Echo Entertainment plans move its headquarters from Sydney to Brisbane if it won the casino license.

Echo CEO Matt Bekier told the Courier Mail that moving to Brisbane would make a lot of sense because majority of its operations would be in Queensland.

“If we’re successful at Queen’s Wharf, over 10,000 jobs will be in Queensland and the bulk of our economic activity will shift to Queensland,” Bekier said.

But before Echo Entertainment can pack its bags and make moving plans to Brisbane, the company has to impress the Queensland government to pick its proposal over Crown’s, which might take a lot more work after Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk raised some issues about the project that she wanted to look into.

“My government is committed to seeing the redevelopment of that site,” Palaszczuk said. “However, I do have some issues that I’ve raised with the department and I want them to investigate those issues first before I make further comment.”

Meanwhile, Echo’s rival Crown Resorts Ltd. is expected to begin the formal planning process for its $2 billion Crown Sydney casino after successfully settling a dispute between developer Land Lease and the government-run Barangaroo Delivery Authority involving a myriad of issues.

Land Lease eventually submitted a modified plan to help settle the dispute with the Barangaroo Delivery Authority, paving the way for the company to finally begin construction of Crown Sydney. Part of the modifications of the company’s plan include doubling the size of the hotel that was previously approved, as well as reducing the number of proposed buildings at Barangaroo South to 13 and adding more space to the gross floor area of the property to accommodate the extra hotel, residential and gaming facilities.

Scots lost £158 million on casino-type fixed odds betting terminals (FOBT) in 2014, according to data from Campaign for Fairer Gambling (CFG).

The data from CFG also shows that a total of £3.4 billion were gambled on FOBT by 170, 000 punters in 2014 and more than 37,000 has problem gambling who lost £63 million—an average of £1683 each.

“We are still seeing growth in FOBT revenue with £158 million snatched out of local Scottish economies last year,” said Campaign for Fairer Gambling Spokesman Adrian Parkinson. “But it is how sustained the losses are year on year that mask what is happening among users of FOBTs. Since 2008, over £8 billion has been lost on FOBTs, with Scotland contributing about £800 million of those losses.”

“The addictive nature of FOBTs and roulette in particular, combined with their high speed of play and £100 spin capacity means players incur huge losses very fast. Each year new players are introduced to FOBTs and replacing last year’s losers. Some ­players lose everything – their car, job, family and even their freedom,” Parkinson added.

FOBT allows punters to bet £100 every 20 seconds but Leader of Scottish Labour Party  Jim Murphy supported reducing the stakes to £2 per spin, saying that it’s completely unacceptable for the people to lose a full week’s wages  on gambling.

“I want to see a change in the maximum stake,” Murphy said. “People betting a couple of pounds a time would be a lot more sensible, rather than blowing all they have in a gambling spree lasting a few minutes.”

Murphy became the latest politician to back CFG’s campaign to reduce FOBT stakes after Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government Eric Pickles.

90 Digital CEO Nick Garner talks about another important part of Trust Optimisation which is to make sure that users can trust that the content their about to see is Above the Fold in this episode of CalvinAyre.com’s SEO Tip of the Week.

Short intro to Trust Optimization.

Along with on site optimization and link acquisition, there seems to be a third element to ranking well on Google, it’s called Trust Optimization. Trust Optimization is based on the information we have got from anecdotal evidence on click through rates and rankings along with explicit guidelines from Google stating what they are looking for in a trusted website.

On with the post…

Trust is being confident you’re going to get the content you expect. If you click on a search result that suggests you’re going to see whatever it is,  Google wants to make sure you get what you expect.

Google say in the 2014 quality rater guidelines:

“High quality pages are designed to achieve their purpose: they are well organized, use space effectively, and have a functional overall layout. While every page is different, functional pages should have the following characteristics:

The World Poker Tour World Championships continue to evolve by ditching the re-entry format that has been a part of the fabric for the past two seasons.

PokerNews, Editor-in-Chief, Donnie Peters, believes that the World Poker Tour (WPT) World Championships is, arguably, the most important event of the year, behind the World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event.

I wouldn’t argue with him.

For the past 13-years, it has produced the most amazing stories, created the most amazing talents, and attracted a large number of eyeballs. When people talk about the WPT World Championships, people listen. That’s why their latest evolutionary move is an important one.

At the tail end of the week, Peters broke the news that Tab Duchateau, Tournament Director at Borgata, had announced that the Season XIII WPT World Championships would be a one bullet affair. The video game syndrome that has infiltrated our game, to great detriment, will no longer be apart of one of the games greatest spectacles.

I doubt it’s coincidental that the announcement came shortly after the WPT Executive Tour Director, Matt Savage – the man many credit for introducing the concept at The Commerce – went to print to talk about the success of the recent WPT LA Poker Classic; a series that boldly attempted to drive more players to the cash tables by removing the re-entries from the tournament schedule.

It worked.

Martin Jacobson, Ole Schemion and Victoria Coren Mitchell headline the 14th edition of the European Poker Tour, as poker prepares to invade the tiny island of Malta in March.

There is no rest for the wicked.

There is also no rest for the people trying to push poker into the faces of the general public – the not so wicked.

The buzz of the inaugural American Poker Awards (APA) still lingers, and Alex Dreyfus has to do it all again, this time on European soil. Can he do it? Can the 14th edition of the Global Poker Index (GPI) European Poker Awards (EPA) be more successful?

I think it can.

The Hilton Hotel in Malta may not be the SLS in Beverley Hills. We may not see representations of the three giants of poker in the same room again. But the presence of the European Poker Tour (EPT), European Poker Conference (EPC), and the inaugural Global Poker Masters (GPM) has me licking my lips.

In another punch to the kidneys to the French poker community, it will be the first time that the EPA has been held outside of France. There will be 13 awards in total, and the nominations for 11 of those awards have already been announced.

Anthony Zinno has won the $10,000 single entry World Poker Tour LA Poker Classic after beating Mike Leah in heads-up action to win back-to-back WPT Main Event titles.

The excitement of the inaugural American Poker Awards(APA) still clings to the air. The stars of 2014 have been honored; fresh in our memories. The poker journey keeps on rolling. Anthony Zinno has just shoehorned his way onto the 2015 Performance of the Year short list with 12-months still remaining.

The 33-year old, who claims that his hobby is ‘making WPT final tables,’ has walked away with the WPT LA Poker Classic Main Event title less than a month after doing likewise at the WPT Fallsview Poker Classic in Niagara.

In victory, he becomes the third player to win back-to-back WPT Main Event titles, he cashed for a record-tying seventh WPT cash in a single season, joined legends Carlos Mortensen and Gus Hansen as a three-time WPT Main Event champion, and is strangling the living hell out of the Season XIII WPT Player of the Year race.

The $10,000 single-entry main event is one of the toughest, pro heavy, events of the year. 538 players took their shot and the final table was laced with stardust. With over $10m in live tournament cashes between them, Mike Leah and Chris Klodnicki were the pick of the bunch.

Zinno would enter the fray with the second lowest chip stack. However, the confidence of being a two time WPT champion meant 37bb would go a long way – well that and a ton of double ups.

The first player to hit the rail was Peter Tran. The experienced Mike Leah was his vanquisher after Tran got all his money in on a board of [8c] [7c] [6c] [Th], holding [Kd] [7d], and Leah was sat holding [9h] [2h] for the straight.

PokerStars, the largest online poker room in the world, will be heading back into China, as the sponsors of the Asia Pacific Poker Tour 2015 Nanjing Millions.

America might not want them, but the People’s Republic of China do.

PokerStars will be returning to the land of the rising sun, as the Asia Pacific Poker Tour (APPT) announce plans to sponsor the 2015 Nanjing Millions in the Jiangsu province.

The Jiangsu Wutaishan Sports Center will host seven events 14-19 April. All events will be No-Limit Hold’em, there is a team event and a ¥3,000 Main Event (around $500 bucks). The venue knows a thing or two about hosting big events. In 2014, it hosted the basketball, football and table tennis at the Youth Olympics.

The Jiangsu Provincial Chess Sports Association has approved the event. PokerStars will team up with Beijing’s Star Poker Club to ensure the event runs smoothly. The pair has form. In 2014, they worked together on two PokerStars events: the Beijing Millions and the Beijing Cup. At the time, the Millions event became the largest event held outside of the U.S with 2,732 entrants, and the largest live event affiliated with PokerStars.

“The growth of poker in China has been tremendous and we are committed to support this sport throughout the region,” APPT President Danny McDonagh told the Poker Asia Pacific Blog. “Nanjing is a key location that allows players from all over the country to participate. The previous two Beijing events last year were very successful and we are proud to be a part of this government-supported event”.

One man who will be excited about the return of PokerStars will be Yang Zhang. The Chinese national was runner-up in the Beijing Millions, for $113,463, and then won the Beijing Cup for $101,683. He will be hoping to make it a hat trick in Jiangsu.

The new season of HBO’s Game of Thrones debuts on April 12, so what better way than to liven up this otherwise dull-as-dishwater review of three UK-listed online gambling operators’ earnings reports than with four of the show’s UK-born actresses?

Such as Reading native Nathalie Dormer (pictured right), who plays Margaery Tyrell, the bride who (spoiler alert) got to watch her husband Joffrey Baratheon die at his wedding feast before the little shit got to put his little girlish hands on her grown up woman goodies.

GALA CORAL GROUP

Gala Coral Group issued a fiscal Q1 trading update for the 16 weeks ending Jan. 17, showing continued strong performance by its digital division. Overall revenue was up 5% to £267.4m while earnings rose 11% to £67.3m.

Online revenue rose 27% to £45.8m while online earnings rose 19% to £12.9m. The numbers were all the more impressive given the infamous run of adverse football results that all the other operators are bitching about, plus the Dec. 1 imposition of the new 15% online point-of-consumption tax (POCT).

The quarter saw the merger of the back-office functions of Coral Interactive and Gala Interactive and the adoption of a single management structure, from which the company expects to realize a £1m cost reduction in the current fiscal year.

Coral.co.uk actives rose 49% and spend-per-head rose 17%. Mobile channels accounted for 61% of sports and casino stakes, up 13 points in sports and up 11 points in casino. GalaBingo.com spending was up 33% and mobile usage improved 17 points to 45% of stakes. Coral’s phone betting revenue rose 9% to £1.2m.

Connecticut’s tribal leaders support expanded gambling, including possibly adding a new casino near the I-91 corridor between Hartford and the Massachusetts line.

Tribal Leaders— Rodney A. Butler, chairman of the Mashantucket Pequots (Foxwoods Resort Casino) and Kevin P. Brown, chairman of the Mohegan Tribe (Mohegan Sun) travelled in tandem, along with their lobbyists, to gauge support at the General Assembly for expansion gambling on Wednesday.

The Northeastern Casino Gaming Research Project’s update on the regional gambling industry was released on the same day. The update said the two casinos have seen employment and revenue shrink by more than 35% over the past eight years as slots parlors opened at Yonkers Raceway and Aqueduct in New York and Twin River Casino expanded in Rhode Island.

The study also predicted that the loss of jobs and revenue will worsen once the MGM Springfield casino opens in Massachusetts in 2017.

Rep. Steve Dargan, co-chairman of the Public Safety and Security Committee, said the committee would consider the expanded gambling bill, which will be submitted before March 19.

“It’s pretty simple: Do we want to expand gaming in the state of Connecticut, one, and do we want to protect jobs in the state of Connecticut, number two, and do we want to look at that end of the state … the Hartford-Enfield area?” said Dargan.

Gov. Dan Malloy said also that legislators will take a first-look at any possible gaming expansion legislation.

Probes into unusual stock trades involving Amaya Gaming prior to its acquisition of PokerStars have roped in a friend of Amaya CEO David Baazov.

On Friday, the Globe and Mail reported that the search warrant served on Amaya’s Montreal HQ in December by Quebec securities regulator Autorité des Marches Financiers (AMF) was seeking records related to Yoel Altman, an accountant described as a close friend of Baazov.

Altman has invested in a number of technology companies over the years and provided a $5m bridge loan that allowed Amaya to purchase software developers Cryptologic in 2012. He was described by the company as a “long-term strategic adviser.”

Altman’s name is also among the 300 investors being investigated by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), a US-based self-regulatory body. Like the AMF, FINRA’s probe is examining trading of Amaya stock prior to the company’s June 2014 acquisition of the Rational Group, the parent company of Stars and Full Tilt.

Amaya’s stock went on a tear in the weeks preceding the acquisition, suggesting the deal was common knowledge among certain investors long before CalvinAyre.com first broke the news that the companies were talking.

Other names on the FINRA list have links with Intertain, the Canadian company that purchased Amaya’s WagerLogic division in 2013, and in which Amaya holds a 5.8% stake. These names include a stock promoter named Robert Chalmers, who until March 1 was Intertain’s spokesman, and who previously worked at Amaya’s investment banker Cannacord Genuity. Chalmers and Altman are both directors at a company called Portvesta Holdings inc.

Intertain director John Fielding earned his way onto FINRA’s list by purchasing $2m worth of Amaya stock in the months leading up to the Rational acquisition. Fielding told the Globe he wasn’t privy to any inside info and had purchased the shares on the advice of his broker.

Czech Republic betting operator Fortuna Entertainment Group saw its online gambling revenue rise nearly one-third in 2014.

Fortuna’s combined operations in its home market as well as the Slovak Republic and Poland reported overall gambling turnover up 18.5% to €672.4m, while sports betting turnover rose 19% to €655.7m largely due to the 2014 FIFA World Cup. Lottery stakes rose 4.1% to €16.7m.

Fortuna’s revenue rose 13.9% to €132.6m thanks to a 31.7% rise in online betting revenue to €67m. The online numbers were goosed by enhanced live betting offers and live streaming courtesy of a Bwin.party feed project. By contrast, retail betting revenue was up only 0.5% to €58m. Lottery operations contributed the remaining €7.5m.

Fortuna’s 2014 earnings rose 6.4% to €28.4m and would have been up 13.6% were it not for a one-off value-added tax claim in Poland. Profit rose 2.3% to €15.9m, slightly below analysts’ expectations.

Despite the largely positive numbers, Fortuna’s shares fell 13% on Thursday – its biggest one-day decline in two years – after the company said it would review its dividend policy. Fortuna has been returning 70% to 100% of its profits to shareholders but warned of a “substantial reduction” in this rate as it stores up cash to fund “investments into future growth.”

Analysts suggested Fortuna’s dividend rate could fall as low as 30%, resulting in a 2% dividend yield. Fortuna promised to reveal specifics of its revised dividend scheme before the company’s annual general meeting in May.

Fortuna has been funneling around €3-4m per year into growth investments but CFO Jaroslava Hirschova said this figure would be “at least two to three times more” in 2015. Hirschova said Fortuna had no plans to increase its debt to fund these investments, but will rely on cash flow.