The first Prague iGaming Affiliate Conference, the event about marketing in gambling sphere from Smile-Expo, is approaching. Don’t miss the unique offer from the organizer: tickets to the conference at half price!
Ticket’s price on April 15 – 17: 3500 CZK.
Ticket’s price on the day of the event: 7000 CZK.
The conference will take place on April 18, and will gather leading affiliates, marketers, operators and representatives of the gambling industry.
A growing number of states are moving to allow the winners of big lottery jackpots to stay anonymous as privacy concerns are increasingly trumping lottery groups’ wishes to publicize winners to boost sales and show that the games are fair.Insider Buzz, Arizona, Legislation, General Interest, Government, Anonymous
PokerStars continues to change their ambassadorial cast with long-time servant Randy ‘nanonoko’ Lew leaving after a nine-year stint, and European Poker Tour Main Event champion, Kalidou Sow, stepping into the fold.
There are a few ‘poker ambassadors’ you could imagine ending up on Jerry Springer, but Randy ‘nanonoko’ Lew isn’t one of them. Quiet, reserved, studious, brilliant – the type of guy who has a gothic teddy bear collection sitting in a bedroom decked out like the Bridge on Shatner’s ship methinks.
Today, Lew is a free agent after becoming the latest in an ever-expanding list of PokerStars Ambassadors who have failed, for one reason or another, to renegotiate a new contract.
Lew’s had a great run, after joining PokerStars in December 2009.
partypoker announces the discovery and culling of 277 bot-controlled accounts, and Jeff Gross offers Tom Dwan and Daniel Cates a ring if they should ever contemplate re-energising the Durrrr Challenge.
In November 2017, Tom Waters, MD, partypoker, sat down with yours truly to offer a response to a potentially brand-damaging claim that a collusion ring was wreaking havoc in his high stakes multi-table tournament (MTTs) ecosystem.
Waters was as open and fluid as his name.
Yes, something is going on.
A review of Saturday’s action from the English Premier League sees Spurs and Manchester United claiming vital victories in the race for a Champions League place.
Pundits wax lyrical about The English Premier League’s (EPL) ‘Big Six’. In reality, it’s a ‘Big Two’, as Chelsea and Manchester City are the only teams to have snaffled a title since Sir Alex Ferguson’s reign came to an end, Leicester City’s aberration excepted.
That leaves a ‘Sort of Big Four’ of Spurs, Manchester United, Liverpool and Arsenal. Each season, the goal is to qualify for the UEFA Champions League, an achievement as monumental as receiving your first fake I.D.
On Saturday, two of the ‘Sort of Big Four’ were in action, with Spurs taking on Championship bound Huddersfield at White Hart Lane, and Man Utd entertaining West Ham.
The Keeneland April Sale returned April 8 after a five-year hiatus as a combined 2-year-olds in training plus horses of racing age sale, while the Inglis Australian Easter Yearling Sale was a touch stronger compared to 2018.
John Sadler is starting to show a knack for turning East Coast horses into West Coast graded stakes winners. His latest example came with Woodford Racing’s Campaign, who earned his first stakes win in the $100,000 Tokyo City Cup (G3) April 14.
In a knock-down, drag-out fight to the wire April 14, Bloom Racing Stable, Madaket Stables, and Allen Racing’s Midnight Bisou emerged victorious over Escape Clause in a photo finish to take the $750,000 Apple Blossom Handicap (G1) at Oaklawn Park.
New Jersey’s online and retail sportsbooks scored a record win and near-record monthly handle in March as the industry crossed the $2 billion mark in bets since legalization. The spike was fueled overwhelmingly by the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, according to PlayNJ.com analysts.
“The first week of March Madness generated more action than the Super Bowl, and even the First Four games attracted enough betting to rival a busy weekend of NFL regular season football,” said Dustin Gouker, lead sports betting analyst for PlayNJ.com. “That is unquestionably a massive success and shows clearly the importance of college basketball to the Northeast’s legal sports betting markets.”
New Jersey’s online and retail sportsbooks accepted $372.5 million in March bets, just shy of the record $385.3 million in January, according to official reporting. New Jersey’s online and retail sportsbooks have now accepted $2.3 billion in bets since legalization in June 2018.
March revenue was $31.7 million, up 150 percent from $12.7 million in February. The win and a high-water gross revenue mark for the state’s online casinos combined in March to generate more than $70 million in monthly revenue.
“$2 billion in bets in nine months shows just how much pent-up demand for legal sports betting existed in New Jersey,” Gouker said. “As quickly as the industry has ramped up, though, the next milestone should come more quickly. $3 billion is certainly within reach by the industry’s first anniversary in June.”
New Jersey’s online sportsbook brands accounted for $298,3 million, or 80.8 percent, of total March bets. That’s even with the 80.8 percent of bets that flowed through online sportsbooks in February.
FanDuel Sportsbook/Pointsbet was the dominant online sportsbook, beating rival DraftKings Sportsbook, with $13.3 million in gross revenue, up from $6.59 million in February. DraftKings fueled Resorts’ $7.3 million in March, up from $3.7 million in February.
FanDuel Sportsbook at The Meadowlands remained tops in the retail market with $4.3 million in March gross revenue, up from $1.5 million in February. Monmouth Park followed FanDuel with $986,251.
“Online sports betting will continue to drive the market, and product innovations will likely bear much more fruit in the near future,” Gouker said. “New Jersey’s sportsbooks already offer the most advanced online product of any legal sports betting jurisdiction, and bettors have continually responded.”
The April 17 opening race at Aqueduct Racetrack features the unveiling of 2015 Triple Crown winner American Pharoah’s first two North American starters in Lady Delaware and Tesorina.
Mohaather’s connections have said he has earned the right to test his group 1 credentials and stamina in the QIPCO Two Thousand Guineas (G1) at Newmarket May 4 after his April 13 success in the Watership Down Stud Greenham Stakes (G3).
Six Oaklawn Park-raced horses have enough points to run in the Kentucky Derby Presented by Woodford Reserve (G1), including Omaha Beach and Improbable, the top two finishers in the April 13 $1 million Arkansas Derby (G1).
Saturnalia won a three-way sprint to the finish in the first leg of the Japanese Triple Crown, the Satsuki Sho (Japanese Two Thousand Guineas, G1) April 14 at Nakayama Racecourse, remaining undefeated in four career starts.
New Jersey’s regulated online gambling market roared its way back into the record books in March, which was anything but the cruelest month as online casino revenue shot up nearly three-fifths year-on-year.
Figures released Friday by the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement (DGE) show the state’s licensed online gambling operators generated revenue of over $39.1m in March, a 53% rise over the same month last year and an impressive $5.5m higher than the market’s previous monthly best set this January.
The state’s online poker market had what could be described as a solid month, by which we mean revenue declined only 3.2% year-on-year to $1.9m. Meanwhile, the online casino vertical soared 57.7% to over $37.2m. January’s casino year-on-year percentage gain was slightly higher (58.5%) but March’s dollar figure was $6.1m larger.
As usual, sites affiliated with Atlantic City’s Golden Nugget casino led the online casino charge with a thoroughly impressive $14.2m of revenue in March, nearly two-thirds higher than the same month last year and $2m higher than the Nugget’s own previous market best. If that’s not impressive enough, consider that $14.2m was the sum generated by the entire New Jersey online casino market as recently as September 2016.
New Jersey’s regulated sports betting market set a new revenue record in March thanks mainly to a certain college basketball tournament.
Figures released Friday by the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement (DGE) show the state’s licensed sportsbooks earned a record $31.9m in March, up from just $12.7m in February and significantly higher than the previous record of $24m set last September.
A reminder that the DGE includes ‘pending wagers’ as revenue, and since a lot of wagers would have been placed on the latter stages of the NCAA March Madness basketball schedule, which didn’t take place until April, so the March revenue figure likely got a little ‘wind assist’ here.
Regardless, betting handle hit $372.4m in March, second only to the $385m the books handled in January. Of this sum, $298.3m (80%) was wagered via digital channels, roughly the same percentage reported in each month this year. The state’s books have already handled nearly $1.1b worth of wagers through the first three months of 2019.
Atlantic City casinos reported a double-digit gaming revenue gain in March, but all but two of the seven veteran casinos reported year-on-year revenue declines.
The New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement says total brick-and-mortar gaming win (i.e. slot machines and table games) came in around $223.2m in the month of March, a 15.7% improvement over March 2018, which was negatively impacted by multiple winter storms. The result was also a damn sight better than February 2019’s $196.7m.
AC’s slots spun wildly in March, generating over $162.6m, up 18.5% year-on-year. The gaming tables also had a decent month, rising 8.7% to $60.5m. Combined with the record $39.1m generated by the state’s online gambling licensees and the $11.4m in sports betting revenue generated by AC casinos and the month’s total gaming revenue rose 25.3% to $273.7m.
Getting back to the purely slots & table stats, while the overall number was positive, only Caesars ($22.8m, +4.3%) and Resorts Casino Hotel ($14.9m, +0.6%) posted year-on-year gains. The other five casinos in operation in March 2018 were all negative, with Harrah’s suffering the biggest percentage decline, falling 16.5% to $26.4m.
Favored Fox Hill Farm’s Omaha Beach grabbed the lead on the backstretch and then kept Improbable at bay in the stretch to capture the $1 million Arkansas Derby (G1) over a sloppy track at Oaklawn Park April 13.
Sheila Rosenblum, founder and owner of Lady Sheila Stable, announced April 13 that champion female sprinter La Verdad foaled a Curlin filly April 5 at Darley in Lexington.
With time to mature, Owendale rallied to a breakthrough victory in the $200,000 Stonestreet Lexington Stakes (G3) April 13 at Keeneland, beating out horses hoping to collect enough points to make the Kentucky Derby Presented by Woodford Reserve (G1).
Madaket Stables, Elayne Stables, and Brian Martin’s Another Broad captured the $200,000 Top Flight Invitational Stakes April 13 at Aqueduct Racetrack, rewarding her new connections with a stakes victory in only her second start for them.