As the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus continues to worry cause concern amongst the general public, the casino industry has started to react in dramatic fashion. Casinos all around the world continue to deal with the crisis in their own way, and in the past couple of days, that has mostly meant closing their doors.

Las Vegas

MGM Resorts announced on Sunday that they would close the doors of all their Las Vegas area casinos on March 17, and refuse to take new reservations prior to May 1.

“It is now apparent that this is a public health crisis that requires major collective action if we are to slow its progression,” said CEO Jim Murren. “We will plan to reopen our resorts as soon as it (is) safe to do so and we will continue to support our employees, guests, and communities in every way that we can during this period of closure.”

It’s obvious that the coronavirus is going to have a major impact on the global economic picture for some time to come. For the gambling industry in the US, the timing of the outbreak could not have been worse, as the virus started to spread across the country just as the majority of the states to have recently legalized sports wagers were ready to capitalize on events like March Madness in the NCAA, Opening Day in MLB and more. Millions of dollars in revenue going to sports gambling operators and to states, through tax revenue, is now in limbo, but savvy business leaders know how to turn lemons into lemonade. Other sporting events that haven’t always been a huge draw are finding newfound popularity, and helping to keep sportsbooks treading water until things can return to normal.

The impact losing March Madness has on the gambling industry is huge. Between the NCAA men’s basketball championship tournament and the NFL Super Bowl, no events receive as much wagering action, and having to fill the void left by the cancelation of March Madness is not going to be easy. Jay Kornegay, Westgate’s Executive VP of Operations, told USA Today, “There is no magic formula out there that we could put together that’s going to make up for March Madness. “We certainly write more tickets on the first four days of the tournament than we do on the Super Bowl. That’s a gimme.’’

Because action gamblers expected to find is now gone, sportsbooks are doubling down on alternatives. Future and prop bets are starting to play important roles in the gambling space, and are helping to ease, in a small way, the pressure felt by COVID-19’s impact on sports.

Other sports are starting to find more interest, as well. For example, Brazilian UFC, which has often been the last option on sports gamblers’ lists, is popular this year. The director of South Point Hotel Casino & Spa’s sportsbook, Chris Andrews, explains, “Like today we’re booking Brazilian UFC. Actually, a lot of people were betting it, so it’s kind of funny in some ways, but sad in others that this is all we have to bet on, but people are betting it. But you know, in our racket, people like to have action, so they’re getting some there.”

While revenue grew in 2019 for SBTech, the company still saw a decline in overall profits. This was due in large part to increased headcount as well as exits from the online market, according to a recent prospectus regarding the firm’s merger with DraftKings.

This proposed merger of the two companies will fall under the umbrella of the Diamond Eagle Acquisition Corp, a ‘special-purpose acquisition company’ founded by former Hollywood exec Jeff Sagansky.

SBTech’s total revenue of $108.4 million ($86.7m) this past year, according to Diamond Eagle. That was a 2.9% increase over 2018.

According to the report, costs increase by 36.4%, reaching $101.9 million. This was led by revenue-related outgoings coming in at $60.6 million, which primarily went to the development of the IT infrastructure and expanding of teams to facilitate both product delivery and bet processing.

Two of the business segments hit hard by the coronavirus have been the gambling and the cruise industries. Combining both of the segments into one business model can be a double whammy, and Genting Hong Kong (Genting HK), which has been trying to get its feet wet as a global casino cruise ship company, already knew it was going to take a hit from COVID-19 last month. As staying afloat becomes more problematic for a number of companies with no solid source of income, Genting HK is taking drastic measures and has announced (in pdf) major changes to compensation plans for the company’s top executives.

According to an announcement from last Friday, Genting HK’s senior executive team is not going to be paid, at least for now. In addition, many of the company’s managers will have to be frugal for a little while, as they can see their salaries slashed by as much as 50%. As things stand right now, these changes will remain in place at least through the end of the year.

Genting HK chair and CEO Lim Kok Thay, Deputy CEO Lim Keong Hui, group president Colin Au Fook Yew and the rest of the directors are not going to receive a salary or other forms of compensation for the time being. Managers are going to take cuts of between 20%-50% after having overwhelming agreed to support the company’s initiatives. Genting HK reports that 90% of the managers agreed to the program, and adds that it should save the company approximately $15 million through year’s end.

Five Genting HK ships, Genting Dream, Star Pisces, SuperStar Aquarius, SuperStar Gemini and World Dream, have had to dock indefinitely because of travel restrictions, port closures and health concerns brought about by the coronavirus. As has already been seen with industries that have been impacted, the company is going to face huge losses compared to last year and recovery is going to take some time. To that end, Genting HK also plans on reducing crew headcounts by not renewing certain contracts and by not filling certain vacant positions.

When making a big score at a casino, it’s a good idea not to broadcast it to the entire world. All the excitement of the big win (often mixed with a few drinks while gambling) makes some people throw common sense out the window, though. After winning $15,000 gambling at an unspecified casino in Lake Charles, Louisiana, a patron decided to call it a night and hailed a cab. He shared news of his good fortune with the taxi driver, who thought he had found the perfect opportunity to pick up some easy cash. As usually happens, though, the would-be criminal mastermind didn’t think the plan through very carefully and will, along with an accomplice, be able to figure out what went wrong while spending time behind bars.

According to a statement on the Calcasieu Parish Sheriff’s Office’s Facebook page, the unidentified victim apparently fell asleep while riding in a cab driven by Brandon K. Grant, but not before he had let him in on his gambling success. When he awoke, the victim was in the middle of being dragged out of the taxi by another individual, later identified as Fergus A. Bushnell, who beat him and stole two cell phones and the cash.

The victim tried to get back into the car by grabbing onto the taxi’s door handle, but Grant had started to pull away. As a result, the taxi dragged the victim several feet, but he wasn’t injured severely enough to be prevented from contacting police. He gave law enforcement a description of Grant, as well as the truck Bushnell was driving when he fled the scene, adding that the 41-year-old may have been armed.

It didn’t take long for police to track down the two – Grant was still driving around the area and deputies with the sheriff’s office quickly located Bushnell’s truck, arresting him shortly after when he turned himself in. They were both taken to the Calcasieu Correctional Center and face various charges. Grant is looking at second-degree kidnapping and simple robbery, while Bushnell is looing at simple robbery and being an accessory to second-degree kidnapping.

Germany’s legislature has approved new gambling regulations, and given approval for the creation of a new regulatory body, the Glücksspielneuregulierungstaatsvertrag (GlüNeuRStv). This will make it so that if ratified by each state parliament and the Euopean Commission, effective July 1, online poker and casino-style games will become legal for the first time in the country.

In addition to poker and sports betting, other casino-style games will be offered as well. This will allow for slots, but they will only be allowed to be offered under some very strict guidelines. Slots, for example, will be limited to a €1 per spin stake limit, and a mandatory €1000 deposit limit was also established.

Sports betting will also have some new guidelines. This will include limiting live betting on the final result or who will be the next scorer.

The GlüNeuRStv will have regulatory authority over the new gambling initiatives. This will include the issuing of licenses, working with local state bodies.

Bet365 has confirmed that they have signed a new five-year lease on a city-center building in Manchester, U.K. That is expected to help the company expand its operating capacity and comes following the launch of their DevOPs department in November, 2019.

Explained Steven Briggs, head of the DevOPs department, “We want to give operations the tooling, dashboards, and automation needed to increase the value it offers the business.” He added that the department would focus on building “a view of how all parts of the system work together and progress engineering principles that make monitoring, reporting and self-diagnostics/healing more achievable.”

The new office space encompasses 25,000 square feet and is located in the heart of Manchester. The offices will be located in the Core building, which is a newly renovated and modernized building in the “historic office core” area of the city.

Bet365 first established itself in Manchester in 2018 in the Spring Gardens area. They have greatly enlarged their tech support unit, which is operated by a subsidiary, Hillside Technology.

On March 13, the Swedish Gaming Authority Spelinspektionen issued a stern warning to ATG over a reported technical glitch. A bug in the code made it possible for players to receive more than one bonus.

This warning came in response to a letter sent by ATG to the regulator on February 14, when they addmited they had found players who had been given a bonus even though they had already received one in the past.

This was a violation of the law under the Swedish Gambling Act of 2018, which states that licensees are only allowed to offer a bonus to players the first time they play a licensee’s games. The glitch allowed 15 customers to be able to use a second bonus, worth a combined SEK850 ($87.48). The glitch lasted for a few hours before it was discovered and fixed.

In a statement issued by the Spelinspektionen, they addressed the seriousness of the matter but also recognized ATG’s measures to ensure an incident such as this does not happen again. “ATG has stated that the company takes a very serious view of what has happened, and even though the incident is linked to the relocation of servers, the company has reviewed the procedures for new customer offers so that something similar should not happen again.”