Gambling operator Paragon Gaming has sold its ownership in the underperforming Parq Vancouver casino.

On Friday, the Nevada-based Paragon announced that it had sold its majority stake in the C$700m Parq Vancouver casino, which opened its doors in September 2017. Paragon’s stake has been acquired for an unknown price by Canadian real estate developer PBC Group.

PBC already had a minority stake in the casino through the Parq Equity Limited Partnership (PELP) joint venture, which also included Paragon and the Toronto-listed holding company Dundee Corporation. The plan now is for PBC and Dundee to continue ownership of the venue “with the existing management team providing day-to-day oversight.”

PBC president Paul Bouzanis said his company believes Parq is “positioned to become a central feature of the downtown entertainment district.” Perhaps, but the property has so far performed well below expectations, posting a loss of C$108.3m (US$82m) in the first nine months of 2018 after posting a net profit of C$28m in the first three months following its launch.

Casino titan Sheldon Adelson has given half a million dollars to help keep Donald Trump’s cronies out of federal prison.

On Friday, ABC News reported that Las Vegas Sands boss Adelson and his wife Miriam had contributed $500k to the Patriot Legal Expense Fund Trust, which was set up in February 2018 to help Trump associates caught up in special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

The Adelsons’ $500k gift is reportedly the Trust’s largest contribution to date and more than three times the next highest donation. Phil Ruffin, another casino industry veteran who once planned a Las Vegas joint venture with Trump, reportedly gave the fund $50k.

The Adelsons have been major Republican campaign donors for years and were early supporters of Trump’s presidential aspirations. Following the 2016 election, Adelson gave $5m to Trump’s inaugural committee and Trump awarded Miriam the Presidential Medal of Freedom last November.

Sweden may be the next country to impose a ban on gambling ads during live sports broadcasts, according to a government minister.

On Friday, Swedish media outlet Aftonbladet quoted Minister of Civil Affairs Ardalan Shekarabi saying he didn’t want to “exclude” the possibility that Sweden may follow the leads of other nations looking to minimize the potential harms of gambling by limiting operators’ ability to market their products to sports fans.

In December, UK gambling operators agreed to a voluntary ban on advertising during live sports broadcasts. This week, the director of Denmark’s state-run Danske Spil gambling firm suggested the government adopt a similar plan and “let viewers watch the match in peace.”

Shekarabi said Swedes were increasingly “tired of the extremely aggressive marketing, the unrestrained advertising.” Shekarabi said Sweden’s new gambling licensees “have a huge responsibility and must ensure that they live up to the requirements and intentions” of Sweden’s new gambling laws.

Turkey’s government has launched its largest ever crackdown on illegal online gambling just weeks after it went looking for a new technology partner for the state-run sports betting operation.

On Friday, Turkish media reported that the Cybercrime Division Branch of the Istanbul Security Directorate had launched simultaneous raids involving around 5k police officers across 40 provinces. The raids sought the arrests of some 394 individuals, 207 of whom were believed to be based in Istanbul.

The raids were sparked following a probe that identified 72 front companies – purportedly dealing with cosmetics, food and travel – masking a variety of illegal gambling operations. The online betting and gambling sites behind these fronts reportedly handled wagers worth TRY3.5b (US$671m) through a total of 4,345 local bank accounts. The raids have so far resulted in the seizure of TRL42m, $94k and €133k.

The arrested suspects face stiff fines and likely prison sentences, while another 455 unlucky customers of these illegal operators are facing fines of up to TRY35k ($6,700) apiece.

Russian online bookmaker Fonbet boasted over 91m website visitors in 2018, narrowly edging out rival 1xBet for Russia’s online sports betting traffic crown.

SimilarWeb data compiled by Betting Business Russia shows Fonbet’s Russian-licensed Fonbet.ru domain enjoyed 91.32m visits in 2018, a monthly average of 7.6m. Fonbet’s monthly traffic peaked at 10.1m visits in July as the 2018 FIFA World Cup reached its climax.

Fonbet’s success at driving traffic may have had to do with the fact that the site was Russia’s top-spending television advertiser during the World Cup, accounting for 18% of all advertising placements and 8% of overall ad minutes.

1xBet wasn’t among Russia’s top advertisers but the bookmaker’s Russian-licensed 1xstavka.ru domain ranked second on 2018’s traffic chart with 86.3m visit, a monthly average of 7.2m. 1xBet’s monthly traffic peaked in October at 9.7m visits.

Three new operators are set to join the Swedish online market. Spelinpektionen, the government regulator for gambling, has granted iGaming licenses to Bell Casino, FT Diva Casino and Premiergaming, according to an iGamingBusiness report.

The Malta-based Premiergaming now has a license to offer online gambling and betting services for Prontocasino.com, Prontocasino.se, Premierlivecasino.com, Premierlivecasino.se, Prontobingo.com, Prontobingo.se, Prontoodds.com and Prontoodds.se.

FT Diva Casino’s license covers land-based commercial casino games, and Bell Casino is licensed to offer ship based gaming services.

With these three new additions, Spelinpektionen has now licensed a total of 69 operators in the country. The liberalized, regulated gambling market officially opened on January 1, 2019.