THE AMERICAS

Amaya Gaming posted a net loss in Q4 as its new casino vertical cannibalized poker revenue; an independent examiner confirmed that Caesars Entertainment could be on the hook for $5b in damages over its pre-bankruptcy asset transfers; US Homeland Security accused online bookie 5Dimes of misusing Amazon gift cards; New Jersey set another online gambling revenue record and legislators approved a November referendum on casinos outside Atlantic City; Oklahoma said it wouldn’t stand in the way of the PokerTribe.com launch; Yahoo Games announced it would shut down on May 13; Nevada’s supreme court ordered yet another new trial in the Richard Suen v. Las Vegas Sands case; Massachusetts announced plans to test slots pre-commitment technology while Wynn Resorts announced a July groundbreaking for its Boston casino; Microsoft announced a new Xbox Live Tournament Platform and Johnny Jaswal suggested online gambling operators mount a legal challenge of Canada’s provincial monopolies.

EUROPE

The UK government announced plans to tax online casino and bingo free bets; Germany proposed doubling its number of available sports betting licenses; Russian online bookmaker traffic fell nearly one-quarter in 2015 and Moscow got its first off-track betting parlor; Swiss casino revenue fell for the eighth straight year and Romanian casinos braced for a new smoking ban; Paddy Power Betfair CEO Breon Corcoran cashed in shares worth £4m; Bettorlogic’s Andrew Dagnall explained why companies would be wise to profile online sports bettors; FanUnite’s Darius Eghdami weighed the appeal of crowdsourcing handicappers’ picks; Clifton Davies Consultancy’s David Clifton said UK gambling operators had “a bit of appetite” for daily fantasy sports; Lee Davy pondered whether online poker training sites were oversharing insights into other players’ games and wondered how long it would be before artificial intelligence conquers the poker world.