With the PokerStars SCOOP festival building towards its now-extended finale,  one of the biggest events  left in the schedule is Event #73. Costing $2,100 to enter, it has seen plenty of big names pony up the funds to stack up some starting chips and saw a very busy Day 1 end with 37 players heading through to Day 2 to gloat at those left in their wake.

In the event otherwise known as the Sunday Warm-Up, 501 players took part across nine hours of action on PokerStars, which saw commentary on the action provided by Joe ‘Stapes’ Stapleton and Matt ‘The Waster’ Broughton, the two men back in tandem for the first time in a while and bringing back happy memories to EPT fans as they did so.

Play grew from just four tables of players at the start of the tournament, with a $750,000 guarantee eventually being comfortably surpassed to see a $1,002,000 prizepool confirmed, and a massive top prize of $177,965 now up for grabs for the eventual SCOOP event winner.

Play kicks off at 1.05pm ET / 6.05pm BST today, and will restart with ‘zivziv’ leading the pack with a chip mountain of 3,684,880 chips. They are just under 500,000 chips ahead of nearest challenger ‘boerni21’, but behind them, it reads like a who’s who of poker players you’d like to avoid having a lot of chips in a tournament you’re playing in.

Better Collective has found success by offering solutions to the iGaming community that provide an array of much-needed ancillary products so operators can continue to provide more robust platforms to users. It has a significant presence in the sports gambling arena, a sector that has been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic. Despite the fact that all major sports leagues were body-slammed into the mat by the virus, Better Collective reassured its customers and shareholders in March that it didn’t anticipate any major financial impact. The company has now presented its full financial report for the first quarter of the year, and it looks as though those previous assertions were right on the money. 

In its Interim Report for the first quarter, Better Collective saw increases in both profit and revenue for the period. It took in about $22.6 million in revenue from January to March, which was an increase of 40.3% over the $16.2 million it reported for the same period last year. It was also better than the company had previously forecast. EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) grew by 32%, reaching $9.4 million compared to the Q1 2019 amount of $7.1 million. 

Revenue and profit weren’t the only segments to see jumps. Expenses at the company also went up, with revenue-related direct costs climbing 42.1% to $2.94 million and external spending seeing an uptick of 9.9% to $2.6 million. Across the board, with the exception of special items and amortizations, spending was right at $13.4 million, which represents an increase of 46.4% compared to the $9.1 million figure from Q1 2019. The majority of this spike, according to the company, was due to an increase in the size of its workforce, which went from 268 to 416 employees. 

Even though expenses increased substantially, seemingly negating the jump in revenue, income moved quicker and more than made up for the increased spending. Q1 operating profit climbed 26.9% to reach $7.2 million. Pre-tax profit, calculating for expenses, finished at $6.9 million and, after giving the taxman his cut, the company’s final profit was $5.02 million, beating the Q1 2019 figure by more than $1.1 million. 

Sheldon Adelson is the only casino mogul to be listed by Forbes among the top 25 wealthiest people in the world. Not only does he personally stand out in the casino industry, but his Las Vegas Sands (LVS) company does, as well. According to the latest update to Fortune magazine’s Fortune 500 list, LVS is the top casino company in the U.S. – at least when judged solely on the terms of revenue. 

Based on the figures provided by the company for its 2019 performance, LVS enjoyed revenue of over $13.73 billion last year. The income centers on its operations in Macau, where it has five gambling venues, Singapore’s Marina Bay Sands and two US-based casinos, The Venetian and Palazzo. The performance was enough for LVS to make it to the 235th spot on the Fortune 500 list, leading to LVS to state, “Sands is the top ranked Integrated Resort company on the prestigious annual list. We are only as strong as the Team Members who work at our resorts and the communities we all call home, and we maintain our unwavering commitment to the well-being of our Team Members and our communities – now and in the future.”

As with all casino companies, LVS has seen its wallet take a hit from the coronavirus, but it has still managed to stay considerably strong during the pandemic. The majority of the company’s 50,000 employees have been able to continue to receive a paycheck during the global lockdown as LVS maintains a market value of over $32.4 billion. However, as a whole, the gaming industry has seen its employment level drop by almost 60% from February to April, which is a huge indication of the overwhelming impact COVID-19 has had on the industry. 

LVS wasn’t the only casino company to make it to the Fortune 500 list, although, when the results for 2020 are revealed next year, there will definitely be some changes. At number 454 on the list, Wynn Resorts was able to make an appearance due to the $6.6 billion in revenue and $123 million it recorded for 2019. Ahead of it, Caesars Entertainment saw revenue of $8.7 billion and profit of $1.2 billion to help the company reach the 363rd spot. Only a few places behind LVS, at 249, MGM Resorts International’s revenue and profit were $12.9 billion and $2 billion, respectively. 

Less than a month ago, Colombian authorities signed off on a measure that would allow live-dealer casino games to be offered in the country. It’s part of a shift that is being seen in the entire gambling industry, as online casinos look to offer a more realistic virtual experience. There are still a number of countries, such as the U.S., that haven’t accepted the unalterable fate of gambling, but Colombia is ready to lead the way. In response to the passage of the legislation, Coljuegos, the country’s gaming regulator has now laid out the framework (in pdf) for how casino operators are expected to manage their foray into the next cycle of gaming evolution.

Whereas some countries remain hesitant at recognizing the inevitable transition to online gaming, Colombia has taken the necessary measures to determine whether or not iGaming represents a major threat to traditional, land-based casinos. Not surprisingly, that threat is negligible, and brick-and-mortar casinos have little to worry about. Because of this, iGaming is gaining traction and the live-dealer aspect is going to be a major part of its advance. 

Conventional casinos should be willing to jump on the chance to get involved in iGaming alternatives, if for no other reason than what they have suffered through because of the coronavirus. With the successful launch of live-dealer games in Colombia, they will be able to stream certain games, including blackjack and roulette, live from their gaming floors on collaboration with online venues, which will give them an additional source of revenue. However, according to Coljuegos, they won’t be allowed to combine the in-venue players with the online players to create larger fields. 

Both in-country and overseas operators will be able to offer live-dealer games. However, any entity looking to get in on the action will have to have its solution approved by a designated testing facility before it can go live. All live casino games are required to offer a rate of return to players equal to or greater than 83%. 

When I was a kid, my parents used to tell me time goes by faster as you get older and now I know exactly what they were talking about. Ten years ago, almost to the day, we were celebrating the official launch of CalvinAyre.com and Calvin’s 49th birthday at the iGaming Super Show in Prague and I’m guessing who ever attended this party remembers it like yesterday as I do. 

“Its actually kind of amazing because [CalvinAyre.com] was actually originally launched on my birthday ten years ago so that we could have a big party every year”, Calvin Ayre shared with a smile.

My 10 year anniversary with the company was reached in August 2019 and for sure the past decade flew by for me, full of amazing memories and milestones that were almost all connected in some way to my role as Lead On-Site Reporter with CalvinAyre.com.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQBtzuHtuUYVideo can’t be loaded because JavaScript is disabled: Becky’s Affiliated: A conversation with Calvin Ayre on ten years of CalvinAyre.com (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQBtzuHtuUY)