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.

Casino operator Melco Crown Entertainment (MCE) saw revenue fall in both Q4 and FY 2014 thanks to Macau’s ongoing revenue slump. Full-year revenue fell 6% to $4.8b, earnings fell 7% to $1.28b and net income fell 4.5% to $608.3m. The company laid blame for the slump on lower VIP gambling volume, which was only partially offset by gains in mass-market revenue.

For the three months ending Dec. 31, revenue fell 20% to $1.12b as both VIP and mass-market gambling slowed. Earnings fell 29% to $278.6m and net income tumbled nearly 60% to $92.9m. In addition to less action at the tables, MCE says $26.3m came off the bottom line thanks to costs associated with the in-development Studio City project in Macau and the recently opened City of Dreams Manila.

MCE’s original City of Dreams property in Macau reported Q4 revenue down 18% to $895m as VIP turnover dropped 30%. However, mass-market table drop nudged up 1% to $1.3b and gaming machine handle rose 4% to $1.35b. Non-gaming revenue was basically flat at $71.5m.

Altira Macau saw revenue fall 30% to $173m as VIP turnover fell 24%, mass market table drop fell 14% and non-gaming revenue dipped slightly to $9.4m. Revenue from the Mocha Clubs slots parlors fell 15% to $32.8m thanks to a 400-unit reduction in active machines to 1,300, although net win per machine per day rose 6%.

HO HATES SMOKING BANS AND TABLE UNCERTAINTY, LIKES QUALITY JUNKETS

MCE co-chairman and CEO Lawrence Ho (pictured) said 2014 had been “challenging” in Macau, but Ho took heart by the fact that MCE had been able to boost its share of Macau’s mass-market in Q4. Ho said he’d been “one of the more optimistic people” for Macau’s prospects in 2015, but he now expects the gaming hub to post “slight negative growth year-over-year” in 2015.

Ho suggested a decreased mass-market hold percentage in Q4 was at least partly caused by Macau’s smoking ban and players having to get up from the tables to go burn a butt. Ho wasn’t sure whether this impact would be temporary or permanent but noted that mass hold rate “has always been highly correlated to the length of play.”

A trio of stories from Camp 888 with the sad news that Xuan Liu will say bon voyage, the good news that I get to play in an 888Poker sponsored event in Dublin, and Sofia Lovgren describes her dream home game.

A triumvirate of 888Poker related stories begins with the news that the Canadian Xuan Liu has parted ways with her sponsor after only a year as part of the gang.

Very grateful to have been given the opportunity for a year but will no longer be an @888poker ambassador.

— Xuan Liu (@xxl23) February 11, 2015

Liu joined 888Poker in April 2014, the same time that the Swedish pro Sofia Lovgren also make the switch from Team PKR. Sam Holden left space on the team after deciding to focus on a career in philosophy. In January, Liu finished runner-up to Sean O’Reilly in the A$1,040 No-Limit Hold’em Six-Max at the Aussie Millions for a score of $58,734. It was her biggest score since joining the team. Liu is the third big name departure after Shane Warne and JC Tran also departed ways in the past six months. There has been a strong outpouring of support on Twitter with Jackie Glazier, Kara Scott and Gillian Epp all paying tribute to her ambassadorial role.

Sofia Lovgren and Her Dream Home Game

They may have joined at the same time, but for the time being at least, it doesn’t look as if they are both leaving at the same time.

Brian Altman has won the World Poker Tour Lucky Hearts Poker Open, at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Hollywood, after defeating Mark Dube in heads-up action.

[Image Credit: WPT]

It’s not often that the outcome of a poker tournament goes the way it’s supposed to it. Fortunately, for Brian Altman it did.

When the penultimate day of the World Poker Tour (WPT) Lucky Hearts Poker Open was over, two professional poker players, in their mid twenties, had over 70% of the chips. The smart money was on Brian Altman or Mark Dube joining the WPT Champions Club.

With Altman and Dube maintaining such a stranglehold, it became a tale of who would take up the four rear spots. The booby prize went to Jon Graham. He got it in with KQo, and Kelly Minkin picked him apart with pocket queens.

Sanjay Gehi would exit stage left soon thereafter. It was Dube holding the scalpers knife. A classic race that saw the pocket tens of Gehi run out of steam against the AJo of Dube when an ace hit the flop.

Fourth place was reserved for Greg Rosen. The 48-year old father of twins was always going to be a winner no matter what the results on this final table. Winning your seat through a $100 satellite and turning it into $220,189 will do that to a man. He made his move on a flop of [Qs] [8s] [6d] holding bottom pair, and Altman took him to the cleaners with top pair.

PokerStars and Unibet walked away with some of the top honors at the recent 8th International Gaming Awards at the Savoy Hotel in London.

It’s a little far fetched to say that 2014 was annus horribilis for PokerStars. After all, they were subject to the most exciting and interesting iGaming takeover in recent times. But they lost some customer love; of that there is no doubt. This is what makes winning awards so much sweeter.

The 8th International Gaming Awards were held at the Savoy Hotel in London. There was music, dance, champagne and trumpets. The fanfare blew for PokerStars as they picked up the award for Online Poker Operator of the Year. It was the third successive year that the largest online poker room in the world had picked up the award.

‘We are Poker’

I guess you are.

The only other two previous winners of this award have been partypoker (2012) and PKR (2010 & 2011).

PokerStars also had its manicured nails in various other pearl soaked oysters. Rational Group picked up the award for Socially Responsible Operator of the Year Online, and two casinos that contain PokerStars branded poker rooms also won top awards: The City of Dreams in Manila won the Casino/Integrated Resort of the Year award, and The Hippodrome won the Casino Operator of the Year Europe award.

Atlantic City casinos have started the year off right by posting a 17.9% revenue gain in the month of January. The eight surviving AC casinos that were operational in January 2014 reported revenue of $186m last month, not counting the $11.5m contributed via January’s online gambling revenue.

The brick-and-mortar total is also an improvement over December’s $179.8m. Even if you factor in all online and land-based revenue from both surviving and closed casinos, revenue is up 1%, so happy new year AC.

New Jersey Casino Control Commission chairman Matt Levinson cautioned that while “it is always risky to say we’ve turned a corner or that there is light at the end of the proverbial tunnel, let me say that January’s results are very encouraging.”

Seven of the eight survivors reported year-on-year revenue gains in January, six of them in double-digit territory. Perennial market leader Borgata rose 18.1% to $57.1m while Harrah’s was up 20.1% to $30.8m and Caesars rose 29.8% to $23.1m. The rest of the casinos finished as follows: Tropicana ($20m, +19.8%), Golden Nugget ($15.8m, +50.8%), Bally’s ($15.8m, +6.7%), Trump Taj Mahal (the month’s lone decliner, falling 21.2% to $12.1m) and Resorts ($11m, +31.8%).

Ohio’s casino industry earned nearly $65m in January, up 9% year-on-year. However, January 2014 was a time of epic snowfall that closed some casinos for a couple days. Regardless, three of the state’s four casinos posted gains, led by Hollywood Columbus ($18m, +17%). Horseshoe Cleveland rose 4% to $17.4m, while Hollywood Toledo posted the month’s biggest percentage gain, rising 24% to $14.3m. Horseshoe Cincinnati bucked the trend, falling 6% to $15.2m. The state’s seven racinos earned $63m, down 2.6% from December.

Michigan’s casino industry saw revenue jump 15% to $111m in January. with all three Detroit venues sharing in the extra bounty. MGM Grand Detroit rose 12% to $46.2m, Greektown was up 16% to $26.7m and MotorCity rose 20% to $38.1m. In addition to better weather, Detroit’s improvement is credited to the fall in gas prices, which has left customers with more discretionary income.

New Jersey’s regulated online gambling market generated $11.6m in revenue in January, up 22.3% from the same month last year and up 8.5% over December’s tally.

The Division of Gaming Enforcement says the monthly total is actually up 34.5% if you discount the fact that Ultimate Gaming was still operational last January. Either way, the monthly sum is just $300k off the state’s all-time peak recorded in March 2014.

The casino vertical accounted for $9.3m, up from $8.7m in December, while poker added $2.3m, up from $2.05m. However, when comparing year-on-year numbers, poker revenue is down by a full third from January 2014’s $3.44m, which represents the market’s peak poker revenue score. Meanwhile, the casino vertical is up 54% year-on-year.

Online sites affiliated with the Borgata casino – NJ Party Poker, the Borgata’s own branded sites and recent addition PalaCasino.com – led all comers with a total $3.78m (+2.7%). Borgata sites earned $2.5m (flat) from casino and $1.28m (+16%) from poker. Caesars interactive New Jersey – whose sites include all Caesars brands, WSOP.com and 888.com – earned $2.75m, with casino accounting for $1.74m (flat) and poker earning $1m (+7%).

The Tropicana‘s sites reported $2.56m from their casino-only operations, up 11% over December’s total and finally unseating the Borgata as the market’s casino leader. The Golden Nugget – on whose license Betfair is now piggybacking – earned $2.46m (+12%) from its casino-only operations.

Quebec’s financial regulator is investigating the stock trades of a dozen Manulife Securities brokers prior to Amaya Gaming’s June 2014 acquisition of online poker giant PokerStars.

In December, the Autorité des Marchés Financiers (AMF) launched a probe into trading that preceded Amaya’s $4.9b acquisition of the Rational Group, the parent company of PokerStars and Full Tilt. The AMF and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police paid unannounced visits to branch offices of Manulife Securities – the brokerage arm of insurance giant Manulife Financial, which holds 300k Amaya shares, making it Amaya’s 17th-largest shareholder – and investment bank Canaccord Genuity, as well as Amaya’s own Montreal HQ.

On Thursday, The Globe And Mail reported that 12 unidentified Manulife brokers at the company’s Dorval office west of Montreal were among those being investigated. Sources said the brokers were a “closely knit group” connected by family ties and that the probe included trades made by relatives who didn’t work at Manulife.

Manulife’s Dorval office is located a few kilometers down the Trans Canada Highway from Amaya’s HQ, but Amaya spokesman Tim Foran said neither Amaya nor its execs had ties to the brokers in question. Amaya was “also not aware of any connection between retail brokers at Manulife Securities and any other employee at the company.”

The AMF probe is unrelated to the probe being conducted by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), a US self-regulatory agency that is examining some 300 investors’ trading activities in the run-up to Amaya’s public announcement of its Rational acquisition. Amaya’s stock saw significant rises in both trading volume and share price in the weeks leading up to the acquisition. CalvinAyre.com was first to report the news that Amaya and Rational were holding acquisition talks.

Independent gaming software provider 1×2 gaming launched a new sports betting product, providing a new virtual betting experience made up of more than 160 national league competitions from 146 countries, all in the world of simulation.

The product titled “Virtual Football Pro” will feature real team names from various football leagues around the world with offerings of a number of betting options that bettors normally see in live-action football matches. Be it total match goals or other additional outright markets, Virtual Football Pro provides a pretty cool simulated interpretation of actual football leagues.

“This represents a genuine milestone in the provision of online virtual football,” 1×2 gaming Chief Marketing Officer Kevin Reid said in a statement. “The product provides localized content that will be interesting and compelling to the players in the different geographic locations, and operators will be able to see the benefit of having a data-driven, virtual sports product to complement their existing graphical products.”

It’s still unclear which operator will sign up to get Virtual Football Pro in their libraries but with the immense potential of a simulated virtual football market, it likely would be just be a matter of time before we see the game go live.

Meanwhile, online gambling operator Betway followed up on its massive £20 million deal with  English Premier League club West Ham United by striking an agreement with UK-based sports radio station talkSPORT.

As part of the newly minted partnership between the two sides, Betway’s Alan Algar will get a segment on the station’s “Weekend Sports Breakfast Show” where he will be able to discuss some of Betway’s latest sports betting odds while also giving listeners a first-hand lowdown on the range of betting markets and specials being offered by Betway in that particular time.

The deal is particularly important for Betway, which now has access to a multitude of people who are exposed to talkSPORT. “For a huge number of football supporters across the UK, talkSPORT is the first place they tune into every day for all the latest football news, the company said in a statement. “We are delighted to have teamed up with the station which will give us exposure to this huge pool of sports fans.”