The coronavirus may be under control in a lot of places around the world, but there have also been a few that have reported a revival, of sorts, of the virus. Brazil now falls into the latter category, with new cases of COVID-19 surfacing in the past week. As the country saw its second-highest number of cases reported last Friday, drastic measures were necessary to prevent the U.S. from falling back under the coronavirus spell. As a result, anyone expecting to travel from Brazil to the U.S. can call off those plans for now, unless they’re U.S. residents. 

President Trump instituted a travel ban on foreigners coming from Brazil until further notice. Anyone who has been to the South American country within the past two weeks while the country’s leader, President Jair Bolsonaro, downplays the seriousness of the situation. He asserts that it’s nothing more than “a little flu,” despite the fact that over 343,000 people around the world – and more than 22,000 in Brazil – have died from COVID-19. That cavalier attitude is probably why Brazil now ranks as number one on the list of countries with the highest number of positive cases (347,000). 

In a statement from White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany, she explains, “Today, the President has taken decisive action to protect our country by suspending the entry of aliens who have been in Brazil during the 14-day period before seeking admittance to the United States.” She added that the new restrictions “do not apply to the flow of commerce between the United States and Brazil.”

In addition to an exemption being put in place for U.S. residents, exceptions will be made for close relatives of U.S. citizens, flight crews and certain others. Robert O’Brien, the government’s National Security Adviser, explained during an interview on Face the Nation on CBS yesterday, “We hope that’ll be temporary, but because of the situation in Brazil, we’re going to take every step necessary to protect the American people.”

Lebanon’s only casino operator says it’s looking for an online gambling technology partner, with a preference for mid-tier company that won’t cost too much and aren’t run by Israelis.

On Friday, Casino du Liban announced a request for proposals (RFP) for “the implementation of an internet gaming platform with operations management to be based in Lebanon.” The platform will host “an array of gaming content from multiple providers” of sports betting, live and RNG casino, poker and eSports products.

Would-be platform providers must have three or more current clients in “licensed markets or under a governmental license” to whom they have been working for at least three years. Companies “not working under regulated online gaming solutions environment are not eligible” to apply. Proposals must be accompanied by a US$25k bond.

Casino du Liban chairman Roland Khoury told the Daily Star that, while would-be providers “need to have hundreds of millions of dollars of business each year,” his company was looking for “B category” because ‘A’ companies “are too expensive for us.” Khoury also said that “Israeli firms” were ineligible to participate in the tender.

It made everybody feel like they had a chance to win.

Phil Ivey’s words in a 2013 interview with All-In Magazine are as true to this day as they ever have been. Ivey’s recollection of Chris Moneymaker’s incredible WSOP Main Event victory in 2003 are as important as anyone’s. After all, it was the WSOP and poker legend Ivey who Moneymaker eliminated in 10th place to set up the final table he would then go on to win.

In the crucial hand, the chips could well have gone into the middle pre-flop, as Ivey held pocket nines and Moneymaker ace-queen. On the double-queen flop, the money still didn’t go in, Ivey hanging in there, only to find a miraculous nine on the turn. It was then that Ivey got his man on the hook, Moneymaker taking the bait, committing his chips and setting Ivey at risk, the now 10-time bracelet winner flipping from being an 11% dog to an 83% favourite to win the hand from post-flop to post-turn.

An ace on the river would end Ivey’s Main Event, the closest the man revered by many as the greatest player ever to play poker. Moneymaker, stunned and delighted, punched the air. Ivey felt like he had the air punched out of him. The favorite was gone, and the amateur would push forward.

Tennis fans have spent the best part of three months hoping that they’ll see players like Andy Murray, Rafael Nadal Roger Federer and current world number one Novak Djokovic back on the court during this enforced sporting hiatus.

First, the French Open was postponed, setting the Grand Slam game back by weeks. Then, a hammer blow, as Wimbledon was completely cancelled, with the 2021 Wimbledon Championships the next time a Grand slam will be won on grass.

During this period, however, while players were battling to virtual tournament wins (Andy Murray), raising money for COVID-19 victims (Djokovic and Nadal) or drinking red wine (Nick Kyrgios), everyone has been hoping that behind the scenes, tour operators have been working on ways to bring Grand Slam action to tennis fans around the world.

It seems like the powers that be have been busy.

With the upcoming PokerStars Players Championship and EPT Barcelona looming large in the windscreen, PokerStars have been forced to apply the brakes and postpone the two events amid and look further down the road to reschedule them.

With other live poker tour operators such as Unibet already having moved their live events online, PokerStars are in the odds position of following others, but given the scale of their festivals, it was always likely to take a little longer.

Here’s the company’s statement on their dedicated PSPC page:

“It is with great regret that we’ve had to make the decision to postpone the PokerStars Players No Limit Hold’em Championship (PSPC) 2020 and EPT Barcelona, due to be held at Casino Barcelona, Spain. Here at PokerStars, we really look forward to these events taking place and particularly so with the PSPC, which will now take place in in 2021.”

Running a gambling business during normal times can be fraught with challenges and hurdles to overcome, but doing so during COVID times makes it doubly so. For Spain-based Alea, which had to contend with some of the earliest problems of this pandemic, it’s even more the case. To see how the company has been managing since this crisis started, our Becky Liggero Fontana caught up with Co-founder Alexandre Tomic.

We can say that we, actually we’re lucky,” Tomic began, in response to a question about how the company is currently doing. “We have an increase of numbers, I mean if you see restaurants that cook, they’re really closing, they did a lot of business, retail businesses are closing. We don’t feel the struggle, quite on the opposite, we see an increase of numbers. We don’t see a higher spend per player, we see more new players coming up, and I believe that the players we see coming up in the casino, are more players that usually will go on sports betting, so we see them coming in the casino.”

Unfortunately though, with the economy certain to take a hit from massive unemployment, Tomic knows hard times could be on the way. “If this situation lasts because obviously people are going to review their priorities and gambling is not going to be a priority,” he said. “I mean unfortunately, some people are going to lose their jobs, or even if they don’t, they will stop thinking that it should be if it continues that they would not spend the money on gambling.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCotoxS0lyQVideo can’t be loaded because JavaScript is disabled: Alexandre Tomic shares his views on the COVID-19 pandemic (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCotoxS0lyQ)

Nick Garner has a wealth of experience, and can speak to many topics. He’s worked in search engine optimization (SEO), he’s founded a Bitcoin iGaming company, and continues to run an important company to the iGaming industry, RIZE Digital. As the first guest on Becky Liggero Fontana’s new interview segment, The Long Con, he’s perfectly suited to talk to a wide range of topics, and the moment our world now faces

In this new long form interview, Liggero Fontana and Garner discussed many things, but began with SEO, talking about if COVID-19 would change the game. “The bottom line is that Google is a massive infrastructure which has taken 20 years to build and it’s not going to change just because of this COVID incident,” Garner said. “So instead of asking the question how is Google changing, well it’s not, a better question is how is consumer behavior changing and what you can do about that if you’re in the right place at the right time.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zV64i3ij9dUVideo can’t be loaded because JavaScript is disabled: The Long Con: Nick Garner looks to history for answers (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zV64i3ij9dU)

Garner also discussed if online gambling will keep its current volumes when some sense of normalcy returns. “I think we’re going to see basically as a 20 percent step change up in sustained activity in online gambling,” he said. “There is another side to that which is legislatures, and we all know that they’re getting more aggressive.”

Seventy eight days is a long time for casinos to stay closed, but Las Vegas casinos are hoping they won’t have to stay closed a day longer than that. Nevada Governor Steve Sisolak has announced a tentative reopening date of June 4, and casino operators are hoping business will come flooding back.

Sisolak will hold a press conference on May 26 to discuss the next phase of reopening Nevada’s economy. The same day, the Nevada Gaming Control Board will be conducting workshops to inform health and law enforcement offers how to handle casino resorts. It’s expected that if the count of new Covid-19 infections continues to decline, Sisolak will give his OK for casinos to re-open the following week.

Virginia Valentine, president and CEO of the Nevada Resorts Association, told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that this is “fantastic news.” She added:

“Our members have spent more than two months preparing for this day. They’ve put in place enhanced health and safety plans and protocols … Our members are excited to show off the enhancements they’ve made that preserve the experience while ensuring the well-being of our employees and visitors.”

Greek lottery and betting operator OPAP has named a new temporary CEO just as its retail betting shops in Greece and Cyprus begin to reopen.

On Thursday, OPAP announced that its chief commercial officer Jan Karas will assume the role of acting CEO on June 1. Karas, who was only just named CCO in February, will take over from Damian Cope, who in April announced his intention to step down from the CEO role at the conclusion of his four-year contract. The search for Cope’s permanent replacement is ongoing.

In the meantime, Karas (pictured) will handle all of Cope’s current duties except human resources, which have been assigned to deputy CEO Odysseas Christoforou. Both execs will report to executive chairman Kamil Ziegler, whose role won’t be changing amid the reshuffle.

Ziegler said he was looking forward to working with the realigned management team, while thanking Cope for his “significant contribution to OPAP’s progress and results.”

Connecticut’s tribal gaming operators will partially reopen their venues on June 1, much to the chagrin of the state’s governor.

On Wednesday, the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation and the Mohegan Tribe announced that they would “begin the reopening of portions” of their reservations, which include (respectively) the Foxwoods Resort Casino and Mohegan Sun, which were shut on March 17 to minimize spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus.

The tribes say they collaborated on new safety protocols and operating procedures to minimize risks to both casino guests and staff, including protective equipment, physical distancing and mandatory masks for guests. Neither property will open its buffets, concert venues or poker rooms, while tenant restaurants will be open on a take-out only basis.

The casinos “will be catering to Connecticut and Rhode Island residents only.” No out-of-state buses will be “accepted” and “no out-of-state marketing to New York or Massachusetts will take place at either property,” although one suspects the odd VIP gambler from those states might just find a way through these roadblocks.

Brazil’s casino legalization hopes got another boost this week after the country’s tourism minister said he’s crafting a proposal for authorizing integrated resorts.

On Thursday, Tourism Minister Marcelo Álvaro Antônio gave an interview to Brazilian media outlet O Tempo in which he discussed means for kickstarting the local tourism sector once the COVID-19 pandemic finishes ravaging the country.

Among the weapons in the minister’s quiver are casino-equipped integrated resorts, something that is presently not possible in South America’s most populous nation. For years now, efforts have been made to sway the government on the economic benefits of casinos, but the idea has never managed to gain anything resembling traction.

But that was before Brazil surpassed Italy to achieve the dubious honor of having the third-highest rate of COVID-19 cases in the world. As of Wednesday, Brazil had over 291k confirmed infections and 18,859 deaths, and both figures are accelerating rapidly. Two weeks ago, before the death rate ballooned, Statista estimated that Brazil’s tourism revenue could fall by nearly 39% this year.

UK children continue to see fewer gambling promos on television, according to the latest report by the country’s advertising regulator.

On Friday, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) released its latest report on children’s exposure to alcohol and gambling ads on television. The ASA has been studying this subject since 2008 and released the 2018 figures last December.

The 2019 report shows that kids – defined as aged 4-15 years – saw an average of 2.5 television gambling ads per week last year, down significantly from 3.2 ads per week in 2018. The 2019 figure remains slightly higher than the 2.2 ads per week reported in 2008 but, with the exception of 2018, the figures have remained at similar levels over the last six years. The figure peaked at 4.4 ads per week in 2013.

Gambling ads made up 2.1% of all TV advertising viewed by kids in 2019, down slightly from 2018’s 2.2% and just above the 2% average between 2008 and 2017. But kids’ exposure to gambling ads, relative to adults, fell to 17.2%, down from 20.4% in 2018 and the lowest level that the ASA has reported to date.

Sweden’s proposed online gambling deposit and loss limits may not apply to sports and race betting, but the local industry group says the facts don’t support this plan.

On Friday, Social Security Minister Ardalan Shekarabi announced a tweak to his April proposal of a SEK5k (US$500) limit on online gambling deposits and losses, plus a SEK100 limit for online bonus offers. Shekarabi said he was open to applying the limits only to online casino sites, exempting race and sports betting sites, with the policy intended to take effect on July 2.

Shekarabi said protecting consumers was his main focus and thus he was okay making changes to his plan so that they applied only to “games that, according to research, have the greatest risk of problem gambling, namely online casino.”

Those lofty aims were immediately questioned by Branschföreningen för Onlinespel (BOS), Sweden’s online gambling industry group, who called them “incomprehensible from a consumer protection perspective.”