An abrupt hike on the price of transit visa used by mainland Chinese residents to go to Macau has become a concern for casino operators.

Portuguese-language media outlet Ponto Final reported that the customs office in Zhuhai in Guangdong province had abruptly hiked the transit visa cost from RMB50 (US$7.88) to RMB340 ($53.55). Casinos are monitoring the effects of the price hike, especially since the number of mainland Chinese visitors has been rising steadily in the past few years. Case in point: the Macau Government Tourism Office announced that over 963k visitors traveled to Macau during the week-long 2018 Lunar New Year celebration, up 6.5% from the number who visited last year.

Officials from Beijing have historically tried to rein in Macau’s hot streak. In 2014, when Macau’s casino market reached its all-time peak, Beijing instigated a crackdown on corruption which resulted in a 26-month gaming revenue decline for casinos.

In this episode of The Industry Eye, Ed Pownall tackles the million–pound whack in William Hill’s head, Betsson’s Brexit, and NBA’s insistence for an integrity fee.

A glitch in the Japan-based Zaif exchange enabled a customer to get BTC worth JPY2,200 trillion (US$20 trillion)—and even had the balls to resell it.

The tide of tourists going to Sihanoukville has delighted the government but residents have become upset about Chinese visitors getting rowdy and taking their jobs.

A proposed new baseball-themed lottery product could be released soon after failing to elicit serious opposition from Japan’s pro baseball teams.

The Court of Quebec had postponed the start of Baazov’s insider trading trial after ex-Amaya CEO’s legal team sought for more time to consider the Crown’s evidence against their client.

Regulators in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) have refuted allegations of corruption revealed in a Bloomberg article.

Spanish operator Luckia’s local subsidiary Luckia Colombia S.A.S. was able to snag the country’s eighth online gambling license since the liberalization of the country’s online market in 2016.

Quality Score — refers to the rating given by Google AdWords on the relevance and quality of keywords used in pay-per-click campaigns. Some factors which comprise the score include: expected click-through rates, relevance of ad copy, and landing page quality.

The “world’s only online casino for hard rockers” has tapped Ozzy Osbourne for its summer campaign which will include a five-part documentary with the Black Sabbath lead vocalist.

Congratulations to Casino Professor for being feted as Best Affiliate Newcomer at the IGB Affiliate Awards 2018! The online casino affiliate site has generated almost 8,000 new depositing players in just six months since its launch.