Gaming Industry News Weekly Recap – Stories You Might Have Missed

weekly news recap january 5A special post-holiday edition to bring you up to speed on what went down while you were busy stuffing your gobs with turkey and lager. First off, if you missed Calvin Ayre’s look back at the year that was or his predictions for the year to come, shame on you.

THE AMERICAS
Nevada gave up on federal online poker and proposed changing its regulations to enable interstate compacts; Caesars Entertainment acquired social game developers Buffalo Studios; Resorts World New York set revenue records in its first year of existence; the US Trade Representative played the victim card after Antigua attempted to collect an overdue bill; Nevada sportsbooks took a beating on the NFL this season; New Jersey got a constituional sports betting argument date for Valentine’s Day; the US tried to strong-arm a software developer to hack into sports bettors’ accounts; Zynga’s austerity program continued with the demise of 11 more games; problem gamblers were found to have problems with lots of other things and Jason Kirk lamented another lost National Hockey League season.

EUROPE & MIDDLE EAST
Schleswig-Holstein clarified that its new online gambling licenses don’t apply to the rest of Germany; Spain released financial figures from its new online gambling market, which is expected to add online slots in 2013; Denmark extended its online gambling license terms for another five years; Israel drafted legislation allowing police to order IP blocking of gambling sites; PokerStars announced Zoom Poker tournaments; Betfred launched a Playtech-powered mobile casino offering and Betfair got a New Year’s smackdown by gaming analysts.

ASIA
Macau posted new revenue records both for the month of December and for the year as a whole, sending US casino stocks soaring, but Macau’s new smoking ban prompted strike threats from casino workers; China added some more bricks to its Great Firewall; James Packer became majority owner of Crown Ltd. just in time to finish his $750m reno of Crown Perth.