracting economy and the expansion of Macau’s smoking ban to VIP rooms.

PhilWeb, a Philippine-listed gaming technology provider, approached the Manila Regional Trial Court recently, hoping to block a new regulation that, according to the company, significantly favored competitor Inter-Active Entertainment Solutions Technologies, Inc. (IEST). PhilWeb argued that the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (PAGCOR) was giving the advantage to IEST over the proposal for an Electronic Gaming Management System (EGMS), the wording of which would give IEST more strength in bidding for the system. PAGCOR has now issued a response to the complaint, stating that it is nothing more than a “figment of imagination.”

PhilWeb had stated to the courts, “IEST, as the lone IPLMA holder, already possesses tremendous benefits and advantages over its competitors… But if the EGMS pushes through, as it is defined and delineated by Pagcor in its invitation to bid, the advantages in favor of IEST will be increased significantly.”

In issuing its response, PAGCOR directed its comments to the CEO of PhilWeb, Gregorio Maria Araneta, III, stating, “This allegation of bias is absurd and nothing more than a mere figment of Mr. Araneta’s imagination.”

The organization further explains, “[B]ecause IEST has an existing and valid contract, the licensees operating in relation to PAGCOR’s Intellectual Property Licensing & Management Agreement (IPLMA) with IEST cannot immediately be covered by the EGMS, instead they are monitored under the existing procedures. At any rate, once the IPLMA of IEST expires, these licensees will be covered by the EGMS as well.”

Sheldon Adelson was just given a cookie. Online gambling is illegal again across the United States, technically, thanks to what could be termed the “run-on sentence heard round the world.” A new interpretation by the Department of Justice of the 1961 Wire Act has just concluded that, because of a conspicuously and suspiciously missing comma, all online gambling violates the Act, and not just sports betting, which is also now technically legal itself anyway ever since PASPA was overturned. If this doesn’t make any sense to you, you’re normal.

Before we get into the asinine details of this nonsense, let’s all calm down. Practically this means nothing for the online gambling industry in the United States, but it will pad the pockets of lawyers aplenty. As my CalvinAyre colleague Steven Stadbrooke aptly notes, “lawyers across the country are licking their lips at the prospect of all those extra billing hours.”

The new interpretation is based on a clause in the Act that prohibits use of a “wire communication facility for the transmission in interstate or foreign commerce of bets or wagers or information assisting in the placing of bets or wagers on any sporting event or contest…” The question is, does the phrase “on any sporting event or contest” circumscribe the application of the phrase “bets or wagers” or is it an addition on top of the general prohibition of all bets and wagers?

Well, I’ll put my yeshiva (religious law school) hat back on for a second and shteig (Yiddish for “learn”). If all bets and wagers are prohibited by the 1961 Wire Act, then “sporting event or contest” does not apply to the whole sentence. If so, then “sporting event or contest” must be strictly illustrative. However, if it is merely illustrative, then the authors should have included the phrase “for example” or something similar. But they didn’t. Further, if the purpose of the Act was to outlaw all bets or wagers, there is no reason to include the phrase “sporting event or contest” at all. Therefore the phrase “sporting event or contest” must be a limiting phrase rather than illustrative, meaning only bets or wagers made on sporting events or contests apply here.