THE AMERICAS
Thirteen California tribes united around a common online poker bill and a common fear of PokerStars; Bally Technologies acquired social casino outfit Dragonplay; disgruntled bondholders filed a notice of default against Caesars Entertainment; Connecticut told out-of-state operators to stop drinking Sportech’s milkshake; Las Vegas Sands’ Andy Abboud burnished his ‘VP of No’ credentials at a Pennsylvania online gambling hearing; Black Friday informant Daniel Tzvetkoff was sentenced to time served; New Jersey filed its sports betting appeal briefs with the US Supreme Court; Tom Galanis pondered the role of good old fashioned billboard advertising in New Jersey’s online gambling market; Bally Tech’s John Connelly discussed the biggest challenge facing mobile gaming in the US market and Lee Davy covered all the action at the 2014 World Series of Poker including discussions with Matthew Ashton, Jonathan Duhamel, Jackie Glazier, Aaron Jones, Gabriel Nassif, Marvin Rettenmaier, Andrew Seidman, Scott Seiver, Keven Stammen and Melanie Weisner as well the folks behind LGBT Poker.
EUROPE
William Hill launched a new World Cup marketing campaign and found a replacement for outgoing CEO Ralph Topping; Betfair hired an octopus to front its new marketing push; Intertain acquired Mandalay Media’s online bingo operations; Spain’s online gambling market enjoyed a rare boost courtesy of sports betting while the Greek gambling market shrunk by over a third; Malta protested harmonization of Europe’s sports betting laws; Sunderland AFC extended its betting partnership with TLC88.com; Bodog’s Ed Pownall poked holes in the theory that social gamers will convert to real-money gamblers; Spifix chairman Lennart Gillberg explained why his betting exchange is better than the others; Nick Garner offered tips on SEO crawl budgets; Rafi Farber recapped his last three months of gambling stock picks and Rebecca Liggero previewed this month’s iGaming Super Show in Amsterdam.
ASIA
Macau casinos had another $4b month in May while Chinese state-run banks were linked to the ongoing UnionPay crackdown and Macau legislators said they won’t issue any new casino permits until 2025; Thai sports bettors expect to splash out big on this year’s World Cup while Chinese police considered new ways to crack down on illegal World Cup betting and Hong Kong Jockey Club execs called illegal sports betting “a blood crime”; the use of electronic table games was projected to surge across Asia’s casino markets; South Korea’s Paradise Co. hired Jose Mourinho as its casino brand ambassador; Vietnam charged 59 individuals over an illegal sports betting ring linked to M88.com; Bloomberry Resorts legally protested the Philippines’ new 30% casino tax while vowing to spend $1b expanding its Manila casino; Japan’s lower house expects to debate casino legislation any day now while Osaka got stuck with a pachinko parlor it doesn’t want; a former Universal Entertainment employee filed a fresh criminal complaint against Kazuo Okada in Japan and Tony Fung suggested Cairns could rival Macau as a casino destination for Chinese high-rollers.
