In the fast moving world of gambling, sometimes you might miss news that could be important to you. To make sure you’re all caught up on gaming industry news, be it online or brick and mortar, we’re rounding up the some of the announcements and partnerships from the last week that you might have missed.

Don’t miss out on all of the latest announcements. Our Press Release section is updated constantly.

BetQL Parent Company, QL Gaming Group, Acquires TennisInsight.com and Proprietary Motorsports Database

The QL Gaming Group (QLGG), a leading direct to consumer sports data and iGaming affiliate platform, today announced the acquisition of TennisInsight, the world’s largest online tennis community.

The U.S. Open is always an important bookmark in not only the tennis season but the sporting calendar. This year, above all years, it has the potential not only to reflect the sporting landscape, but perhaps the global pandemic we are living in.

With numerous players rumoured to be pulling out, the sportsbetting market is a confused list of the names we all know with very little movement. Perhaps this is because at present no-one knows for sure who will make the event.

There’s a ‘you go first’ panic about the attendance of major names. While it is almost certain at the moment that Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal won’t be at Flushing Meadow, if Novak Djokovic has had COVID-19 and attracted a lot of negative attention for his hosting of the Adria Cup, plays then others will follow.

We’ve taken a look at the three men who could shape the event and establish whether their odds are truly reflective of the value they represent. Let’s start with the current world number one.

China isn’t messing around when it comes to online gambling. Considerng the activity a national security risk, the country’s now pushing hard to shut down junkets, spelling an end for online operator AG Asia Entertainment.

Reuters reports China has seized as much as 229 billion yuan ($32.95 billion) from bank accounts tied to gambling activity in recent months. The impact has been felt primarily by Macau junket operators, of course, but also online operators.

AG Asia Entertainment, an online junket operated out of the Philippines, has been forced to cease operations as a result. They notified customers to withdraw their funds by August 12.

Lam Kai Kuong, director of the Macau Junket Association, thinks this crack down on junkets will mean the best days of VIP revenue are behind us. Unless China changes its mood, he warns that the industry will never return to the VIP play it saw in 2018.

Linkedin has proven to be the tool of popular choice for modern professionals looking for their next employment opportunity, at home or overseas, and it’s now more important than ever to make sure you put your best professional foot forward.

Linkedin has evolved over the years to include features centred around the promotion of organic video content, making it competitive with the likes of Facebook, Youtube and Chinese Apps such as WeChat and Weibo. The platform has emerged as the go-to not just for job hunting but also for professional networking and learning and development.

Below is a list of the best tips to put on you on the path of professional success in the digital community.

Do’s

Sports gambling is exciting because, in many cases, surprises pop up that few would have expected. An example of this can be found in the Wyndham Championship, part of the PGA Tour. The tournament played out this past weekend at the Sedgefield Country Club in Greensboro, North Carolina, bringing together top names like Brooks Koepka, Webb Simpson, Justin Rose and more. Koepka and Rose are among the top ten golfers in the world, and were looking at short odds to win the tournament; however, they wouldn’t make it, and the golfer who ended up taking down the entire field came out of nowhere to blow everyone away. Jim Herman was, before the tournament, ranked 318th in the world, but showed off his skills this weekend on his way to a major victory. Not only did he win, but so did the sportsbooks who took action on the event.

Because of his official ranking, the odds listed for Herman were around 600/1. Placing just a $5 bet – less than what most people spend picking up a coffee and a scone at Starbucks – resulted in a gain of $3,000. According to the Westgate SuperBook out of Las Vegas, there was only one bet placed on Herman for the event, and that was only for $2. Still, a $1,200 gain off of $2 is an awesome return.

No one expected Herman to do so well, not even the golfer himself. He said in a statement following his victory, “I guess whenever you win, you never really, truly expect it. I mean, there’s the guys at the top. They’re expected to win every week and they should expect that. They’re that good. You know, we’re all really darn good out here. But the mental game, it beats you down.”

The win pushed Herman up to 91st place in the PGA rankings, but also gave him some padding. He picked up a two-year exemption on the PGA Tour and automatically earned entries into three events – the 2021 Masters, the PGA Championship and the PLAYERS Championship. Then, there’s the cash he earned, which probably deserves a mention, as well. His performance added $1.152 million to his wallet.

The ambitious plan to turn Russia’s Primorye region into a hotbed for gambling activity continues to move forward, even if it seems to be taking longer than expected. There is already one casino up and running in the Primorye Gambling Zone (PGZ), the Tigre de Cristal, and 11 are projected to be open within the next three years – a timeline that will most likely face delays because of the coronavirus. For now, though, a second casino resort is close to unlocking its doors to gamblers for the first time, and this will mark an important step toward realizing the dream of turning the PGZ into a major international gambling hub. 

The Shambhala casino should be ready for business within the next couple of months. Construction on the venue wrapped up a few months ago, with interior designers then moving in to work their magic on the details. The plan had been to open the casino to the public sometime in July; however, just like has been seen across the globe, a pesky little virus got in the way and upended the schedule. Although COVID-19 is still in the wild and definitely not under control, the ability to implement health measures to curb its spread will allow Shambhala to get back on track. 

This is good news for the region, as the property is expected to give it a considerable employment boost. According to the Far East Investment Promotion and Export Support Agency (ANO API), which connects investors to massive tourism and other investment deals, asserts that Shambhala will be able to offer 500 new jobs before the end of the year. 200 of these could be hired within the next 30 days, with the rest following over the next several months. Around one-third of the employees will need to be brought into the area from other parts of Russia. 

The subsequent launch of the venue is going to give the Primorsky Territory, home of the PGZ, a significant economic boost. Encompassing the port city of Vladivostok, the territory expects to see substantial tax revenue gains immediately upon the casino’s launch, and its First Vice Governor Vera Shcherbina asserted last week, “If last year about RUB100 million (US$1.36 million) came to the budget of the Primorsky Territory, then this year it will be more than RUB200 million. We expect that by 2025 the amount of tax revenues will be about RUB2.5 billion (US$34 million), and after the project reaches full capacity, in the long term, about RUB4.5 billion (US$61.2 million).”

SkyCity Entertainment Group was happy when it started to reopen its casinos in New Zealand in May. Believing the coronavirus debacle could effectively be in the rear-view mirror, the casino operator, as well as many others, breathed a sigh of relief that a mandated shutdown didn’t last longer. SkyCity Auckland and other properties owned by the company in New Zealand and Australia could start to get back on track and return to business as normal. While it was undoubtedly fun while it lasted, a sudden reappearance of COVID-19 forced SkyCity to shutter its casino operations again last week, supposedly just for three days. However, the party’s definitely over, as one of the gambling venues will need to remain closed a little longer. 

SkyCity Auckland is not going to reopen its casino or entertainment facilities, at least not yet. In an announcement (pdf) from yesterday, the company explains, “SkyCity Entertainment Group Limited (“SkyCity”) advises that its Auckland casino and entertainment facilities will, at this stage, remain closed until 11.59pm on 26 August 2020 following the announcement by the New Zealand Government on 14 August 2020 that the COVID-19 Alert Level will remain at Alert Level 3 in Auckland and Alert Level 2 for the rest of New Zealand until 11.59pm on 26 August 2020.”

The other properties, SkyCity Hamilton and SkyCity Queenstown are able to remain open because they fall under the country’s Alert Level 2 plan. The company’s Australia-based casino, SkyCity Adelaide, is also open, operating under similar restrictions as those venues covered by New Zealand’s Alert Level 2. As long as everyone adheres to the government’s policies on social distancing and health protection, there shouldn’t be any problems. Hotels at all facilities, including SkyCity Auckland, are still open for existing guests, but it isn’t clear if they are accepting new reservations. 

New Zealand appeared to be one of the healthier countries during the global pandemic, leading to what had been seen as a quicker rebound and a return to something resembling normal activity. Unfortunately, after having gone 100 days with no new coronavirus cases, one appeared, then another and another, until there were suddenly 78 new COVID-19 patients. In many instances, tracing the origin of a new cluster of infections can be accomplished with relative ease by health experts. However, in this latest outbreak, a family of four in New Zealand became infected, and no one has yet been able to identify how the virus was transmitted. 

As observers have predicted, the Philippines has decided to throw caution to the wind and put an end to Manila’s Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ). President Rodrigo Duterte has declared the capital will revert to a more lenient General Community Quarantine (GCQ) between August 19 and August 31, leading some to think casinos could soon reopen.

This is not because the number of infections has improved. Recently labeled “The land of COVID-19” by Thai news outlets, the Philippines continues to see a high rate of new infections. The country saw no improvement at all during its time in a modified ECQ, averaging more than 3,000 new cases per day.

But the economy just can’t stand another day in quarantine, the government argues. Before the decision was announced, Presidential spokesperson Harry Roque teased that relaxed lockdowns were coming. “The bottom line is we no longer have resources to give assistance,” he said.

The Octa group of experts, who cautioned against ending ECQ, now estimate that the country will soon see a total of 230,000 cases, a significant increase from the current number of 164,474. Mind you, both of these numbers are accounted for with a lack of testing.

The Maltese Gaming Authority’s (MGA) Legal Counsel, Brandon Debattista, believes that digital currency has a bright future in the online gaming industry. Debattista has been on the front lines of building digital currency opportunities for online gaming companies in Malta, and took some time out to sit down with our very own Becky Liggero, to advises on the use of digital currency in online gaming.

Legislation was passed in 2018, to allow online gaming operators to use digital currency for their operations in Malta. Debattista has played a major role in a sandbox framework for companies to participate in. According to Debattista there was plenty of interest from operators based in Malta:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJmdSfuXm4o?feature=oembed]

“From the inception of the sandbox framework, there was a lot of interest which was shown for eventual participation in the sandbox. There was the first phase where interested applicants could apply to start accepting cryptocurrencies as a means of payment and this was followed by phase two which basically enabled interested participants to incorporate further DLT [Distributed Ledger Technology] within their operations for instance using smart contracts.”

Embattled casino operator Imperial Pacific International (IPI) says it will fight to preserve and even extend its Saipan casino monopoly, even if it can’t honor the terms of its gaming license.

Last week, IPI surprised virtually no one by declaring that it couldn’t pay its annual $15.5m license fee to the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI), of which Saipan is a part. The news came just two weeks after IPI’s new CEO Donald Browne publicly assured members of the Commonwealth Casino Commission (CCC) that the company had “some funding that would satisfy that.”

Fast forward to Monday, and the Saipan Tribune posted an article in which IPI general counsel Michael Dotts suggested that the CNMI legislature might take this opportunity to license as many as four other casino operators, which he claimed could reduce IPI’s licensee fee by 80%, while also reducing IPI’s $3m annual payment to fund the CCC’s operations (which IPI also claims is currently beyond its fiscal capabilities).  

IPI’s latest in a long line of legal eagles obviously didn’t clear these views with the company, which rushed out a statement saying it was “not the case” that IPI was open to sharing its Saipan monopoly with any other casinos. IPI said it intends to “vigorously defend our exclusive rights to all gaming” activity on Saipan, including video poker machines and “e-gaming.”

Poland’s government saw its gambling tax revenue take a serious hit from COVID-19, with the state-run online casino monopoly proving the exception to the downward trend.

Figures released by Poland’s Ministry of Finance shows the total tax take from Polish-licensed gambling operators hit just over PLN450m (US$121.6m) in the three months ending June 30. That sum represents a nearly 21% decline from the same period last year and more than one-quarter below Q1 2020’s total.

The state-run numeric lotteries claimed the biggest slice of the tax pie with PLN176m, down 16.7% from Q1 2020. Sports betting claimed the second-biggest slice with PLN138.6m, down nearly one-third from Q1 as the pandemic forced the suspension of major sports events. Online betting tax fell 28% to PLN124m while retail betting slumped 55% to PLN14.6m.

Land-based casino operations were also hit hard, with tax down 52% to PLN44.6m, while slots parlor taxes were cut in half to PLN3.7m. Standing in stark contrast was state-run Totalizator Sportowy’s Playtech-powered online casino monopoly, which brought in tax of PLN39.3m, up more than 28% sequentially and more than twice the sum generated in Q2 2019.

The U.S. District Court in Nevada has granted Mike Postle’s motion to dismiss a quarter-million case against him as popular poker player and YouTuber Marle Cordeiro’s accusation was thrown out of court. 

Four months ago, Cordeiro went after Postle for a humungous $250,000 in punitive damages and pushed for a trial by jury. There was one key problem, and that was although the case was filed in the home of poker, Las Vegas, Nevada, the game itself took place at Stones Gambling Hall… which is in California. 

Around the world, many poker players raised concerns that players on ‘Stones Live’ had been the victims of an elaborate scheme to cheat during the live-streamed games and con players out of their hard-earned via a delayed live stream of the action being funnelled to Postle’s mobile phone or even a ‘bone-conducting microphone’ that was hidden under the baseball cap Postle chose to wear. 

Joey Ingram was chief among the accusers despite not sitting in the game and many plaintiffs were signed to Mac Verstandig, lawyer at large who issued this statement to PokerNews about Cordeiro’s case being dropped.