Despite how well revenues might be doing, tourism is showing healthy increases in Macau. The city’s tourism promotion body have announced a 37% year on year increase for the 2019 Labour Day holiday weekend.

The Macau Government Tourism Office celebrated the increase in a press release. They immediately credited the increase on visits from Mainland China residents traveling across the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao bridge, and noted of the 531,503 total tourists who entered the administrative region for the first three days of the four-day weekend, 436,679 were from China, an increase of 42.7% when compared to 2018.

The decision to extend the holiday into a four day weekend likely meant that more people were willing to travel. They wrote that the decision to make it a longer holiday meant “more mainland residents were enticed to travel during the mentioned period…”The total four day weekend saw 636,644 visitors, excluding students and employees.

Each hotel stay resulted in more money, as well. The average hotel rate increased 16.7%. With 40,162 total rooms and a 96.2% occupancy rate for the holiday period, a rise of 1.9%, resort operators and hotels made out with a handsome revenue.

Kids these days like their Fortnight, they like their Instagram, and according to a recent Google survey, they like Oreos, I guess. The real danger though is that UK gambling firms might have keyed in on a beloved brand amongst the Gen-Z generation: The 84 year old Monopoly board game.

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) recently ruled that an ad appearing on the Mirror Online website, prominently featuring Rich Uncle Pennybags, was too enticing for impressionable young minds, reports The Guardian. They’ve ordered the ad, which advertised for Entertaining Play, a subsidiary of Gamesys, banned as a result.

I’m as appalled as you are, dear reader, that a gambling firm would use the innocent image of Mr. Pennybags to advertise gambling to children. The wholesome board game, played with dice and figurative money, is nothing like gambling, and children shouldn’t link the two.

Snark aside, Reverend Dr. Alan Smith, bishop of St. Albans, agreed with the ban. He said:

On May 2, SciPlay Corporation, a subsidiary of Scientific Games Corporation, announced the pricing for their initial public offering (IPO), expected to be 22 million of class A common stock shares. The original price, according to the release, would be $16 per share, with the underwriters being granted a 30-day option to be able to purchase an additional 3.3 million of the class A common stock shares.

It was announced in late April that the initial IPO for SciPlay was about ready to head to the market. The social gaming division of Scientific Games was ready to begin the public trading of the stock and had applied for the initial application through the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

The initial sale of the shares was expected to be somewhere between $14 up to $16. However, as of May 3, the value had gone down to $15.18 per share an 11% decrease. It was still a significant increase over the low value that the company was originally willing to accept.

The IPO lock-up period is set for the next 180 days. This prohibits insiders from being able to acquire shares of the company stock before it went public or to trade stock during the 180 day period.

Parq Vancouver, a luxury casino venue that first opened its doors two years ago, has had some difficulty keeping the wheels turning. It has blamed its lack of strength on anti-money-laundering (AML) rules, which could be construed as a way of saying that it would be profitable if it was allowed to launder money. Whatever the reasons are, the casino is facing more dire straits and has defaulted on a loan payment after deferring payment twice. The move does not bode well for Parq’s future.

According to M Partners Inc. equity research analyst Andrew Hood, Parq has taken in $170 million in revenue while carrying $152 million in expenses. That makes for operating income of around $18 million, but the venue’s debts carry extremely high interest rates, which are cancelling out any potential income generated.

Hood adds, “If they want to be feasible moving forward, they must refinance that debt. There’s no way they’re going to make money as a business unless they refinance that debt.” The solution is also one of the problems. The casino has not been able to find an alternative to carry the debt.

Parq Vancouver’s $18 million in operating income was completely wiped out by the interest payments on its debt. That interest amounts to around $30 million per quarter and ranges from 7.5% to 12%.

One of the minority shareholders of the Studio City casino resort is having a little bit of a money problem. New Cotai Holdings, along with three of its affiliated debtors, have applied for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the U.S., hoping to buy it some time to figure out where it went wrong.

New Cotai reportedly has at least 20 creditors, according to court documents for the bankruptcy, which was filed in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York. The company and its affiliated debtors have liabilities that range from between $500 million and $1 billion and has run into trouble meeting certain financial obligations.

Some of those obligations include an agreement note worth $856 million. New Cotai hasn’t able to negotiate a deal with the holders of the debt and some of the unsecured notes came due on Wednesday. The company wasn’t able to cover the notes, in part prompting the decision to file for Chapter 11.

The filing wasn’t unexpected by industry analysts. In response to the news, the Sanford C. Bernstein brokerage said on Thursday, “A bankruptcy of New Cotai has been expected as the New Cotai payment-in-kind notes came due and New Cotai has no funds to redeem the notes.”

Two new sportsbooks are coming to New Jersey. According to company representatives, Bally’s Atlantic City and Harrah’s, both of which are Caesars Entertainment properties, are going to introduce permanent sports gambling facilities within the next couple of weeks, as cited by The Press of Atlantic City.

Both of the venues began offering temporary sportsbooks last summer while Caesars worked on the permanent facilities. Combined, they carry a price tag of $11 million and will bring Caesars in line with other Boardwalk casinos. Currently, it is the only operator on the Boardwalk without a permanent sports gambling venue.

Harrah’s should open its sportsbook with two weeks, but there are doubts whether or not Bally’s will have everything in place by June. Even Kevin Ortzman, the regional president for Caesars Atlantic City, is only “cautiously optimistic” that it can meet the deadline.

Ortzman indicates that Caesars doesn’t want to rush into the game. There is some stiff competition for bettors in New Jersey and the company wants to make sure it does things right. Ortzman says that it is creating a “category-killer” in Atlantic City.

If Michigan residents thought the state was making progress with online gaming legislation, they might need to think again. Although several legislative committees have shown approval for the activity, Governor Gretchen Whitmer is ready with her “Rejected” stamp for any bill that might come across her desk. It’s almost as if the state were witnessing the reincarnation of its former governor, Rick Snyder.

Last Thursday, a bill targeting online gambling found some resistance while being discussed in the Ways and Means Committee. The committee itself didn’t reject the bill, but it became known that Whitmer would veto the bill if it remains as it is current written.

The bill allegedly cuts back on the revenue the state receives from gambling activity. According to Bethany Wicksall with Michigan’s State Budget Office, “As the bill is written — given the tax rate, the distribution of the additional new online gaming revenue to the state, as well as the potential impact to the state lottery — even under an optimistic scenario, Treasury estimates that there would be a potential reduction in overall state revenue.”

However, there may be more to the story than what appears on the surface. The bill doesn’t seek any cuts directly; the state’s lottery believes that Internet gaming will take away from its revenue, part of which is given to state programs such as the School Aid Fund (SAF). The bill also only gives 10% of revenue from online gaming to the treasury, of which 5% would go to the SAF.

An individual with ties to the Genovese crime family recently stood before a judge and admitted being involved in illegal gambling activities in New Jersey, as well as offshore. Vincent Coppola will now face sentencing for his crimes, but could also face the family if he decides to play “Let’s Make a Deal.”

Coppola’s participation was uncovered during a larger illegal sports gambling investigation. He apparently was involved in a network of associates of the Genovese family that were running the operations, which included facilities in New Jersey, as well as a wire room in Costa Rica that was used for processing bets.

Coppola reportedly worked as an agent tasked with managing sub-agents—individuals who controlled an established list of gamblers. Last Wednesday, he admitted to one count of third-degree gambling promotion. He could be sentenced to up to 180 days in jail followed by probation.

According to investigators looking into illegal gambling in the state, Coppola was in charge of two New Jersey-based sub-agents, Jerry J. Albanese of Scotch Plains and John W. Trainor of Brick. He allowed both to have greater control over the bettors in their “packages” (a group of bettors) and those packages allegedly handled over $1.7 million in wagers in 2011. That year, over $400,000 in profits were recorded.

Ask Morgan Stanley analysts who’s leading the race to be involved in one of the first three integrated resorts (IR) in Japan, and they’ll say that it’s a toss-up between two U.S. companies. The brokerage firm asserts that MGM Resorts and Las Vegas Sands are the two prime contenders and that either one could ultimately be chosen to oversee operations at a resort in Osaka, one of the principle locations being considered for an IR.

The Osaka prefecture’s government, as well as Osaka city’s government, began accepting initial applications from potential casino partners in late April. The initiative is designed to determine who is interested in launching a venue in Osaka so that authorities can begin the daunting task of selecting a partner.

Several casino operators from around the world have expressed their interest in the Osaka project, which is planned for Yumeshima Island on Osaka Bay. In addition to MGM and Las Vegas Sands, Melco Resorts and Entertainment and Wynn Resorts have thrown their names into the hat. Wynn Resorts may be at a disadvantage due to the issues the company has had to face because of its founder’s alleged sexual improprieties.

Las Vegas Sands has operations in an Asian country that could prove beneficial when Osaka starts reviewing bids. The company is behind Marina Bay Sands in Singapore and Japanese lawmakers have designed their gambling framework after that of the city-state. In addition, Sands has been very proactive in helping to expand MICE (meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions) options in other areas where it operates, including Las Vegas and Macau, which could be viewed very favorably by Japanese authorities.

PokerStars remind partypoker that they’re still the force to be reckoned with after bolstering their Twitch streaming ranks by a dozen. 

What fools we were to think that as partypoker stuck needles into the private parts of effigies belonging to the PokerStars Twitch Team that the most terrifying online poker room to emerge since the Ice Age wouldn’t retaliate with some rather big needles of their own.

After Jeff Gross, Kevin Martin and Jaime Staples vacated PokerStars Towers for the fingernail scratching excitement of partypoker Team Online, and the contracts of many others went the way of the moss and the mushrooms, there were noises that PokerStars was done with this Twitch thing.

“It’s a fad.”

The last report from the PokerStars European Poker Tour (EPT) Monte Carlo covering the Main Event and the two final €25,000 No-Limit Hold’em events.

The equator is an imaginary line that separates the Northern and Southern hemispheres. There’s also an invisible line separating hemispheres in poker. On one side of that line, are people for whom a $10,000 buy-in event is a dream, and on the other, we have a bubble within a bubble that eats $10,000 buy-ins as a snack amid a long-arse movie, like Avengers: Endgame.

The Poker Gods pulled out their whips to corral those in the expensive hemisphere into the expensive quarters of the PokerStars European Poker Tour (EPT) in Monte Carlo, and we’re going to bring you up to speed on the remnants of that bad boy.

We begin with the Jupiter of EPT Monte Carlo, the €5,300 buy-in Main Event, and a final table that included a former World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event winner, and two Triton Poker Series Champions, one of whom took the whole thing down.