Sweden’s gambling market revenue took a step back in the first quarter of 2020 despite a modest rise in online activity.

Preliminary data released Tuesday by the Spelinspektionen regulatory body show Swedish-licensed gambling operators generated revenue of SEK5.9b (US$614m) in the three months ending March 31, roughly 1.5% below the sum generated in the same period last year.

That 2019 period marked the first three months of Sweden’s regulated online gambling market, and Spelinspektionen’s awkward category of ‘online gambling sites and shipboard casinos’ saw revenue rise 7.5% year-on-year to SEK3.66b.

Considering that those shipboard casinos were likely struggling to find customers late in the quarter due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s safe to assume that Q1’s online growth was actually higher than 7.5% (although Spelinspektionen says online activity in March and April didn’t show any major growth).

The Okada Manila casino in the Philippines is reportedly laying off over 1,000 staff as all casino operations in the country’s capital remain under COVID-19 lockdown.

On Tuesday, Inside Asian Gaming reported seeing an internal memo that Okada Manila issued to staff informing them that the company “will have to let go of more than 1,000 employees.” The company cited the complete lack of revenue the property has generated since all Manila-area casinos were ordered to close their doors on March 15.

The layoffs will reportedly start to take effect on June 15, with all affected employees receiving their legally mandated separation pay. Okada Manila expressed regret at the necessity of layoffs, but noted that the property would likely be operating at reduced capacity once the signal to reopen is given, which will require “a smaller workforce.”

In mid-April, Okada Manila informed its staff that the casino and its Japanese parent company Universal Entertainment Corp (UEC) had “taken the needed steps to ensure that during the extended community quarantine, you will be compensated while also having your benefits in effect.”

Each week, we take a look at a book that features poker and while many in our series lean towards the anecdote to carry an audience through, Alec Torelli’s latest poker book takes the opposite line and steams right through with strategy.

If you’re looking to accelerate your poker development from a recreational game that you enjoy getting better at to one where you’re making more of a steady profit, then Torelli’s The Poker Coach might be one of the best purchases you make this year.

As Torelli frequently delves into on his Twitter account, the American from Orange County has a real gift for lending nuggets of information to improve other players games. Torelli has $1.5 million in live tournament results alone, across just two dozen results too meaning he knows how to put what he says into practice too. That has the added benefit of lending credence to the tips he gives out by way of the reverse being true – these are strategies that are designed to be put into practice.

How The Poker Coach works best is in putting the building blocks in place for profitable play. From looking at the odds of a particular hand in different situations to making reads on your opponents, The Poker Coach is a book that is designed to improve a variety of aspects to your play.

Is tennis the same game without supporters? The most decorated player in the history of the men’s game certainly doesn’t think so.

In a conversation with Brazilian tennis legend Gustavo Kuerten, former world number one and 20-time Grand Slam winner Roger Federer spoke about the potential return of tennis and in doing so, said he wasn’t a fan of the game coming back if not everyone could fill the stadiums and support players as they did before the Coronavirus crisis struck.

When Kuerten got in touch with ‘Fed Ex’ (also known as the Federer Express, although this is surely one of the most misleading nicknames in world sport given thatFederer’s entire game is built on him dictating play and forcing his opponents to do the running), the 8-time Wimbledon champion answered the call.

“If Guga calls, I’m always there to help you,” said Federer in a chat with the Brazilian former world number one. “You have always been one of my favorite players. You have always been one of the most receptive players on the circuit. You may not remember why you were nice to everyone, but you were also to me. And I think that was so important, when I was arriving [on] the circuit. You were one of the guys who made me feel welcome. So, thanks Guga.”

UK betting shops have been cleared to reopen on June 15 if they can implement the government’s COVID-19 prevention guidelines.

On Tuesday, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson unveiled the latest stage in the government’s post-pandemic economic recovery strategy. Among the ‘non-essential’ retail operations cleared to open on June 15 are the nation’s thousands of betting shops and arcades, which were ordered to shut their doors on March 20 to minimize further COVID-19 transmission.

The reopening date is still three weeks away, and the permission could be rescinded should the UK’s COVID-19 infection rates spike. The government has also warned that shops that fail to adhere to the required social distancing, limited capacity and disinfection protocols will result in their operators facing financial penalties and possible jail time for management.

It remains to be seen how many shops will be able to reopen with the necessary protocols in place, and whether there will be enough customers to justify the shops remaining open. It’s widely suspected that the retail sector, which had already undergone sharp contraction over the past year, will suffer additional culling as skittish punters transfer their action online.

The gambling and Bitcoin industry make a natural pair, and sometimes they just need a special night to get together and realize what they mean to each other. Thanks to the CoinPoint Group, that night was February 6, 2020, when members of the blockchain world and gambling executives networked and partied together at the Crystal, in London. CalvinAyre.com’s Becky Liggero Fontana was there to catch up with some of the key figures at the party.

CoinPoint has grown tremendously in recent years, and CEO and Co-Founder Oron Barber couldn’t be happier. “Well it’s grown amazingly, because the first year we have very few people coming and very few people wants to come and listen and to understand,” he said. “Today we have more than 250 people with amazing sponsors, with amazing projects, with amazing case studies. It’s really, really lifting off.”

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-h0j9nr8F8?feature=oembed]

The reason for having the networking night, just down the street from ICE London 2020, is pretty straightforward. “So the idea is to bring on project to show them what blockchain is doing already, how it works already in the gaming space,” he said. “And the other thing that we chose to bring on that the one that can make the decision, and they will be exposed to the technology, to the innovation, to the company that already part of this ecosystem, will be amazing.”

“I knew he had it. I can’t fold it.”

Nine words four years told us what we all already knew about poker at the highest level. No matter how good you think you are, no matter how impervious to making wrong decisions, no matter who you are, you can blow the biggest moment of your life just because you want to see what the other person has at the very moment it will end your tournament hopes.

In a Main Event already beset by the Griffin Benger/Will Kassouf playground fight, when the final table arrived, there was a very different feel to the action than in previous years. By the time Benger himself busted for $1.25 million in 7th place, there were six players left who would all make different headlines should they win.

Of the six, however, it was Cliff Josephy, a player who goes by the bizarre moniker of ‘Johnny Bax’, who many reckoned would win. By the time the final three remained, despite Josephy being a little behind both Qui Nguyen and Gordon Vayo, many remained convinced that ‘Team Bax’ was the winning team.

In the fast moving world of gambling, sometimes you might miss news that could be important to you. To make sure you’re all caught up on gaming industry news, be it online or brick and mortar, we’re rounding up the some of the announcements and partnerships from the last week that you might have missed.

Red Rake Gaming enters partnership with GVC Holdings PLC.

Red Rake Gaming will supply its wide range of portfolio offering and top-performing titles to GVC’s players, providing access to Red Rakes gaming portfolio and progressive tournament tool to enhance GVC’s existing casino offering across GVC’s major gaming brands and markets.

Games will include Red Rake’s newest releases, Gustav Minebuster – a cluster slot allowing players to win up to 20,000x, Mother of Horus – one of the fastest rising stars with fixed jackpots, free spins and non-stop action, and Million7 – 1 million ways for players to win with this 10×6 slot, not to mention the just released Secrets of the Temple slot, in addition to top-performing partner games.

I have this uneasy feeling. I wouldn’t call it despair. It’s not even a really negative feeling per se. It’s more like a mixture of excitement and confusion. I’m looking at the world as we open back up from these unprecedented global restrictions against, well, life, and I have this uneasy feeling that we are all living right on top of a fault line in history that is about to crack wide open, forever isolating the past on one side of it, from the future on the other.

It looks like life is returning to “normal”, or at least something a little bit closer to what we all remember before humanity’s coronavirus response shut down the world. Sports are coming back in the United Kingdom with Project Restart. Casinos are opening back up in the United States. Visits to Macau appear to have bottomed out at last, down 99.7% in April year over year. Yup, that’s nearly a 100% decline, so I’d say we can’t really get much lower than that. Economic statistics are going to start coming back to life all over the world over the next few months. News junkies, which is most of us these days, are going to move from doomsday thoughts to blooming flower thoughts of recovery.

And so it feels like we are about to go back to the way things were, that we’re about to travel back across that historical fault line into the past. I don’t believe that’s true. The engine is about to be restarted, yes, but the transmission is all out of whack now. I don’t know exactly what is going to happen as economic activity gets back into full swing, but one thing I’m quite sure about is that the lockdowns in the real economy were only phase 1. Phase 2 is going to hit the financial economy, a banking crisis. Exactly when it starts I do not know, but it’s coming.

2008 started in the financial economy and then bled out into the real economy. The coronavirus crisis started in the real economy, but so far it has not bled into the financial economy, at least not in an obvious way, yet. It’s now about to do so as the lockdowns are lifted, and as it does, investors will unfortunately begin to realize that we are not going back to the way things were. We are headed into something different, and sadly not as pleasant for most. That’s the uneasy feeling I have, because I don’t know exactly what the thing is that we’re all headed into now. I just know it’s not going to be like it was before.