Online lottery betting operator Lottoland has made a bid to acquire rival ZEAL Network’s core business unit.

On Friday, Lottoland Holdings made an all-cash offer of between €60m-€76m for ZEAL’s German-facing ‘secondary lottery’ unit Tipp24.com, which provides the bulk of ZEAL’s overall revenue. Lottoland also seeks Tipp24’s customer base, intellectual property and infrastructure assets, as well as the UK Tipp24 Services Ltd subsidiary.

Zeal published a statement Friday rejecting Lottoland’s offer on the grounds that the offer “would strip ZEAL of its most valuable asset and the basis for future brokerage growth in Germany, while leaving ZEAL and its shareholders with considerable downside risks.” ZEAL CEO Helmut Becker claimed Lottoland was attempting to buy Tipp24 “on the cheap.”

Earlier this week, Lottoland signaled its intention to bid for “certain assets” of ZEAL, while simultaneously urging ZEAL shareholders to reject ZEAL’s proposal to reacquire lottery brokerage Lotto24, a former subsidiary that was spun off into a standalone business in 2012.

The investigation into the suspected kidnapping and murder of online gambling operator 5Dimes’ boss has resulted in the arrest of 12 individuals based in two different countries.

On Friday, Costa Rican media outlet La Nacion reported that authorities in Costa Rica and Spain had raided 11 different sites in an attempt to determine the whereabouts of William Sean ‘Tony’ Creighton, the founder of 5Dimes who disappeared in Costa Rica on September 24.

The report claimed that there were 10 Costa Rican locations raided by Judicial Investigation Organization (OIJ) agents, resulting in the detention of nine individuals. Spain’s Civil Guard reportedly detained three individuals following a raid on a resident in Zaragoza in the autonomous community of Aragon. All of the suspects in custody are Costa Rican nationals.

OIJ director Walter Espinoza said the locations of the raids were identified by police cybersleuths who tracked the path of the US$750k-$1m in Bitcoins that Creighton’s Costa Rican wife reportedly transferred following ransom demands she received shortly after her husband’s disappearance.

The investigation into the suspected kidnapping and murder of online gambling operator 5Dimes’ boss has resulted in the arrest of 12 individuals based in two different countries.

On Friday, Costa Rican media outlet La Nacion reported that authorities in Costa Rica and Spain had raided 11 different sites in an attempt to determine the whereabouts of William Sean ‘Tony’ Creighton, the founder of 5Dimes who disappeared in Costa Rica on September 24.

The report claimed that there were 10 Costa Rican locations raided by Judicial Investigation Organization (OIJ) agents, resulting in the detention of nine individuals. Spain’s Civil Guard reportedly detained three individuals following a raid on a resident in Zaragoza in the autonomous community of Aragon. All of the suspects in custody are Costa Rican nationals.

OIJ director Walter Espinoza said the locations of the raids were identified by police cybersleuths who tracked the path of the US$750k-$1m in Bitcoins that Creighton’s Costa Rican wife reportedly transferred following ransom demands she received shortly after her husband’s disappearance.

Bitcoin SV (BSV) is making it even easier to operate an online gambling site, due to its ability to offer safe, fast and secure transactions as a payment system. Phun.io now offers BSV as its exclusive deposit and withdrawal option, and they’re developing a fun site with easy to use features.

The site describes itself as “The First Bitcoin SV Crash Game.” If you’re unfamiliar with a crash game, it works like this: Users bet a number of bits, and then compete against the house and other players in a virtual game of chicken. As a multiplier increases, players must decide how quickly they want to cash out. At a random interval, the game will suddenly crash. Any player who hasn’t cashed out will lose their bet, and those players who cashed out nearest the crash will collect a bonus. The house guarantees their 0.5% edge with a 1 in 101 chance that the game will crash instantly, paying out none of the active players.

The site opened in early 2018, and originally accepted Bitcoin Cash (BCH) as their only transaction method. In December, about a month after a contentious hard fork that saw BSV reborn as the original vision of Bitcoin, the site founders decided to switch over to BSV as their exclusive payment option.

According to the founders of Phun, the site is provably fair, and offers free BSV every hour from their faucet to get players started on BSV, or to keep playing if they bust. Every few hours, a moderator will gift BSV to active players as well to encourage them to play on.

This is the year that Japan is expected to get the ball moving to launch its integrated resort (IR) industry. Casino operators from around the world have been busy since before the IR legislation was approved last summer, jockeying for position in hopes of winning one of the three initial bids to be awarded. To help its cause, MGM is getting ready to turn the key on the door to its new office in Japan, which is expected to open today.

A launch party for the new MGM office will be held today at a hotel in Osaka. Several other operators, such as Melco Resorts & Entertainment and Genting, have also set up shop in Osaka over the past few months as a means to show that they are seriously committed to the IR landscape and are determined to be a part of Japan’s gambling future.

MGM’s chairman and CEO, Jim Murren, has been spending a lot of time in Japan in order to massage important relationships. He has his eyes set on an IR in Osaka and has met with its governor, Ichiro Matsui, as well as Osaka City Mayor Hirofumi Yoshimura. He sat down with both of them yesterday and reiterated his belief that Osaka is the best city to host an IR.

The Nikkei Asian Review quoted Murren as saying, “We are making progress in discussions with Japanese corporations to form a consortium.” He emphasized that MGM is ready to pull the trigger on preparations for an IR and reaffirmed his position that Osaka is the ideal location. He said, “We will support Osaka in obtaining IR certification.”

Turkey is looking to take its sports gambling operations to the next level. According to a report by the country’s Official Gazette, it has launched a tender that looks to find businesses to operate a centralized sports gambling system and risk management office for both fixed odds and mutual betting. Tenders can be submitted until February 11.

The tender comes less than a year after the country launched a major crackdown on gambling ahead of soccer’s World Cup last year. That crackdown saw “thousands” of alleged gambling houses raided across Turkey and resulted in a number of businesses being shut down by police. In Ankara, the country’s capital, 64 raids were conducted, leading to the arrest of 39 individuals.

Gambling is illegal in Turkey, except for its Milli Piyango lottery and SportToto sports gambling products. Both are operated by the state. Despite the ban, gamblers always find a way and reportedly wager around $11.4 billion annual through online gambling sites.

There was a time that gambling was an accepted practice in the Muslim country. However, things began to change when it banned casinos in 1998. Eight years later, online gambling operators not run by the state were also banned, even though most have found ways to work around the restrictions. The country’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has repeatedly asserted his distaste for the activity (even though he allows state-backed gambling) and has led efforts to ensure both land-based and online gambling does not find a footing.

Macau has a good thing going on with their local gambling industry, and they aren’t about to change that. A new publication from the Hong Kong-based Steve Vickers and Associates Ltd, the 2019 Risk Assessment Report, finds that the local government would “not want to destabilise” the sector.

The changes the report expects to see in 2019 all resolve around the rocky relationship between the U.S. and China. The current trade war between the two countries has no end in sight, and to keep the favor of its big cousin China, Macau might make moves to diminish American presence in the gambling industry in the city state. They suspect Macau could “dilute U.S. casinos’ sectoral dominance, not least given the links between the gaming tycoons and the Republican Party.”

At the moment, half of Macau’s licensees are majority-owned by U.S. companies. Current licenses are due to expire in the next one to three years. The report speculates that the concessions will all be extended to 2022 so they can be dealt with all at once.

This isn’t just fear-mongering for American investors. Ho lat Seng, currently president of the Legislative Assembly and front-runner for Chief Executive, is known to be close to China and the report suggests he could fight for a shift away from the American licensees.

Melco Resorts and Entertainment Ltd. is giving some of its employees a little new year’s bonus. It announced yesterday that it is going to be distributed some extra cash to all eligible non-management employees and that the money should be distributed ahead of the upcoming Chinese New Year. How much will be doled out and how many employees will receive the bonuses was not revealed.

The amount will be equal to one-month’s salary. The company’s chairman and CEO, Lawrence Ho, explained, “Today’s announcement is in recognition of the dedication, loyalty and hard work of our non-management team, who are highly valued and integral to Melco Resorts’ every achievement.”

Melco operates three casino properties in Macau – Studio City, City of Dreams and Altira Macau. It also operates a second City of Dreams, which is located in Manila in the Philippines.

In making the announcement, Melco becomes the first of Macau’s casino operators to issue bonuses to its non-management employees this year. It’s common for the operators to issue bonuses to their staff ahead of the Chinese New Year Period, with the holiday falling this year on February 5. On many occasions, the operators will also provide second bonuses toward the end of the summer.

The ongoing saga of the founder and former head of Wynn Resorts, Steve Wynn, is finally making some progress. After facing a string of sexual misconduct allegations that led to his decision to vacate the company, Wynn has been facing investigations by a number of jurisdictions, including Nevada and Massachusetts. Now, Massachusetts has said that it has completed its investigation of the case, but isn’t ready to release its findings.

The investigation was designed to determine if Steve Wynn had committed any violations and if Wynn Resorts had conducted itself in a manner that attempted to cover up the suspected activity. The embattled former boss has repeatedly denied that he did anything wrong, despite mounting evidence to the contrary.

Massachusetts has said that it won’t release the findings of its investigation in to Wynn, the company and its Encore Boston Harbor Project at least until after the Nevada courts that are hearing a case about the confidentiality of some of the evidence has completed. That evidence includes material sent by Wynn Resorts to the Massachusetts Gaming Commission (MGC) and reportedly involves communication between Steve Wynn and his lawyers. His lawyers argue that releasing that information would be a violation of client-attorney privacy.

According to a report by the Las Vegas Review-Journal from January 4, the Nevada courts are expected to keep in place the ban on public disclosure of the MGC’s findings. It also stated that the courts have advised Steve Wynn’s lawyers, the commission and Wynn Resorts to find a resolution that would lead to certain public documents being released. Steve Wynn continues to assert that the documents are privileged and cannot be made public.

Lawmakers of the West Virginia legislature are trying to legalize online gambling in the state, after failing to do so in previous years.

One difference this time is that the proposed measure comes on the heels of legalized sports betting, which has added to state revenues since last August.

Delegates Shawn Fluharty and Joe Canestraro introduced House Bill 2178, that would give the state’s Lottery Commission regulatory powers over interactive gaming licensees.

“[L]egalization of video lottery and table games in West Virginia has delivered substantial benefits to the state, including the creation of thousands of significant contributions to racing and agricultural industries,” the bill reads.

The Macau Health Bureau has approved 378 requests from casinos for smoking lounges as of January 8, according to Macau News Agency.

This leaves 127 requests out of a total of 505, or 25%, that the bureau has not given a go-signal to.

In explaining the pending requests, the Health Bureau said that the applicants had not provided all the required documents in time. In addition, some were unable to make improvements in the rooms to be used, according to the opinions of the Fire Department.

“There were also applicants who, on their own initiative, canceled requests for the creation of smoking rooms,” the agency added.

India-based Delta Corp Limited is expected to continue posting positive results for both its land-based and floating casino operations, with net revenue for the third quarter of the fiscal year 2019 reaching Rs2.06 billion ($29.22 million), 26.9% higher than the corresponding period of the previous year.

Union Gaming’s Grant Govertsen, in a note, said that the revenue figures, and an EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) of Rs840 million ($11.93 million) were “in line with consensus.”

Gross revenue from gaming operations was Rs2.02 billion ($28.70 million), a 29.6% increase from October to December 2017. Online gaming meanwhile brought in Rs378.3 million ($5.37 million), 33.11% higher year on year.

“These growth rates were broadly in line with our expectations coming into the quarter,” Govertsen said, adding that the company’s EBITDA margin of nearly 41% was the highest since the state of Goa, where Delta operates four of its casinos, increased license fees from Rs3 million to Rs10 million last April.

After a year in the making, the $25,000 PokerStars Player’s No-Limit Hold’em Championship has finally ended, and a Platinum Pass winner walked away with the $5.1m first prize, with Ramon Colillas beating Julien Martini, heads-up for the title.

Five years ago, a 25-year-old unemployed man posted on Reddit that he had inherited $25,000, and was looking for some advice on what he should spend it on.

The man wrote:

“What crazy stuff can you think of? I am all ears and open to all ideas, except giving it away.”

After a year in the making, the $25,000 PokerStars Player’s No-Limit Hold’em Championship has finally ended, and a Platinum Pass winner walked away with the $5.1m first prize, with Ramon Colillas beating Julien Martini, heads-up for the title.

Five years ago, a 25-year-old unemployed man posted on Reddit that he had inherited $25,000, and was looking for some advice on what he should spend it on.

The man wrote:

“What crazy stuff can you think of? I am all ears and open to all ideas, except giving it away.”