THE AMERICAS
Faint hopes that California’s online poker stakeholders would resolve their legislative differences this year died an ignoble death; Chris Christie vetoed New Jersey’s latest sports betting legislation; MGM Resorts saw Vegas growth outpace Macau; Caesars Entertainment’s controversial asset transfers sparked more lawsuits while Harrah’s Atlantic City was sued for beating up its guests; the auction of troubled AC casino Revel was pushed back a week while Donald Trump sued to get his name off two other AC casinos; Nevada’s WSOP.com underwent a software upgrade; Paul Phua and his son pled not guilty to illegal sports betting in Las Vegas; the alleged ‘Paddy Power hacker’ protested his innocence; Zynga delayed the rollout of its revamped poker product; Full Tilt Poker’s former US pros got good news from the Garden City Group; PokerStars pulled its sponsorship of the Montreal Poker Festival; Sheldon Adelson featured on the list of speakers at this year’s Global Gaming Expo; Rebecca Liggero quizzed the deputy director of New Jersey’s Division of Gaming Enforcement on the state of the state’s online gambling market while Jason Kirk wondered why poker’s all-time money list had lost its meaning and Lee Davy wondered if Steven Seagal’s new poker movie would be Gutshittier than Runner Runner.
EUROPE
888 Holdings delivered record numbers in its second quarter report; Unibet enjoyed a “significant new all-time high” in customer activity; Perform Group’s RunningBall subsidiary provided bookmakers with data on a ‘phantom’ football match; PartyPoker’s Jeffrey Haas admitted the site’s high-profile software revamp didn’t go as well as planned; Sporting Index’s butt-fondling Christ advert irked UK advertising watchdogs; PokerVIP underwent a multilingual rebirth; the UK Gambling Commission reminded operators to get their new license applications in on time and teamed with bookies and Crimestoppers to combat match fixing; Latvia hopped on the online gambling blacklist bandwagon; Tom Galanis lamented the dearth of innovation that makes online gambling’s big players seem so samey-same; industry players voiced opinions on how affiliates can capitalize on mobile opportunities and Sam Grafton insisted that poker players do have personalities.
ASIA
Melco Crown Entertainment revenue fell as VIPs went AWOL; Bet365 Australia revealed it had lost $77m in the past two years while Tabcorp enjoyed a fixed-odds betting boost; China’s wannabe Paris Hilton confessed to a life of illegal gambling and prostitution; AGTech and 500.com inked new China sports lottery deals; NagaCorp enjoyed a dual VIP and mass market boost in Q2 while Entertainment Gaming Asia continued to struggle after selling its Cambodian operations; Rafi Farber fingered China’s capital controls as Macau’s biggest enemy; Finnish operator Finnplay launched an Asian-facing site; India announced plans for a Nevada-style gaming commission; South Korea busted an online badugi operation and artificial intelligence researcher Gabe Redding explained why sports betting could use a little AI.
