THE AMERICAS
Nevada’s sportsbooks set a new Super Bowl wagering record; California offered racing a $60m bribe to stay away from online poker while tribes expressed opposition to the state’s daily fantasy sports plans; New Jersey’s online market hit a new revenue record; DraftKings weaseled out of its ESPN ad commitments and acquired a rival MMA fantasy sports operator while FanDuel laid off most of its Florida workforce; social casino games provided half of Zynga’s gaming revenue last year; GAN inked a social casino deal with Rock Gaming’s three Ohio properties; Intertain claimed that an independent review had refuted a short-seller’s allegations; Amaya Gaming hired Barclays to consider CEO David Baazov’s privatization bid while Rafi Farber wondered if there was a role for Isai Scheinberg in a privately held Amaya; Caesars Entertainment’s senior creditors threatened to withdraw their support for the company’s restructuring; Atlantic City gaming revenue fell in January and the Borgata said it would stop paying property taxes until the city honored its debts.
EUROPE
Reports said William Hill was backing NYX Gaming’s bid for OpenBet; Russian bookies protested government plans to boost gaming taxes tenfold; Unibet set a new revenue record in Q4 despite losing a top casino exec to Tabcorp’s UK-facing Sun Bets site; NetEnt set revenue and profit records in Q4; European bookies launched an anti-match fixing campaign following more shenanigans in the tennis world; PartyPoker scrapped its payment processing fees; PokerStars scrapped its heads-up games and test-launched its new Duel heads-up app; Lawrence Ho’s Melcolot scrapped its Georgian casino plans; France said online poker liquidity sharing plans weren’t quite dead yet; Branded3 director Stephen Kenwright preached the need for speed in app design; GambleGeek’s James McMath discussed lessons learned from building a new affiliate site; mGage’s David Sheridan exposed the elephant in the mobile payments room and Rebecca Liggero recapped the video highlights of the One Night In Wonderland-themed Fire & Ice 2016 shindig.
ASIA
Macau’s slump did a number on Wynn Resorts’ 2015 profits; Macau Legend broke ground on its Cape Verde casino project; Cambodia said there’d be no new taxes in its casino legislation but NagaCorp isn’t so sure; SkyCity Entertainment enjoyed record VIP gambling turnover; overzealous authorities in Thailand arrested a bunch of bridge players but the international headlines caused the government to rethink plans to press gambling charges; Cambodia arrested two dozen South Koreans running an online gambling ring; casino operators were Manila’s biggest taxpayers in 2015 and Philippine online gaming authority First Cagayan convinced a Nevada judge to vacate a $2.15m judgment over Las Vegas Sands trademarks.
