Other poker news goes here.
Maryland has legalized sports betting. Governor Larry Hogan signed a bill to make both online and retail (in-person) sports wagering legal on Tuesday, an action which was entirely expected considering state lawmakers passed the legislation last month by overwhelming margins. Under emergency authorization, the law can take effect immediately, but no sportsbooks are expected to… Read more »
Iconic casino gets its due The Plaza Hotel & Casino has been a focal point of downtown Las Vegas for 50 years. If you have ever been downtown, you can’t miss it, as it looms large at the end of Fremont Street, as if looking over all of its children. On Tuesday, the Nevada Preservation… Read more »
MGM got its employees vaccinated With millions of COVID-19 vaccines getting administered every day in the United States, the pandemic statistics are moving in the right direction. Because of this, casinos have gradually been upping their customer capacities. Things are really starting to accelerate in Nevada, as MGM received permission from the Nevada Gaming Control… Read more »
Continues the real estate/operation split MGM Growth Properties has acquired the real estate of MGM Springfield in Massachusetts from MGM Resorts International for $400 million cash. The purchase is a leaseback deal in which MGM Resorts will continue to operate the property and pay MGM Growth $30 million per year in rent. In Tuesday’s announcement,… Read more »
Winning tickets are still winners 2021 Kentucky Derby winner Medina Spirit tested positive for an illegal steroid after the race and could end up disqualified. Legendary trainer Bob Baffert said that the horse tested positive for 21 picograms of betamethasone, a steroid typically used to treat inflamed joints. This used to be twice the legal… Read more »
Paying employees to get vaccinated The slow march toward the beforetimes continues in Las Vegas, as The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas is set to increase its gaming floor capacity to 100%. The Nevada Gaming Control Board permitted the casino to go up to full capacity from 80% because The Cosmopolitan reported that 80% of its… Read more »
Palms was for the cool kids The wheeling and dealing in the casino industry continues as Red Rock Resorts announced that its subsidiary, Station Casinos LLC, has sold the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas to the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians for $650 million. The sale is an all-cash deal. If the deal… Read more »
Back when Ultimate Poker became the first legal, regulated online poker room to launch in the United States, it developed its own software from scratch. It was ok, it was playable, but it was initially quite limited, as the company opted to get up and running as quickly as possible, before the software was robust.… Read more »
More people means more betting It is going to take a while before we are back to “normal” in the United States, but this past weekend’s Kentucky Derby gave us at least a little glimpse of what something approaching normal used to look like in the sports world. Churchill Downs Incorporated reported that 51,838 fans… Read more »
Wolf in sheep’s clothing From the moment I let my kids start playing with tablets and smartphones, I required them to check with me before they downloaded an app. One is about to start high school and the other will be a teenager at the end of the year, so I have become much more… Read more »
Too many concerns about Bally’s plan Bally’s Corporation has been in expansion hyperdrive for about a year now, but even with all of the company’s momentum, there are still bumps in the road.* One such bump was hit Wednesday, when the Richmond, Virginia mayor’s office announced that it has eliminated Bally’s from contention for a… Read more »
Get ready to party on The Strip I have always enjoyed the times I have spent in Las Vegas (no drunken-blackout-lost-all-my-money disasters for me, fortunately), but I never really liked the crowds. An empty casino is depressing, but a jam-packed one, well, that’s not really my cup of tea. Give me somewhere in the middle.… Read more »
Bally’s on the Strip The Tropicana was the very first place I visited in Las Vegas. It got the nod over such iconic locations as the Bellagio and Venetian for the very simple reason that I was staying there. It was fine. I didn’t spend much time there because other casinos were cooler, but it… Read more »
It felt inevitable and now it is officially going to happen: an independent investigation will be launched into the sudden collapse of soccer betting site Football Index. According to a Sunday report in The Times, UK Members of Parliament (MP) were the catalysts for the inquiry, one of whom said, “something appears to have gone… Read more »
Lawsuit alleges monopoly created by cheating If you have visited a casino or watched poker on television, you have almost assuredly seen an automatic shuffler built into the gaming tables. They are wonders of technology: when the hand is over, the dealer just grabs a new, shuffled deck from the device’s cute, little elevator and… Read more »
Rule is only there because of politics Leave it to Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker to ruin a good thing. To be fair, the state legislators that drew up Illinois’ sports betting regulations were the original geniuses who came up with the awful rule, but Pritzker could easily fix things with a swipe of a pen.… Read more »
Hotel had been closed mid-week Though COVID-19 vaccines are getting into arms at a rapid pace now, it is still going to be a while before things are back to normal in the United States. Things are definitely starting to feel a little more normal, though, as people are starting to return to some of… Read more »
Wynn Resorts has settled a pair of class action lawsuits with current and former table game dealers at Wynn Las Vegas and Encore. The lawsuits, which date back to 2013 and 2018, claim that the company unjustly took a share of the dealers’ tips. In the settlement, reached with a mediator from the 9th U.S.… Read more »
This has been a weird, unpredictable college basketball season, but what has been predictable is that Jim “Mattress Mack” McIngvale placed yet another whopper of a bet. And with just four teams remaining in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, he has a chance to win big. The furniture store owner known for making massive bets… Read more »
Small fine for a small mistake Casinos keep track of every little thing. Everything. Casinos are all about numbers, whether it comes to money or the games themselves, so everything is about counting. Nothing goes unnoticed, uncounted, uncatalogued. That’s why the failure to spot one single playing card at a casino in Deadwood, South Dakota… Read more »
Stock exchange for soccer stars British legislators are looking to roll some heads in the ongoing saga of the soccer betting exchange Football Index and its parent company, BetIndex Limited. Members of Parliament are looking squarely at the UK Gambling Commission and, of course, BetIndex itself. Football Index is a European soccer betting site that… Read more »
Wagers are pouring in The NCAA men’s and women’s basketball tournaments return in a few days after being canceled last year only about a week before they were to begin. Nearly everything in the world was canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic – and we aren’t in the clear yet – but it was the… Read more »
Dollar signs in their eyes Flutter Entertainment confirmed rumors Monday that it is considering an initial public offering for sports betting and daily fantasy sports arm FanDuel. Other than that, Flutter, which also owns PokerStars and several other big gaming brands, did not say much. The company’s stock price closed up nearly 6 percent on… Read more »
Las Vegas Sands has exited the city it was named after. On Wednesday, the company announced that it has sold all of its property in the city, including the famed Venetian Resort Las Vegas and the Sands Expo and Convention Center for $6.25 billion. Taking ownership of the real estate will be real estate investment… Read more »
Partial payment info was on display Last week, an unlucky group of customers of the online casino site 32Red received a scare when they saw their account balances mysteriously fluctuate and someone else’s account info replace their own. The site has since said that it was not a hack or a full-fledged data breach, but… Read more »
