THE AMERICAS
Daily fantasy sports had the week from hell after the ‘insider trading’ scandal broke wide open, leading to calls for federal regulation while New York’s Attorney General and a federal prosecutor in Florida opened investigations of the industry; New Jersey regulators told Amaya Gaming to fire four former PokerStars/Full Tilt execs as a condition of licensing; Caesars Entertainment took a kick to the balls after a judge said junior creditor lawsuits could proceed; a Washington meeting on the Restoration of America’s Wire Act attracted just one Congressional staffer; the Internet Society slammed Quebec’s IP-blocking plan as expensive and futile and Tatjana Pasalic sat down with WSOP livestream commentator David Tuchman in the latest episode of Chats With Tats.
EUROPE
A UK punter earned a record €17.9m playing Microgaming’s Mega Moolah slot on Betway; Ladbrokes wrangled £1.35b in financing for its Gala Coral merger; GVC Holdings set yet another new revenue record; Sportradar inked an eSports betting deal with the Electronic Sports League while the ESL announced a sponsorship deal with Betway and eSports Bet founder Mark McGuiness said eSports would ‘disrupt’ traditional online betting; Ireland’s central bank took issue with Playtech’s purchase of the Ava Trade online forex business; Finland opted to merge its three gambling monopolies into a single entity; Sweden and Norway each took a different approach to unauthorized gambling ads; the BBC’s Great British Bake Off program dealt with an insider betting scandal; Cyprus received six expressions of interest for its casino license derby; Resorts World Birmingham vowed to open on Oct. 21; Alex Dreyfus laid out the Global Poker League’s plans for world domination; PokerStars set a new Guinness record for largest online poker tournament while agreeing to sponsor Olympic snowboarder Zoe Gillings-Brier and cutting ties with tennis star Rafael Nadal while Rebecca Liggero quizzed industry notables on what industry figure inspired them the most.
ASIA
Macau’s traditional Golden Week bump was more of a baby bump thanks to Typhoon Mujigae; Lawrence Ho’s Tigre de Cristal casino became Russia’s largest gaming venue following its soft launch; the Indian state of Sikkim prepared to open the country’s first online betting shops; Lotte Tour Development announced an integrated resort project on South Korea’s Jeju island; Hong Kong billionaire David Chiu says Chinese VIP gamblers will drop $2m on the table then argue over the price of a cup of coffee; a Japanese baseball pitcher was suspended for betting on his own team’s games; Enrique Razon said Philippine casinos aren’t suffering the same fate as Macau and American Gaming Association boss Geoff Freeman told Rebecca Liggero that the solution to Macau’s woes lay in diversification.
