THE AMERICAS
PokerStars made their first $225m payment to the DoJ, clearing the way for a relaunch of Full Tilt Poker outside the US by Nov. 6; the major US sports leagues sued New Jersey to block its sports betting legislation; South Point Casino received the first Nevada online poker operator license; Nevada casino revenues were down for the second straight month while Atlantic City casinos continued their downward spiral in July and AC’s Resorts Casino Hotel was taken over by Connecticut’s Mohegan tribe; California’s senate leader expressed doubts that online poker legislation would pass before the end of the current session but certain tribes weren’t giving up that easy; Maryland’s brief flirtation with an online gambling bill died a quick death; Sportsbook.com announced it was reopening to US punters; Kahnawake regulators blew Taps over the lifeless form of Blanca Games; quarterly report cards were turned in by Caesars Entertainment, MGM Resorts, Churchill Downs, WMS Industries and Scientific Games and Vince Martin examined the effect of the PokerStars acquisition of FTP on public gaming stocks.
EUROPE
Facebook announced it would allow its first real-money gambling product in the UK; Playtech revenues doubled in Q2 thanks to acquisitions from owner Teddy Sagi; Sportingbet’s underperforming European operations need a boost; PartyPoker launched a beta version of its own Rush Poker clone; Bodog Poker pulled out of a host of Eastern European markets; Malta-based Zokay Entertainment purchased the Global Poker Index; fixed-odds betting terminals are driving UK betting shop revenues; Coral earned top marks for ‘usability’ among UK betting sites; Marvin Rettenmaier made World Poker Tour history in Cyprus and Becky Liggero talked to UK poker player Sam Trickett about placing second in the world’s biggest tournament and why his father told him to ‘fuck off’.
ASIA
Genting Singapore profit fell by a third; Melco Crown profit rose 23%; SJM Holdings H1 profit rose 28%: Crown Ltd. saw profit rise by over 50% over the past fiscal year while Tabcorp posted a more modest 12.7% increase; Cambodia’s prime minister said border casinos were his Berlin wall; Pagcor warned Kazuo Okada to toe the line or risk losing his Entertainment City casino license; Sands China is under investigation (again) by the US Securities Exchange Commission; Macau junket operators are consolidating; Macau legislators raised the casino entry age from 18 to 21 and Macau police launched a massive raid to let the triads know they can no longer party like it’s 1999.
