AMERICAS
The US Department of Justice advertised for help in processing Full Tilt Poker refund claims; California’s Assembly killed the state’s sports betting bill; the Absolute Poker boys have hired Ben Mezrich to write a Lord of the Rings style fantasy to change their current public image from nasty Orcs to pure and noble Hobbits; New Jersey’s Monmouth Park racetrack plans to build the state’s first sportsbook; Station Casinos launched a mobile sports betting app; Caesars went looking for more sucker investor money; Golden Gaming wants a Nevada online poker operating license; PokerStars launched its mobile app in Canada; Bally Technologies had a good year; Nevada launched an investigation into Las Vegas Sands’ activities in Macau but that didn’t stop newly minted GOP VP candidate Paul Ryan from making a pilgrimage to Sheldon Adelson’s crib and Facebook shares are now worth half their IPO price.
EUROPE
Big Fish Games teamed with Betable on the UK’s first real-money mobile social casino app; the Olympics were good to UK sportsbooks; financial reports cards were issued by Gala Coral, JAXX, Rank Group, SNAI, Unibet, RAY, myBet, Bingo.com and bet-at-home; the start of a new Premier League season was prefaced by teams striking betting partnerships with Betfred, Bwin, Dafabet, Paddy Power and 188Bet; Germany’s sports betting tender generated confusion and complaints; PokerStars and Viktor Blom parted company and Zynga backed out of the Ongame acquisition rodeo.
ASIA
Singapore’s citizens backed tougher casino regulations; Echo Entertainment saw full year profits decline 81%; Tatts Group filed a $600m claim against the state of Victoria; cops in the Philippines busted an illegal online sportsbook; Asia Entertainment & Resources Ltd.’s profits rose as did AGTech’s revenues; Philippine kajillionaire John Gokongwei Jr. is leaving the Entertainment City Manila casino biz to his offspring; Caesars Entertainment suffered a setback in a domain name fight with a Bangkok massage parlor; two companies outed themselves as prospective operators in Russia’s new casino zone in Vladivostok; MelcoLot is looking to shed its Chinese lottery terminal manufacturing biz; those gambling Buddhist monks became at one with South Korean justice and Vince Martin examined what the slowdown in Macau means for gaming stock investors.
