Kazuo Okada appears to be stepping up his fight against his former company, Tiger Resort Leisure and Entertainment Inc (TRLEI). The Japanese tycoon has filed charges of estafa (or fraud, basically) and qualified theft against his former company for their act of removing him from the company.

Several well-known personalities and important members of the TRLEI board, are listed in the charges. It includes Toyboy Cojuanco, a director of the company, Manual “Lolong” Lazaro, another director who used to be a Ferdinand Marcos lawyer. It also includes his estranged wife, Takako Okada, his son, Tomohiro Okada, and the rest of the board of directors.

In the complaint, Okada was noted as saying:

“The respondents, being then directors, officers, and/or nominee/trustee shareholders of the companies I own and control, conspiring and confederating together and mutually helping and aiding one another, did then and there willfully, unlawfully and feloniously (a) take, seize, and appropriate for themselves, my ownership and management rights and interest in [TRLEI] or Okada Manila, without my consent, with grave abuse of confidence, and with intent to gain; and (b) converted and misappropriated, the shares of stock of [TRLEI], and the rights, powers and duties of directors of [TRLEI], I had entrusted to some of the respondents, to my great injury and prejudice, by causing my removal as Chairman, Director, Chief Executive Officer and registered shareholder of Tiger PH.”

In Oregon, as well as in other states, certain gambling losses can be written off by gamblers when they calculate their taxes. This could soon change, though, as lawmakers are considering a proposal that would take away those deductions. Casinos are, as to be expected, launching a fight to try and prevent the legislation from becoming law and the fight is being spearheaded by the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community. It argues that the losses would be an encumbrance to their operations.

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Oregon Senate Finance Committee Chairman Senator Mark Hass is behind the effort, Senate Bill 212 (SB 212). It has already been approved by the Senate, having successfully passed a vote this past March, and is now making its way through the House obstacle course. It is stuck in traffic in the House Revenue Committee.

This will give the tribe, which operates the Spirit Mountain Casino, time to rally the troops. It has joined forces with he Oregon Tribal Gaming Alliance (OTGA) in opposing the bill, hoping to thwart the efforts before the bill gains more momentum. According to the tribe, the result of the bill would mean serious reductions in its revenue. Last year, 2% of the gamblers on those machines accounted for 50% of the casino’s revenue.

Iowa received a windfall of cash last year, thanks to casinos. According to a report just released by the Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission (IRGC), the state’s casino industry took in around $1.5 billion last year, marking the best year on record since 2012. The take proved beneficial to Iowa, which saw its bank accounts swell by $321.86 million.

Making the increase even more noteworthy is the fact that the number of gamblers visiting the state’s casinos declined over the year. However, several factors are helping improve the industry. Iowa’s economy has been on the rebound following a downturn in 2013 and more money is being spent on leisure and gambling. The state’s unemployment rate is only 2.5% – one of the lowest in the U.S. – and average personal income is up 5.5% since 2016.

According to the IGRC, which reported on Iowa’s 19 non-tribal casinos, slot revenue came in at $1.31 billion, with a final table take of $156.80 million and adjusted gross revenue of $1.46 billion. The biggest winner was the Caesars-operated Horseshoe Council Bluffs venue, which offers more than 60,000 square feet of gaming space filled with 1,400 slot machines and 60 table games. It generated $37.50 million in gaming tax revenue.

Next up was the Ameristar, which gave Iowa $33.41 million in gaming taxes. The casino is the state’s only riverboat casino and offers 38,500 square feet of gaming space with five high-roller gaming tables and 51 high limit slot machines.

Japanese conglomerate Dynam Japan Holdings Co. Ltd. has released its financials for the second half of the 2019 fiscal year and the results are not what the company had anticipated, but they’re still not too bad. The company earned revenue of $664.66 million, a dip of 2.8% year-on year, but this was still a little better than the $657.36 million some analysts had forecast. EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization), however, was down more and was even lower than what analysts had expected.

EBITDA came in at $119.6 million, a year-on-year decrease of 11.2%. Union Gaming analysts had previously announced that they predicted an EBITDA of $158.8 million, which had been based on expectations of gaming machine sales. Those expectations came from what has been a continued climb over the past few years in Dynam’s gaming activity.

Dynam has its hands in a number of activities, including pachinko halls, and several changes are coming that are going to have a negative impact on that segment. An impending consumption tax increase in Japan, which is going to 10%, is going to hurt the industry and Dynam’s volumes. In addition, all pachinko halls are going to have to be updated to include separate smoking and non-smoking sections by April of next year, which could temporarily affect the numbers.

Dynam has done better than most due to its business model. It reported a 53.6% year-on-year net profit increase for the second and third quarters of last year, and this is partly due to the inclusion of lower volatility machines in its venues. These machines account for around 40% of the company’s operations and are performing better than what had been expected.

Massachusetts is just one of many states in the U.S. to be considering sports gambling legislation and, like many of those, the debate lingers. Lawmakers often have a difficult time reaching a consensus on virtually any topic – which is why it takes so long for politicians to get anything done – and sports gambling is no different. There are two hearings scheduled for this week in Massachusetts that should help push the sports gambling debate along, but there’s a problem. The legislators are going to have to consider nine different sports gambling bills, one of which was submitted by the state’s governor, Charlie Baker.

Tomorrow, the Joint Committee on Economic Development and Emerging Technologies will hear testimony from attendees on the pros and cons of legalized sports gambling. The second hearing will take place on Wednesday and is an open forum designed to receive public input on the subject.

If lawmakers in the state find common ground and can push sports gambling legislation ahead, Massachusetts would become the second state in the New England region to authorize the activity. Rhode Island was the first when it approved a sports gambling bill last year, but many have said that the preliminary indications show that the industry has flopped in that state. There has already been one lawsuit filed challenging the legality of Rhode Island’s sports gambling legislation and the industry did nowhere near the revenue many anticipated.

Governor Baker’s bill would authorize sports gambling on professional sports only – college and high school games would be off-limits. The Massachusetts Gaming Commission would be in charge of the industry, setting all regulations and doling out licenses. He proposes a 10% tax on revenue from brick-and-mortar operations and 12.5% on mobile bets. $100,000 would need to be submitted with a potential operator’s application, and approved operations would be assessed a five-year license that costs $500,000.

After spending years reporting on cricket, a journalist in India has decided to use what he learned to launch a new gaming portal. Nikhil Kalro, who worked for ESPNcricinfo, has launched a new digital gaming and sports content company timed to coincide with the upcoming ICC Cricket World Cup 2019.

The web-based daily fantasy sports (DFS) portal Altletics (from Alternative Athletics) is designed to encourage greater involvement from individuals who prefer to participate in DFS for free. The Bengaluru-based company is looking to emphasize leagues with smaller numbers of contest entries (2, 3 or 5), which would have smaller entry fees compared to the larger, more established DFS portals.

Kalro adds that Altletics is focusing on offering an improved and smoother customer experience than the other portals, as well. He asserts that the company is undertaking simple initiatives, such as greater cash bonuses and the smaller entries, in order to increase the odds of winning.

Cricket is the only DFS offering on the site now, but expansion is underway. Mobile apps for both Android and iOS devices are coming and Kalro states that additional sports will most likely be added as the platform grows.

Las Vegas Sands is happy to be a part of the gambling landscape in Japan, but only if it can have its integrated resort (IR) in a major city. Other, smaller areas may have their purposes, but these don’t align with Sands’ plans, according to the company’s managing director of global development, George Tanasijevich. Apparently, to Sands and Adelson, size does matter.

During a recent interview with GGRAsia during the Japan Gaming Congress 2019 in Tokyo, Tanasijevich asserted that Sands is committed to a “comprehensive and compelling” bid for Osaka, one of the three primary candidate locations for an IR. He added that the company has participated in the recent concept submission process launched by Osaka, which concluded last Friday.

Tanasijevich added that Osaka is the “number one objective” for an IR and that the company’s experience in MICE (meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions), as well as entertainment, gives it great potential to be awarded the IR license. He added, “We need to be in a major urban metropolitan area to be able to build a strong and substantial MICE business, for instance, and [for] the scale and the diversity of the entertainment that we bring in.”

The executive further stated that Sands wants to have the IR located where it can easily be reached from “major metropolitan areas, large population bases.” While speaking at the conference, he had touched on Osaka, Tokyo and Yokohama as the three main targets, emphasizing that regional locations could offer “successful integrated resorts,” but that the company’s “scale of investment and our type of operation wouldn’t be appropriate for those locations.”

Avinash Mehrotra has filed a public interest litigation (PIL) petition in the Delhi High Court seeking a directive from the Union Ministry of Information Technology as well as the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to try to end all forms of gambling within the country. The petition asks that the High Court “bring illegal and illicit online gambling/betting/wagering/gaming to an end.”

In his petition, Mehrotra claims that illegal and illicit online gambling has become an increasingly serious problem that is ruining the financial security as well as the lives of large numbers of people within the country. He adds that several websites are encouraging people to take large risks with their money on games, such as poker, sports betting, as well as election betting.

While not all the websites listed in the petition are in India, those that are listed include a fairly formidable group of betting operators. This includes such betting sites as Betway, BetRally India, 1xBet, Royal Panda, and Dafabet, as well as Indian based poker websites Adda52, PokerStars.in and Khelo365. The petition adds:

“These websites seem to encourage the horrible habit of gambling amongst youngsters, and are doing so solely with a view of making large amounts of profits at the cost of these unsuspecting citizens of our great nation.”

3: barrels of a high stakes vintage including Phil Ivey busting out a ‘Masterclass’, Triton releasing a £1m buy-in teaser, and a record-breaking pot from Live at the Bike.

If you want to learn to hurl abuse at your subordinates, add double digits to your foul language thesaurus, and cook the perfect risotto then why not ask Gordon Ramsay for a few tips.

Jimmy Chin can teach you how to ski from the summit of Mount Everest while taking unbelievable photographs, Steve Martin can show you how to be funny, and as from last week, Phil Ivey will teach you how to play poker.

“I come from a generation where the good players knew that talking about a hand or helping someone to improve was a big no-no.” – Phil Ivey.

A quickfire round-up from the virtual tables featuring the big guns firing on all cylinders in the PokerStars Spring Championship of Online Poker, and a double winner on 888Poker’s XL Inferno series.

Over six days, God created night and day; the sky and the seas; land and vegetation; the stars, the sun and the moon; sea creatures and birds; and animals and humans. Then he thought, “Screw this, I need a break,” before taking a day to chill out, and if you believe the rumours he booked a table at Nando’s, lit seven of those tea candle things, opened his laptop, and played the PokerStars Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP).

Here are a few more ‘Gods’ doing the same thing.

The star of the week was Rui ‘RuiNF’ Ferreira who bagged two SCOOP titles in two days. The Triple COOP winner defeated 110-entrants to win the $49,458.31 first prize in SCOOP 39 (H) $2,100 6-Max No-Limit Hold’em and followed that up by conquering a 245-entrant field in SCOOP 45 (H) $5,200 8-Max No-Limit Hold’em High Roller for a more impressive $224,007.51.

Daniel Negreanu leaves PokerStars after 12 years of service, and his World Series of Poker package online sale springs a leak.

I went to a posh restaurant the other day. Heaney’s in Cardiff; the type of place where vegans pay £8 for a couple of carrots served with a fancy jus. The waiter brought out bread and Marmite butter for something to do as we waited for our carrots to roast, and it was the nuts.

Talking about carrot crunching and Marmite, Daniel Negreanu recently announced the severing of his partnership with PokerStars. The pair have played the Adam and Eve roles for the past 12-years, where both have been a catalyst for bigger and better things.

I’m one of those people who veers more towards the ‘love’ end of the Daniel Negreanu Marmite spectrum. In our run-ins, he’s always treated me like an equal, given me as much time as he can muster and had the emotional intelligence and vulnerability to do his part to create something worthy of an audience.