THE AMERICAS
Scientific Games acquired Bally Technologies for $5.1b; Amaya Inc. announced it had completed its $4.9b acquisition of PokerStars ahead of schedule; high-stakes poker players put up millions to bail out alleged World Cup bookies Paul Phua and Richard Yong; Wynn Resorts Q2 saw Vegas operations outpacing Macau; Boyd Gaming’s New Jersey online gambling site broke even in July; DoubleDown Casino was the star of another IGT quarterly report; Churchill Downs Inc. had another record quarter; alleged Pinnacle Sports owner Stanley Tomchin pleaded 56 felonies down to a single misdemeanor; justice was served as the Bellagio Bandit and the Caesars Atlantic City robbers were apprehended; Ray Lesniak started a petition to convince Chris Christie to sign New Jersey’s sports betting legislation; Sheldon Adelson spent $460k lobbying against online gambling ; Greg Merson followed Daniel Negreanu in revealing his poker ROI; Tatjana Pasalic quizzed World Series of Poker director Jack Effel about the success of the 2014 event and got media director Nolan Dalla‘s opinion of online poker legislation; Jason Kirk asked if online poker tournaments were tougher than the live game and Lee Davy wondered if poker in general was facing an uncertain future.
EUROPE
William Hill profit dipped despite a ‘record breaking’ World Cup; Paddy Power revealed that cyber thieves had stolen 650k players’ data; Coral announced it would star in a new BBC television series called The Bookies; the World Cup wasn’t enough to save Pari-Mutuel Urbain’s H1 results; Portugal’s parliament approved plans to liberalize its online gambling market; PokerStars players were found to be crushing social media; Becky Liggero profiled PKR founder/innovator Jez San while Lee Davy quizzed Neil Channing about his new Betting Emporium and Bodog unveiled the new Ayr United kit as it re-upped its sponsorship for the fourth year.
ASIA
Macau casino revenue fell for the second straight month and Rafi Farber suggested China’s declining housing market bode ill for Macau gaming stocks; Tabcorp paid $105m to acquire ACTTAB; Bloomberry Resorts profit leaped as Solaire gaming revenue rose; a Philippine court told Universal Entertainment it couldn’t back out of its Century Properties deal; a Philippine politician proposed legislation to authorize domestic online gambling; Singapore developer Banyen Tree said it’s getting a casino license in Vietnam; Genting Hong Kong posted a $180m profit in H1; a former premier of Tasmania got physically dragged out of Crown Melbourne after licking his fingers; pachinko operator Dynam Holdings blamed consumption taxes for its falling revenue; Sam Ravazi revealed why he’s on pace for a third consecutive Asian Poker Tour player of the year crown; Becky Liggero previewed the upcoming Gaming, Racing & Wagering Australia conference and queried Donaco International’s Ben Reichel on the importance of market segmentation for Asian gaming businesses.
