THE AMERICAS
New York’s Attorney General formally accused daily fantasy sports operators of illegal gambling activity, which led payment processors to rethink their business with the sites, which hired high-priced lawyers before filing lawsuits challenging the AG’s cease & desist order; Massachusetts busted a credit betting ring linked to pay-per-head site PerHead.com; New Jersey’s online poker market showed small signs of life; the American Gaming Association teamed up with the FBI to fight illegal sports betting while seeking a ‘rational alternative’ to the US sports betting prohibition; US authorities hit the former Affactive online casino operators with fresh indictments; Caesars Entertainment lost three-quarters of a billion dollars in Q3 despite another record quarter by Caesars Interactive Entertainment; Scientific Games slapped a brave face on a Q3 loss; Sol Kerzner was said to be the frontrunner to take over the stalled Baha Mar casino project; Major League Baseball became the first US league to ink a real-time data deal with Sport Integrity Monitor; Jeff Madsen joined Tatjana Pasalic in this week’s episode of Chats with Tats and Joe McKeehan earned $7.6m by winning the 2015 World Series of Poker main event.
EUROPE
Amaya Gaming shares lost one-third of their value after delaying its sportsbook rollout and cutting full-year earnings forecasts; GVC Holdings said it wasn’t ready to start selling off pieces of Bwin.party while Rafi Farber pointed out that GVC’s falling share price had eliminated much of its bid’s superiority to the 888 Holdings bid that Bwin.party rejected; TonyBet launched a live eSports betting market while pro eSports organization Ninjas in Pyjamas fired their CEO over unpaid prize money; Juniper Research head of consultancy and forecasting Dr. Windsor Holden said mobile carrier billing was the future of online gambling payment services and Rebecca Liggero recapped the action at the inaugural iGaming Entrepreneur Conference as well as Days One and Two of the Mobile & Tablet Gambling Summit.
ASIA
Aussie operators Tabcorp and Tatts Group were said to be merging into a $9.4b betting behemoth; New South Wales banned live betting ads during sporting event broadcasts; sports lottery operator 500.com reported its second straight quarter of nil revenue as China’s online lottery suspension dragged on while AGTech Holdings suffered a steep decline in its Q3 profit; SJM Holdings said its Lisboa Palace would have no VIP gaming tables when it launched and sports betting lounges were suggested as a way to fill up Macau’s unused casino floor space; Nepal sought life sentences for football players accused of match fixing; James Packer took an even bigger stake in Crown Resorts; both Grand Korea Leisure and NagaCorp dropped out of the bidding for a South Korean integrated resort license while Bloomberry Resorts’ Jeju casino was ordered to close for one month because of shenanigans by its former management; Entertainment Gaming Asia’s revenue nearly doubled thanks its gaming products division and former Hong Kong Jockey Club exec Patrick Jay told Rebecca Liggero about the biggest challenges facing European operators looking to enter the Asian market.