Regional casino operator Penn National Gaming (PNG) says it has reopened over 70% of its casinos following their COVID-19 shutdown, but thousands of staff may not be around long enough to celebrate.

On Friday, PNG announced that 30 of its 41 gaming and racing venues have resumed operations after being ordered to close in March to minimize COVID-19 transmission.

The total was boosted Friday by four PNG properties in Ohio and the Hollywood Casino at Penn National Race Course in Pennsylvania. PNG is now welcoming guests to casinos in 13 of the 19 states in which it operates.

PNG CEO Jay Snowden called the news “an important milestone” in the company’s rebound and he thanked state regulators for including gaming in their economic revival plans.

England Rugby Union fans are facing calls to ban the traditional ‘Swing Low, Sweet Chariot’ over its links to slavery. In the wake of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, the England Rugby Union (RFU) have begun to explore banning the song over its historical context.

Rugby union bosses in England are to carry out a review into the “historical context” of Swing Low, Sweet Chariot – an anthem regularly sung by thousands of fans during matches at Twickenham https://t.co/X1AyzjuqHw

— SkyNews (@SkyNews) June 19, 2020https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

RFU bosses are set to carry out a review into a song that is sung regularly by England Rugby Union fans at Twickenham. The review comes in the wake of the social justice movement sweeping the U.K., in the wake of the global protest over the killing of George Floyd in the U.S. The movement has led to sporting organisations across the U.K. to examine their historical links and increase diversity.

There has been no shortage of science-fiction movies and shows with “universal translators” that can translate anything into English. Even R2-D2’s bleeps and blips mean something, with C-3PO being one of the few to understand him. Back down on planet Earth, universal translators might also become a reality some day, and a company out of Israel believes it has made huge progress in the field. If you have ever wanted to know what your baby was trying to say when he or she starts crying, LittleOne Care Ltd. might soon be able to lend a hand.

The Tel Aviv-based company has developed a device that can reportedly translate the cries and wails of babies. It uses artificial intelligence (AI) to understand if a baby is trying to tell you that it’s time to change the diaper or that it’s time to break out the bottle. LittleOne Care has developed a device that clips onto the baby’s clothes, monitoring everything from noises the baby makes, to vital signs in order to let Little Johnny’s parents know what he’s trying to say.

CEO Shauli Gur Arieh explains that babies will make different noises, depending on what point they’re trying to get across. The device can take the noises, along with the baby’s movements, vibrations and vitals, and feed it through an AI processor to come up with an accurate interpretation of what’s being said. The device is currently in the testing phase, which is being led by 50 families in Israel, and LittleOne Care expects to be able to start making an appearance on the market sometime next year.

The company is always looking for more families who want to participate and stresses that the device doesn’t record any data – making it private and safe. It can also be used as a personal emergency monitor, informing parents as soon as an issue may be arising. Gur Arieh adds, “Most of the existing technologies notify the parents when an emergency has already happened, like when no heartbeat is detected. We also develop technology to notify the parents before emergencies occur, like analyzing changes with the baby’s breathing patterns or heartbeat, such as if the baby was mistreated by the preschool teacher or if the baby was left in the car and their body temperature rises to indicate that changes are occurring that need attention. Baby monitors say what is happening, but do not instruct the parent on what to do. Our platform goes beyond that and gives actual instructions to parents.”

Yesterday saw the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit hold a virtual hearing with the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the myriad of entities suing the government over its mismanagement of a 60-year-old law. The Federal Wire Act has been a complete disaster, as the DOJ has repeatedly shown that it doesn’t exactly understand how to enforce it. After it decided that the law should apply to all forms of online gambling, not just sports gambling, as had been the case since the law was introduced, several states got behind an effort led by New Hampshire to find resolution in court. As the lawsuit progresses, the appeals court is now taking up the case, as expected earlier this month, and yesterday marked the next step in the battle.

Because of the ongoing coronavirus situation in the U.S., the case had to be held via a conference call that included representatives from the DOJ, plaintiffs, lawyers and three judges – Juan Toruella, Sandra Lynch and William Kayatta, Jr. Both sides were given 16 minutes apiece to state their arguments, with the DOJ taking the lead, and the entire episode can be found on YouTube. As the case got started promptly at 10 AM Eastern Time, the department’s lawyers reiterated the position that no enforcement action will currently be introduced because of the ongoing dispute.

The DOJ continues to dance around the subject of the true meaning of the Wire Act and how it should be enforced. It became obvious during yesterday’s hearing that the department has practiced its song-and-dance routine plenty before heading into court and the judges presiding over the case were able to recognize it, as well. At one point, Lynch posed the question, “Is it really the position of the government now that you are taking no position whatsoever as to the meaning of the Wire Act as challenged in this lawsuit?” The DOJ lawyers could only tap dance once again, explaining that the law doesn’t apply only to sports gambling, but that the department can’t apply it to other forms of gambling.

It has long been the opinion of many that the DOJ’s change of position on the definition of the Wire Act was influenced by outside sources; most notably, Las Vegas Sands owner Sheldon Adelson has seen his name come up on numerous occasions as the man who somehow convinced the DOJ to sing a different tune. The assertion that the DOJ was the recipient of favors in exchange for the latest interpretation made a reappearance at yesterday’s hearing, with plaintiffs’ lawyers explaining, “It’s not deliberative advice internal to the department. It’s an edict solicited by interested private persons that was published to the public at-large precisely to end businesses’ reliance on the 2011 OLC opinion and to generate compliance in that public at-large with the new opinion[…] The OLC opinion purports to give an authoritative interpretation of a statutory provision that has a direct effect on the day-to-day business of the plaintiffs. I’m not aware of any other OLC opinion that does that.”

With the Covid-19 pandemic still far from being over, reopening economies was more of a concession to keeping the economy alive than any declaration that the world was safe to do business again. With that in mind, you had to expect there would be some hurdles to returning to a full sense of normalcy. MGM Resorts are the perfect example of that, as the Bellagio’s Mayfair Supper Club has had to close once again due to an employee testing positive for the virus.

The resort operator announced on June 18 that a kitchen worker had tested positive that afternoon. The restaurant had closed out of precaution on June 14, and there’s no timetable for when it will reopen.

While other restaurant employees, and even other resort workers may have caught the virus, the full scale of this new cluster may not be known for a while. “It takes close to three weeks until we see the (positive) cases show up in our system,” said Brian Labus, a member of Nevada Governor Steve Sisolak’s medical advisory team and an epidemiologist at UNLV. “The incubation period (for COVID-19) is up to two weeks. Then, it takes a few days before people get tested.”

He further added that it was impossible to expect Las Vegas Casinos, with their many employees, to reopen with no new cases found. The workforce is simply too large, and with Covid-19 cases still increasing, there’s a very good chance the virus will spread inside the resorts.

While there can be plenty of competition between affiliates, they all have the same goals in common and can benefit from working together sometimes. For that, there’s now the Safe Affiliate Programs, and at ICE London 2020, our Becky Liggero Fontana caught up with Ellen Learmonth of Golden Euro Affiliates to understand how this partnership benefits everyone.

Learmonth explained the basics of the group, and their common goal. “It’s a collaboration of several brands that have come together to help each other, and affiliates, in a unification that supposed to be safe environment for the affiliates,” she said. “What we are trying to do by saying ‘safe environment’ is that we all have one common idea about the integrity of the business, the honesty and clarity, and we want to portray that. And we want to tell the affiliate, ‘These brands are safe for you.’”

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zO5ZTJgMUkg?feature=oembed]

The group is getting their name out there, and they are doing it by providing value-added services. “Sign up on the website where you can sign up for a newsletter, and the idea is that you can you reduce your inbox,” Learmonth offered. “So you get the news of all the brands that are under this umbrella, Safe Affiliate Programs, and we’re trying to bring more to the table as well. So we’re trying to add some added value to the newsletter, so something that you wouldn’t get for the individual brands. That’s one thing, but secondly it’s a common inbox so if you have a problem with a program that is part of Safe Affiliate Programs, then you have a challenge to drop an email to Safe Affiliate Programs and ask them to fix that for you. Because sometimes you don’t have such a close relationship with maybe one of the programs in this group, but a very close relationship with another. And we can intermediate within this group.”

Macau Fisherman’s Wharf is a gaming and tourism hotspot in the city with a lot of potential. As with any major development project, there are always complications along the way, and the rollout of new opportunities often takes longer than anticipated. Macau Legend Development Ltd. (MLD) announced seven years ago that it had huge dreams for the area, including three venues – then known as the Prague Harbour View, the Palace and the Legendale – and laid out its plans for the properties that would hopefully be able to offer gambling, as well. MLD has made a lot of advances since then, but, while the company still works out the details surrounding the Legendale, it has decided to give the planned development a facelift ahead of its construction.

 MLD recently completed its annual meeting, which was attended by GGRAsia. The media outlet caught up with the company’s CEO, Melinda Chan Mei Yi, after the conclusion of the event, where she indicated that the company is “redesigning” the Legendale Hotel. She added that MLD wants the new plan to be viewed by local media before it is sent to the government for its approval and states, “Of course we would want to have it designed in such a way that our shareholders’ profits could be maximised” and “legally compliant.”

Fisherman’s Wharf has a variety of options available to tourists now, with only limited gambling choices. There are two non-gaming hotels, Rocks Hotel and Harbourview Hotel, but Rocks is currently closed for renovation. There is also the Babylon Casino and Legend Palace Casino, both owned by MLD, with the latter located inside Legend Palace Hotel. For both gambling venues, MLD teamed up with SJM Holdings to take advantage of its gaming license, which, like those of all gaming operators in Macau, will come up for renewal in two years.

It isn’t clear of MLD wants to add a casino to its latest project, with the company’s CEO only explaining, “We are maintaining the existing gaming inventory at Macau Fisherman’s Wharf. And in [the] future whether or not we should have more gaming elements, I’ll seek our shareholders’ thoughts on this issue.” Given the upcoming licensing renewal and a shift away from pure gaming in Macau, waiting to make a decision is a smart choice at this point.

The Global Gaming Expo (G2E) for the North American region is still on tap for this coming fall. G2E Las Vegas expects to be held without any issues, according to the event’s organizers, and will be held at the Sands Expo, located at Las Vegas Sands-owned The Venetian. While the organizers have reiterated their plans to move forward with the existing schedule, it’s still possible that COVID-19 could force a change, especially since Las Vegas just reported a spike in positive tests that coincides with the lifting of lockdown restrictions in the state.

G2E Las Vegas organizers American Gaming Association and Reed Exhibitions sent out word to the gaming industry this week that the show must go on. It is scheduled for October 5-8 and organizers are “committed to organizing events in line with up-to-date guidance from public health officials, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the World Health Organization, state and local governments, and the protocols put in place by our network of venue partners.”

A sister G2E show, G2E Asia, was going to be held in Macau this past May, but was forced to change its plans a couple of times. Initially, organizers had expected to be able to push forward for a July event, believing the coronavirus debacle would be nothing more than a small dot in the rear-view mirror by then. However, when it became more apparent that recovery was going to take longer than anticipated, it decided to give COVID-19 a wider berth and put off the event until the end of the year. Another G2E event was held in the Philippines late last year, prior to the global health pandemic.

G2E Las Vegas is an annual event and usually draws a huge crowd, although G2E Asia has been catching up. It’s a place for companies to showcase their innovations and for operators to expand their networks, and Las Vegas welcomes the additional attention every time it’s held. This year might be a little different, though, depending on the coronavirus situation. According to the Las Vegas Sun, Nevada saw an increase in the number of COVID-19 cases this past Tuesday, with 379 new positive tests in a day. It was the biggest single-day increase in the number of cases since the coronavirus was first identified in the state, and the timing of the cameo appearance has become a little suspect. Governor Steve Sisolak just began to lift lockdown restrictions, with casinos beginning to open their doors two weeks ago.

Six-time WSOP bracelet winner Daniel Negreanu has laid down the gauntlet to the rest of the professional poker world by betting on himself at 5/2 that he will win a World Series of Poker tournament bracelet in 2020.

Giving himself just over six months to win one, there is, of course, every chance that Canadian poker legend Negreanu will have to do so online rather than at the live felt where his years of stare-downs, twitches and tells can be interpreted by a master of the game.

There’s a chance that the WSOP will run later in the year, of course, but for now it looks almost certain that the vast majority of Negreanu’s work will be done online.

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China’s anti-online gambling campaign has taken down a major ‘fourth party’ payment processor facilitating cross-border payments with international gambling sites.

On Thursday, authorities in the city of Xiamen announced the arrests of 146 individuals suspected of providing payment processing for internationally based gambling sites, a sector that Chinese authorities have identified as a new focus of their ceaseless anti-gambling efforts.

The Xiamen police reportedly began investigating the payment platform in May. When a gambler wanted to fund his/her account, the gambling site would send the customer’s information to the payment platform, which created fake invoices for online car rental services or something equally innocuous.

Once this bill has been created, a QR code was sent back to the gambling site, which displayed the code for their customer to scan, thereby confirming the payment and ensuring the transfer of funds to the gambling site. The payment platform reportedly received a commission of 1-4% for this service.

This is a guest contribution by Emily Garner, Content Specialist at Blueclaw Media. If you would like to submit a contribution please contact Bill Beatty for submission details. Thank you.

As the global iGaming industry continues to grow, it’s never been more important to invest in digital PR for link building to boost your online visibility, increase traffic and help build brand awareness. But with many aggressive competitors in the market, you may find yourself wondering where to start and what really works – especially as many iGaming brands make the mistake of purchasing links instead of building them organically through campaigns and onsite content.

Here, we reveal our five top tips to successful iGaming link building based on industry best practices and tried-and-tested strategies, to help you up and stay on top of your game.

#1: Create campaigns that are newsworthy and relevant to your brand