The Wire Act has been around for nearly 58 years. It comes from a time when lawmakers could barely conceive of the Internet. It’s current application to online gambling comes from interpretation, and that leaves room for judgement.

The U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) recent re-interpretation of the act, effectively banning all forms of online gambling and not just sports betting, isn’t establishing new law, it merely tells us what federal prosecutors will be instructed to do by their bosses. It’ll ultimately be up to the courts to decide how the law gets applied.

iGaming Business now reports the iDea Growth trade association, a group that supports the expansion of online gambling, has submitted a challenge to the new interpretation of the Wire act in New Hampshire courts.

The lead attorney for the group, Jeff Ifrah, said:

Carl Icahn is getting himself involved in one of the most – if not the most – financially convoluted casino firm in the world. Icahn recently disclosed a 9.78% stake stake in Caesars of over 66 million shares through a combination of himself personally and his various corporate entities, including Icahn Enterprises (IEP). It may be tempting to follow him into the Caesars whirlpool rivaling Jupiter’s Great Red Spot, but there are less crazy ways to gain exposure to this move than buying Caesars directly. If you want some exposure to this and you trust the guy, then take a stake in IEP. It pays a 10% dividend at the current price of $70 a share. Caesars of course pays no dividends, has no plans on paying any dividends in the near future, and can’t even remotely afford to.

Icahn wants his own men on the Caesars board and Caesars isn’t fighting back. They’re being openly cooperative with him. The undercurrent seems to be that they are a bit uncomfortable with the whole situation, listing him as a risk factor on their annual report. Icahn wants to see a sale and Caesars has basically told him that they’ve tried but have been unable to do it at terms that they consider fair to shareholders. Since news of Icahn’s stake broke on February 19th, the stock is down over 8%.

So let’s take a look at what any prospective buyer would get with Caesars. A fair warning – it is very confusing. If you thought they cleaned up their balance sheet when they came out of bankruptcy, think again. It’s arguably even weirder than it was beforehand.

The first thing we find on the surface is $9.1 billion in debt. Not so bad, considering it used to be $25 billion. Alright. This is the number that will be reported on by the mainstream media when they write up a blurb about Icahn and Caesars and mention the recent bankruptcy. But they won’t go any deeper than that. Scratching just below the surface, $6.24 billion of that debt is floating rate, but $3 billion of that is protected with swaps, so while we have a company officially leveraged 155%, only 36% is exposed. So just below the surface it doesn’t seem so bad. Maybe Caesars can climb out of this. But if that were the case, they would have found a buyer by now.

Wynn Resorts should know today how the Nevada Gaming Commission (NGC) has decided to penalize the gambling operator for its role in the Steve Wynn sexual misconduct scandal that surfaced toward the beginning of last year. The NGC is meeting today to discuss what type of fine to levy against the company and will release its decision shortly after.

The drama comes as just the latest soap opera episode in the saga of Steve Wynn’s sexual proclivities. He resigned from the company after being outed latest February and both he and Wynn Resorts have had to continually conduct damage control to keep the ship from sinking.

Wynn Resorts recently agreed to pay a fine in Nevada, but the amount is to be established by the NGC. The agreement comes as Wynn Resorts acknowledges that certain individuals within the company’s upper echelon were aware of what Steve Wynn was doing, but did not act to help him find a more appropriate outlet for his pent-up frustrations.

The Nevada Gaming Control Board (NGCB) announced the settlement in January in part of a 22-page complaint against Wynn Resorts. It asserted that executives with the company were told at least seven times of Steve Wynn’s actions, but didn’t do anything to prevent them. For now, Wynn Resorts will be able to retain its license, but will have to pay a financial penalty assessed by the NGC.

After Kazuo Okada lost a court case in Macau against Wynn Macau and others in 2017, he wasn’t ready to admit defeat. He filed an appeal that has now been heard by Macau’s Court of Second Instance. As was the case the first time around, Okada has once again lost.

Okada, alongside Universal Entertainment Corp. and Aruze USA, had sued over a stock redemption dispute a couple of years ago. Universal and Aruze eventually dropped out of the suit after they reached an agreement with Wynn Macau’s parent company, Wynn Resorts, which saw the parties reach a settlement worth $2.4 billion. Okada, however, wasn’t willing to give up the fight.

Okada had been kicked off the board of Wynn Resorts in 2012 after the casino operator determined that he was “unsuitable” and could cost the company its licenses. At the time, Okada was the largest single shareholder, controlling Aruze’s stake in the company. Aruze is a subsidiary of Universal.

Wynn Resorts ultimately agreed to cancel Okada’s 20% holdings, which amounted to 24.5 million shares, and issue him a promissory note for around $1.9 billion. That amount was, at the time, a 30% discount on what Okada held via his shares.

Shareholders of Premium Leisure Corp. have received a little bonus. The Philippines-listed company, whose parent company, Belle Corp., owns a piece of City of Dreams (CoD) Manila, has declared a cash dividend of $0.00097 per share. That represents a 14.4% increase over last year’s dividend and the payout is expected to be made on March 22.

The company’s board of directors agreed to dividend payout last Friday and announced it via a filing with the Philippine Stock Exchange. All shareholders as of March 8 are entitled to the dividend and a total of $30.54 million will be dispersed.

Belle Corp. owns 78.7% of Premium Leisure. Because of its ownership, it is eligible to receive a percentage of the gaming income of CoD Manila, which is operated by Melco Resorts and Entertainment. The company has seen increased profits over the last year, reporting last October that its net profits for the first three quarters increased 1.2% to $42.26 million year-on-year. This came in spite of an 18.5% decline on third-quarter net profit year-on-year.

While the 14.4% increase is nice, it wasn’t as great as what shareholders have seen in the past. Belle’s board agreed to pay $0.0023 per share in February of last year, which was a 26.3% over the year prior. At that time, Belle reported a net profit increase for the first nine months of 2017 of 37.1%.

Lawmakers in Connecticut have a lot on their plate this week. In addition to their many other duties, they are also reviewing four different gambling bills in an effort to quickly approve legislation that will allow the state to join the growing list of jurisdictions across the U.S. that are eager to tap into the multi-billion dollar sports gambling industry.

According to local media outlet The Day, a bill submitted by Senator Cathy Osten would allow the two federally recognized tribes in the state, the Mohegans and the Mashantucket Pequots, to launch sportsbooks via their casinos and on mobile platform. If that bill is accepted, the Connecticut Lottery would also be allowed to offer an online keno product through an agreement with the two tribes.

Another bill would see the launch of the Connecticut Gaming Commission and would authorize a competitive bidding process for an integrated casino resort in the Connecticut city of Bridgeport. MGM is behind the bill and has been trying to get it approved for a couple of years. A similar piece of legislation was introduced in 2017, but didn’t survive long enough to make it the House floor.

Another bill would eliminate the requirement that tribes receive federal approval to launch operations in the state. This would ultimately allow the two tribes to create a joint casino project, in line with a plan they have been discussing for a few years. They have already been given approval to build a casino resort in East Windsor, but the U.S. Department of the Interior has only acknowledged the compact the Mohegan tribe has with Connecticut, while not commenting on the compact involving the Pequot tribe.

For anyone looking for a new job, Marina Bay Sands is recruiting. The Singapore-based casino resort has announced via a press release (in pdf) that it is looking to hire as many as 700 new employees in an effort to meet a target of 11,000 employees it hopes to have in place by the time 2019 draws to a close. The company has already begun its recruiting efforts, holding a two-day job fair that began yesterday at the Sands Expo and Convention Center.

Marina Bay Sands is a subsidiary of Las Vegas Sands Corp., the gambling giant owned and controlled by Sheldon Adelson. It is currently looking for a range of employees, including security guards, butlers, slot machine attendants, sous-chefs, bar staff and more. It adds in the release, “As an inclusive employer, the integrated resort is also committed to hiring special groups keen to join or return to the workforce – e.g. home-makers, senior workers, retrenched personnel, students and people with disabilities.”

Marina Bay stated that its attrition rate last year was around 13.7%. Citing the Ministry of Manpower in Singapore, it added that the industry average was about 29.4% – an attempt to show that its employees remain with the company longer. It added that over 50% of the resort’s staff had been with the company for more than five years.

According to the Senior VP of Human Resources for Marina Bay, Chan Yit Foon, “We think dynamic work arrangements make a lot of business sense, especially in an industry as scalable as ours. It allows us to tap into groups who are looking for jobs but unable to commit to the full 8 hours every day. We’re talking about retirees who have years of experience behind them, the home-makers whose kids are still schooling, and the young millennials who want time to explore other areas of their lives.”

Las Vegas casinos are struggling to understand and implement three important new products. For one reason or another, skill-based games, esports and Bitcoin have yet to meet expectations of experts in Nevada. That admission comes from a couple of top Las Vegas authorities, as reported by the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Skill-based games started finding their way onto casino floors in just the past few years, but customers haven’t taken to them yet, disappointing gambling observers. Chris Grove, managing director for Eilers & Krejcik Gaming, said, “The hype around skills-based gaming was so significant that I think it created a proportionate backlash.”

The new Nevada Gaming Control Board (NGCB) Chairwoman Sandra Morgan isn’t giving up on the trend just yet. “Skill-based slot machines have not gained significant popularity on the casino floor but there are still innovators developing these types of games to gain better traction with a younger demographic,” she said, according to the report.

Grove also noted that new games rarely become a hit within just a few months. And as Morgan notes, these types of games might only become more popular as Generation X and millennial gamblers become more common on xasino floors.

West Virginia could become the latest state to thumb its nose at the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). An online gambling bill making its rounds though the state’s legislative channels continues to find approval and doesn’t yet show any signs of encountering resistance. If the bill is able to survive all the way through to be signed by West Virginia Governor Jim Justice, the state would become the fifth in the U.S. to legalize online gambling.

Sports gambling is already legal in West Virginia and now the state wants to take things to the next level to capture even greater revenue. Despite the DOJ having recently decided (almost arbitrarily) that the U.S. Federal Wire Act applied to all types of digital gambling, not just sports gambling as it stated nine years ago, West Virginia doesn’t seem to be deterred.

House lawmakers have already passed House Bill (HB) 2934, the West Virginia Lottery Interactive Wagering Act, by a vote of 72 to 22. It would authorize online casinos and poker in the state and will now be considered by committees in the Senate before being put to a full Senate vote. As was seen in the House, the Senate is expected to show overwhelming support for the legislation.

Players who wish to gamble online would first need to register at one of the approved and licensed gambling locations in the state. They would also need to be physically present in West Virginia every time they want to gamble.

Macau might be best known for its casinos, but it has a dark side as well. Police have announced the arrests of 71 people who were allegedly running a loan shark operation, the Macau Post Daily reports.

The arrests were revealed in a February 21 police briefing. The accused were said to have loaned HKD108 million (US$13.8 million) since 2016, bringing in a modest profit of HKD32 million (US$4 million).

The alleged leader of the gang, a 53-year-old Chinese man named Ma, was caught in the arrests. Other leaders of the gang hailed from China as well, with some coming from Macau and Hong Kong, according to the report, while other members of the gang allegedly came from Thailand.

Rather than working out of a dark alley like some kind of shmucks, these guys were classy. Police revealed they were operating out of a VIP room in one of Macau’s casinos, keeping their documentation and profits all in one place.

In a previous life, I worked for a dinner theater in Montreal. The restaurant was right next to the city’s race track.

Once a year, the Formula 1 (F1) races would come to town, and our restaurant would have to shut down. It sucked for business, but it was great for me, because we got free F1 tickets from the owner so we could go in and do inventory and a thorough cleaning.

When we were done, we’d get to watch the races. I don’t know much about racing, but that race (and day drinking with lots of attractive tourists) was amazing, and I could definitely see the appeal.

Osaka Mayor Hirofumi Yoshimura sees that appeal too. He recently put forward the idea that Osaka could have its own F1 race, on the condition that it gets its integrated resort (IR) first. Japanese newspaper Mainichi reports he discussed the topic at a February 21 press conference.

One of the hottest tourist destinations these days has been Cambodia. With its rich history and culture, fantastic climate, and incredible natural wonders, this land has become a sought-after location for many from across the globe. Even two seasons of the CBS hit show Survivor were filmed in the islands off the coast of Cambodia.

Cambodia provides everything that a tourist could want, including a rapidly growing casino and resort industry. Best of all, the accommodations and hospitality come at a price that is far less than what you would pay at traditional places like Las Vegas, Macau, or Monaco.

Several fantastic resorts and hotels have opened in the Southwest region of Cambodia, but the Won Majestic Casino Hotel & Resort in Sihanoukville may wind up being the grandest of them all. The 150 room hotel is expected to open in the early part of 2021, with a number of great amenities including five F&B outlets, a rooftop pool, and a fully equipped gym that overlooks the beach.

It will truly be one of the most spectacular destination getaways, especially now that Malaysian based WA Hospitality has agreed to manage the resort when it opens two years from now. That news was announced on Monday, giving it the first overseas contract earned by the hospitality company.