THE AMERICAS
New Jersey’s online gambling market grew in March but poker stalled; mobile now accounts for 46% of all social casino game play; a Pew Research global survey found only infidelity was more unacceptable than gambling; Legends Sports’ Phil Gurian was sentenced to time served while Florida police arrested a bookie who threatened to eat customers’ faces; the Borgata revealed how it was going to resolve the ‘chipgate’ scandal while a federal judge ordered the Borgata to amend its lawsuit against edge-sorter Phil Ivey; MGM Resorts asked Massachusetts regulators to delay issuing it a casino license; Rafi Farber offered a five-year outlook for the big three US casino companies; Lee Davy defended the honor of the World Poker Tour’s Royal Flush Girls and Becky Liggero revealed five surprising facts about Mexico’s online gambling market.
EUROPE
Paddy Power celebrated growth across all verticals in 2013; Jason Ader proposed four nominees for Bwin.party’s board of directors; sports betting was the lone positive in a contracting French online gambling market; Dutch authorities didn’t fall for Sheriff Gaming’s rebirth as Blue Gem Gaming; the Daily Mail called Playtech founder Teddy Sagi a “jailbird pornographer”; 32Red inked a sponsorship deal with Glasgow Rangers but the UK’s new gambling legislation could spell the end of such sponsorships by Asian-facing companies; former Bodugi customers found fault with the ‘lifeline’ offered by Betbutler; Vera&John stopped processing Bitcoin transactions after Malta regulators objected; Atari inked a real-money gambling deal with Pariplay; Betclic Everest withdrew from the Russian market; Sweden complained about all the online gambling ads on television; 888 Poker reversed its stance on data mining software and added Xuan Liu and Sofia Lovgren as ambassadors; Cyprus police broke up an illegal casino in a Sovereign Base Area; Rebecca Liggero previewed the SBC Betting on Football Conference and industry peeps revealed why mobile betting will be the big difference in the 2014 FIFA World Cup.
ASIA
Macau’s mass market helped push Q1 revenue up 20% over last year; Tabcorp ordered its retail outlets to get rid of their winning bettors; Vietnamese politicians resumed their push to end the prohibition on locals entering casinos; the government of Nepal ordered all casinos in the country to shut down by Sunday; Enrique Razon Jr. predicted his Solaire Casino would turn a profit in 2014; Betfred announced the launch of a mobile sports betting app in Australia and Osaka’s mayor became the first Japanese official to propose a site for a new casino.
