THE AMERICAS
Bally Technologies announced a $1.3b acquisition of rival SHFL Entertainment; online gambling was finally exposed as having caused 9/11 at a Senate committee hearing; Antigua moved one step closer to wreaking WTO-authorized intellectual property vengeance on the US; Bitcoin betting site SatoshiDice was sold to an unknown buyer for $11.5m while rival site Just-Dice.com found itself on the wrong end of a $120k bookkeeping error; Vince Martin broke down the byzantine Caesars Growth Partners S-1 filing; yet another Las Vegas Sands exec called online gambling an existential threat; Jason Kirk broke down the 2013 World Series of Poker’s November Nine; NBA commissioner David Stern said the league should embrace Las Vegas and Rebecca Liggero talked US online poker regulation with Nevada gaming regulator A.G. Burnett.
EUROPE AND MIDDLE EAST
Full Tilt Poker announced it would diversify its offering by including casino games; French online gamblers were exposed as a rather unadventurous lot; Net Ent profit rose in H1; Paddy Power announced it’s looking for help in making mischief; the new Irish gambling bill was described as “unviable”; Sheriff Gaming prevailed in an intellectual property dispute with Betsoft; Lebanon blocked most (but not all) online gambling sites to protect a local casino monopoly; Russia’s crackdown on illegal casinos shut another 662 unlicensed gambling joints; an Italian gambler took a shine (and an axe) to the slot machines that took him for €7k; the Greek half of Cyprus announced it would award its first resort-casino license and invitations went out for the Barcelona Affiliate Conference.
ASIA
The Philippine Department of Justice believes Universal Entertainment is guilty of violating the country’s anti-dummy law but Kazuo Okada said he remains committed to his Manila casino project; SHFL Entertainment prevailed in its long-running patent feud with Asian rival LT Game; Macau hit a new revenue record in the second quarter while ‘Broken Tooth’ Koi announced his return to Macau’s VIP gaming business; the Australian App Store purged PokerStars and 888 apps; Sri Lanka approved a second resort-casino project in Colombo; more and more South Korean soldiers are getting caught online gambling and South Australia called out Bet365 over illegal volleyball betting markets.
