Macau casinos recorded their second biggest revenue drop on record in March, the 10th consecutive month of year-on-year revenue declines.

Gaming revenue fell 39.4% to MOP 21.5b (US $2.7b) in March, a decline eclipsed only by February’s 49% fall. Macau’s gaming sector has been in a death spiral ever since Beijing ramped up its anti-corruption measures to stem the flow of public officials blowing public money at Macau’s VIP gaming rooms. For the year-to-date, Macau gaming revenue is down 36.6% from the same period last year.

Gaming analysts are now frantically reassessing their full year 2015 revenue projections. A median estimate of analysts surveyed by Bloomberg puts the expected annual decline at 21%, over twice the figure forecast just two months ago, and significantly greater than the 2.6% annual decline recorded in 2014.

As ever, the thinning herd of VIP gamblers drove most of the most recent month’s decline. On Monday, CIMB Securities issued a note saying it believed VIP revenue was down 51% in March compared to a 19% decline for the mass market sector. Macau’s Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau will release official VIP/mass figures for Q1 later this month.

You gotta give it to MGM Grand International for recognizing the potential gold mine that is the Floyd Mayweather – Manny Pacquiao and cornering the market to make sure that no other Vegas property can make a buck out of it.

Here’s the deal: MGM Grand will be hosting the fight between Mayweather and Pacquiao. It’s a fight that’s widely expected to generate a ridiculous $74 million just from ticket sales for the fight. That’s already three-and-a-half times more than the existing record set during Mayweather’s fight with Canelo Alvarez back in September 2013.

You would think that MGM Grand would already be jumping through hoops of fire because of the financial windfall it stands to gain from the fight. You’d be wrong, though, because MGM isn’t stopping there. According to TMZ, the hotel and casino operator is also brandishing that exclusivity deal to keep other hotels and establishments from showing the fight on pay-per-view.

Basically, if you’re staying at a non-MGM property on the night of the fight, you’re not going to be able to watch the fight in Las Vegas. Not in any bar, hotel room, or casino, unless of course you’re staying in any one of MGM’s 14 properties in Sin City.

The Kentucky Wildcats are two wins away from a national championship. More importantly, they’re also two wins away from posting the first perfect season in NCAA men’s basketball history since the Indiana Hoosiers did it in 1976. But not everybody’s rooting for the Wildcats to make history and of that growing bandwagon, a handful of sportsbooks are beginning to jump on board.

It’s not just Kentucky winning the national title that books are sweating over. Some books posted props on whether the Wildcats would go undefeated this season with odds as high as 50/1. Turns out, those odds attracted a few bets and now, they’re all live and are dangerously close to cashing in and sinking huge liabilities for these books.

Other sportsbooks have also found themselves chewing their nails over the possibility of Michigan State winning the national title. It seemed like a long shot for the 7 seed Spartans to make a long run at the tournament as early as a few weeks ago when they were listed in a handful of books at 100/1 to win the national title. But now, they’re in same place as 1 seeds Kentucky, Duke, and Wisconsin are: two wins away from a national title.

The Spartans are still 8/1 odds at the moment, the highest of the four teams in the Final Four, but back when they were still 100/1, a few sportsbooks accepted small bets on Michigan State that, when piled together, could still end up with them being in five-figure holes.

iGaming North America #iGNA2015

Now in its fifth year, iGaming North America is an affordable three event designed by industry professionals to bring together the land based and online sides of the gaming industry in North America.  Sessions will cover a numb er of topics including regulatory updates, new technology, payment challenges, predictions for the future and analysis on iGaming results in the regulated US market.

New this year are the iGNA Awards taking place during lunch on the last day, live music entertainment on the first night thanks to iGNA’s bespoke band “Bet Beats” and a closed morning session on the first day for Government Regulators, Lottery Officials and Public Policy Makers.

Las Vegas Sands wants to introduce Macau-style live dealer electronic table gaming to its Pennsylvania casino property Sands Bethlehem.

On Tuesday, Sands reps gave an informal presentation of their proposal to the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board (PGCB). The stadium-style electronic table games (ETG) seat up to 150 gamblers at a time but require only four to eight live humans to deal cards or spin roulette wheels. Bettors place their wagers on up to four different games simultaneously and are paid any winnings electronically via individual terminals connected to the ETG.

Such ETG have proven wildly popular with casino operators in Macau, where the government has instituted a hard cap on the number of traditional live gaming tables in operation. The ETG have allowed Macau operators to skirt the table cap while also keeping costs down by requiring fewer dealers. Pennsylvania has no market-wide table cap and Sands Bethlehem is already the table game revenue leader, eclipsing its closest rival Parx Casino by a significant margin.

On Tuesday, Sands President Mark Juliano told the PGCB that, should the ETG plan be approved, Sands Bethlehem would need to relocate around 122 of the its slot machines but the casino would “not be decreasing our slot or table games count from their current configuration.” Juliano also sought to assuage concerns that the plan would involve staffing reductions, saying Sands would need to hire 50 additional staff, including 20 to 25 dealers.

Social casino operator GSN Games has contributed to the further consolidation of the social gaming industry by acquiring developer Idle Gaming.

On Monday, GSN announced it had acquired the San Francisco-based Idle Gaming, which counts Fresh Deck Poker, Slots of Fun and Video Pour Tour among its titles. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

GSN COO Steve Brunell said the acquisition “aligns perfectly with our strategy of leveraging first-rate teams and leading edge technology to create outstanding game experiences for our players.” Idle Gaming CEO Stuart Lewis-Smith called the deal “a natural fit” and said his team would bring “unparalleled expertise in mobile multiplayer technologies and unwavering commitment to quality across art, design, development and production.”

The deal enhances GSN’s already burgeoning portfolio, which includes top-10 grossing iPad games GSN Casino and Bingo Bash. The latter title came via last year’s acquisition of another California development team, Bash Gaming.

Nevada casino revenue dipped 1% in February, returning to negative territory after January’s numbers interrupted a five-month losing streak.

Statewide, Nevada casinos reported revenue of $916m, down 1% year-on-year and down nearly 4% from January’s figure. The numbers were even worse on the Las Vegas Strip, where revenue fell 4.4% to $555.7m. For the year-to-date, the numbers are off 2% statewide and 4.2% on the Strip.

Much of the decline was attributed to a decline in baccarat volume, which came despite the Lunar New Year celebrations in February, as Macau’s vanishing VIP phenomenon exported its problems to US shores. Baccarat revenue fell 23.5% to $121m as baccarat handle fell 21.8%.

Excluding baccarat, Strip gaming revenue actually rose 3%. Blackjack was up 23.3% to $89.9m and craps rose 18.6% to $33.9m while roulette fell 1.9% to $27.9m. The rest of the table tallies shook out thus: three-card poker ($12.4m, flat), mini-baccarat ($9.3m, -39.6%), pai gow poker ($9m, +19.4%), let it ride ($3.3m, -5.5%), keno ($2.2m, +31.3%) and bingo ($1.2m, +144%). Slots revenue rose 4.9% to $565m and poker revenue fell 8% to $8.5m.

Irish betting operator Paddy Power is expected to return over €800m surplus cash to shareholders in the coming years, according to Davy Stockbrokers.

The company announced its plan to return €392m in cash to shareholders during its posting of record profits in 2014 earlier this month. Paddy says it hasn’t identified any attractive acquisition and investment opportunities or other uses for surplus cash.

The capital return plan is set for the shareholders’ vote during the company’s annual general meeting on May 14. Paddy’s management said that it is “very confident” that the move will not compromise its future growth.

Davy officially upgraded Paddy Power from “neutral” to “outperform” status on March 30 and said that the company has scope for “material consensus earnings upgrades over time through a combination of better-than-expected top-line growth and scope to expand profit margins.”

Canada’s Amaya Gaming announced that its PokerStars online poker site took its first sports wager on Tuesday following the beta launch of its new sports betting product.

Amaya, which completed its $4.9b purchase of the Rational Group’s assets – including online poker giants PokerStars and Full Tilt – in August 2014, reported revenue of C$368.6m in the three months ending Dec. 31, up from just $37m in the same period the previous year. Adjusted earnings came to $154.6m, up from $16.7m.

But actual Q4 earnings came to a loss of $26.7m compared to a loss of $6.8m. Reflecting Amaya’s shift from a B2B to a B2C focus, sales and marketing costs leaped from $2.8m in 2013 to $63m last year.

The full year numbers were similar, albeit on a smaller scale, reflecting the half-year contributions from the Rational assets. Revenue rose to $688m, adjusted earnings came to $292.7m and net losses came to $7.5m, down from $29.2m. Acquisition costs rose from $1.3m to $22.4m.

Walt Disney Co. is in talk with online fantasy sports site DraftKings about a venture investment that could see the Seattle based start-up valued at $1 billion.

If such a deal comes to pass, it would give DraftKings a new ammunition in the competition with FanDuel for new customers, the credibility of membership in the Unicorn Club— companies that have soared to a $1 billion valuation or higher, based on fundraising—and give it an elite media partner ESPN—another property of Walt Disney—in the way that FanDuel counts Comcast and NBC Sports among its investors.

FanDuel is also shopping around a possible large growth funding round—a deal was also described as at “$1 billion or more.”

Meanwhile, DraftDay.com’s owner MGT Capital Investments has partnered with Seneca Gaming Corporation, owned by the sovereign Seneca Nation of Indians, to launch a new daily fantasy sports site for Seneca Resorts & Casino’s three properties – Seneca Niagara Resort & Casino, Seneca Allegany Resort & Casino, and Seneca Buffalo Creek Casino.

The move to legalize casino gambling in Japan took another hit on Monday as proponents have resigned themselves to a fresh round of delays, calling the division within the ruling coalition as another setback to passing what has become a controversial and polarizing bill.

Pro-casino lawmakers had said last week they would resubmit a previously failed bill by Tuesday, the end of the fiscal year. But they backed away from that plan on Monday as efforts continued to get the backing of the junior partner in Prime Minister Shinzo Abe‘s coalition.

Takeshi Iwaya, a senior member of the group from Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party, told Reuters that it’s crucial for all parties in the issue to be “on the same page” before proceeding with their next move. Any kind of dissension from within the ranks, small as it may be, can be considered a red flag, which is why the the group decided to hold off on submitting the bill until the group can convey a united front on the matter.

Iwaya didn’t specify when the group now plans to submit the bill, but a person involved in the process told Reuters that it could be just a matter of weeks – no later than early April – before the pro-casino movement re-submits the new casino bill.

Want a useful economic indicator more valuable than any of the jargon-filled nonsense that comes out of mainstream financial news? Keep a close eye on how much money will flow through the boxing ring, how much people will pay to see two people beat the crap out of each other.

For the third time, Floyd Mayweather will be involved in the highest grossing boxing fight in world history. In May 2007 it was Mayweather vs. De La Hoya, which raked in $136M. Then it was Mayweather vs. Alvarez in September 2013 at $150M, considered the most profitable single sporting event ever. Now it will be Mayweather vs. Pacquaio in May 2015. Forbes has a piece out detailing the mindblowing insanity surrounding the pricing of this event.

Here are a few snippets, the first a quote from Bob Arum, the fight’s promoter:

“Because of the price of the tickets, MGM, for example, will only give ringside tickets to its customers who have a $250,000 line of credit.”The cheapest seat listed for the fight is $4,116 with a median price of $9,218. Floor seats start at $22,441. This compares to an average secondary price of $2,168 for Mayweather-Alvarez. Gregoire expects tickets for Mayweather-Pacquiao to eventual settle in at least twice as high The One.

Play’n GO has partnered with WebDollar payment solution Worldpay to deliver a new platform supporting a broader range of payment methods and currencies for a more customized gaming experience.

The new Play‘n GO platform supports 11 different languages, 30 local currencies and 60 preferred payment types, helping operators to drive customer conversions across a wide range of European markets.

The combined game account toolkit will enable gaming operators to become more independent and flexible when selecting what games to offer. Play’n GO will also be able to offer more choices to players in the form of engaging premium content and access to additional games from third party developers.

“We were the first online game developer to move into the mobile arena, and this partnership takes us one step further in pioneering that field,” Play’n GO Business Development Director Robert Skogh “We view these advances as crucial to mobile gambling, especially when it comes to delivering a seamless player experience.”

China real estate developer Landing International Development Ltd’s plans to acquire the Alpensia casino at Holiday Inn resort in Pyeongchang, South Korea has fallen through and there doesn’t appear to be a deal in place in the near future.

In a filing the company released last week, Landing International said that some conditions in the sale and purchase agreement between the two companies didn’t get resolved before the agreed-upon deadline.

Under the proposed business transaction, Landing had agreed to pay HKD869 million ($112 million) to Wealth Seed Group Ltd, the firm that operates the foreigners-only Alpensia casino through a Korean subsidiary.

The casino only has a total of 16 gaming tables, including 9 baccarat tables, and 42 slot machines but Landing had plans to expand the casino to include as many as 70 gaming tables.

Bitinstant CEO Charlie Shrem begins his two-years sentence on March 30 at Lewisberg Federal Prison Camp in Pennsylvania.

Shrem used his Bitcoin exchange, to transfer money deposited in bank accounts by customers of the Silk Road—the notorious deep web drug marketplace.

The entrepreneur was arrested at New York’s JFK Airport and was charged with failing to report suspicious banking activity and laundering over $1 million worth of BTC to Silk Road users in April. He pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of aiding unlicensed money transmitting service and was sentenced to two years in prison in December. He was set to surrender in 90 days.

Shrem told CoinDesk that he was hoping to only serve 9-10 months and that “while it’s hardly going to be a pleasant experience, it could be a lot worse.