Miomni Gaming has started to build a pretty solid defense, and has gained an ally in the form of a U.K. judge. The sports betting provider, who is tangled in a legal dispute with Delaware North and Entergaming, has won an injunction in the U.K. High Courts, CalvinAyre.com has learned.

Miomni had a falling out with casino operator Delaware North, a West Virginia casino operator, in March when the sports betting provider suddenly started having issues with its third-party tech supplier Enterg Software Solutions. This new injunction sheds some light on what those problems were.

First of all, Enterg is the official name of the company that was being referred to as Entergaming, the brand sold to Intralot. The judge specifically noted that this is a confusing mix of names that could confuse and mislead.

A series of falsehoods seem to circle around the Enterg operation. The company, owned by Evangelia Alopoudi and Athanasios Marinos, listed a Malta gaming license on their website, but the Mediterranean regulator doesn’t list them as a licensee. They also claim to hold a French license, for which no further evidence can be found.

Massachusetts lawmakers have completed their most recent hearings on sports gambling in an effort to help them decide whether or not to allow the activity to be legalized in the state. The legislators got together with industry representatives, casino executives and others to hear both sides of the debate this past Tuesday and Wednesday and the turnout was solid. If the responses from several casinos helped, Massachusetts might continue pushing forward on mobile sportsbooks.

Among others, representatives from Encore Boston Harbor, which isn’t yet officially open, Plainridge Park Casino and MGM Springfield are interested in seeing mobile sports gambling be approved. The three got together and penned a letter to lawmakers before the hearing, in which they expressed their support for allowing FanDuel and DraftKings to enter the Massachusetts market with their mobile sportsbooks.

The letter states, in part, “Mobile sports wagering should be reserved for licensed casino operators and a limited number of daily fantasy operators with proven sports wagering experience.

“These operators have already made tremendous investments and are large drivers of economic activity, jobs and tourism for the Commonwealth.”

The wait is over for Wind Creek Hospitality. The company, which is owned by the Poarch Band of Creek Indians, has been green-lighted to take over Sands Bethlehem in Pennsylvania after the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board signed off on the deal this week. With that, the transaction that has been pending for over a year has come to a close.

Sands Bethlehem is now a former Las Vegas Sands property. It was purchased by the Poarch Band for $1.3 billion, subject to all of the regulatory red tape that typically accompanies any casino deal. With that money now free to be spent, Sands plans on paying off some of its debt and upgrade some of its operations in Macau. In addition, it will put a chunk of it toward expanding Marina Bay Sands, its Singapore casino that is going to get a $3.3-billion uplift.

Sands Bethlehem has always been a popular destination with gamblers in Pennsylvania and receives around nine million visitors each year. Only Parx Casino has seen a better response and the venue’s success is why over 100 investors chipped in to help cover a loan that will be used by Wind Creek for the acquisition and expansion.

Currently, the Sands Bethlehem offers 282 hotel rooms, a casino with 3,000 slots and 200 gaming tables, restaurants and other amenities. Now that the acquisition has been approved, the world can start referring to the property by its new name, Wind Creek Bethlehem, and prepare for another 300 hotel rooms to be added. In addition, an adventure and water park could become part of the complex, as well. If it does, it would potentially include another 400 hotel rooms.

Sports gambling can be tricky. There’s a nuance to it that requires the gambler to have a good grasp of the contest’s components when analyzing the situation. Things can always go wrong, but gambling is fickle – you have to be willing to take the bad with the good. One young gambler out of California wasn’t able to accept defeat, though, and took out his frustrations on those that caused him losses. Addison Choi turned to social media to vent his anger, sending death threats to more than a handful of athletes and will now pay the price for his impetuous attitude by spending time behind bars.

The 23-year-old Choi pleaded guilty in court of one count of “transmitting in interstate and foreign commerce a threat” to harm someone. He faces up to five years in the slammer, but could see his sentence reduced to anywhere from 21 to 27 months if prosecutors get their way.

Choi is lucky – the sentence could have been much worse. He wasn’t able to deny his activity, since he was stupid enough to convey the death threats over social media, and 45 different athletes had received his message loud and clear on their Instagram accounts.

In a redacted example of one of his tirades, Choi told an athlete in 2017, “I will kill you and your family and f—— hang them on a tree you stupid ugly mother——” and “I’m going to hunt you down and f—— skin you alive you stupid f—.” Not quite done venting, he added, “I hope you f—— die you stupid monkey n—–.”

Eldorado Resorts may be closer than ever to taking over Caesars Entertainment Corp. There has been talk of a possible acquisition in the past, but not much movement had been seen recently. Now, at least one industry analyst is putting his weight behind a possible upcoming deal and asserts that the companies’ valuation is a primary impetus behind the acquisition.

Carlo Santarelli of Deutsche Bank said this past Wednesday, “We believe the likelihood for an ERI/CZR pairing has increased and we believe this transaction would be a net positive for ERI, CZR, and the gaming group more broadly, given the valuation implications and broader halo of a busy (mergers and acquisitions) environment.” His use of “ERI” and “CZR” refer to Eldorado’s NASDAQ ticker symbol, ERI, and Caesars’ NYSE ticker symbol, CZR.

If Eldorado were to go after Caesars, it would be able to seek as much as $10.50 for each share of the company known for its properties such as Caesars Palace, Paris, Bally’s and others. This price point is about a 14.8% premium above stock’s closing price this past Wednesday and, given the size of the deal, which will almost definitely include cash and stock, Caesars investors stand to pick up a nice bonus.

Santarelli added, “We estimate, based on what we believe to be leverage thresholds and synergy targets, that ERI would likely offering something in the range of a ~55/45 cash/stock deal. As such, and assuming our ERI pro forma target objective of $83, we believe the transaction, over time, could represent a greater than 40 percent return for CZR holders.”

Kenneth Alexander, the captain steering the GVC Holdings ship, has decided to reduce his salary in an effort to appease investors prior to the upcoming shareholder meeting next week. It sounds like an altruistic attempt at trying to make everyone happy, while allowing Alexander to hold onto his job. Altruistic doesn’t quite define the move, though. The gaming executive has agreed to a reduction of $188,000, which is nominal considering his base salary still remains above $1 million. If he wanted to really make investors happy, perhaps he should have considered a cut that would actually make a dent.

Alexander will drop his salary from $1.19 million to $1 million, based on “feedback” he received from investors. According to a company statement, “After consulting with GVC’s chairman and remuneration committee chair, GVC’s chief executive officer has volunteered to reduce his annual salary from £950,000 to £800,000.” Alexander won’t even notice the missing $188,000 – his compensation package for 2018 was $24 billion.

Stockholders aren’t happy with what they view is excessive compensation awarded to executives of the company. Brass had justified the compensation following a number of recent acquisitions as a way to give themselves a pat on the back.

Investors could try to overturn all of the current executive pay structures. One of the largest shareholders, Merian Global Investors, is planning on leading a charge to vote against the payments and the firm’s CEO Richard Buxton asserts, We are concerned by the apparent lack of consistency between the targets under the new LTIP (long-term incentive plan) awards and the performance that we, and we understand management as well, expect of the business,”

The changes that have been made at Konami Gaming have been impressive, including choosing a new head of software development in April, when Sathish Anantharaman was brought on board as the company’s newest vice-president. Now a new VP is joining the group, as John Garner has joined Konami as the Vice President for Finance and Accounting.

In a written statement, the company explained that Garner will be in charge of fiscal strategy, planning, and processes, not only looking to make short-term gains for the company but also helping it to reach its long-term financial objectives as well.

Meeting the long-term objectives looks to be the driving factor at Konami. Anantharaman was hired because of his pioneering work in a large number of different products that included table games, automation, central monitoring, facial recognition software, and mobile applications. He is viewed as one of the most innovative people within his field, and his addition was clearly geared toward increasing the company’s presence for years to come.

“Sathish Anantharaman has long demonstrated an ability to drive meaningful value for operators and guests through innovative use of technology, creative application development and proven results,” the company said in a statement at the hiring of their new vice president.

MGM Resorts wants to reduce its workforce by 2,100 within a year and is well on its way to reaching its goal. The employment ax already cost almost 500 workers their positions within the past two months and another 557 positions have now been chopped. No one is spared from receiving a pink slip, with cuts coming across all ranks within the company.

MGM CEO Jim Murren booted 254 employees last month and just added another 222 to the list. He said in a statement, “We have taken strides to ensure our impacted colleagues were offered other options if those existed and we have provided a non-working notice period where health benefits will continue and severance to try and ease a life-changing transition. I stand behind the decisions we have made and believe them necessary to assure our future, but I deeply regret the impacts they have on individuals and their families.”

The employees are being let go following the company’s shopping spree that lasted a couple of years. MGM spent $1.4 billion in MGM National Harbor, $960 million on MGM Springfield in Massachusetts, $550 on a renovation project at its Monte Carlo venue, $850 million on Empire City in New York, $.3.4 billion on MGM Cotai and $900 million to purchase 50% of Borgata Atlantic City.

After feeding its spending habit, MGM now wants to cut costs and give investors better returns. Murren wants to “transform the way we operate and leverage the most effective operational architecture for our company.” Of course, part of the transformation most likely won’t include an impact on Murren’s compensation, which reached $12.8 million last year.

A round-up of news from 888Poker’s XL Inferno, and the 888Poker’s Poker After Dark, with wins for Chris Moorman and Ali Imsirovic.

‘Inferno’ is the first of three parts of Dante Alighieri’s poem ‘Divine Comedy’ where the poet Virgil guides Dante through hell. There is nothing ‘hellish’ about 888Poker’s XL Inferno, and I’m no Dante, but, right now, I’m your only guide.

39,378-entrants, some with hummus in their beards, others with the flexibility of Tin Man, competed across 34-events in XL Inferno. Unlike PokerStars’ Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP) or partypoker’s KO Series, the XL Inferno was more matchsticks on toilet roll than logs on the fire, but it will go down as a success nonetheless.

888Poker’s number crunchers estimated that $1.5m would be the right wet thumb number of a guarantee, and they were in the right ballpark after paying out $1,695,881 in prize money. Only one of the 34-events failed to hit its guarantee.

A round-up of the final bits and pieces of partypoker’s KO Series including $37.6m in cash prizes, despite 62-tournaments falling short of their respective guarantees. 

PokerStars promised $75m and spat out more than $100m.

888Poker said they would send $1.5m to the angels, and $1.7m landed at the Pearly Gates.

partypoker promised $30m, and delivered $37.6m.

Chelsea wins the Europa League after battering Arsenal 4-1 in a strange old evening in Baku, consigning the Gunners to Europa League football next season.

Holding a major European final in Azerbaijan’s capital, Baku, is as welcome to the fans as a collection of cardamom seeds in a Ruby Murray, as the 2019 Europa League final between Chelsea and Arsenal attests.

The Olympic Stadium in Baku seats close to 70,000 people and  20,000 of them were empty as the two London clubs sent fewer than 10,000 fans between them due to the logistical nightmare of making the 2,500-mile journey.

Even those who made the journey struggled to make their voices heard with the stands so far away from pitchside, when Olivier Giroud sneaked ahead of Laurent Koscielny to head Chelsea into a 49th-minute lead, an eerie silence greeted it.

Online gambling continues to gobble up an ever-larger share of the overall UK market, while gaming machines in betting shops saw their share decline for the first time ever.

On Thursday, the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) released its latest statistics on the UK market for the 12 months ending September 2018. During that span, UK-licensed operators generated gross gambling yield (GGY) of £14.5b, which the UKGC says represents a 0.4% decline from the 12 months ending March 2018 (although they originally reported GGY of £14.4b during that period, so bear in mind that these figures apparently aren’t carved in stone).

Regardless, online gambling’s growth continued unabated, accounting for GGY of £5.63b and a market share of 38.8%, up from 37.1% in the previous period. Online casino games accounted for nearly £3b (+1.8%) of this total, two-thirds of which came via slots. While online race and sports betting was essentially flat at £2.1b, overall online ‘betting’ was up 3.7% thanks to exchange betting rising 21% to nearly £343m and bingo improving 7.6% to £177.6m.

Land-based bookmakers’ GGY ranked second in the pecking order with £3.2b, down around £94m from the previous period. Gaming machines continued to account for the bulk (59.2%) of bookmakers’ GGY but this number fell £5.6m to £1.83b. It’s a modest decline but it’s the first backward step the machine category has taken since the UKGC began keeping score.