partypoker and Dusk Till Dawn will officially launch their new partnership with the partypoker branded Grand Prix Million and an ambitious shot at attracting 10,000 entrants.

“Keep the faith with me and please be patient and constructive.” Rob Yong on his partnership with partypoker.

Dusk till Dawn (DTD) owner Rob Yong is a smart man. He has one finger on the pulse of the UK poker scene. He knows that there is dissension in the ranks of the online grinding community when it comes to their presence on partypoker.

But he also has foresight.

He has faith.

Yong’s three-year deal with partypoker is a deal he has made because he believes it’s going to work.

‘Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither was DTD,” Yong wrote on his blog, “It was two years and £2m of delay costs before the government would even let us open our doors, but even the most opinionated poker player in the UK would struggle to say that DTD has not delivered exactly what the UK Poker Community ordered.”

Casino operator Las Vegas Sands wants to build a KRW 5t (US $4.5b) casino in South Korea’s second largest city Busan but only if the government agrees to relax its ban on locals visiting casinos.

The Korea Times reported that Marina Bay Sands CEO George Tanasijevich met on Friday with Busan mayor Suh Byong-soo, who was reportedly receptive to Sands’ overture and called on the central government to revise its casino laws.

There are currently two small casinos in the Busan region; Paradise Co’s Paradise Casino Busan and Grand Korea Leisure’s Seven Luck casino, neither of which are allowed to admit South Korean citizens. The only casino allowed to cater to locals is Kangwon Land, which not so coincidentally earns more than the country’s other 16 casinos combined.

Busan is located on South Korea’s southeast coast, while most international casino operators’ interest has been in the Incheon region in the country’s northwest. Sands has been expressing interest in Busan’s potential as a casino destination since 2012 but Sands has made similar pitches regarding potential projects in the capital Seoul, again, only if the country relaxed its locals ban.

Tanasijevich proposed that the government opt for a scheme similar to Singapore, where locals are permitted in casinos provided they pay an entry levy. Tanasijevich also suggested South Korea prohibit access to anyone with a criminal record or serious financial issues, such as bankruptcy.

However much it might be tempted to snag some of Sands’ billions, South Korea is unlikely to accede to Sands’ requests, for the main reason that the other international operators already approved for casino licensing would immediately demand equal treatment. Besides, South Korea’s stated goal in opening up its casino market to international investment was to boost international tourism, not to increase domestic spending on gambling.

THE AMERICAS

Three prominent California tribes and Caesars Entertainment rolled out the welcome mat for PokerStars while Gov. Chris Christie was accused of keeping Stars out of New Jersey; a US securities watchdog launched a probe of Amaya Gaming’s acquisition of PokerStars; online gambling revenue rose in New Jersey and Pala Interactive’s Jim Ryan said new credit card codes would give the market a boost; Boyd Gaming said it expects $5m in online gambling earnings in 2015; seven of Atlantic City’s eight casinos posted January revenue gains; the Borgata planned AC’s first non-poker skill-based wagering competition while the Trump Taj Mahal was fined $10m for anti-money laundering lapses; a Canadian poker player was arrested for assault and robbery at the Fallsview Poker Classic; Zynga admitted it botched its poker revamp; Doyle Brunson announced he would have his 12th major surgery after a cancer diagnosis; Minnesota got a new sports betting bill and Rafi Farber made slots manufacturers go mano y mano.

EUROPE

William Hill made a play for 888 Holdings while Bwin.party saw its stock fall one-fifth after would-be suitors reportedly walked away from the table; Guts.com exited Germany following a Munich court verdict; Ireland’s online betting bill neared the finish line; Unibet finished 2014 on a positive note; Russia sought new ways to block online gambling sites; the UK Gambling Commission issued new social responsibility requirements; Market Box Media’s Yoni Sidi examined marketing strategies in a point-of-consumption world; Coral’s Tania Self discussed social media strategies while Robbie Davies suggested using branding to crush rivals; Focus Online’s Phil Fraser offered online bingo predictions for 2015; Lee Davy talked video game wagering with Gaimerz.com founder Martyn Denney while the developers of first-person shooter game First Strike warned pro players about match fixing; the Global Poker Masters inked a deal to live stream on Twitch; former PokerStars pro Marcel Luske launched Fortified-ID Holdings to combat online fraud; Lee Davy recapped the International Gaming Awards and Rebecca Liggero looked back at her six favorite features of ICE Totally Gaming 2015.

ASIA

Melco Crown Entertainment saw VIPs vanish in Q4 and SunCity’s chairman warned that VIPs were irreplaceable; Chow Tai Fook announced plans for a $2.6b casino in Incheon while Paradise Co announced a Jeju expansion and Grand Korea Leisure was overrun by Chinese gamblers; 500.com saw revenue fall without a World Cup boost; Vietnam said the winner of the Van Don casino derby had to start building by April; Iao Kun Group was denied a dual listing in Hong Kong; SkyCity’s profit dipped 10% in H1; China executed a tycoon with gambling ties and a Chinese teenager cut off his own hand to ‘cure’ his online gaming addiction.

A Canadian poker player who was chip leader at the final table of the Fallsview Poker Classic’s Event #1 was arrested for assault on Tuesday before play could finish. Harnam Matharu (pictured), a 21-year-old Edmonton resident, was in line for a potential $200k payday but ended up being escorted out of Niagara Falls’ Fallsview Casino in handcuffs before he could say ‘bad beat.’

It was subsequently reported that Matharu was the chief suspect in an assault and robbery of another poker player, Uri Miro, at the World Poker Tour Montreal tournament in Kahnawake, Quebec last November. Miro’s friends were at the Fallsview Casino and thought they recognized Matharu from the Kahnawake tourney. They managed to snap a picture of Matharu, then sent it to Miro, who agreed that Matharu resembled the man who stole $5k from him at a motel in Chàteguay, Quebec.

Following a dinner break, Matharu was about to take his seat at the five-man final table, only to be clapped in irons by two members of the Ontario Provincial Police’s Casino Enforcement Unit. Play continued with antes and blinds duly deducted from Matharu’s stack in his absence. Two players busted out before a winner was eventually declared, but Matharu’s stack was still $88k tall, so at least he’ll have bail money. Or cigarette and candy bar money, should he be convicted.

Casino Enforcement Unit Detective Sergeant Rick Davidson told The Globe and Mail that there was a Canada-wide warrant out for Matharu and the police in Chàteguay had been willing to travel to Ontario to collect their suspect. Matharu was interviewed by Chàteguay police on Thursday and was to appear in court the following day.

Social gaming outfit Zynga saw its shares tumble nearly 16% on Friday – its biggest one-day drop in two-and-a-half-years – after the company turned in underwhelming Q4 and FY 2014 numbers.

Bookings, the sale of virtual good and credits, rose 4% to $182.4m in Q4, well below market expectations of $201m. Advertising revenue rose 139% to $58m but the company still booked a $45m net loss for the quarter.

For the year as a whole, revenue fell 21% to $690m. Game revenue fell 28% from 2013 while ad revenue grew 34% to $153m. Net loss for the year came to $226m, of which $129m was stock-based expense, $24m in restructuring expenses and a $7m income tax benefit.

Looking for a bright side, Zynga pointed out that average daily bookings per daily average user was up 31% in Q4. Trouble is, the number of daily average users fell 2m to 25m, monthly active users fell by 4m to 112m and monthly unique users fell 9m to 71m.

Zynga’s efforts to transition to a mobile-focused company appear to be paying off, as Q4 mobile bookings rose 14% sequentially and 120% year-on-year. Mobile now represents 60% of total bookings and the company has set a 2015 target of 75% mobile bookings.

Zynga’s core franchises – Farmville, Zynga Casino and Words With Friends – reported 35% year-on-year bookings growth. Zynga Casino saw Q4 bookings rise 8% from Q3 thanks to a 34% gain in the Slots category, which was driven by a 27% gain in Hit it Rich! Slots and the launch of Wizard of Oz slots titles in mid-November. But Zynga Poker saw Q4 bookings fall 7% from Q3.

HASTE MAKES WASTE FOR POKER, SPORTS PRODUCTS

Atlantic City’s Borgata casino has received the go-ahead to host the first non-poker skill-based wagering contest approved by the state Division of Gaming Enforcement (DGE). The Borgata plans to host a basketball free-throw shooting tournament on March 21, charging would-be Kobe Bryants $20 for a shot at winning a slice of a $10k pool.

There will be three 90-second rounds of shooting and the contestant who makes the most dynamite go ‘boom’ will win $5k. While the Borgata has no intention of preventing professional ballers from picking up a little easy scratch, Snr. VP Joe Lupo told Bloomberg the tournament was intended to “talk to a little bit younger demographic who, over time, might become a slot player.”

While the Borgata is AC’s undisputed casino revenue leader, Lupo said the decline affecting the whole market required casinos to be “innovative and creative” in luring new punters through their gates. With the DGE on board, the Borgata is planning more of these types of skill-based promotions, including some that would be performed on slot machines.

GOLDEN NUGGET WINS UNSHUFFLED CASE

The latest ruling in the long-running ‘unshuffled’ card case at AC’s Golden Nugget has sided with the casino. On Friday, State Superior Court Judge Donna Taylor ordered the 14 gamblers who profited from a card manufacturer’s cockup to return the $1.5m the casino has been trying to claw back.

If you’re just joining us, way back in 2012, a bunch of mini-baccarat players noticed that the cards coming out of a Golden Nugget dealer’s shoe hadn’t been shuffled. Knowing what cards were coming, the gamblers dramatically upped their wagers until the casino finally noticed something was amiss. Some of the gamblers were able to cash out and leave while others were detained by casino security and had their winnings confiscated.

Judge Taylor said the fact that the cards “were not pre-shuffled in accordance with any regulation” meant that the game violated the state’s Casino Control Act and consequently was not authorized.” Taylor ordered the gamblers to return their ill-gotten winnings minus their original betting stakes.

UK-listed online gambling operator Bwin.party saw its shares nosedive on Friday, falling as low as 78p before rallying somewhat to close at 83.75p. That represents an 18% decline from Friday’s starting price and not far off the previous record low of 80p last August.

The share plunge is believed to be the result of unidentified suitors deciding to break off acquisition talks. Companies including Playtech, William Hill, Ladbrokes and Canada’s Amaya Gaming have all been rumored to be sniffing around the underperforming Bwin.party but so far it’s been all smoke and no fire.

On Friday, Dealreporter quoted banking and gaming industry sources saying at least some of the would-be suitors lost interest in kicking Bwin.party’s tires after discussions failed to progress. Bidders reportedly had “a serious look” at acquiring Bwin.party’s sports betting and bingo divisions but balked at taking on the company’s struggling PartyPoker unit, which was described as being in “free-fall.” PartyPoker’s revenue fell 25% in Q3 and projections are for a further 25% decline in 2015.

A Bwin.party spokesperson denied that it no longer had anyone to talk to, telling eGaming Review that “in the event that talks had concluded” the company would be “obliged to update the market.” Translation: Bwin.party’s still talking, only it’s not clear if anyone’s still listening.

Bwin.party’s board is believed to be pushing for an all or nothing deal, contrary to the suggestion made last summer by activist Jason Ader, who pushed for the company to get back into the grey markets it exited in 2013. Suggestions have been made that Bwin.party would be wise to split in two, with one division handling regulated markets and the other making lots of green in the greys.

UK-facing firms have already seen one confirmed and another potential mega deal this year, with Canada’s Intertain acquiring Gamesys’ Jackpotjoy and Starspins brands for £425m, while 888 Holdings’ board has confirmed receiving a £744m takeover bid from William Hill. For some time now, Playtech has been stockpiling cash for a major acquisition and recently raised €315m via a bond issue to further boost its bargaining power, but its intentions remain unknown.

Meanwhile, PartyPoker is prepping a major UK marketing push in a bid to boost the vertical’s sagging profile. The plan is to team with the Dusk Till Dawn poker room in Nottingham and hopefully convince more live players to take their action online. PartyPoker will splash lots of branding around the DTD club while PartyPoker will host a dedicated tab carrying DTD’s online satellites and tournaments.

The Wisconsin’s Menominee Tribe wants to partner with the Seminole Tribe to build a new Hard Rock casino in Kenosha, Wisconsin. The only problem is that the project needs government approval. To circumvent the political red tape, the two tribes have come up with a novel approach.

The tribes are offering the state $220 million to help fund a new arena for the Milwaukee Bucks in exchange for approval to build the casino. “Our $220 million proposal eliminates a big political problem and creates a major advantage to state taxpayers,” Menominee Chairman Gary Besaw said at a news conference in Milwaukee earlier this week. “We want Wisconsin to stay big league.”

As tempting as the offer is, the government isn’t biting…yet. Governor Scott Walker’s secretary, Mike Huebsch, shrugged off the proposal and criticized the tribes for not directly going to the state to lay out its plans. “We’re finding out through news releases,” Huebsch said, as quoted by the Journal Sentinel. “When you get to the point that you’re negotiating by news release, you realize that there isn’t any validity to these offers.”

On paper, the deal looks like a slam dunk for the state. It can help fund the proposed arena, which already has a pledge of $150 million from the new Bucks owners, Wesley Edens and Marc Lasry, and an extra $100 million from former owner Herb Kohl. But everything isn’t as easy as it looks.

For one, the Menominee tribe has been clamoring to build a casino in Kenosha for over a decade. If it hasn’t made any inroads in that time, there’s obviously a lot of back-channel discussions to get through. Then there’s the issue of existing casinos in the state, namely the Potawatomi in Milwaukee and the Ho Chunk casinos spread throughout the state. These establishments are unlikely to support a new casino, especially one located between Milwaukee and Chicago, that can eat into their market shares. Plus, the Potawatomi tribe has an agreement with the state from 2005 that requires the state to compensate the tribe for any potential revenue losses in the event a new casino opened in Kenosha.

Knowing all of that, Besaw and Allen are still optimistic that the state could change its stance. To sweeten the pot, the two are also pledging a $275 million bond to cover any potential state losses from the Potawatomi and Ho-Chunk casinos and an estimated $1.2 billion in Kenosha gaming proceeds the tribe has committed to the state.

Melco Crown Entertainment may have experienced a decline in net revenue in the fourth quarter of 2014 but at least it received some good news after two of its properties, Altira Macau and Crown Towers, became the recipients of the Forbes Travel Guide Five-Star Awards.

The two properties have become regular winners of the prestigious distinction, bringing up Melco Crown’s tally to eight awards in the last few years.

“We are very proud to receive these accolades from Forbes Travel Guide. I am especially delighted that our efforts to achieve the highest standards in service continue to be recognized internationally,” Melco Crown Entertainment CEO Lawrence Ho said in a statement.

All in all, eight hotels in Macau were given the distinction, including Altira and Crown Towers. The other six are the Banyan Tree Macau, Encore Macau, Four Seasons Hotel, Mandarin Oriental, and Wynn Macau. Altira and Crown Towers also placed well among the nine restaurants that were awarded the Five-Star award. Of the 14 restaurants that were either given Five-Star and Four-Star awards, there were two restaurants from Altira – Aurora, Tenmasa, – with Crown Towers boasting another two quality eating spaces – Jade Dragon and the Tasting Room.

Meanwhile, the SunCity Group, regarded by many as the biggest and most powerful junket operators in Macau, is expected to open its VIP room in Wynn Macau. According to Union Gaming Research Macau Ltd., the junket operator could open its own room as early as this weekend, which will take up some space of the casino’s revamped VIP gaming area.

Wynn Macau President Gamal Aziz said that the company has already axed weaker junket operators, opting only to deal with the strongest junket operators, at least from a financial standpoint. “We’ve given our two new rooms to Guangdong and to Suncity,” Aziz added. “Suncity is financially probably the most powerful of the junket operators.”

Union Gaming Research Macau indicated that SunCity’s inclusion in Wynn Macau’s VIP gaming area now allows the operator to resume the use of some 40 odd gambling tables that were offline for the better part of last year.

Lee Davy takes a look at a week in poker that sees a lot of talk and no action in the American online poker dreamscape, more great ties between charity and poker, the usual poke into the life of Dan Bilzerian, Alex Dreyfus feeling the Twitch, and Kara Scott happy to be on tilt.

Another fun filled week of poker news stories and it begins in the land of the free, and the home where you can own more artillery than a character on Resident Evil but can’t play online poker.

I am, of course, talking about the not-so United States of America.

Do you want the good news or the bad news?

Bad news?

Ok.

Online poker players living in the states of Mississippi and Washington can lose the smiles. Efforts to push online gambling legislation through the halls of power have stalled. Neither effort got the support that it needed and the paperwork has since been filed in the ‘try harder next time pile.’

Online sports lottery operator 500.com is finding life difficult now that the 2014 FIFA World Cup is but a distant memory. In the three months ending Dec. 31, the company’s revenues fell 22.1% from Q3 although the numbers were up 52.1% from the same period a year ago. Operating profit fell 44% year-on-year while net income 83% fell to RMB 14.5m (US $2.3m).

As one might expect, the situation was far brighter on the full-year front. Revenue rose 123.4% to RMB 579.7m, operating profit rose 149.6% to RMB 149.5m and net income was up 48% to RMB 157m.

500.com CEO Man San Law said the company had “finished the year on a strong note” and hopes were high for 2015, despite the absence of a major international football tournament.

The number of active users in Q4 was 984k, down 71.9% from Q3 but up 10.2% from Q4 2013. Of these 984k users, 54% accessed 500.com via PC, up from 52.3% in Q3. Mobile app users fell from 736k in Q3 to 409k in Q4, but mobile users’ share of 500.com sales rose from 38.4% to 41.4%. Mobile website users fell by more than half to just 4.6% of total sales.

Looking forward, 500.com expects first quarter sales of between RMB 1.7b and 1.8b, representing a sequential decrease of between 2.4% to 3.4% and a year-on-year gain of between 61.2% and 70.6%. 500.com president Zhengming Pan told analysts the company expects mobile platform sales will top 50% this year for the first time.