Okada Manila in the Philippines didn’t do so well last month. The casino, run by Universal Entertainment subsidiary Tiger Resort, saw its gross gaming revenue (GGR) drop to around $50.9 million, representing about a 6.7% decrease in action from May of last year. The good news is that the venue’s performance was 6.5% better than it was in April when it took in about $47.73 million.

Universal didn’t go into detail about the GGR decline when it filed its earnings report yesterday, preferring to just stick with the facts. However, VIP revenue dropped 37.7% year-on-year to about $20.01 million, which would definitely account for the difference. May’s VIP activity was also a dip of 7.1% from the $2.15 million seen the previous month.

Mass-market table GGR at the casino increased by 36.4% year-on-year to $15.01 million, a jump of 14.9% over the $13.06 million seen a month earlier. Gaming machine revenue came in at $15.9 million, 38.5% higher than a year earlier and 20.2% higher than April. Last month, the company reported gaming machine revenue of $13.2 million.

Okada’s pre-EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortization) adjusted segmental earnings were listed as being $7.1 million by Universal. This represents a massive 126.4% jump over the $3.13 million a year ago and an increase of 17.5% from the $6.04 million seen in April. Part of this came thanks to non-gaming revenue, which increased to $15.96 million.

In the year since the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, operators have made a lot of money on sports betting. According to the Associated Press, the total value of bets placed is likely nearing $10 billion.

Without May numbers calculated in, their calculation is that Nevada, New Jersey, Delaware, Mississippi, West Virginia, Rhode Island, and Pennsylvania have combined for $8.9 billion in bets. New Mexico also offers sports betting, but under a tribal compact that is not reported on. Counting that state, and likely bets made in May, for sure they’re close to the suggested $10 billion.

New Jersey, which helped force that fateful PASPA decision, is celebrating the year that’s been since sports betting became legal throughout the country. Johnny Avello, head of digital sportsbooks for DraftKings, said:

“Overall the first year in New Jersey has been spectacular, but to be honest, I couldn’t give you enough positive adjectives to serve justice to the question. The future is mind-blowing, and with eight states active and an additional seven authorized to offer sports wagering in 2019, DraftKings is positioned to capitalize on these and subsequent markets.”

UK-listed online bingo/casino operator Jackpotjoy has struck a £490m deal to acquire local rival Gamesys in the second major deal involving the parties.

On Thursday, Jackpotjoy Group PLC (JPJ) announced that it had struck a nine-figure cash (£250m) and shares (£240m) deal to acquire Gamesys (Holding) Ltd. The ultimate plan is to combine the two companies’ operations into an enlarged entity that will operate under the banner of the Gamesys Group, which the parties believe will be large enough to enter the FTSE 250 index.

The deal will see JPJ acquire “brand licenses” for Virgin Games, Virgin Bingo, Monopoly Casino and Heart Bingo, but the deal expressly doesn’t involve Gamesys’ “sports brands and games,” so the recently launched VirginBet, the Livescore data and media division and certain non-bingo game studio products will continue to exist outside the JPJ fold.

Current Gamesys CEO Lee Fenton is being tapped as the enlarged group’s chief exec, while Gamesys COO Robeson Reeves will serve as COO of the new entity. JPJ exec chairman Neil Goulden and CFO Keith Laslop will maintain their current positions.

Online gambling operator Kindred Group has agreed to pay £1.6m after a UK gambling regulatory probe found one of its customers had gambled with stolen funds.

On Thursday, the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) announced that Kindred subsidiary Platinum Gaming Ltd (PGL), under which Kindred’s flagship brand Unibet is licensed, had agreed to return over £629k to the victims of one of its customers, while paying over £990k in lieu of a financial penalty to the UKGC.

The UKGC probe began after it received information that an unnamed individual had been convicted for stealing £2m and losing much of it to several gambling operators, including PGL. The UKGC said PGL’s customer made “large deposits” and incurred “significant losses in a very short period of time.”

The customer was registered as a PGL VIP within two days of first opening his/her account, and engaged in high-volume, often frenetic gambling activity that the UKGC maintains PGL should have identified as problem gambling behavior and taken steps to address.

Kenya’s sports betting operators are reeling after the government proposed a new 10% tax on their customers’ wagering stakes.

On Thursday, Kenya’s Treasury Secretary Henry Rotich unveiled the government’s 2019-20 financial budget, which included a plan to impose a new excise duty equal to 10% of all betting stakes. Rotich said the tax was intended to “curtail the negative effect arising from betting activities,” which he claimed had “become quite spread.”

The new betting duty is part of the government’s broader push to tax ‘sinful’ activities. Betting got off comparatively easy, as Rotich (pictured) announced new 15% excise duties on alcohol and tobacco products.

As the video below details, the 10% betting tax proposal was immediately met with groans by other members of the legislature, who wanted to know why betting was getting off comparatively lightly compared to other ‘sins.’ Capital FM quoted Ndihwa MP Martin Peter saying a 10% tax would not “cure the menace” of betting.

Las Vegas Sands’ Singapore casino appears to have resolved its five-year quest to collect a $10m marker from an Australian-Chinese VIP gambler.

This week, the Straits Times reported that lawyers representing the Marina Bay Sands (MBS) integrated resort had filed a notice of discontinuance with the Singapore High Court on June 6 regarding its legal claim against Wang Zhi Cai. The parties reportedly reached an amicable settlement, the details of which remain unknown.

MBS launched legal proceedings against Wang, who was born in China but holds significant assets in Australia, after he ran up a gambling tab of SG$10m (US$7.3m) at the casino’s VIP tables over two sessions in 2013 and 2014.

Wang proved reluctant to honor his markers, based on his claim that the debt was owed to a junket operator, not the casino. Other VIP deadbeats have raised similar defense claims, flying in the face of MBS’ repeated insistences that it doesn’t employ junkets, or ‘international marketing agents’ (IMA), as they’re referred to locally.