Russia’s most successful casino Tigre de Cristal may finally get some local competition next month in the country’s far east Primorye gaming zone. 

A few weeks ago, Konstantin Shestakov, Deputy Prime Minister of the Primorsky Territory, announced that the in-development Shambala casino project would open its doors “in July this year,” although he cautioned that the exact timing “will certainly be made by the owner.”

Dmitry Pisarenko, who was on hand to represent Shambala CJSC, the Russian firm behind the project, confirmed that construction of the Shambala casino was complete. Pisaraneko said the company was now engaged in interior detail work, and that there were “halls where the finish has already been completed.”

Russia is currently struggling to get a grip on its COVID-19 infection rate, and Pisarenko conceded that the pandemic presented some unique problems. But the bulk of the material and equipment had been secured well in advance, which, along with the region’s geographic isolation, allowed construction to continue.

UFC president Dana What has accepted the challenge to step into the octagon and face ESPN’s Dan Le Batard. Things got heated when White appeared on “The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz,” with the pair trading barbs.

The interview ended with Le Batard throwing out the challenge of a charity bout in the octagon against the UFC President. White has not only accepted, but pledged $250,000 to charity for the match-up. While Le Batard won’t fill the void of the recently retired Conor McGregor, the ESPN commentator has vowed to make a counteroffer this week.

You’re on the clock, @LeBatardShow.@danawhite told @michaeleaves he’d pledge $250k for a charity fight against ESPN’s Dan Le Batard 😬 pic.twitter.com/nXksP3it0X

— ESPN MMA (@espnmma) June 6, 2020https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

California’s legislator-sponsored sports betting bill took another small step forward on Tuesday but the state’s tribal gaming operators haven’t given up on getting their own betting proposal on the state’s election ballot.

On Tuesday, the California state Senate Appropriations Committee added Senate Constitutional Amendment 6 (SCA-6) to its Suspense File, a last-minute grab-bag for bills that have significant fiscal impact yet lack a final fiscal analysis. The committee plans to vote on June 18 on whether to send SCA-6 to the Senate for a floor vote.

Unlike last week’s detailed hearing at the Governmental Organization Committee, the Appropriations hearing on SCA-6 lasted only 15 minutes. Some of the tribal gaming operators that so vehemently opposed SCA-6 last week phoned into the hearing to restate their opposition.

The tribes oppose the legislative effort because it includes a provision to legalize the controversial ‘player-banked’ games at the state’s cardrooms. The tribes contend that these games infringe on what they claim is their monopoly over house-banked card games such as blackjack and baccarat.

Philippine authorities have deported a South Korean illegal online gambling operator while continuing to uncover more Chinese-run underground medical clinics believed to be catering to local gambling operations.

On Tuesday, Philippine media reported that Bureau of Immigration (BI) officials had detained a South Korean national trying to fly home via Manila’s Ninoy Aquino International Airport. The individual, a 27-year-old named An Byeonghyeon, appeared on Interpol’s ‘red notice’ list, an international ‘wanted’ roster for law enforcement agents.

An was on the list because he and some other ex-pats had allegedly been operating an illegal online sports betting site from Manila since 2017 until March this year. The site, known locally as ‘Syrup, Milk, Butter, Sugar,’ targeted South Korean clients back home, leading authorities in Busan to put the offenders’ names on Interpol’s red list.

An was also caught with stolen travel documents but BI officials allowed him to board his plane after alerting their South Korean counterparts, who arrested An once his plane arrived in Seoul. If convicted, An faces up to 10 years behind bars.

Oklahoma’s controversial tribal sports betting compacts have been approved by the federal government, while a federal court has offered new hope to a Massachusetts tribal casino proposal.

On Monday, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt announced that the US Department of the Interior (DOI) had approved the gaming compacts he inked in April with the Comanche Nation and the Otoe-Missouria Tribe. The deals allow the tribes to build additional casinos off tribal land and offer sports betting for the first time.  

Those deals have been sharply criticized by everyone from Oklahoma’s Attorney General – who noted that the legislature has yet to authorize legal wagering – to the Oklahoma Indian Gaming Association (OIGA), which booted the two tribes from its ranks last month for undermining OIGA’s efforts to renew the gaming compacts of 10 other tribal operators.

Oklahoma AG Mike Hunter criticized the DOI’s “thoughtless and irresponsible inaction” and accused DOI Secretary David Bernhardt of abdicating “his responsibility to all of Oklahoma’s Native American sovereigns, not just two.”

UK betting shops are furiously prepping for their post-pandemic reopening, while Genting Casinos may be permanently closing some of its shuttered UK venues.

On Tuesday, GVC Holdings announced it would reopen all 2,445 Ladbrokes and Coral betting shops in England on Monday, June 15, in accordance with the UK government’s lifting of its mid-March ban on ‘non-essential’ retail operations. GVC’s shops in the rest of the UK will follow suit according to those individual regions’ lockdown guidance.

GVC says the health and safety precautions that punters will encounter upon entering one of its shops “meet or exceed guidelines laid down by the UK government and the World Health Organization.”

For instance, ‘sneeze screens’ will ensure a protective barrier between staff and customers, while the latter who are looking to use a betting station or gaming machine will be supplied with ‘stylus pens’ to avoid physical contact with the machines.

Gambling operator Churchill Downs Incorporated (CDI) has reopened its main ‘historical racing machine’ venue, while inking a deal to dramatically increase the number of machines across its retail network.

On Monday, CDI announced that its Derby City Gaming venue, which is located adjacent to the company’s flagship Churchill Downs racetrack in Louisville, Kentucky, would open its doors at 8pm that day. CDI thanked Kentucky’s governor for approving the reopening of the property, which shut down on March 15 to minimize the spread of COVID-19.

CDI CEO Bill Carstanjen said Derby City would employ the ‘CDI 360 Degree Approach to Safety,’ the company’s program of health and safety precautions to ensure the wellbeing of both customers and staff. These include unspecified capacity restrictions, customer temperature checks and regular sanitizing of gaming machines.

Historical racing machines (HRM) are effectively slot machines that rely on virtual simulations of previous races with all the identifying information stripped out. Since the venue’s 2018 launch, Derby City’s machines have become far more important to CDI’s ‘Churchill Downs’ segment than live racing.

The 2020 World Series of Poker may have been postponed until at least the Autumn, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be some bracelets to play for this summer. The WSOP have partnered up with GGPoker again to offer an online WSOP Festival that will award 85 WSOP bracelets across 31 events on WSOP.com and 54 events on GGPoker.

The traditional festival of live poker in Las Vegas would already be a couple of dozen events in by now, of course. With the fabled WSOP Main Event due to start on July 1st, players would be tweeting excitedly about their chances of winning a $10 million top prize.

Instead, ‘Poker Twitter’ has been an avalanche of either dispirited messages about the current political tensions in America or celebrations of other tournaments. The recent WSOP Super Circuit Series on GGPoker was a massive success, however, and on the back of that series, the World Series of Poker and GG Poker are welcoming players to 85 events between July 1st and September 6th. 

As the WSOP have announced themselves, it will be the first time that players outside the U.S. have been able to compete for an official WSOP bracelet online. 

SiGMA has always had an eye to the emerging technologies of the world, and specifically how they can help the gambling industry. Naturally then, SiGMA Deep Tech, part of the SiGMA-ICE Asia and SiGMA Deep Tech Summit, plays a huge part in discussing how technology is evolving, and how that affects every segment of the gambling world, and day 1 spent plenty of time exploring these topics.

Can Live Gaming Save Casinos in a Digital Era?

Before the Deep Tech portion of the day kicked off, moderator Oliver De Bono, COO of Condor Gaming, was joined by Albert Climent, Founder of Oneblock Technologies, Evan Spytma, CEO of eBet, and Dmitriy Paliants, CMO of TVBET. They looked at how land based casinos are realizing that live casino offerings might be beneficial for them.

Climent noted that casinos are starting to look at adopting live casino offerings, instead of seeing them as a threat, due to the pandemic. “It’s a natural transition for them,” he said.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1m_YUGVVaU?feature=oembed]

The Richmond Foundation has been an invaluable resource for mental health since 1993, and as its located in Malta, an important touchpoint for the gambling industry. To get a better understanding of how this pandemic has affected the sector mentally, and get some tips on how to manage it better, Becky Liggero Fontana spoke with Dragan Donkov of the Manager Learning and Development Team.

With so many people working remotely, Liggero Fontana began by asking how managers can look for signs that employees might be in trouble with their mental health. “What we notice is, the first thing we see a change from what was in the past,” he said. “We can see things like reduced productivity, the person is feeling overwhelmed with simple tasks, there’s lack of motivation, and when they participate in in team meetings or individual meetings, they’re not really looking forward for things to happen. They feel a bit helpless and you can’t see any signs of hope. You see the lack of energy they would present, some people are going to have pure physical experiences, like complaining they have pain, because even during stress and depression and mental illnesses there quite a lot of physical symptoms that we notice. I mean, very often mental illnesses are diagnosed through physical experiences than the psychological experiences are coming into place. They would change the way how they appeared, the way they come, and they can say, ‘I sleep late, I can’t find a routine.’ They might share that they’re drinking a bit more wine just to relax. So alcohol becomes as a way of relaxation and spending time and dealing with problems. So the quite small things that you need to pick up from your interaction with your colleagues and employees. One symptom might not be enough, in in this case.”

There are ways to mitigate the potential of these problems cropping up, but it might require a bit of diligence, and a lot of communication. “The companies needs to look into how to increase the way how people socialize as much as they can, even like by organizing individual reach outs for people that they think potentially will be alone,” he said. “When we’re talking about HR, most of the HR people know who is alone in the country, who has lack of support, especially like we’re talking about expats, being in other countries.”

It seems like a lot longer than four years since a Leicester side featuring Riyad Mahrez, N’Golo Kante and managed by Claudio Ranieri swept to the Premier League title and became 5,000-1 winners.

 Massive outside bets at the start of the 2015/16 season, Leicester City came into what would be the most successful season of their 111-year history at the time amid massive changes. Due to a scandal involving his son, Nigel Pearson, who had guided the club to an improbable escape from relegation in the previous season, left the club.

In Pearson’s place came Claudio Ranieri, also known as ‘The Tinkerman’ during his time in football management. That reputation, however, was to change dramatically in just a single season.

Many new faces came in during a summer of growth, with players like N’Golo Kante (£5.6m), Robert Huth (£3m) and Shinji Okazaki (£7m) all signing during a busy pre-season. Friendlies mostly yielded easy victories, but a 3-2 comeback win against Birmingham City when Leicester went into the half-time break 2-0 down hinted at the resolve that was already building in the squad.