Connecticut’s proposed joint venture tribal casino has cleared a major roadblock now that the federal government appears to have finally dropped its opposition to the project.
On Thursday, the US Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) announced that the revised gaming compact between Connecticut’s state government and the Mohegan tribe – which operates Connecticut’s Mohegan Sun casino – “is taking effect.”
The document is dated May 25, but won’t be officially published until Friday, June 1. The document tersely notes that the amended gaming compact is taking effect because the Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke “took no action” within the required 45 days.
The amendment makes no mention of the state’s compact with Foxwoods Resort Casino’s owner, the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation, which has formed a joint venture called MMCT to build a casino off tribal lands in the northern part of the state near East Windsor.
Both tribes’ gaming compacts were amended last year to recognize that the tribes would provide the state with 25% of gaming revenue from the East Windsor casino. However, the BIA inexplicably slow-rolled what should have been a rubber-stamp approval process.
In December, the state and the tribes sued the feds over the delay, which appears to have been prompted by furious lobbying by MGM Resorts, who felt they’d been excluded from setting up a rival casino in Bridgeport. In April, the Interior Department’s inspector general opened an investigation into the delay.
While the tribes expressed confidence on Thursday that the Mashantucket Pequot approval was imminent, there was no immediate reaction from MGM, which has proven willing to use all its legal options to thwart the East Windsor project, which lies just across the border from its new $960m MGM Springfield venue in Massachusetts that’s set to open in August.
On Thursday, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, who represents Connecticut in Washington, told the Connecticut Post that MGM may have already got what it was after, namely, delaying the East Windsor project long enough so that MGM Springfield can establish itself as a destination for northern Connecticut gamblers. Blumenthal insisted that the Inspector General’s probe into Zinke’s stalling tactics should proceed.
MOHEGANS WANT WYNN MASSACHUSETTS LICENSE REVOKED
Speaking of Massachusetts, the Mohegans have reanimated their 2015 lawsuit challenging the Massachusetts Gaming Commission’s 2014 decision to award a casino license to Wynn Resorts.
The tribe, which has long protested the MGC’s decision, now claims that the sexual harassment allegations engulfing former Wynn boss Steve Wynn are further proof that the MGC didn’t do a proper job of vetting the company, and therefore the bidding process was flawed and needs a redo.
The Boston Herald reported that the MGC filed a reply brief opposing the Mohegan’s motion, while arguing that its investigation into what Wynn execs knew about Steve’s allegations at the time of licensing is ongoing.
In April, Wynn Resorts stripped Steve’s surname from their Boston project, which will now be known as Encore Boston Harbor. Earlier this month, the MGC agreed to erase Steve’s name from Wynn’s Massachusetts license.
The post Fed gov’t stops cock-blocking Connecticut tribes’ JV casino appeared first on CalvinAyre.com.
Today, the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) published its latest six-month update to the local gambling industry statistics. The main regulatory body in the UK revealed some details about the market changes and latest trends in the sector, as well as about players’ activity in the period from October 2016 to November 2017. 
According to the Commission, the UK gambling industry generated an overall gross gambling yield of £13.9 billion in the above-mentioned 12-month period. The figures represent a 0.7% increase in comparison to the result posted for the period between April 2016 to March 2017. 
Casino operator 
Part of Macau Legend’s $300-million casino resort in Cape Verde will open doors this August, CEO David Chow Kam Fai told local media earlier today after the company’s Annual General Meeting at the Legend Palace. 
Under a deal between the Macau casino operator and Cape Verde officials, Macau legend would receive a 15-year tax relief and would be granted 10-year exclusivity over the operation of online gaming and sports betting as well as over the operation of land-based sports betting services. 
In his veto transmittal letter to Rep. John Paul Sablan, Torres expressed reservations on the poker bill’s impact on the economic growth of Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) if House Bill (HB) 20-48 will be enacted. HB 20-48, which Sablan authored, seeks to transform certain lots in southwestern Saipan into mixed commercial districts to accommodate the relocation of poker arcades from villages and non-specific areas.
Following the bill’s acceptance, it made its way to the Japanese Diet for voting. While some tweaking to the bill has been done since the Diet began reviewing it, things haven’t been progressing as rapidly as some would like. The Diet is scheduled to end the session on June 20, but is now considering an extension primarily to ensure the bill is approved during this session.
We are just five months into the year but some of poker’s finest players have already added millions of dollars to their bankrolls. They have traveled the world, faced other fine and seasoned players and have outmaneuvered them to be rewarded for their skills. 
Bonomo has been on a hot streak over the past five months and it seems that he has no intention to end his winning spree. The player has cashed nearly $9 million since the beginning of the year from 15 different tournaments. There is more to the story, he won five of these and made final table appearances in most of the other. 
Koon is, too, having quite some year and quite a month, to be more precise. The player won high roller tournaments on two continents over a week’s span. He first outlasted 103 entries in the partypoker-sponsored HK$1,000,000 Triton Super High Roller Montenegro to scoop a hefty payout of $3,569,836. 
UK’s second most profitable player of all time rounds out the podium of this year’s most profitable live tournament poker players. Chidwick has finished in the money in 15 tournaments since January and has won several of them to add nearly $6 million to his already hefty poker bankroll. 
We have seen more and more from the Finn over the past months which is always good, as we all know how good he is at this game. The player has cashed in just five events this year, but one of these was the above-mentioned Super High Roller Bowl China. 
Schindler rounds out the list of the five most profitable players so far this year with nearly $4.5 million added to his bankroll. He has cashed in 17 tournaments since the beginning of 2018, which is an impressive number itself. In addition, he actually topped the fields of some of these events. 
The 
With this year’s Super High Roller Bowl now being halfway through and the 49th annual World Series of Poker being just a couple of hours away from kicking off with record 78 gold bracelets up for grabs, Las Vegas has already drawn a humongous number of the world’s best poker pros as well as of recreational players who love the game just as fiercely as any professional out there. 
Golden Nugget Hotel & Casino in downtown Vegas is set to have its own big series going on over the next month or so. This year’s edition of the Grand Poker Series is slated to begin later today at the gambling venue and to run through July 3. 
The 2018 Wynn Summer Classic will kick off on June 1 and will take place all the way through July 16 at the highly popular Wynn Las Vegas. Similarly to the Grand Poker Series, the festival will feature a plethora of events varying in buy-ins and formats, and most of those will take place over a single day. 
The dog days of summer are almost upon those living or visiting the hot Nevada desert and Binion’s Hotel and Casino is offering an escape from the heat with a month-long summer poker festival. The Dog Days of Summer poker celebrations will take place on June 1-July 1 with more than two dozens of different tournaments. 
The Summer Poker Series at The Orleans Hotel & Casino will be another month-long festival to take place in Las Vegas this summer. It will run from June 1 through July 1. The festival features a huge schedule with a wide variety of poker variants that will certainly meet every player’s taste and demands for poker action. 
One of the largest Australian gaming and entertainment groups, Star Entertainment Group, shared that high-roller customers and Queensland businesses have brought larger revenue, at a time when the company has been focused on new Gold Coast- and Brisbane-located projects’ roll-out.
As mentioned above, Mr. Bekier revealed that the floor area of the company’s Queen’s Wharf project would be bigger than the one originally planned, due to expanded retail and dining area. According to the company’s Chief Executive Officer, the increase reflects the confidence which Star Entertainment has in Queensland and Brisbane. 
Australian and New Zealand casino operator 
GGRAsia reported that the LDP, its political partner 
A Scots clinic will be offering residential treatment to cryptocurrency aficionados who have got hooked on digital currencies trading, The Times reports. 
While the number of people addicted to cryptocurrency trading is unknown, it is believed that there are more than 13 million people trading around the world. 
It started off with 80 former WPT Main Tour Main Event champions, but it was Matthew Waxman who outlasted that elite field to become this year’s WPT Tournament of Champions winner. The player claimed the title and the first-place prize of $463,375 after picking off a bluff from his heads-up opponent Matas Cimbolas. 
Waxman was the player to set the two-handed match after he eliminated Elias in third place. The eventual champion entered heads-up as a chip leader with 2:1 advantage over Cimbolas. The first half of their duel saw chips swinging back and forth from one player to the other and vice versa. 
The second day of the WPT Tournament of Champions was completed on Saturday at Aria Resort & Casino. It started with 29 players but just five of them survived through the very end of the day and are still in contention for the title and the $463,375 first-place prize. 
Darren Elias came into the WPT Tournament of Champions fresh off the inaugural WPT Bobby Baldwin Classic, which he took down to win a record-breaking fourth title from the series. And if Day 1 of the Tournament of Champions belonged to Blieden, it can be said that Day 2 belonged namely to Elias. 
The WPT is about to wrap up another successful season. Once again the popular poker series is celebrating the end of its season with the WPT Tournament of Champions, a three-day event that features champions from the past year and is already taking place at Aria Resort & Casino in Las Vegas.
The first day of this year’s WPT Tournament of Champions concluded with Dennis Blieden leading the elite pack into the night. The player bagged and tagged 593,000 to lock a comfortable start to Day 2. 
Vietnam’s Laguna Lăng Cô has been awarded a casino license, the first such license the Vietnamese government has issued in a decade. 
Documents obtained by CalvinAyre.com showed that the City Prosecutors of Makati and Paranaque Cities have cleared Okada from any criminal liabilities after the government lawyers failed to find any probable cause to send the complaint of Tiger Resort Leisure and Entertainment Inc. (TRLEI), a subsidiary of Universal, to the lower court.
Darren Elias finally claimed a coveted fourth WPT title after a near miss earlier this season in Jacksonville. The player topped last night the elite field of the inaugural WPT Bobby Baldwin Classic to become the only one to have ever captured four titles from the series’ Main Tour. 
Little and Panzica were the first to leave the final table, their hopes for a third title thus being brought to an abrupt end. The players collected $74,520 and $97,795, respectively. Fast was then eliminated in fourth place, good for $130, 895. 
