Less than a week after the chairman of the Massachusetts Gaming Commission (MGC) called it quits, the MGC has found a replacement, at least for now. Stephen Crosby, who resigned last Wednesday, will be replaced by new interim chairman Gayle Cameron.
Cameron, a commissioner for the MGC, was selected by the three other members of the commission. She was a former deputy superintendent with the New Jersey State Police and has served as a commissioner since 2012. While with the police department, she reportedly led the department’s investigations branch, which was tasked with oversight of casino regulatory issues, among other responsibilities.
Crosby resigned over allegations that he was showing bias and prejudice regarding Wynn Resorts and its future in the Encore Boston Harbor project, previously known as the Wynn Encore Boston Harbor. “Wynn” was dropped due to the ongoing sexual misconduct scandal surrounding the company’s founder and former CEO, Steve Wynn.
Mohegan Gaming and Entertainment, a casino operator who lost the Massachusetts license bidding war to Wynn Resorts, accused Crosby of prejudging an inquiry against Wynn Resorts that was led by the MGC. Crosby was also served a letter by Steve Wynn’s lawyer, demanding that he retract what the lawyer called “false and defamatory statements” directed at the embattled former casino executive.
Crosby led the MGC since 2012. He has rejected all of the bias claims that have been publicized, but said that he was resigning in order to not be an obstacle to the commission’s investigation. He said, “There has never been a shred of truth or accuracy to any charge of bias, favoritism, corrupt practice, ethics violations, or prejudgment in my execution of this job.”
Crosby added, “I simply cannot let my involvement in these critical deliberations be used by others to hamper the commission’s ability to do its work, or to undermine the confidence of the public in that work.”
The MGC has been investigating Wynn Resorts to determine whether or not the company should be allowed to hold a gaming license in the state due to the ongoing public scrutiny of Steve Wynn. That investigation is said to be drawing to a close and MGC is expected to issue its decision in the near future.
The post Massachusetts gaming regulator finds new chief appeared first on CalvinAyre.com.
Flight B of the second event on the schedule of the ongoing WSOP Circuit Horseshoe Southern Indiana live poker festival was completed last night. The second of two starting flights provided interested players with a final chance to register into the $400 buy-in No-Limit Hold’em tournament. 
The remaining survivors will be led by Andrew Jacobs who bagged and tagged the largest stack after the end of Flight B. The player collected a total of 393,000 to top last night the Flight B and the overall chip counts chart, ending the reign of Day 1A chip leader Nicholas Pupillo (pictured). Pupillo now ranks second in the temporary leaderboard with a total of 389,500 in chips. 
Floating casinos in the Indian state of Goa have been granted yet another reprieve from their forced relocation, in what definitely qualifies as the day’s least surprising news. 
The remaining 34 survivors will have a day off today, while the second starting flight is being played. They will resume play on Sunday when the fields of Day 1A and Day 1B will combine for the very first time to play down to a champion. 
The launch of sports betting operations at two West Virginia casinos has been delayed, local news outlet the Charleston Gazette-Mail reported citing information from the West Virginia Lottery. 
According to information from the West Virginia Lottery, the state’s two sportsbooks have handled nearly $3.4 million in wagers since the Hollywood Casino facility opened doors. Sports betting handle at the property totaled a little over $450,000 during its first week of operation and a little over $1.1 million during its second week. Together with the FanDuel Sportsbook at The Greenbrier, sports betting handle amounted to more than $1.8 million during week three. 
The integrated resort model has become the standard in Las Vegas, Macau, and other countries in the Asia-Pacific region that annually see large inflow of international visitors. However, even though Europe might be the leader and the main driver of growth within the regulated online gambling space, it is lagging behind in the successful deployment of the integrated resort model and the construction of large-scale resorts that, aside from gambling venues, include accommodation, food and beverage, meeting, and entertainment facilities. 
City of Dreams Mediterranean is slated to become Europe’s first full-blown integrated resort combining casino gambling, meeting, entertainment, accommodation, and food and beverage facilities in one place. The €550-million integrated resort is currently under development in the city of Limassol in the Republic of Cyprus. It will feature the tiny island nation’s first legal casino after it has battled and is still battling underground gambling operations used by criminal individuals to mask other illegal activities. 
Integrated resorts have proved particularly successful endeavors in Las Vegas and Macau, and have major contribution to the formation of the modern land-based casino industry. Companies have been expanding their integrated resort footprint across Asia for more than a decade now and properties of this kind have proved to be extremely popular with different groups of customers, but mostly with high roller gamblers from Mainland China. 
The company announced the results to the Australian Securities Exchange this past Wednesday. It indicated that it had received applications from qualified shareholders to sell 73.2 million shares and that another 8.9 million shares were offered through the Top-Up Facility, bringing in an additional $129,731.
A few years ago, The Stars Group (then Amaya Inc.) was deep into a heavy debt situation, was shaken by an insider trading scandal involving its founder and then-CEO, Canadian businessman David Baazov, and was having difficulties in growing its key online poker product. 
The Stars and its PokerStars brand had to leave the Australian gaming market last summer, when the nation’s federal government amended existing gambling laws in a manner that prohibited the provision of online gaming and poker operations. 
While online poker still is The Stars Group’s main product, the company has gradually been trying to expand into the online casino and mainly into the online sports betting sectors. And the above-discussed two acquisitions are one of the manifestations of its efforts to diversify its offering and revenue sources. 
The Stars Group has been quite clear in its intentions to return to the United States after the April 2011 incident. Its PokerStars brand debuted in the New Jersey Internet gambling market in the spring of 2016, but besides that market, the company has not been able to enter the other states where iGaming is legal, with those being Nevada and Delaware. 
Included in the initiatives are concept imagines of an IR that could be located at the Yamashita Pier in Yokohama. The concept is based on The Great Wave, an ukiyo-e piece crafted by Japanese artist Hokusai. The IR would carry the name “The Yokohama Art & Culture Park and Entertainment Resort,” but is up against some strong opposition. Yokohama citizens have already 
Massachusetts’ gaming regulatory boss has resigned just one day before a meeting that could affect 
In a historic move, the Supreme Court of the United States lifted in mid-May a long-standing ban on wagering on professional and college sports leagues, known as PASPA (Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992). The ruling authorized individual states to legalize sports betting, if they feel inclined to do so. 
It was Delaware to win the race and become the first state to launch full-fledged sports betting services after the mid-May SCOTUS ruling. Its three licensed casino operators – Delaware Park, Harrington Raceway & Casino, and Dover Downs Hotel & Casino – went live with single-game sports wagering offering on June 5. 
New Jersey was the state to lead the anti-PASPA effort. It took state lawmakers years of lobbying and searching for supporters of its cause as well as of legal battles until the US Supreme Court agreed to take on the sports betting case. 
The Magnolia State became the third one to launch legal sports betting in the months after the PASPA annulment. Its wagering legislation came into force on July 21 and it was on August 1 when the state’s first sportsbooks opened doors and accepted first sports bets. 
It seems that Pennsylvania will become the fifth state to go live with legal sports betting offering. Following last year’s passage of an omnibus gambling bill, the Keystone State is gearing up for a massive expansion of its gambling industry that will also include sports betting. 
Rhode Island passed a sports gambling legislation in June. Under that legislative piece, the state’s Twin River Casinos in Lincoln and Tiverton would be the exclusive providers of sports betting services. These services would be provided thanks to a partnership of the gambling venues’ owner with International Game Technology and William Hill. 
Playtech announced in April that it had agreed to buy around 70.6% of the total issued share capital of Italian gambling company Snaitech S.p.A. in an initial acquisition deal. Under the terms of the agreement, the gambling tech giant agreed to make a mandatory takeover offer for the remaining shares in Snaitech after the completion of the initial acquisition. 
The Stars Group, owner of PokerStars, and Sky Betting & Gaming announced in April that they had agreed to complete a landmark transaction that would create a $4.7-billion online gambling behemoth with presence across multiple jurisdictions, massive customer base, and strong positions in key online gambling sectors, including sports betting in which The Stars Group has taken great interest over the past year. 
Australian online bookmaker CrownBet emerged in February as the winning bidder for William Hill’s struggling Australian business. The company, which was controlled by local casino operator Crown Resorts at the time, competed with the likes of bet365, Ladbrokes, and Paddy Power for William Hill Australia. 
News outlet 
The WSOP Europe festival is two weeks away and every self-respecting fan of live tournament poker has already braced for quality poker action and immense thrill. The 2018 edition of the major series is set to take place at King’s Casino in Rozvadov, Czech Republic, one of Europe’s best and most popular poker destinations. 
In 2011, US poker player Elio Fox emerged as the winner of the largest ever WSOP Europe Main Event. He topped a field of 593 entries to be awarded the amount of €1.4 million. The tournament took place in Cannes. England’s Chris Moorman was Fox’s heads-up opponent. The moment of victory came for the latter after his [Ad][10s] bested his final opponent’s [Ah][7s]. 
Spain’s Torres came as the winner of the 2017 WSOP Europe Main Event. That was the first edition of the tournament after a two-year hiatus of the European series. The player was the last man standing from a field of 529 entrants. He collected the amount of €1,115,207. Torres faced heads-up one of Italy’s most promising poker players – Gianluca Speranza. On what turned out to be the final hand in the Main Event, Torres beat his opponent with [Qh][5d]. 
The Norwegian poker pro became the winner of the first-ever WSOP Europe Main Event and has so far been the only female player to take it down. She outwitted a 362-strong field to collect £1 million in prize money. It is also important to note that at the age of 18, she was the youngest player to ever win a gold bracelet from the WSOP. 
Hellmuth has long held the record for the most WSOP gold bracelets ever won. He captured his 13th ever piece of WSOP jewelry in 2012 when he topped the 420-person field of the WSOP Europe Main Event. His share of the prize pool totaled €1,058,403. 
Mateos is one of the most popular poker pros of the younger generation of players. At the age of 24, the Spaniard boasts three WSOP gold bracelets and an EPT Grand Final title. Mateos won one of his pieces of WSOP gold for taking down the WSOP Europe Main Event.
Rodrigo Duterte is more than two years into his presidential tenure and it has been an eventful two years. Among other things, President Duterte’s past two years will be remembered for the top Philippine official’s continued war on gambling, which has most recently manifested itself in a moratorium on the construction of new casino resorts in the country. 
News emerged last year that Macau gaming and hospitality company Galaxy Entertainment Group has partnered its Philippine counterpart Leisure & Resorts World Corporation to develop a $500-plus-million integrated resort on the Boracay Island. With its white-sand beaches and its tropical climate, the island is a popular hub for tourists from the Asia-Pacific region. 
In a new rollout of casino-related regulations, it became known earlier this month that casino staff would be banned from gambling in the country’s casinos. In a notice dated September 6, the local gambling regulator, the Philippines Amusement and Gaming Corporation (PAGCOR), said that all employees at gambling establishments will be included in the country’s National Database of Restricted Persons. The computerized database contains the names of all individuals who are restricted from gambling at all local casinos licensed by PAGCOR. 
