Greece’s video lottery terminal (VLT) market and the fortunes of local operator OPAP are in legal jeopardy following a ruling by the country’s top administrative court.

This week, Greece’s Council of State upheld an appeal filed by the Club Hotel Casino Loutraki in January 2017, which challenged regulations issued the previous year by the Hellenic Gaming Commission (EEEP) regarding the operation of 35k new VLTs (later reduced to 25k) by the former state-run lottery and betting monopoly OPAP.

OPAP began rolling out its VLTs in January 2017 and announced last week that its installed complement of machines now totaled nearly 19k. But the Council of State ruled that the EEEP’s 2016 authorization violated Article 29 of Law 4002/2011, “which requires the regulation of controversial issues with a regulation adopted by Presidential Decree.”

Since no decree was ever issued, the Council of State considers the VLT authorization to have been “unlawfully adopted by an incompetent person and should therefore be annulled.” However, while the ruling effectively leaves Greece’s VLT market in a legal vacuum, the court didn’t order a suspension of existing VLT operations. OPAP has yet to issue a public statement regarding the ruling.

Poland’s state-owned lottery and online casino monopoly Totalizator Sportowy enjoyed record sales in 2018, topping the six billion zloty mark for the first time.

Figures released this week show Totalizator Sportowy’s total sales hitting PLN6.1b (US$1.6b) in 2018, an 8.5% improvement over 2017’s result. The gains pushed Totalizator Sportowy’s total contribution to the state budget to over PLN2b while kickbacks to Polish sport and national cultural programs exceeded PLN1b, the first time these subsidies have topped the billion-zloty threshold.

Totalizator Sportowy CEO Olgierd Cieślik said breaking the “magic barrier” of PLN6b was “just the beginning of good information and a good run.” Cieślik noted that the firm’s Playtech-powered online casino Total Casino only launched in December 2018, and thus 2019’s figures will have some extra wind in their sails/sales. Cieślik previously suggested Total Casino will boost the monopoly’s online operations to around 30% of overall sales within three to four years.

It doesn’t hurt that Total Casino has a friend in the Ministry of Finance, which continues to blacklist internationally licensed gambling sites that lack Polish approval. As of April 4, the country’s online gambling blacklist listed 6,553 unapproved domains, meaning over 300 new domains have been added since March 1.

The biggest show of the wrestling year is nearly here. WrestleMania happens this Sunday at the MetLife stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, and there’s a lot of big matches to get excited about. If you’re considering putting a wager down, we’re looking at the odds of the top matches, care of 5Dimes.

Last time we did this was shortly before the WWE’s Fastlane event, and I’ll have you know I subscribed to the WWE Network to bone up on the story lines to help with my predictions. I don’t think it helped at all. Let’s get into it!

WWE Universal Champion Brock Lesnar (4/5) defends his title against the always competitive Seth Rollins (20/23). This is a toss-up, with neither man heavily favored. I believe that because of some upsetting results elsewhere in the card, Vince McMahon will want to throw the crowd a bone, so I’m picking Rollins here.

In a title for title match, Ronda Rousey (4/1) and Charlotte Flair (27/2) both defend their titles, with Becky Lynch (20/89) heavily favored as the third wheel. I’m picking my personal favorite for a huge upset here, as I think they’ll let Charlotte Flair walk away with both titles, letting Rousey move on to a more focused story line and giving Becky Lynch another few months of chasing.

In a crafty sting operation, the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has found five online gambling firms in violation of the country’s rules for targeting ads at children.

The Guardian reports the authority went about their investigation by creating child “avatars,” or in other terms, they browsed the web in a manner similar to an underage person would. They then tallied the gambling ads they would see, and tallied the results.

Over two weeks, they saw ads from 43 online operators on public sites. Maybe most glaringly, 20 YouTube channels and two dozen children’s websites had gambling ads on them.

The ASA isolated five brands for breaking the UK’s advertising laws. They were: Vikings Video Slot, Redbet, Multilotto, Unibet and PlayOjo. None of those companies were advertising on YouTube, but they were advertising on sites frequented by children. Some 11 sites were found to have 23 unique ads, which appeared over 100 times in total. The biggest violator was Vikings Video Slot, which accounted for nearly half the unique ads, and the majority of the total appearances, according to ASA.

After being granted a license by the Western Cape Gambling and Racing Board, Lottoland announced that they had opened operations in South Africa to begin lottery betting.

Lottoland is the world leader in online lotto operations and had been seeking to gain access into the South African market for some time now. That came to fruition when both licenses were granted on Wednesday, allowing the company to go live, which they did immediately following the granting of the licenses.

This approval now gives them 30 separate lotteries across the globe, and South Africans the first opportunity to win record jackpots in other countries, including Mega Millions and Powerball in the United States, and European jackpots.

Lottoland had already attempted to expand their operations in January when they made a bid for rival ZEAL Network’s operations. The cash offering was for a number between €60m-€76m, but ZEAL balked at the offer.

Genting Bhd is chugging along with construction of its latest venue, Resorts World Las Vegas (RWLV). In an effort to help the property come to life, two of the company’s subsidiaries will see senior bonds in order to help cover the $4-billion construction price tag the resort is expected to carry. If everything goes well and the plan stays on track, the new casino resort in Las Vegas could open before the end of 2020.

In a filing with Bursa Malaysia, Genting said that Resorts World Las Vegas LLC and RWLV Capital Inc. had sold a bond in the amount of $1 billion to help offset the construction costs. The bond has a coupon of 4.625% and the notes are due in 2029, and was coordinated through Barclays, Citigroup and JPMorgan.

Apparently, the bond has been a success. One of the bankers behind the issuance has stated that investors have placed orders totaling $3.8 billion. The deal had been given a BBB+ rating by Standard & Poor’s, which is unusual for an investment in a project that has no cash flow and that has construction risk.

In its filing with Bursa Malaysia, Genting added that proceeds from the bond would go toward funding the “remaining costs associated with the design, development, construction, equipping, financing and opening of the Resorts World Las Vegas casino and integrated resort.”

This past March, police in Cambodia’s Siem Reap province conducted raids of two locations suspected of running illegal online gambling rings. Their suspicions confirmed, the officers detained a massive amount of individuals, of which 165 were Chinese nationals. Now, all of those will most likely be deported from the country this weekend, according to a report by the Phnom Penh Post.

According to a spokesperson for the Ministry of Interior’s General Department of Immigration, Uk Hai Seila, China is going to send a plane to retrieve the individuals. He added, “We are preparing the documentation and the Chinese side also needs to arrange the flight, but we expect the aircraft to arrive as soon as possible, perhaps on April 7 or 8.”

Working with the Siem Reap court prosecutor, law enforcement officials raided the two gambling rings on March 28. Both were being operated in the village of Vihear Chin in Svay Dangkum and police detained the Chinese nationals and confiscated 150 computers.

During interrogations, the police learned that the operations had been running for about a month, according to a statement by Kim Cheasan, the deputy chief of the Siem Reap Immigration Police Department. Out of all 165 arrested, only 35 had passports.

Melco International’s next big resort is going to be built on the Mediterranean island nation of Cyprus and the company is anxious to get things going. It has now chosen the main contractors for the City of Dreams Mediterranean (CODM), which will reportedly break ground on the project this month.

In a press release from this past Tuesday, Melco stated that the contractors will be Avax – Terna JV, a joint venture project that is owned by Avax SA and Terna SA. The former owns 60%, while the latter owns 40%. Melco added that the construction should “begin in early April 2019 and is scheduled to be completed within 2021.”

Lawrence Ho, Melco’s chairman, adds in the release, “I am confident given the experience and success of both parties to the joint venture, that Avax – Terna will deliver the project to the highest construction standards and will enable us to bring an extraordinary integrated casino resort to Cyprus.”

Avax has been around since 1985 and went public on the Athens Stock Exchange in 1994. Terna is reportedly the construction arm of GEK Terna Group, which was founded in 1972 and also went public on the exchange in 1994. Both companies currently have operations in Cyprus.

The list of U.S. states hoping to get into the sports gambling industry continues to grow. Arkansas became one of the most recent states to enter the space and two more are now working on legislation to grab a piece of the action.

Alabama lawmakers are entertaining House Bill 315, the Alabama Sports Wagering Act. It was sponsored by Representative John Rogers and would authorize bets on “certain professional or collegiate sports or athletic events.” Most likely, based on that language, wagers on local collegiate games would be prohibited.

Sports gambling using a mobile application would be permitted and, if the legislation makes it all the way through the political obstacle course, Alabama would become the first Southeastern state to allow mobile sports gambling.

Licenses would run $100,000, with a maximum of seven to be issued. Gambling revenue would be taxed at 10%, close to what has been seen in other states.