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Nine month wait All of Caesars Entertainment’s Las Vegas properties have now reopened, as the last holdout, the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino finally welcomed back guests on Tuesday, December 22 and 10:00am. The casino will be open around the clock, while the hotel will only be open Thursdays through Mondays. Unlike many casinos in… Read more »
I know we’ve all thought it after someone hits a runner-runner draw on us, but none of us (I assume) have never gone as far as a high stakes gambler did two months ago at Genting Casino Bournemouth in southern England. After losing £400,000, 59-year-old Amir Abol Abolghassem, brought a five-liter container of gasoline to… Read more »
Only 100 guests permitted at a time Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer has issued a revised COVID-19 order, allowing the state’s casinos to reopen on Monday, December 21. Of the three commercial casinos, all located in Detroit, MotorCity and MGM Grand Detroit have said they will open their doors on Wednesday, December 23. Greektown has not… Read more »
Looked great for Baltimore I didn’t catch much of the Monday Night Football game between the Cleveland Browns and the Baltimore Ravens this week. Neither team interests me, so it wasn’t going to be appointment viewing, anyway, but my son has also discovered the show “Lost” on Hulu, so we watched some of that. I… Read more »
Daily fantasy sports, too DraftKings has announced partnership with the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation for both sports betting and daily fantasy sports in Connecticut. DFS will launch on Sunday, December 13, while sports betting will have to wait until the pastime is actually legalized in the state. State Rep. Sean Scanlon, who will soon be… Read more »
Blindsided Lots of us have lost our jobs at some point in our lives. Heck, it goes without saying in 2020. It’s awful. And when companies merge, even in the most prosperous of times, layoffs are usually expected because of job redundancies. But when it happens, the least we want is to be treated with… Read more »
Quick way to become publicly traded Online payment processing company Paysafe Group has agreed to a merger with the special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) Foley Trasimene Acquisition Corp. II (FTAC). As a result, Paysafe will become a publicly traded company. The deal values Paysafe at $9 billion. FTAC is led by billionaire Bill Foley, hence… Read more »
Shareholders happy, employees out of work Despite all the problems this year, 2020 has been great for online gambling companies because everyone has spent much more time at home. But while things have been lucrative for companies, hundreds of employees of NetEnt are about to find themselves unemployed. On Tuesday, online gaming company Evolution, which… Read more »
Lawmakers speed up approval I’m not making any promises, but there is as chance – a chance – that online gambling could go live in Michigan this month. Tuesday morning, the state legislature’s Joint Committee on Administrative Rules voted to forego the 15-day period during which it can evaluate the new online gaming regulations, effectively… Read more »
It’s missing something For decades, the very best high rollers in the world of live poker have played in the famed “Bobby’s Room” at the Bellagio. It’s the type of place where a single big blind would destroy me, where the gravity of the star power is enough to pull moons into its orbit. But… Read more »
GNOG close to moving out of its parents’ house The New Jersey Casino Control Commission gave Golden Nugget Online Gaming (GNOG) a double-win on Wednesday, granting it an internet gaming license and approving its merger with Landcadia Holdings II, paving most of its way to becoming a publicly traded company. Though Golden Nugget has an… Read more »
Small but eager crowd The brand new Live! Casino Pittsburgh enjoyed its public grand opening Tuesday morning after celebrating a limited opening with a ribbon cutting ceremony last week. The casino is located in the Westmoreland Mall in Hempfield Township, a suburb east of Pittsburgh. Yes, you read that right, the casino is in a… Read more »
Capacity cut in half again As daily new cases of COVID-19, as well as hospitalizations and deaths resulting from the virus, continue skyrocket around the country, Nevada casinos are facing a new round of restrictions. Beginning a minute after midnight on Tuesday, casinos are required to drop their capacity limits from 50 percent to 25… Read more »
No, Bally’s didn’t buy itself Bally’s Corporation announced on Wednesday that it has completed its acquisition of Bally’s Atlantic City from Caesars Entertainment. The two companies previously agreed to the $25 million (yes, only $25 million) deal in April. If it sounds strange that Bally’s has acquired Bally’s, don’t worry. Bally’s was very recently called… Read more »
Not much fingernail biting needed Every week, I read about massive sports bets people make. I get jealous when they win. I might even get more jealous when they lose, knowing they are in a position to be comfortable losing gigantic sums. But mostly, reading about horrifically wonderful bets is like window shopping to me:… Read more »
Detroit casinos going dark On Sunday, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer announced new, wide-ranging restrictions to combat the spread of COVID-19, including the closure of the state’s casinos for three weeks. The public health order will go into effect on Wednesday. Three commercial casinos are affected by the shutdown mandate: MGM Grand Detroit, MotorCity Casino, and… Read more »
Last call comes early On Tuesday, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy announced new restrictions on casinos as the state and the country as a whole suffers through a massive new surge in COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths. Per Executive Order No. 194, casinos will not be permitted to serve food or drinks from 10:00pm to… Read more »
Brick-and-mortar limits tax potential Last Tuesday, the attention of the world was on the U.S. presidential race (and still is, frankly), but in addition to president and other legislative races, residents of six states had the opportunity to cast their votes for or against gambling expansion measures. One such state was Louisiana, which saw 55… Read more »
As sports betting spread throughout the United States, New Jersey is sitting back, grinning. It was the Garden State’s years of persistence that eventually got the Supreme Court to strike down PASPA and make sports betting legal in 2018. After eons of Nevada being the only place one could put a few bucks down on… Read more »
Customer says he was promised cash-back If I won £1.5 million, I’d be over the moon. But if I thought I should have had another quarter million, well, there is a chance I’d feel a bit perturbed. Such is the case with Croatian businessman Juste Puharic, who wagered £27,057,621 at The Park Lane Club in… Read more »
Might as well go for the gold There is a chance that we might get legal sports betting here in Georgia some day – a bill was actually introduced in the legislature – but until then, I am going to have to live vicariously through people who make mind numbing bets. Such was the case… Read more »
Bank didn’t think about gambling problem The Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) has been fined AUD$150,000 (USD$107,580) after a Federal Court ruled that it had violated the National Credit Act for increasing a customer’s credit limit, even after that customer told the bank that he had a gambling problem. The bank also did not bother… Read more »
Pandemic roller coaster The COVID-19 pandemic has obviously been devastating to casinos, but things are about to get worse for the few in Massachusetts. This week, Governor Charlie Baker announced a slew of “targeted measures” to slow the spread of the virus. The United States is in its “third wave” of the pandemic right now,… Read more »
MGM Growth Properties, a real estate investment trust (REIT), indicated on Monday that it could be interested in acquiring another property on the Las Vegas Strip. During a third quarter earnings call, CEO James Stewart said that his company was definitely looking to expand, but only with large casino properties that would “move the needle.”… Read more »
Forever dark According to a report from CardsChat, three MGM properties on the Strip – the Mirage, Excalibur, and Mandalay Bay – are closing their poker rooms for good. All of the card rooms have been closed since mid-March, when casinos in Nevada were ordered to shut down because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Casinos were… Read more »
