Nevada casino gaming revenue staged a minor comeback in July, although capacity restrictions kept a lid on operators’ ability to rebound from their long COVID closure.

Figures released Wednesday by the Nevada Gaming Control Board show the state’s gaming licensees generated revenue of $756.8m in July, a 26.2% decline from July 2019 but significantly better than June 2020’s $566.8m.  

Nevada casinos were ordered to close in mid-March as the pandemic took hold and didn’t reopen until June 4 and even then only at 50% of capacity. Since then, the state’s casinos have been linked to pandemic outbreaks in other states and Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak has so far resisted calls to shut the casinos for a second time but is under mounting pressure to publicly name and shame operators who are failing to observe required health and safety protocols.

Nevada’s casino recovery continues to lean heavily on local residents, as July’s revenue decline was far more pronounced on the Las Vegas Strip (-39.2%, $330.1m) than Downtown Las Vegas (-20.6%, $41.7m), Reno (-10.2%, $51.5m) and the Boulder Strip (-19.9%, $65.5m).

China is disavowing any connection to a new ‘China Town’ casino hub being developed on Myanmar’s border with Thailand.

Last month, Asean Today reported on growing concerns regarding the Shwe Kokko development project in Myanmar’s southeastern Karen state, near the city of Myawaddy. The Chinese developer behind Shwe Kokko, a Hong Kong-registered firm called Yatai International Holding Group (IHG), pitched the plan in 2019 as occupying 12k hectares with a budget of US$15b.

While Myanmar’s government approved the development of some ‘high-end villas’ in the region, it never gave IHG permission to build casinos. Myanmar approved foreigners-only casino legislation in 2019 but has yet to issue the necessary regulations to permit casino operations.

Yet locals claim there are already up to 17 casinos in the Myawaddy area being run as a partnership between Chinese nationals and the Border Guard Force (BGF), a local militia group supported by Myanmar’s military. Shwe Kokko is a joint venture of an IHG subsidiary and Chit Linn Myaing, a Myanmar firm that owns the land on which the development is rising, and which features a former BGF officer as director.

China is once again showing they are serious about putting an end to overseas gambling for their citizens. The country’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism has announced a “blacklist” of overseas tourist destinations, focused on countries that promote gambling tourism for Chinese nationals.

Devised in conjunction with other departments, the blacklist seeks to impose travel restrictions on Chinese citizens, potentially blocking their ability to travel to casino destinations. It noted that these locations are “endangering the personal and property safety of Chinese citizens.”

There are very few specifics available about the blacklist at this point, so what this exactly means for the Asian gambling industry can only be speculated. JP Morgan analysts were happy to do just that, suggesting that operations in the Philippines, Cambodia, Vietnam and Australia could suffer.

The Philippines, which has several integrated resorts (IRs) and a thriving online gambling industry, defied China’s wishes to shut down online operations in 2019. Cambodia agreed to shut down online operations, but still has easily accessible casinos for Chinese citizens to travel to.

How long have we been stuck in this pandemic? The calendar might say months, but especially for those who’ve transitioned to working from home, time might have lost all meaning by now. Has it been months? Maybe years? Lifetimes?

While its fun to joke about how time has become a nebulous concept, the feeling that we’ve been sucked into a void present a real problem for many: burnout. The initial panic of the pandemic spurred many to be more productive than ever from their home office, but nearly six months of this hell has likely burned out many, now that they lack the routine of a daily trip to and from an office.

In fact, a recent study by Monster, noted by CNBC, reveals that 69% of employees were experiencing at least some symptoms of burnout by July, 2020. That’s far up from the 20% figure they saw from a similar study conducted in May, 2020. That’s a number that could get much worse as parents start having to deal with remote schooling for their children.

It may be more important now than ever that everyone learn some good habits for working from home. With a little bit of self-care, millions of remote employees could be a little fresher each day, and avoid the depressing feeling that burnout can suddenly bring.

Rising controversy could push Nevada to reveal it’s Covid-19 hotspots, possibly outing some casinos. On the heels of an expose by The Daily Beast, Governor Steve Sisolak suggested the state could reveal some of its internal coronavirus data.

In a piece that specifically takes aim at Las Vegas’ Cosmopolitan hotel, The Daily Beast interviewed several anonymous employees who claim they are “scared shitless” of the lack of safety precautions at the casino, and called it the Wuhan of the Strip. They describe stubborn and abusive customers, loosely enforced safety procedures and Covid-19 infected employees returning to work after as few as 3 days.

“I’m literally sick to my stomach every day I go into work,” one employee said. “So much anxiety about everything, and it’s so much worse on the weekends, when we’re packed well beyond the 50 percent capacity to which we’re supposed to be adhering,”

While other casinos are noted to be strictly following safety guidelines, industry analyst Jeff Hwang noted the Cosmo isn’t alone in its loose approach. “The problem with Cosmo is it drew crowds and [made] no attempt at enforcing social distancing,” he said. “I wouldn’t describe Cosmo as being particularly unique as far as those types of safety measures.”

Barcelona’s damaging 8-2 defeat to Bayern Munich in the Champions League quarter-finals revealed many holes in the Catalans construction, but the overriding image was that of Lionel Messi trudging disconsolately from the Portuguese pitch.

Just a fortnight on from that demolition, of course, Setien has gone and Ronald Koeman has replaced him as the Nou Camp’s new manager. He said when he arrived that his first challenge was hopefully not going to be convincing Messi to stay.

Now, a week later, Messi’s transfer request arriving at the fax machines of those in power at Barcelona prove that the inevitable is coming – Messi wants out.

So where could the Argentinian magician go?

The soaring popularity of DeFi markets, or Decentralized Finance markets, have helped pump the price of BTC and Ethereum to recent highs, making some promoters of the digital currencies to make bold predictions. But as neither can scale, fees have also hit recent highs, and prices are starting to drop back down.

On August 20, BTC was threatening to break the $12,000 price barrier and Ethereum was above $400. This had industry analysts predicting that should a surge in BTC’s price should it get past $12,500, it could mean a bull run for the digital currency. One promoter suggested it could hit $50,000 this year.

This growth is due in part to the rising popularity of DeFI, which has allowed digital currency traders to get away from regulated, centralized trading markets.

Some have warned that growing interest in DeFi could lead to many of the same problems seen during the 2017 initial coin offering (ICO) craze, with many newcomers to the market being scammed out of their investments by get rich quick scams. New projects like Spaghetti.Money tend to suggest that this warning is one to heed.

Osaka’s once bold plan to get an Integrated Resort (IR) casino up and running by 2025 now looks pretty doomed. The governor of the prefecture, Hirofumi Yoshimura, has confirmed that the process to move forward remains paused, and they’ll need to take the new situation of the world into account before moving forward again.

Yoshimura has confirmed no new progress on the prefectures Request for Proposal (RFP) process, whiuch has been officially paused since June. “Under the coronavirus situation, the process related to IR has been suspended from the time when previously the prefecture and city announced the postponement of the RFP submission deadline, on June 23,” Mr Yoshimura said.

While Japan is steadily flattening it’s Covid-19 curve, new cases are still springing up, and that’s made it difficult to proceed, he remarked. But the process will go ahead, and he noted that the city, prefecture, and MGM Resorts International, they’re only applicant at this point, all remain positive. At this point, they’ll wait and see how the rest of the pandemic plays out and wait on the basic IR policy of the Japanese national government before they move forward.

In July, we noted that with the ever changing world to account for, Japan has had to revise that Basic Policy several times now, and a final version of it may still be months away.

Staying in shape and keeping a serious home office fitness routine when you can’t get to the gym can prove to be a challenge when you throw work and family into the mix. The shift to working from home can be a major adjustment. That space between your desk, television and the kitchen is known as the Bermuda Triangle – a place where your dreams of looking like Chris Hemsworth go to die at the bottom of a tub of Ben and Jerries.

But staying healthy at the home office doesn’t require endless hours of sweaty work out routines. Here are some tips from the Calvin Ayre team for helping you stay in shape while you work from the home office.

Choose a good chair or ditch the chair

Take the time to invest in a comfortable chair for the home office. You want to avoid the dining table and keep your workplace separate from the family and hopefully a healthy workout routine. A great office chair can be like a prized piece of art or fine wine, something that you won’t let go off. It’s not a prison and you need to have a certain level of comfort.

When sports leagues around the globe came to shuddering halt in the first half of 2020, sports betting operators were left with a major headache. But esports stepped up to the plate, filling the void left by the NBA, English Premier League and MLB. With the gaming industry still discovering the nuances of esports, our own Becky Liggero Fontana sat down with esports betting executive Lovell Walker to shed some light on the industry.

Walker believes that the gaming industry has an opportunity to attract a new audience with the onset of esports betting by creating new forms of entertainment for a younger audience. “As an operator start to build our property in a way that’s going to be inviting for a younger demographic,” he said.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_oZmud9JMI?feature=oembed]

The development of esports across the U.S. has meant that regulators have been open to new processes for betting. “Regulators were very easy to deal with and they were very open to the process which is totally appreciated as an operator but the second is the existing market doesn’t quite get it yet, which isn’t a big deal today, that’s almost to be expected,” Walker added.