Online gambling operator Kindred Group reported falling profits in the first quarter of 2019 thanks to rising costs in Sweden’s new regulated market.

On Wednesday, the Stockholm-based Kindred reported revenue of £224.4m in the three months ending March 31, an 8% improvement over the same period last year. However, earnings slipped 35% to £30.6m and after-tax profit was cut nearly in half to £15.1m.

The company blamed the falling returns on the need to distinguish itself from the herd of new online licensees in Sweden’s regulated market, which launched January 1. Kindred offered bonuses to all its legacy and new Swedish customers, and CEO Henrik Tjärnström said the “significant uptake” on these offers resulted in overall bonus expenditure coming in £6.6m higher than in Q1 2018.

The Swedish market also cost Kindred an extra £3.8m in marketing costs and £5.2m in additional betting duties. All told, the launch of Sweden’s new market reduced Kindred’s Q1 earnings by £18.9m. Tjärnström said the company expected “significant short-term margin pressure” but remained confident that its efforts would ultimately pay off in spades.

Sweden’s government is mulling a blanket ban on online casino advertising, which would likely further entrench the dominance of the state’s former gambling monopolies.

On Wednesday, Ardalan Shekarabi, Sweden’s Minister for Public Administration, announced the formation of a commission tasked with determining whether to impose “a total or partial ban on gambling advertising.” The commission is expected to deliver its verdict no later than October 1, 2020.

The commission will be given free rein to consider a tobacco-style blanket ban on gambling ads, as well as specific conditions on gambling products deemed to be more ‘dangerous’ to consumers, such as online casino games. The commission will also consider limits on the size of bonus offers, free-plays and jackpots, as well as whether to follow the lead of other markets and restrict all gambling advertising during live sports broadcasts.

Shekarabi, who has repeatedly warned Sweden’s new online gambling licensees to abide by regulations calling for ‘moderate’ advertising (whatever that is), said the current gambling advertising situation is “unsustainable,” citing “problems with both content and scope.”

We’re two episodes deep into the last season of Game of Thrones, and not much has happened yet. Everyone has gathered together in Winterfell, Brienne of Tarth got knighted by Jaime Lannister, and it appears the Night King is finally at the walls. Episode three looks to be the first big battle, and Bodog has odds for us on who will make it to the other end alive.

As always, if you want to avoid spoilers (and apologies for the ones I already snuck in), you can stop reading now.

Let’s start easy. It’s very unlikely that Jon Snow is done yet, so it’s favored he will see episode 4 (1/15). If you want to be on the long shot that he’ll somehow die (23/4), and he’ll have plenty of chances, you can, but it seems like a foolish thing to do.

While we’re at it, Arya probably won’t die either (1/10), simply because she has scores to settle in King’s Landing still. But if you think her last night was spent with Gendry, you can bet for a white walker to kill her off (21/4). Gendry is also available to bet on, and considering his freshly revealed (or reminded) bastard parentage, he’s unlikely to die as well (2/7), but then, how many king candidates can we have? Maybe he will die (5/2).

Recently, there was speculation that Scientific Games‘ social gaming division was ready to be publicly traded. According to a spokesman for the company, they had filed the initial application with the U. S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Now it appears that the company is ready for their launch. SciPlay Corporation, a subsidiary of Scientific Games, one of the leading social gaming businesses, announced on April 22 that they are ready to begin the initial public offering (IPO) of their Class A common stock. The company is offering 22 million shares of the common stock, with an initial offering price of somewhere between $14 and $16 per share.

As part of the initial offering, SciPlay is expected to grant the underwriters a grace period of 30 days where they would be able to purchase an additional 3,300,000 of the common stock at the initial public offering price. These shares are expected to be traded on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the symbol SCPL.

The objective of the company is to raise at least $330 million from their IPO, and maybe as much as $352 million.

The Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao (KHZM) bridge continues to make a big difference to the tourism numbers of Macau. Macau’s Statistics and Census Service has reported that March’s visitor arrivals tallied up to 3.39 million, 24% higher year on year.

The breakdown of visitor statistics is also good news overall. Visitors who stayed in Macau overnight were up 9.1% year on year, and those just staying for a day or less were up 40.8%, indicating the ability to drive over the bridge for a few hours to check out the sights really helped numbers overall.

On average, tourists stayed for 1.2 days, which showed no change from the previous year.

Increasing the likelihood that the bridge really helped things, visitors from Mainland China were up 31.3%, and those visiting “by land” were up 62.4%. Specifically, the report notes that 504,000 used the bridge during the month of March.

Circus Circus Reno is having a difficult time grasping the severity of its refusal to negotiate with union-covered employees. The casino, which is owned by Eldorado Resorts, has been involved in a showdown with employees since employment contracts expired last November and have been unwilling to budge on their anti-employee stance. Workers took to the streets outside the casino last week to picket in response to the casino’s blindness and this is most likely only the beginning.

260 employees at Circus Circus are covered by the Culinary Union, working in positions such as food servers and bartenders, cooks, doormen and bellmen, housekeepers and other customer-facing positions. The union has been trying to negotiate a new contract since last November and, so far, Eldorado has only offered a paltry 1.75% pay raise, which was obviously rejected by the union.

Bethany Khan, the Culinary Union’s spokesperson, explains, “Eldorado made 9.8 percent more profit last year and their CEO could make $8.8 million this year along. The company will not agree to fair wage increases for its employees. Eldorado needs to stop treating its workers like second-class citizens.”

In addition to a pay raise that is actually dignified and not a slap in the face to the workers that keep the casino running, the union is pushing for better retirement benefits and healthcare coverage. Marlene Sanchez, a bartender at the casino, points out, “We are the reason Circus Circus Reno is successful and it’s time they recognize that.”