Cambodia’s largest casino operator NagaCorp is once again suffering labor unrest after it halted COVID-19 suspension payments to staff at its flagship property in Phnom Penh.

On Tuesday, Cambodian media reported that some 200 employees of the NagaWorld casino were demonstrating in front of the Labor Ministry building to protest a decision by NagaCorp to halt the partial salary payments the company had been making since all Cambodian casinos were ordered to close on April 1 due to COVID-19.

When Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Sen issued his casino closure order, he said casino owners “should find a solution for their workers during the suspension of their businesses.” Initially, NagaCorp agreed to pay most staff 50% of their salaries, while a handful of staff are still on full-time running NagaWorld’s hotel, which remains partially operational.

Those 50% payments were halted this month, leaving most NagaWorld staff with no income whatsoever. The gathering outside the Labor Ministry – accompanied by thousands of thumbprint petitions from other affected staff – was a bid to convince the government to pay idle casino staff that same $40 monthly handout that workers in the garment and tourism sectors are currently receiving.

Bulgaria’s land-based gambling operators are breathing a little easier after the government rejected a proposal to close over 600 gaming venues in favor of 10 large integrated resort casinos.

On Wednesday, Bulgaria’s parliament adopted at first reading the ruling GERB party’s proposal to amend the country’s Gambling Act to bring the State Gambling Commission (SGC) under the supervision of the Council of Ministers from its current status as a branch of the Ministry of Finance.

The legislature also approved GERB’s plan to allow the state-run Bulgarian Sports Totalizator to add online casino games to its existing betting and lottery mix, as well as a plan to create a self-exclusion registry for problem gamblers.

But only 22 deputies voted in favor of an amendment to close 638 casinos and slots halls across the country in favor of 10 mega-casinos in five-star hotels within 20km of the country’s borders. Only four MPs voted against the amendment but 127 MPs abstained, denying the amendment the necessary votes to proceed to a second reading.

Online gambling technology outfit GAN says it’s weathering the impact of COVID-19 better than some, while pimping the imminent signing of a new ‘Tier-1’ US client.

Figures released Tuesday show GAN’s revenue in the three months ending March 31 fell by one-fifth to just under $7.7m, although the company was quick to note that Q1 2019 benefited from $4.9m from hardware sales and the licensing of the company’s ‘strategic US patent.’  

Adjusted earnings fell nearly one-third to $2.6m while net income fell over three-quarters to $500k, thanks in part to costs associated with preparing for the company’s initial public offering last month.

Real-money internet gaming (RmiG) software revenue more than doubled year-on-year to $4.7m in Q1 while RmiG service revenue shot up 63% to $1.5m. The company’s ‘Simulated Gaming’ aka free-play social gaming revenue suffered a 4.6% fall to $1.4m.

Norway’s gambling regulator is conducting a survey of how local banks block transactions involving online gambling operators the government doesn’t like.

On Wednesday, the Lotteritilsynet regulatory agency announced that it was conducting a survey of 170 banks to determine how they “stop cash premiums and deposits from illegal foreign gaming companies, and what kind of approach the banks and financial institutions have to gambling problems.”

Lotteritilsynet senior adviser Silje Sægrov Amble said the regulator wants to determine if banks’ current systems enable them to properly impede financial transfers to and from internationally licensed online gambling operators who compete with the state-run Norsk Tipping and Norsk Rikstoto monopolies.  

The regulator also wants to know what practices the banks employ if/when they detect that one of their customers is gambling with unauthorized sites and whether they inform these customers of the controversial gambling payment ban that took effect in January.