With a lot of time between now and whenever the first Japanese integrated resort (IR) is expected to open, there’s plenty of changes happening in Osaka, Nagasaki and Yokohama, three of the leading cities to gain licenses. Each made news recently, opening up new possibilities for Japan’s casino future.

In Osaka, a bid previously though to be a lock for MGM might now be competitive again. With news that Osaka’s IR likely won’t open until the late 2020s, the city and prefecture have announced that the application process has now been reopened. “Following this policy change, Osaka Prefecture and Osaka City have ensured fairness and fairness,” the governments announced, as per NHK news “Therefore, we will accept applications from other businesses as well.”

The news must come as a shock to MGM, who’ve been the only potential partner for an Osaka IR since February 2020. With a tough year passed, and knowing there’s no longer a rush to meet a 2025 opening date, Osaka is willing to take more time and consider other options.

Nagasaki, which has come on strong as an IR contender in recent weeks, have revealed their 5 potential partners for an IR license. Casinos Austria Japan, Current Group, Niki Chau Fwu (Parkview), One Kyushu (TTL Resorts), and the Oshidori consortium were listed by the prefecture. With their own plans citing a late 2020’s opening, the prefecture added: “The prefecture is aiming to attract IR by utilizing the site of the large resort facility “Huis Ten Bosch” in Sasebo City.”

Everyone expected the Chinese New Year (CNY) holiday to not bring a lot of action to Macau, especially since the city, as well as China, recommended locals forego their travel plans. The constant threat of COVID-19 has forced the old playbooks to be tossed into the fire as a “just wing it” approach is necessary. Still, Macau had hoped to see at least 100,000 tourists descend on the city during the CNY period, but that hasn’t happened. In fact, the actual figures are well below even the already-reduced expectations.

The Macao Government Tourism Office (MGTO) had hoped to see around 16,000 to 20,000 visitors each day as the CNY got going. So far, as of yesterday, total visitation was just 62,894 since February 11, the start of the annual holiday, and is well below what everyone would have liked to have seen. On February 11 and 12, less than 10,000 people arrived in the city on each of the two days, much to the disappointment of tourism officials. The best day was this past Monday, when 17,357 visitors were recorded. That was 52% fewer than what had crossed into Macau last year on the same day.

As would have been expected, most of the arrivals came from mainland China, with 57,226 travelers crossing over into Macau from the country. They preferred land-based transportation, as only 4,844 of the total visitation numbers came via air. That virtually nonexistent air travel segment might soon see some improvements, though, even if CNY was essentially a bust.

According to Macau International Airport (MFM), which shared its predictions with GGRAsia, flights into Macau could be on the rise for what’s left of this month. It explained that the airport might handle a total of 1,128 commercial flights before February ends, which would represent about 40 a day. This is much better than what was recorded last month, when an average of just 28 a day – 870 in total – was recorded. If the numbers hold up, February’s MFM movement will have increased by 29.7% since the start of the year, which was down 12.6% from last December’s figures. 

Entain announced recently that it was possibly interested in buying TAB, the racing and sports gambling unit operated by Australia’s Tabcorp. At the time, it was still crunching the numbers to determine how much it was willing to put up, and the results are in. However, even though it has put a $2.3-billion cash offer on the table, it might find Tabcorp unimpressed with the amount. 

Entain is responding to rumors that Tabcorp might consider dividing its house as TAB has not been performing to expectations. It was the first to submit a proposal and asserts that the figure is in line with the market valuation provided by analysts with the Australian Securities Exchange. However, history has shown that companies will rarely sell assets at market value unless they’re desperate for cash. Based on Tabcorp’s just-announced earnings report, it isn’t.

The company just released its latest financial report today and showed a group-wide decline of just 1.5% for the first half of fiscal year 2021. The bottom line was $2.22 billion for the period, with a 6.2% decrease in EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization). Much of that centered on Tabcorp’s Gaming Services division, which saw a 51% drop in revenue to $57 million. However, other areas, such as Lotteries/Keno and Wagering/Media, increased. 

CEO and Managing Director David Attenborough acknowledged that it had received a number of proposals, but didn’t provide details on the players or the amounts. He only offered, “There has been considerable commentary in the market about our wagering and media business. We have confirmed we have received a number of proposals and unsolicited approaches in relation to a potential transaction involving this business. They are also highly conditional and subject to numerous requirements such as due diligence, financing and various regulatory and racing industry approvals. The board will take the appropriate time to carefully consider all of the relevant issues and strategic options that arise in respect to these matters.”

Genius Sports continues to take the sports gambling industry by storm. It is on a tireless mission to be the go-to sports data providers for anything and everything related to sports, and just picked up another big deal. Wynn Resorts, through its WynnBET sports gambling arm, drafted the company to provide its data services to the company in a new multi-year deal.

Going forward, Genius Sports will use its official data channels to give WynnBET access to hundreds of sports organizations, including NASCAR, EPL and plenty of international options. A statement by the company explains, “The new partnership will also involve Genius’ ultra-fast, reliable official data content for hundreds of international soccer, basketball, ice hockey, table tennis and volleyball federations and leagues, including the English Premier League, Italian Serie A, German Bundesliga, LigaMX, Euroleague Basketball, and Argentine soccer.”

WynnBET will be able to take full advantage of Genius Sports and its LiveData and LiveTrading platforms, offering in-game gambling action where the operator is currently licensed, including Colorado, Michigan and New Jersey. Wynn continues to work on securing new licenses and already has several options in the works. It is close to being able to offer sports gambling in Iowa and Ohio, where it has recently gained access, has received conditional licensing in Tennessee and has applications pending in Indiana and Virginia.

Adds Jack Davison, Genius Sports’ Chief Commercial Officer, “Along with its broad market-access and nationally-recognizable brand name, Genius is an ideal partner to enhance WynnBET’s expanding online sportsbook and in-game betting offering. With growing numbers of states introducing online betting regulation, in-game handle is quickly rising – and WynnBET recognizes the direct engagement and revenue benefits of official data in this landscape.”

Malta now has four casinos in its roughly 122-square-mile territory, including Casino Malta, the Dragonara Casino, Oracle Casino and Portomaso Casino. It might soon have a fifth gambling property, though, if a government plan currently in the works is accepted. A request for proposals (RFP) for a new casino is underway, but any suitors will have to be prepared to accept some restrictions.

Malta published in the government’s official newspaper, the Malta Gazette, an RFP yesterday regarding a “concession to open and operate a casino in Malta.” The country’s Privatization Unit (PU) is overseeing the process and all submissions must be made in public no later than noon on April 7.  From now until then, several milestones are already in place to facilitate the process, including a cutoff date of March 1 for any requests for clarification on the RFP. Responses to those requests will be delivered no later than March 17, which will give candidates only about two weeks to make their final submissions.

The PU explains on its website, “The Privatisation Unit, acting on behalf of the Ministry for the Economy and Industry​, is hereby inviting Prospective Proponents to submit Proposals for the opening and operation of a casino in Malta. Prospective Proponents are reminded that for the opening and operation of a casino in Malta, the Successful Proponent must, in addition to holding the Concession, also hold a valid Casino Licence issued by the Authority in terms of the Gaming Authorisations Regulations.”

All proposals must come from companies that are established and registered in the European Economic Area and the entity that wins the concession must be fully-owned by that company. The casino will need to be built in a tourist area that has been designated as such by the Malta Tourism Authority, but two specific areas are off-limits. No casino will be allowed in either Gozo or Comino. Both are small islands that are part of Malta’s larger archipelago of 21 islands.

Delaware North Vice President Luisa Woods has been in the U.S. gambling industry since the 1990s, and she’s devoted her career to figuring out the best approach to marketing. She sat down with Calvinayre.com‘s lead reporter Becky Liggero Fontana to offer her thoughts on how U.S. casinos can overcome the new challenges of the regulated market.

Woods believes that the omnichannel market and the cross-over between online and land-based casinos represents a huge opportunity for operators. Woods spoke at a Betting on Sports America panel about the challenges operators face in navigating state regulations. She told us it’s still all about ‘location’ for land-based operators:

“It’s a really big challenge that land-based operators are very used to thinking in terms of location. They’re used to thinking in terms of you know traffic patterns and obviously, Americans flow very freely between states. Our properties in West Virginia are a great example of this, particularly we have a property at Wheeling Island which is on the northern panhandle and a lot of people will work on one side of the border and live on the other or travel across the border for entertainment or other things.”

“Both Pennsylvania and Ohio have gaming facilities, however, people who live within the catchment area of that casino are very used to driving to our property. Suddenly, you’ve got a situation where when they’re sitting at home and watching television, they’re being introduced to the idea of there’s a mobile app that I could download and play on but it’s not necessarily associated with the gaming company that I typically frequent. This is something that every single operator is having to wrestle with; it becomes a challenge of which markets are you going to enter.”

Online casino sites need to stay on top of the hottest slot offerings to keep up with the competition. We’ve got the newest slots released in the past week, so you can check them out and decide if you want them on your site.

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

GAMING1 embarks on a mystical journey in Astro The Great Race

Epic title invites players to compete in a frenzied race

Asian online gambling operator 500.com is ramping up its transition to cryptocurrency miner through the purchase of Jihan Wu’s crypto mining pool BTC.com.  

On Tuesday, the Shenzhen-based, Nasdaq-listed 500.com announced that it had reached a share exchange agreement with Blockchain Alliance Technologies Holding Company that will see 500.com assume control of the entire mining pool business of Bitdeer Technologies Holding Company, which operates as BTC.com. The deal also involves the transfer of the BTC.com domain and crypto wallet. 

The deal will see 500.com issue more than 44m Class A ordinary shares representing around 10% of its outstanding shares to Blockchain Alliance in exchange for all shares in Blockchain Alliance Technologies Ltd held by Blockchain Alliance. There’s also a potential top-up payment of 5% of 500.com’s outstanding shares should BTC.com report a net operating profit of at least US$20m in 2021. 

BTC.com ranks as the fourth largest mining pool with an estimated 10% of the BTC (Core coin) hash power. BitDeer’s beneficial owner is none other than Jihan Wu, co-founder of mining hardware outfit Bitmain, who left the firm in late-January following a prolonged and occasionally nasty feud with co-founder Micree Zhan. 

Day 2 of the MILLIONS Online Main Event saw 169 players reduced to just 25 and as the dust settled, Austrian player Daniel Smiljkovic had bagged up the chip lead with 133.6 million, the equivalent of 167 big blinds with which to attack Day 3.

With two days left in the monstrous opening tournament of the 28 that make up the partypoker MILLIONS Online series, Daniel Smiljkovic is closely followed in the chipcounts, followed as he is by Laszlo Molnar from Hungary (127.8 million) and Russia’s Leonid Orman     (69.5 million), although the former is quite clearly closer than the latter.

A little further back in the field, there are two big British names gathering like highly-skilled vultures, though only one of them is actually a lawyer. Will Kassouf fulfils that professional capacity, and the former WSOP “nine-high like a boss” player has 24.6 million with which to battle towards a final table seat.

Having won a $109 satellite to qualify for the tournament in the first place, Kassouf was understandably delighted at the profit he’s already returned on his investment and his chances with the 33 big blinds he’ll carry into play.