THE AMERICAS
Boyd Gaming will pay $1.45b to acquire Peninsula Gaming; a Delaware House committee approved an online gambling bill, Illinois wants to set up an online gambling division within its state lottery and Nevada talked online security with potential online poker licensees; New Jersey residents told one set of pollsters they didn’t want online gambling then told another group the opposite; the White House said the states should handle online poker; social game company stocks took a hit from Facebook’s lackluster market debut; the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp. divided the province into casino-ready zones but the prize pig (Toronto) deferred its casino decision to at least this fall; poker media watchers rejoiced as Tatjana ‘Tatttytats’ Pasalic re-upped with Bodog Poker and discussed the differences between live and online poker with Tom Dwan.
EUROPE
Bwin.party revenues were up a mere 1% in Q1 while Paddy Power’s rose 28%; more quarterly numbers from Opap, Snai, Codere and Bingo.com; Media Corp ditched its bid for Gaming Media Group and snapped up Intabet instead (still no word on the fate of Purple Lounge, though); Bulgaria cut its online gambling tax rate; Boylesports got cozy with Net Ent; gaming regulators in Malta and Denmark agreed to exchange phone numbers; Gala Poker switched from Ongame to iPoker and 15Marketing’s Ben Starr talked online bingo innovation with Becky Liggero.
ASIA
Wynn Macau has the enclave’s most ‘efficient’ tables but Steve Wynn suffered a setback in his fight with Kazuo Okada; Macau opted to boost the number of poker tables; a Philippine politician proposed the abolition of Pagcor; Japan formally announced a ban on ‘kompu gacha’ social games but not before a software engineer aired their dirty laundry; Crown Ltd.’s James Packer slammed Echo Entertainment over its role in the Star Casino inquiry; AGTech saw revenues rise 117% in Q1 and Australian racebooks are crying over a betting whale’s departure.
