While the AGA’s initiative seeks to expand its presence in Macau, the AGA is threatening to shift future editions of G2E Asia to Singapore after the exhibition floor tussle between US-based Shuffle Master and Macau-based game-makers LT Game. The brouhaha officially got underway Wednesday when Macau customs officials paid a visit to Shuffle Master’s booth. The officials were acting on complaints from LT Game that Shuffle Master’s live dealer baccarat table game technology featured elements in which LT Game claimed intellectual property rights (the legal fight over this claim is still working its way through the local court system). Initially, Shuffle Master was compelled to cover up the offending product, but upon receipt of a court order, was back displaying its full wares by the end of the day.

LET’S GET READY TO RUMBLE…
WorldGamingMag.com posted a detailed blow-by-blow account of the dust-up, which dates back to last summer, when Las Vegas Sands’ (LVS) Macau properties removed Shuffle Master technology from its Imperial Stadium electronic table game set up, replacing it with LT Game’s product. LT Game was also the live dealer baccarat provider at the recently opened Sands Cotai Central. At the time, LVS exec VP of corporate slots Eric Persson told World Gaming the decision to go with LT Game was because “patent litigation” would have meant going without live dealer baccarat technology altogether.

LT Game told World Gaming that it holds two Macau patents that give the company an effective monopoly on multi-game terminal live dealer baccarat. LT Game also claims to have patented this technology in America. Ahead of the G2E Asia, LT Game obtained an injunction from the Macau Court of First Instance to prevent four rivals – Shuffle Master, Alfastreet, F2 Systems and Interblock – from displaying technology that infringed on LT Game’s patents. On the Friday before G2E Asia, this injunction was presented to the show’s organizers, Reed Exhibitions. LT Game claims Reed reps responded by demanding compensation for any losses that might arise from major exhibition participants being prevented from displaying their wares. LT Game said amicable agreements were reached with three of the four companies named in the injunction to cover up their offending wares, but that LT Game had been unable to reach a similar deal with Shuffle Master.

This led to Wednesday’s appearance by the Macau customs officials, which in turn prompted the appearance of a reportedly irate AGA CEO Frank Fahrenkopf. Exhibition staff then erected partitions to block LT Game’s booth from view, followed by threats to cut the electricity to LT Game’s booth if the injunction against Shuffle Master wasn’t lifted. Speaking to the Macau Daily Times, LT Game’s sales & marketing manager Betty Zhao called this threat “very unfair for a company trying to protect its patent rights.”

SPLIT DECISION
Shuffle Master declined to provide its side of the story to World Gaming, bar the release of a statement saying “no court in Macau has found that we have infringed upon anyone’s patents. Therefore, we strongly believe in our lawful right to sell all of our products fairly and competitively in Macau and that no infringement of patents exists or will be found to exist.” The AGA and Reed Exhibitions subsequently issued their own statement saying it was “not uncommon that in such a competitive environment legal disputes may arise which must be resolved through the justice system. G2E Asia should not and does not play any role in such conflicts.” But World Gaming reported that the AGA intends to lodge a formal complaint with Macau authorities over the skirmish.

Fahrenkopf himself told local media that next year’s G2E Asia might well take place in Singapore if organizers believed there would be further attempts to “interfere over litigation.” Alfastreet’s Albert Radman told InterGaming his company would think twice about returning to another event in Macau. “What purpose would we have for coming next year if we can’t exhibit our products?” But the Macau Gaming Equipment Manufacturers Association pushed back with its own statement, calling the serving of the original injunction “a milestone event” and “the first successful case in protecting the copyright” of one of its member’s intellectual property.

Business News

It wasn’t just the severity of Afridi’s punishment that prompted US politicians to express their outrage by cutting Pakistan’s allowance. In US eyes, Bin Laden’s killing was an unqualified good; as an alleged ally, Pakistan should be celebrating along with the US, not imprisoning someone who may have helped achieve this result. This US reaction is predictable, even more so considering it’s an election year. But the Pakistani reaction to Afridi’s alleged involvement in the Bin Laden killing is equally predictable, if you stop to think about it.

Consider the continued presence on US soil of Cuban-born former anti-Castro CIA asset Luis Posada – a chief suspect in the explosion of a Cuban airliner in October 1976 that killed all 73 people on board plus bombings at Havana hotels in September 1997 that killed one man and injured 11 more. Imagine Cuba’s elite ‘Iguana Team Six’ commando unit slipping into Miami one night, putting a bullet through Posada’s eye then slipping back out of the US as quickly and clandestinely as they entered. Imagine Raul Castro going on Cuban TV and announcing this operation’s success, followed by images of throngs of Cubans dancing in the streets, waving Cuban flags and high-fiving each other. Now imagine the US discovered that one of their own citizens in Miami had assisted the Cubans in some small way. Would you expect the US to (a) look the other way or (b) hang a new nameplate on a door in Guantanamo?

THE WRONG SIDE OF HISTORY
It may not seem obvious, but there’s a parallel to be drawn here between Pakistan’s prosecution of Afridi and the US prosecutions of international online gambling companies over the past decade or so. Rightly or wrongly, Pakistan feels the Bin Laden raid’s explicit violation of their territorial sovereignty by a foreign power made them look militarily and politically impotent in the eyes of their own citizens as well as on the world stage. Again, rightly or wrongly, Afridi’s prosecution seems an obvious attempt by Pakistani authorities to reassert their claim to represent the ultimate authority in Pakistan.

Now consider the US online gambling situation. Despite what US authorities may have wished, large numbers of US citizens chose to bet with these companies, which were operating with the full legal blessing of their home jurisdictions. When US media outlets began accepting more and more of these companies’ advertising dollars, and US bettors’ unwillingness to obey the authorities’ wishes became more and more public, the authorities felt compelled to act. Each of the above scenarios represents a publicly embarrassed government punishing what many consider to be an innocent party in order to save face both domestically and abroad.

It’s clear the US felt justified in taking its action against Bin Laden – and much of the world agrees with them. It also appears increasingly likely that Afridi may not have known all that much regarding the ultimate aim of the CIA operation in which he was involved, making the US protests on his behalf that much more appropriate. Pakistan may eventually come around to the belief that – in Afridi’s case, at least – they’ve taken a stand that will be viewed as being on the wrong side of history. The US is expected to soon allow domestic companies to offer the same type of online gambling services it has long prosecuted foreigners for providing, which would suggest that – in the case of online gambling, at least – it was they who have been on the wrong side of history.

Legal News

VentureBeat recently published an interview with Pascal, in which he revealed the ‘marketing partnership’ with MGM gives Playstudios exclusive social and mobile gaming rights to MGM’s Las Vegas properties, including the Bellagio, the Mirage, MGM Grand, etc. In addition to slots (some in 3D), blackjack and other casino games, players will be able to construct their own fantasy version of the Las Vegas Strip – much like a CityVille or Sim City type game – which they can populate with their social friends. Players also earn points toward loyalty prizes, including amenities at real-world MGM properties. For the moment, Pascal says Playstudios is “focused on virtual currency-based social goods gambling. A lot of people are very excited about for-cash gambling as an opportunity. It is an enormous prize when it gets sorted out. Everyone will position themselves for it. But having been in that business, I fully appreciate its complexity.”

This complexity was a hot topic at the Social Gaming Summit in Berlin this week. While everybody’s touting the vast riches to be had from social gaming’s eventual conversion to real-money play, such a move is not without pitfalls. Chief among them would be the fact that, unlike online gambling companies, social networks like Facebook offer access to kids as young as 13, meaning regulatory scrutiny would be intense, whether in Japan or in ‘won’t someone think of the children’ America. Julien Codorniou, Facebook’s head of European partnerships, told Gambling Compliance there was “too much money in free-to-play games” for the company to consider going the real-money route. “The margin in online gambling is so low. On virtual chips, it’s 100% – 70% after Facebook takes its portion.” Ah, yes. Just like America benefits from owning the presses that print the world’s reserve currency, Facebook certainly enjoys its role as the sole issuer of Facebook Credits.

While some attendees felt Codorniou’s stated aversion to real-money play may have more to do with the company’s unwillingness to tip its hand as to its real plans, Joost van Dreunen, managing director of New York-based SuperData Analytics, suggested the company wants to steer clear of potentially controversial products that might result in more mainstream companies withholding their advertising dollars. “The last thing they want to do is do something polarizing. There’s never going to be a casino section – a red light district – on Facebook. It’s just not in the nature of the company. They have to be wholesome.”

Business News

The game’s launch has not gone unnoticed by members of the Hindu community. Rajan Zed, Nevada-based Hindu chaplain and president of the Universal Society of Hinduism, issued a statement denouncing the use of religious symbols near and dear to Hindus worldwide simply to pad the bottom line of an online gambling company. Zed urged Playtech to (a) withdraw the slot from use and (b) publicly apologize for pissing off a billion or so members of the world’s third largest religion.

There are two ways of looking at this. You could argue that Hindus should just get over themselves. After all, the Norse religion was a pretty major force across Northern Europe at one time, but you don’t get a lot of Scandinavians protesting Cryptologic’s Thor Slot. Then again, it could be argued that this situation is a lot like white people calling each other ‘niggaz’: rarely a good idea to appropriate the language or iconography of another culture without a thought as to how that culture will interpret such artistic or commercial license.

Would Playtech majority owner Teddy Sagi – who served nine months in an Israeli prison after pleading guilty in 1996 to stock manipulation in the Discount Affair scandal – be as comfortable releasing a ‘Jehovah Jackpot’ slot featuring icons of the tablets Moses brought down from Mt. Sinai, which Israel’s ultra-conservative Haredim would conceivably find offensive? How about a ‘Krazy Krucifiction’ slot in which the aim is to line up all the reels so they complete the image of Christ’s outstretched arms nailed to a cross? No? (Too soon?) We know Muslims frown on visual depictions of the Prophet (peace be upon him), but how about an ‘Mega Mecca Money’ slot in which the aim is to line up 72 virgins? (Actually, that’s a goal not limited to those seeking martyrdom.) Bottom line, we know the well of slot themes has been drained nearly dry, but some ideas deserve staying in the bucket.

Business News

However, the main reason why May 25th should signal party time for everyone on this earth is because it is also Calvin Ayre’s birthday.

Seeing that Calvin’s special day magically falls on a Friday, its only appropriate that week’s Becky’s Bender is dedicated to wishing the man who throws some of the best benders in the universe a very happy birthday and another year of health, wealth and living life to the fullest!

You know, the usual.

Lifestyle News

West Bromwich Albion

“They are a vibrant brand and have been a pleasure to work with over the course of what has been an important season in the club’s history.”

Albion Sales & Marketing Director Adrian Wright added: “The mutual decision to part company with Bodog was not an easy one for the Club based on the fact we were very happy with our relationship.

“However, the Club have been presented with an attractive new opportunity and Bodog were more than happy to accommodate our request to step aside and enable us to pursue a different avenue.”

Albion fans have been able to take advantage of Bodog’s “Baggie of the Month” competition throughout the year and Ed Pownall, PR Director for the Bodog Brand, said: “We have very much enjoyed working alongside West Bromwich Albion during another successful season for the club as well as teaming up once again with Roy Hodgson.

“We would like to thank the fans, the club and the playing staff, and wish them and the new club sponsor all the best for the future.”

South Africa’s sports betting could worth nearly R1 billion in the next few years. ITWeb reports that the market is expected to grow from R660 million to around R800 million in the next two years. From there it could grow even further but one company in particular that is licensed by Western Cape Gambling and Racing Board, Ladbrokes, is worried that without an association the market will suffer.

“Sports betting is relatively new to the South African market, and although it is a highly regulated industry, an industry association will establish collaboration between licensed operators, regulators and our customers,” said Anli Kotze, GM for Ladbrokes.co.za.

Ladbrokes’s South African representative is of the belief another way to prevent illicit sites is to block residents from accessing the sites and taking legal action against those that don’t respect the laws.

“In the same way, the US is currently implementing this. Also, the government can fine and/or take legal action against South Africans who play on non-licensed betting sites. The UK and Europe are good examples of areas where online sports betting is lucrative. If you look at companies like Bet365, Ladbrokes.com, Bwin, PaddyPower; their massive successes in fixed odds sports betting in both the UK and Europe are very evident.”

Business News

Get staring!

It’s that time again when the weekend arrives and the only plan is to find the nearest pub and see where the night takes you. By your side will obviously be your mates, a pile of empty glasses and with any luck a beautiful bird come the end of the evening. You’re forgetting something already though. It’s small, sometimes black, sometimes white and if you learn how to press its buttons you can work wonders with the opposite sex. It’s your iPhone of course.

Heading out this weekend we thought we’d set out a five-point guide on how to get the best from this oh-so-essential of toys:

1. Load it up with all the sports apps you can find. One can never ever have too many of these useful trinkets and it will alleviate a lot of boredom if you find yourself having to take part in the walk of shame tomorrow morning. For football fans we particularly recommend the Football App and for those of over the pond I’m told that Canadian app ScoreMobile is the one to go for. It actually focuses on other stuff besides hockey and is up to date almost all the time. How aboot that!

2. Get yourself a copy of THE game. On a stag do earlier this year one of those wearing a pair of antlers brought Rack Stare to my attention. You score points by trying not to get caught staring at a woman’s cleavage and can even buy new women to stare at later on in the game. Definitely makes the Night Bus home a lot more bearable and you get those all important #LAD points in the kitty for playing it.

3. Betting apps. One of the easiest and best ways to entertain yourself on that dreaded hungover Saturday afternoon is to sit in front of the day’s sport and bet in play. We’re not going to sit here and advise on which ones to download. No. We’re going to suggest you get them all and get on OddsChecker to get the best deal. Then sit down. Open beer. Turn on TV. Done

4. Make the Saturday more exciting with a dating app. These are very easy to find and a lot of fun to peruse over on a quiet Saturday evening. PlentyOfFish is obviously the grand-daddy of them all. A friend of mine swears by Flirt Maps. So it really is take your pick and, if you like, see what you can find and take the plunge with one of those fish.

5. Instagram. This begrudgingly makes the list as it’s almost weirder if someone doesn’t have it already. It’s a good way to document the weekend that was and make really horrendous pictures look a lot better.

Lifestyle News

Unlimited Overtime

Ice Hockey has used it for some time so why not now for football? Well I’ll tell you why. This is a sure fire way to take away a lot of excitement from the game. If Blatter were annoyed that Chelsea had won the Champions League with their tactics they’d win a lot more with this in place. Although I can’t help but think making the players really earn their money by playing for hours on end would be a sight.

Crossbar Challenge (if you don’t know what we’re on about click here for a best of!)

This is a game championed by the Saturday morning TV show Soccer AM and lays down the gauntlet to players by challenging them to hit the crossbar from the halfway line. Ultimately requires a lot more skill than a penalty shootout and can also be set out in a similar format. Under Blatter’s rules it probably goes down as another of his so-called “tragedies”.

End the game as a draw

There was once a time when you could conceivably have an infinite number of replays to decide a cup-tie so why not a return to that sepia tinged era. While they’re at it there should be a stipulation that they wear some kind of garish kit from bygone days if it heads to a second replay. Got to make it exciting after all.

What Ray says goes

For a couple of seasons now anyone watching televised football will have become familiar with the sight for sore eyes of Ray Winstone giving us the la’est loive odds on behalf of bet365. Now to make matches get closer to their conclusion how about what ever Ray says goes? It would solve Blatter’s conundrum, make it really easy to bet on and, most importantly, keep Ray happy. Wouldn’t want to meet him down a dark alley with a snooker ball in a sock after all would we Sepp!

Management Deathmatch

A cute take on the MTV show where, instead of wax models, a ring is erected in the middle of the pitch should the game end in a draw. The two managers then don a pair of boxing shorts and gloves before fighting until we have a winner. We can’t imagine there will ever be the need for it to go to points and Blatter may well face some kind of backlash from certain sections of the public. From a betting point of view it makes it even more exciting. Who needs penalties!

If any of our readers have a better idea on how Sepp can rid the game of this tragic element then feel free to comment below. So far he has his best man, Franz Beckenbauer, on the job and with these two in charge who knows what could befall the beautiful game.

Sports News

“Without an attractive scheme of service, CRA cannot perform its important mission of keeping Singapore safe through a robust and effective regulatory regime,” he said.

Technology is taken very seriously by the country’s gaming authority and S. Iswaran, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office and Second Minister for Home Affairs and Trade and Industry, commented: “CRA must also strive to uphold gaming integrity – in particular, by building technical forensic-investigation capabilities against counterfeits and gaming-equipment fraud.”

That will take place over the next three to five years with the view to maintaining efficiency.

Cheats working in the Asian gaming industry are among the best on the planet and are becoming more sophisticated. Security consultant Sal Piacente told the G2E Asia conference that the scams happening in Asia are extremely sophisticated and added: “What was happening here in Macau five years ago, is happening in the States now.”

AsiaOne also reported that the panel heard that U.S. technology firms are tailoring their products to the Asian market as it’s far more lucrative than anything that exists back home.

Genting has got permission to proceed with a bond programme to fund its operations. The Malaysian Securities Commission approved the 20-year RM2 billion (US$636 million) programme will be advised by CIMB Investment Bank, HSBC Bank Malaysia and Maybank Investment Bank. In the form of medium term notes they have been assigned an AAA rating by Malaysian agency RAM Rating Services.

Casino News

“Victory has a thousand fathers; defeat is an orphan.”
– President John F. Kennedy

Somebody fucked up. Actually, it’s clear already that lots of people fucked up. Lead underwriter Morgan Stanley screwed the pooch by pricing the stock at $38, only to see it drop to $31 within two days and still sit some 13% below its offering price as of Thursday’s close. The investment bank also stands accused of letting favored clients know that its analyst was reducing growth estimates for Facebook (FB) stock ahead of the IPO, behavior that is not only unethical but likely a violation of SEC regulations.

Mark Zuckerberg fucked up too. Like Morgan Stanley, he is being sued for failing to disclose material information to smaller investors. His reputation has taken a hit with larger investors, too. According to Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter, Wall Street was so hurt that Zuckerberg wore his trademark ‘hoodie’ to analyst meetings – instead of the standard suit and tie normally required of people fleecing “muppets” out of billions of dollars – that it has refused to step in as Facebook stock has fallen. To top it off, he got married the day after his company went public at a nearly $100 billion valuation. Doesn’t he know how much tail eight or nine billion can buy?

Don’t forget the NASDAQ exchange. Chosen by Facebook for its listing over the traditionally more powerful New York Stock Exchange, NASDAQ saw its systems simply overwhelmed by the volume during Facebook’s first day of trading. Traders spent hours unsure whether orders in FB stock had been filled, an astounding development in a market now dominated by high-frequency trading, in which stocks are bought and sold in milliseconds. (Indeed, HFT was one of the culprits blamed for the NASDAQ glitches.)

Who else fucked up? Oh yeah, me. “There is too much hype around Facebook, too much potential in the company, and too great a story to sell for the stock to slip up early in its existence. Given that the IPO is already oversubscribed – meaning many more shares have been requested than are available — demand for the shares will most likely support the stock’s price for the near future,” I wrote on May 14th. In my defense, I might have been right, had not the above culprits screwed everything up. One hedge fund manager told Business Insider that the NASDAQ issues, and questions concerning order fulfillment, likely saved retail investors from themselves. “This should have been a blockbuster,” he told the website, lamenting the lost momentum from consumers – the same momentum I argued would hold up the stock. “Think about a guy who was going to put five grand on this,” he added. “You go to Vegas and $5,000 on the roulette wheel and it breaks, it’s like, hold on, I’m not going to do that.”

I also argued that Wall Street would step in to support the stock, and it clearly did so on Friday, with large orders coming in every time the stock neared the $38 offering price. By Monday, the Street did not have the ammunition or the will to continue to prop up FB. Whether it was the overwhelming bearish sentiment – no doubt driven, in part, by the NASDAQ mess – or their desire to get revenge on Zuckerberg for snubbing his nose at their dress code, the Street could not – or did not – keep Facebook above $38 per share. The media narrative turned on the company and the stock, and with retail investors pushed to the sidelines, the “Facebook is overvalued” theme took over, driving FB’s share price down.

While Facebook’s true value remains a source of argument, one thing everybody seems to agree on is that its IPO was a massive clusterfuck. The “botched IPO” was marred by “embarrassing technical glitches,” wrote CNBC’s Scott Wapner. “Fumbled,” wrote the Washington Post. Vanity Fair‘s Juli Weiner called it “a disaster.”

But let’s try a simple thought exercise. For the sake of argument, suppose that Facebook was priced on Friday not at $38, but at $28 per share. Suppose that NASDAQ didn’t botch trading execution that day, and the stock ran to, say $42 a share (its actual Friday high) before settling back down around $34 per share. Over the next four days, the stock drifted to $31, before closing Thursday at $33.03 (its actual Thursday close.) What would the story look like then?

Of course, it would be a lot different. Morgan Stanley would likely be congratulated – instead of scorned – for pricing the IPO relatively well, creating a pop in the first day of trading, while also providing near-maximum return to Facebook, its employees, and its early investors. Zuckerberg would be considered a new tech titan, instead of an immature hoodie-wearing douchebag. The NASDAQ would retain its image as the hip, tech-dominated exchange whose computers were out-competing the stodgy old NYSE with its antiquated human specialists running around the trading floor for the benefit of European tourists. Most importantly, I wouldn’t look like an asshole for recommending a stock that fell 20% in three days.

But, really, what would have changed? About $4.2 billion – the $10 per share price difference, multiplied by the 421 million shares released in the IPO – would have been gone somewhere different. Facebook itself would have received $1.8 billion less. Given that CEO Zuckerberg spent $1 billion on Instagram, a photo app that literally has never generated a single dollar of revenue, this is probably a good thing for the next entrepreneur who can devise a worthless but popular software program. Zuckerberg himself got an extra $300 million at the $38 offering price; his proceeds from the offering were, according to public filings, going to pay taxes, so now the debt-laden US and California governments get a bit more cash. The Wall Street banks would have earned about $15 million less at $28 a share, but seeing as how Morgan Stanley alone made an estimated $100 million in trading the Facebook debacle, that’s peanuts. Hedge funds likely lost out on potential trading profits from a lower-priced offering, as they would have used their inside position to gain IPO shares and then dump then on retail investors during the first day of trading. Smaller investors allocated shares through E*Trade, Fidelity, and the like would have done better at a lower offering price – they have already lost some $630 million in paper profits, according to the Boston Globe. But bear in mind, as the hedge fund trader above argued, that the NASDAQ trading glitches on Friday likely kept some retail investors out of the market – much like their hedge fund brethren – and probably saved some dough there. It’s also important to remember that many so-called “small investors” are lawyers and dentists and other jerkoffs you went to high school with.

So, long story short, all the criticism of Facebook, all the commentary and teeth-gnashing an analysis of the “fumbled,” “bungled,” “botched,” disaster of an offering really boils down to about $4 billion of paper profits that went from one group of rich assholes to another. Half of that money goes to Facebook as a company and Zuckerberg personally, who combined earned an additional $2 billion in the offering that everyone seems to agree was such a mess.

The hype leading up to Facebook’s offering has, amazingly enough, been surpassed by the idiocy following the offering. The best example of Wall Street’s skewed sense of markets comes from Wedbush’s Pachter, the analyst who apparently assigned a multi-billion valuation to Mark Zuckerberg’s hoodie. “The flop is 100% a function of a supply/demand imbalance…” he wrote in an email. “There is no question that had this deal been 1/3 the size, the market would have absorbed it and the deal price would have held.”

Pachter is correct. A smaller deal would have held. But for how long? Eventually the additional shares would have to be dumped on the market, causing selling pressure. (The share price of key Facebook partner Zynga was hurt badly by a secondary offering earlier this year, after they followed a strategy similar to that recommended by Pachter.) Pachter’s logic is typical Wall Street – if only they had put out fewer shares, we could have better manipulated the stock price. But that can’t last forever. Facebook is worth what it’s worth. Right now, it’s worth $70 billion.

At the end of the day, Facebook outsmarted investors. Had the IPO gone in a way considered “successful,” new investors would have more money. But it “failed,” giving the company and its founders, financiers, and employees an extra few billion. God willing, we can all fail that way.

Business News

GVC Holdings posted a huge increase of 168 percent in first quarter turnover as their decision to enter Turkey already looks like paying dividends. €279,000 was the group’s total turnover with B2B, including the East Pioneer Corporation in Turkey, contributing €179,100 per day. Prior to the deal B2B was just €5.8k per day. B2C turnover increased 7 percent to €105.2k per day with Latin American and Spanish arm Betboo seeing sports wagers per day rise from €45.8k to €115.4k. Sports net gaming revenue was up from €4.2k per day to €5.7k with gaming net revenue rising from €16.1k to €21k. Chief executive Kenneth Alexander added: “Whilst economic conditions in Europe continue to be volatile, we remain cautiously optimistic for the year. The Group has today paid its shareholders an increased dividend of €11 cents per share, compared to the €10 cents per share GVC paid in 2010.”

JAXX SE shareholders have voted unanimously to change the company name to mybet Holding SE later this year. A shareholders meeting agreed to the proposal and it will reflect the group’s new focus on sports betting, casino and poker. The changeover is expected to take place in July 2012 and includes the launch of mybet.de, mybet.it and netbet.es.

Bet365 has signed a deal to sponsor ITV’s coverage of the French Open. Action starts on Sunday and will see the bet365 logo screened throughout the 15 days of the tournament. According to The Drum ITV Commercial, Drummond Central and Republic of Media negotiated the contract.

Business News

888 Holdings

A temporary injunction that prevented talks between Maltco Lotteries and the Lotteries and Gaming Authority (LGA) has been lifted. Malta Today report the injunction, which was pushed for by Betco, was lifted after finance minister Tonio Fenech and LGA chief executive Reuben Portanier issued certain assurances. “Under oath” both Fenech and Portanier told the court that Maltco’s licence will give exclusivity to them for just three games: Super 5, Lotto and the National Lottery. The judgment also means exclusivity cannot be extended to any other games and the court promised that Betco will suffer no future prejudice.

Sports betting site Pinnacle Sports are the latest to be licensed by the Alderney Gambling Control Commission (AGCC). Their category 1 licence was awarded earlier this week and means the popular sportsbook is now licensed in two jurisdictions – the other being Curacao. SportsbookReview report the company will be offering various different tennis odds, including alternative markets, as well as odds on a wide range of South American soccer leagues.

Legal News

1. Venetian Deep Stack Extravaganza

The Venetian was one of the first properties to begin hosting a summer tournament series that coincided with the big show over at the Rio. The room has one of the best reputations in the business, making the Venetian a popular place to play all summer long. The fields at the DSE tend to be pretty tough, possibly even tougher than the fields at the WSOP in some events. They’re heavily attended by the online contingent, and even most of the amateurs who play there tend to have at least some notion of how to handle themselves at a poker table.

This summer’s DSE schedule has a tournament at noon every day between May 24th and July 15th, including five two-day no-limit tournaments; 30 afternoon events, including bounty tournaments and Omaha events; and nightly $200 second-chance tourneys. The buy-ins for most of the noon and afternoon tournaments run anywhere between $400 and $1,100, with a few events ranging between $2,500 and $5,000 and one $10,000 High Roller tournament. With deep starting stacks and good structures, the Venetian’s series is one a lot of players swear by.

The full Venetian Deep Stack Extravaganza schedule can be found here.

2. Caesars Palace Mega Stack Series

Do you like to play poker tournaments with lots of chips? With, dare to say, a “mega stack”? Then Caesars Palace’s tournament series was made for you.

The daily noon Mega Stack Series tournaments won’t win any prizes for variety since they’re all no-limit hold’em, but the daily 4pm tournaments feature heads-up, shorthanded, and turbo no-limit formats in addition to the occasional pot-limit Omaha event. No matter the start time, none of the 92 tournaments on the schedule at Caesars from May 25th to July 17th gives players any less than 15,000 chips to start on the 50/100 blind level; most have 20,000-chip starting stacks, and some even players as much as 30,000 chips. The buy-ins are more affordable than some of the other series, too, mostly ranging from $130 to $350 with a few $560 tournaments also in the mix.

For players who want to play in the WSOP Main Event but can’t afford its $10K buy-in, the Mega Stack Championship is a solid alternative. For $1,080 you get 30,000 chips, one-hour blind levels, and your choice of three starting days. The tournament also features re-entry until the 6th level each day – something you won’t find at the WSOP ME – so a bad beat doesn’t have to mean the end of your chance at big money.

View the full Mega Stack Series schedule here.

3. Wynn Summer Classic

If Goldilocks were looking to play a tournament in Vegas, there’s a pretty good chance she’d head to the Wynn for its Summer Classic; everything about it seems to hit that “just right” sweet spot between all the others.

It features 30 tournaments – not too much, not too little – running from early June to early July. Most of the tournaments are no-limit hold’em affairs, but there are also limit hold’em and various Omaha tournaments on the schedule. On the spectrum of average buy-ins around Las Vegas, the Wynn Summer Classic falls right in the middle with lots of $340 events, a smattering of $550 and $1,070 events, and a $2,600 championship event. Most of its tournaments have 40-minute levels, while the championship’s are 90 minutes long. And for most events the chip stacks, while deep, aren’t quite “mega”.

The full Wynn Summer Classic schedule is available here.

4. Bellagio Cup VIII

“This isn’t just poker. It’s poker at Bellagio.”

So goes the Mad Men-like tagline for the latest summer tournament series at one of the most iconic poker rooms in Las Vegas. Even when you strip away its sales-pitchiness, there’s something to be said for playing in a setting as gorgeous as the Fontana Room. And when you play at Bellagio, you’ll almost assured to be playing against tough competition (the occasional whale notwithstanding) that can afford big buy-ins; nightly $40 tourneys these ain’t.

If you’re looking for a slate of different poker variants, the Bellagio Cup won’t be for you; all 27 of its tournaments are no-limit hold’em. What it might lack in variety, though, the Bellagio makes up for with the rake; at just 10 percent for the lower buy-ins and less than 7 percent on the high-dollar tourneys, it’s lower on average than anywhere else in Vegas. And if you manage to survive long enough to play at night, you’ll get quite a background show when the fountain show begins outside.

You can view the Bellagio Cup VIII schedule here.

5. 6th Annual Binion’s Classic

The birthplace of tournament poker hasn’t played host to the WSOP since 2004, but that doesn’t mean there’s no action there during the summer. As its name suggests, this series is entering its sixth year, and the schedule continues to evolve. The games on offer for the events include stud, stud hi-lo, HORSE, pot-limit Omaha, limit and pot-limit Omaha hi-lo, and shorthanded no-limit hold’em tournaments featured alongside the old standby of full-ring no-limit hold’em. It’s more variety than you’re likely to find in just about any offline tournament series outside the WSOP.

There are 45 tournaments on schedule at this year’s series; the vast majority of them feature buy-ins of $150 or $200, though there are a handful of $500 events and one with a $1,000 price tag. Perhaps not so unexpectedly for a series with mostly low buy-ins, the levels are a bit shorter than in some of the others – mostly 35 minutes, with some at 45 minutes and only the top-dollar events getting 60 minutes – and you’ll only get a full starting stack in most events if you pay an extra (though small) “bonus buy.” The good news is that the competition isn’t quite as stiff downtown as it is at some of the Strip properties, though most players will still find winning a tournament at Binion’s a challenge.

You can check out the full schedule for the Binion’s Classic here.

Poker News

To properly pimp their mobile app in the UK, Stars has tapped Transport Media to launch a four-week outdoor advertising campaign along the Southern Railway network. The campaign is built along a “pray for a delay” theme, although, as most UK train travelers will attest, prayer is rarely required to achieve that result. Transport Media suggested train passengers synched up nicely with Stars’ target audience, in that frequent rail users are twice as likely to own a smartphone and that 64% of tablet owners use the devices while commuting.

Stars is also conducting a ‘where have you done it’ online contest in which mobile app users are invited to take a photo of themselves playing PokerStars Mobile in unusual or exotic settings, then upload said photo to Twitter with the hashtag #playpokerhere. The best pic wins a free iPad 2, but you best hurry up getting to the top of Mt. Everest because the contest closes May 30. Oh, and you can forget that shot of you playing the app while restrained in a leather harness as a double-d dominatrix flogs you with a riding crop – PokerStars won’t accept images involving sex or violence. CalvinAyre.com, however, will accept whatever your twisted little brains can concoct.

Poker News

In 2003, back when Stanley Ho still held an effective casino monopoly, Macau’s estimated 800 antiquated slot machines contributed about $29m (less than 1%) to the enclave’s total gaming revenues. Much as the accepted wisdom holds today, the belief then was that the average Chinese gambler didn’t place much faith in betting machines. SuffleMaster Asia VP Ken Jolly believes a lot of that was due to the fact that “some of these people, particularly the Mainland Chinese, hadn’t seen a slot machine. They didn’t really know how they worked.” Now that more and more Chinese are making the trip to Macau and seeing the machines in action, “there seems to be more of a community of people learning about new games.”

There are now more than 16k slot machines in Macau, and their share of the overall revenue pie has grown to 4.5%, good for revenues of $1.43b in 2011 (roughly half of the Las Vegas Strip slots win for the same period). Since 2004, slots revenue has grown 16-fold, compared to a five-fold increase in VIP baccarat and seven-fold growth in mass-market tables revenue. On a percentage basis, slot revenue growth has outpaced that of the overall market by a 3:1 margin. Aristocrat’s Asia-Pacific GM David Punter says there is “a real slot player coming from Mainland China and from Hong Kong, and this is greater than what we all thought originally from a tables perspective. There’s a market there.” The hope is that this growing slot market will help smooth out the rollercoaster revenue swings that come from an over-reliance on high-volume low-margin VIP baccarat.

Casino News

Sydney’s Star Casino has won a $190k out-of-court settlement with ABC after the broadcaster admitted using confidential Star information in an on-air report. The April 16 report cited names and gambling habits of seven of the Star’s biggest whales derived from the casino’s internal database. In taking ABC to court, the Star had argued that the “highly prized” database contained “highly confidential and commercially sensitive” info. ABC countered that the public had a right to know what was going on at the Star, which was at the time of the broadcast still the subject of an inquiry by the Independent Liquor and Gaming Authority. The Sydney Morning Herald quoted ABC news director Alan Sunderland as saying the settlement was made in order to protect the broadcaster’s sources. As part of the deal, ABC has promised not to re-air the offending material and to destroy the confidential casino info within a week.

Star Casino parent company Echo Entertainment has reportedly become the target of short sellers who aren’t convinced that rival operator Crown is serious about a takeover. Crown boss James Packer is said to covet Echo’s monopoly casino license in Sydney, but The Australian quoted RBS analysts saying short positions in Echo have been building ever since February, when Crown doubled its stake in Echo to 10%. Apparently, Packer’s recent public bro-mance with fellow billionaire Kerry Stokes – renowned for never paying more than absolutely necessary to acquire a company – tipped the prognosticators’ view from bullish to bearish on a Crown/Echo tie-up.

Business News

Faster than you could say ‘Shazam!’ (look it up, kids), Christie called a press conference in front of Resorts Casino in Atlantic City for Thursday afternoon, at which he declared New Jersey would forge ahead with its plan to offer sports betting to customers at AC’s dozen casinos and the state’s four racetracks. “It will be another exciting way to add to the experience here in Atlantic City, and I know this is something people have been waiting for for a long time.” Christie said the plan should be up and running by the time the National Football League kicks off its new season in September, adding that “if someone wants to stop us, then they’ll have to take action to try and stop us.”

Christie’s announcement effectively dares the NFL and/or the federal government to seek an injunction to block New Jersey’s move, meaning the opposing sides will likely end up in court sooner rather than later. But Christie said he had “every confidence we’re going to be successful.” Apparently caught off guard, Lesniak told NorthJersey.com’s John Brennan that he didn’t know “why it happened just now, but I’m glad to see the light at the end of the tunnel.” And then we assume Lesniak went off and tested out his new magical powers of persuasion by ordering Donald Trump to take that damn thing off his head already.

Atlantic City casino execs – always desperate for additional revenue streams – also expressed their support for Christie’s stance, although some were adopting a wait-and-see stance before converting their buffets into sportsbooks. Tropicana Entertainment president Tony Rodio told the Associated Press he loved “the idea of playing offense and having the federal government to play defense against us. But I don’t know who’s going to want to be the first to open knowing they can shut you down.”

Legal News

PKR

Betfair are following suit by launching a Euro Team Selector Facebook app designed to attract fans to the brand ahead of the upcoming tournament. The application will run via the group’s Facebook page and gives you a chance to select your team for every single game in the tournament. Roy Hodgson eat your heart out. Chris Harrison, head of UK acquisition at Betfair, told The Drum: “We wanted to create an app that would create excitement and engage our existing fan base, as well as interest new fans in the Betfair brand by bringing them to our Facebook page.”

He continued: “It allows our customers to communicate to one another, strengthening our online community, giving them a chance to show off their football expertise.”

BetVictor has appointed VCCP to handle its advertising account. CampaignLive reports that BetVictor’s new partner was chosen after a four-way pitch managed by OysterCatchers.

The app, created in association with Essence, also lets your predict other things including goal scorers, winners and yellow cards.

With social gambling set to see huge growth over the next few years these are both very savvy moves by betfair and PKR.

Business News

Macau

Analysts are still confident about Macau’s casino sector despite a number of drops in the share price over the past week. Nomura analysts Charlene Liu and Michael Shen are particularly buoyant, according to Macau Business, and posted an investors note stating: “Casino stocks remain attractive in the mid- to long-term”. The two stocks they highlight are Wynn Macau and SJM Holdings with the others not holding as much luster for the analysts.

Shuffle Master has been at the centre of a row at this year’s G2E Asia conference after they were forced to cover up some of their products. Media in Macau report the U.S. firm got into a row with Macau based LT Game over the intellectual property rights of an electronic multi-game casino product. Shuffle Master got so worried they covered up their products and obtained a court order to show it was permitted to show the product in question. This dispute will likely roll on given they’ve had a number of disagreements over the same patent in the past.

Casino News

For anyone that isn’t able to grab the time off work, CalvinAyre.com will be providing remote coverage of the conference. It means you can fill yourself in on some of the insight and what’s being discussed. Honestly though…it’s not going to measure up to being there yourself.

If you can somehow get a few days off work and jump over the continent you will have fun by the shed load. First off there’s the conference itself where you will be able to get all the insight on one of the newest markets in the European Union. The day will include keynotes looking at different issues such as the past, present and future of the Dutch market; more information on taxation; and of course how effective mobile and other mediums will be in the territory.

This gives way to an evening of informal drinks when you can network with various regulators and policymakers to bend their collective ears on the best way to go about your business in the Dutch market.

Now for those extra days off you need to make sure you get. Amsterdam is one of the most picturesque cities in the whole of Europe and when the weather’s good, like it is at the moment, it makes for a great three-day break. Not to mention you get the chance to sample some of the local delicacies before the rules change later this year.

If all that wasn’t enough, CalvinAyre.com readers can get a 10 percent discount on the entry fee by entering the following code: CALVIN12. If you’re still reading this then what are you waiting for?! Get on over to the site and book your place! It will be a day that you cannot afford to miss if you have an eye on the market.

Conference News