Much to the delight of Las Vegas football fans and city officials, the Oakland Raiders became the second major professional sports team to decide to make the eventual move to southern Nevada this year.

Raiders owner Mark Davis initially relied on the funding of Las Vegas Sands founder Sheldon Adelson to bring his team to the city but had to find other financing when the casino magnate pulled out of the deal. (Image: Twitter)

The NFL team joined the NHL’s Vegas Golden Knights in Southern Nevada, though its road to the Strip was a lot bumpier than the one the hockey organization had to navigate.

The idea of leaving the Bay Area came as early as 2009 as the team was trying to get a new stadium built but was having little success. Two years later Al Davis died and his son Mark took control of the team.

He had no more luck getting Oakland to build a facility than his father did and in 2013 when the lease expired he started exploring alternatives to the Oakland Coliseum. Several possibilities and rumors started popping up periodically and included everything from sharing Levi Stadium with the San Francisco 49ers to being courted by San Antonio.

In 2015 the Raiders plan to return to the Los Angeles market fell through when the NFL rejected their relocation request. The Rams and the Chargers were picked to come to the Southern California market.

The whispers of the Raiders having interest in Sin City got louder and then became deafening when Davis met with Las Vegas Sands Owner Sheldon Adelson in January 2016 about getting his financial backing for a new 65,000 seat stadium. The casino magnate agreed and said he would put up $150 million of the then proposed $1.4 billion cost. He later increased that amount to $650 million. Davis would provide $500 million from a Goldman Sachs loan and a hotel tax would fund the rest.

Slowly owners of other NFL organizations began to warm to the idea of a football team in a town that offered sportsbetting. Jerry Jones, Robert Kraft, and Stan Kroenke, owners of the Cowboys, Patriots, and the now-Los Angeles Rams, all publicly declared their support for the Raiders move from Oakland.

One person who didn’t like the idea was NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. He was a staunch opponent of sportsbetting and sternly voiced his opposition to the plan.

By January of 2017 it looked like Goodell might get his wish. Adelson pulled out of the project taking his pledge of $650 million with him. Goldman Sachs then announced they were pulling its financing for Davis’ $500 million. Suddenly Davis was without more than half of the funds for the now budgeted $1.9 billion stadium and the deal was in danger of falling apart.

It took two months but Davis found another backer, getting Bank of America to pony up Adelson’s share and his loan at the beginning of March. The only detail left was approval by the owners. That happened three weeks later at the owners meeting in Phoenix as they voted 31-1 in favor of the move with only Miami Dolphins owner Stephen M. Ross dissenting.

The Raiders would move to Las Vegas for the 2020 season and Davis was exuberant after the decision.

“My father used to say that the greatness of the Raiders was in its future,” Davis said. “The opportunity to build a world-class stadium in the entertainment capital of the world will give us the opportunity to achieve that greatness.”

The post Las Vegas Hits NFL Jackpot in 2017 with Oakland Raiders Decision to Relocate appeared first on Casino.org.

With gambling expansion coming to Japan, lawmakers are looking to allow for family members to self-exclude their relatives that they feel may have a gambling addiction problem.

Professional poker is a tough field and it requires a great amount of diverse qualities and skills for one to establish themselves as a big name. The three players below have each established themselves as members of poker’s elite. However, they had felt forced for one reason or another to withdraw from the limelight. And 2017 turned out to be the year of their comeback or the year they have indicated that we could anticipate their comeback in near future.

Here are the three players that we have seen little of over the past several years, but we are quite certain that they have a lot to show.

Chris Ferguson has been praised by many for his qualities and skills of a poker player. However, he has drawn an equal amount of negativism towards himself due to his alleged involvement in the 2011 Full Tilt Poker Ponzi scheme scandal.

In a nutshell, Ferguson, who was co-founder of Full Tilt Poker, and three other individuals at the online poker room were indicted by the US Department of Justice for allegedly running a Ponzi scheme that had paid out nearly $450 million worth of players’ money to themselves. While Ferguson never admitted to being part of such a scheme and his guilt never was never proved, doubt over his integrity has remained within the poker community.

Following his indictment, the 2000 WSOP Main Event champion disappeared completely from poker. Little was heard of Ferguson in the years after 2011. The player eventually reappeared on the live poker stage last summer, when he joined the flock of WSOP participants in Las Vegas.

He cashed in ten events last summer, with his fourth-place finish in the $10,000 No-Limit Hold’em 6-Handed Championship marking his deepest run. While Ferguson made his official comeback last year, it can be said that it was this year that he made bigger headlines.

Following this year’s editions of the WSOP and WSOP Europe festivals, the player was crowned the 2017 WSOP Player of the Year. Ferguson cashed in 17 WSOP events during the summer series and in five more during the WSOP Europe that took place in October at King’s Casino Rozvadov in the Czech Republic to collect 1,178.53 points and top the prestigious ranking.

In Las Vegas, he made two final tables, finishing fourth in the $10,000 Pot-Limit Omaha Hi-Lo 8 or Better Championship for $150,929, and second in the $10,000 Seven Card Stud Championship for $151,700. In Rozvadov, he topped the field of the €1,650 Pot-Limit Omaha Hi-Lo 8 or Better for €39,289 and his sixth WSOP gold bracelet.

Ferguson clearly re-entered the world of live tournament poker with flying colors. However, there were quite a lot of people who were not ready to welcome him back happily. Daniel Negreanu, known to be among the most outspoken representatives of the global poker community, criticized his fellow player for never offering an apology to those affected by the 2011 Full Tilt Poker scandal.

Negreanu first commented on Ferguson’s return last year and maintained his stance this year, as well. He took to Twitter when Phil Hellmuth posted a picture of him and Ferguson on his profile during the WSOP Europe.

Despite the stream of negativity towards Ferguson, there were also players who seemed to be ready to give him a chance. In a recent podcast, UK poker pro Charlie Carrel dwelt that people should be nicer to the disgraced player. Carrel also went on to say that multiple poker insiders have told him Ferguson was almost certainly innocent.

After building a terrific poker career and reputation as one of the world’s most skillful poker professionals, Gus Hansen disappeared from the public eye and from the poker stage. Losing millions of dollars at the online tables of PokerStars and Full Tilt, the player made a life-changing decision to move away from poker, at least for a while and channel his attention to something completely different.

The player has been rumored to have lost over $20 million in high stakes cash games. He said in a 2014 interview with Danish poker news outlet Pokernyhederne, that he blamed himself for his bad run and that he was considering switching to lower stakes poker. Eventually, the player left the poker stage altogether for several years. Until last year.

First indications that the player was returning to poker appeared last summer when it was reported that he was seen at the cash game tables of various Las Vegas casinos. In a November 2016 interview with Poker News, the Great Dane, as he is known in the poker community, confirmed that he was planning to re-enter the poker stage in 2017. Hansen was seen at more cash games during the first half of the year.

This spring, he even made his first televised appearance. He took part in the Celebrity Cash Kings cash game festival at King’s Casino Rozvadov, playing against Antanas Guoga, Leon Tsoukernik, and Sam Trickett, among others.

Most recently, Hansen appeared in a prestigious live tournament. The player took part in this year’s WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic $10,400. Here it is interesting to note that he took down the first ever such event back in May 2002. This was his first in-the-money finish ever, and his first live tournament title ever. Hansen did not cash during the 2017 edition of the event, but at least we know now that he is making steps towards returning to poker.

Ivey has had quite a rough time off the felt over the past several years. The player is being sued by Atlantic City’s Borgata and failed in his attempt to sue London’s Crockfords Casino over its refusal to pay him out £7.7 million in baccarat winnings from 2012. Both lawsuits were related to his use of the controversial edge-sorting technique while playing baccarat at the two gambling venues with his companion player Cheung Yin Sun.

The more publicity the cases gained, the less we heard from Ivey, whom many consider one of the world’s best poker professionals and card players as a whole. One of the cases was concluded in October, but the outcome was not in the player’s favor.

Ivey lost his appeal to the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, with Supreme Court justices upholding the Court of Appeal’s decision from 2016 that Crockfords Casino should not pay the player his winnings due to his use of edge-sorting to gain advantage.

January 2016 was the last time the player cashed in a live tournament. He finished fifth in the $200,000 Triton Super High Roller for $656,500. The player has not taken part in a live tournament since then. What is more, few knew where he was exactly until the second half of 2017, when reports emerged that he was playing cash games at Macau casinos.

Many hoped that Ivey will return to the live tournament stage during the WSOP this summer. This did not happen, but it seems that the player has said in a recent interview with an Asian media outlet that he plans to make his comeback in 2018.

It is also important to note that Ivey was inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame this year, along with the late David “Devilfish” Ulliott.

The post Biggest Live Poker Comebacks of 2017 appeared first on Casino News Daily.

From powermongers like Sheldon Adelson to the billionaire Fertitta brothers, 2017 saw some gutsy and passionate moves by the gaming industry’s most illustrious movers and shakers.

Sheldon Adelson started the conversation of bringing the Oakland Raiders to Las Vegas, just one of 2017’s crowning moments in the gaming industry. But the Sands CEO didn’t get to reap the glory when all was said and done. (Image: Chip Somodevilla/Getty)

Whether it was millions of dollars in donations in times of crisis and natural disaster, political influencing in DC through campaign contributions, or multibillion-dollar deals towards professional sports teams, the gaming icons were busy in 2017.

Here’s a look back at some of the legacies these moguls created.

On October 1, gunman Stephen Paddock opened fire from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay onto the Route 91 Harvest country music festival crowd below. Some ten minutes later, 58 victims had lost their lives from his heavy artillery fire.

Stations Casinos, owned by Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta, gave $1 million, as did the UFC and Las Vegas-based retailer Zappos, with the latter also offering to cover every victim’s funeral costs.

Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta, who sold the UFC in 2016 for $4.2 billion, gave $10 million to University of Las Vegas, Nevada (UNLV) to help fund a new football training center. Along with Caesars, Sands, MGM, Boyd Gaming, and Konami Gaming, the Fertittas also gave $2.5 million to UNLV to help build Hospitality Hall, a new facility for the school’s top-ranked hospitality program.

Frank and Lorenzo’s third cousin, Tilman Fertitta, also made headlines, but in even richer fashion. The Golden Nugget owner and Texas native announced this fall that he was purchasing the NBA’s Houston Rockets for $2.2 billion.

Several Las Vegas gaming moguls got behind Donald Trump, a former casino owner himself, to help his ultimately successful bid for the White House. Adelson gave tens of millions of dollars to the Trump ticket, and is thought to have been the Republican Party’s biggest donor in 2016.

The Presidential Inaugural Committee, which was partially funded by casino kingpin money, was instrumental in Trump’s first important events as leader of the free world.

Adelson paid $5 million to help cover January’s inauguration costs. Steve Wynn picked up the $729,000 tab for the Make America Great Again! concert, fellow billionaire, friend, and Treasure Island casino owner Phil Ruffin donated over $1 million, and the Fertitta clan again stepped up, giving $707,000.

On the charitable front, this past fall, $3 million from the Presidential Inaugural Committee was used to aid in hurricane recovery relief in Texas, Florida, and the Caribbean.

Adelson usually gets what he wants, but in 2017, he walked away from being permanently involved with the NFL’s Raiders in Las Vegas. Adelson was the man who initiated the push with team owner Mark Davis to bring the franchise from Oakland to Sin City.

The Las Vegas Sands CEO had pledged $650 million of his own money in building a stadium, in what many called his “legacy project.” But earlier this year, Adelson left the building, after he learned that Davis and Clark County had reached a lease agreement without his involvement.

The post Achieving Immortality: Which Gaming Icons Left Their Mark in 2017 Through Charity, Politics, and Sports appeared first on Casino.org.

Building wealth is hard. Keeping and increasing that wealth is even harder. It requires deployment of smart strategies and risk-taking. The five people below have apparently found the recipe for building wealth. What is more, they have managed to overcome the challenges of being born into poverty and to create something better for themselves and for many others.

These five remarkable businessmen currently top Forbes’ richest gambling representatives list. And while they are involved in different sectors of the global gambling industry, it can be said that they have quite a lot in common. They have found what it comes down to to become a wealthy gambling boss, have come up with concepts all unique for the industry, and have spotted the right niche to eventually create and grow successful gambling enterprises. Here is how they have achieved what they have achieved.

Net Worth: $30.4 Billion (Forbes: December 2017)/Self-Made Billionaire

The stories of self-made billionaires who managed to take themselves from the streets to the top of world’s richest people lists are countless. And Sheldon Adelson, the founder of one of the world’s largest casino companies (if not the largest) has one such rags-to-riches story.

Mr. Adelson was born in 1933 in one of Boston’s poorer neighborhoods. He sold newspapers in his teenage years and later on entered The City College of New York, where he commenced his corporate finance studies. He left two years later, never finishing his degree. Little did the college dropout know that he would happen to become one of the rulers of the casino world.

Mr. Adelson was engaged in different business endeavors in the 1960s. In the early 1970s, he started a dedicated show for the computer industry, interest in which was growing quite rapidly at the time. The first edition of the show was held in 1973 and saw modest success. However, Mr. Adelson felt that he was on the right path and sold a number of his other businesses to dedicate his attention to the computer show.

The businessman’s work in the field eventually brought to life the Computer Dealers Expo (COMDEX) in the late 1970s. The event took place at MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas. It took less than a decade for it to become the largest computer-dedicated show in the world.

Adelson made his first foray into the casino world when he purchased the emblematic Sands Hotel and Casino, which had been known to be a favorite spot to stars like Frank Sinatra back in the 1950s. The property’s new owner redeveloped it into a multi-purpose complex that featured retail, dining, and entertainment facilities.

In 1990, Mr. Adelson opened the Sands Expo and Convention across the street from the Sands Casino. The center was the second largest one in the world at the time. It can thus be said that the businessman was the founder of what is now known as the MICE integrated resorts model. Multiple integrated resorts with meeting and convention space have been built over the past 27 years, following the success of Mr. Adelson’s endeavors and changing the casino, tourism, and hospitality industries for good.

The casino mogul further expanded his gambling and hospitality business in Las Vegas and later on in Macau and Singapore through Las Vegas Sands, the company he founded in 1998 gradually grew into the world’s largest casino operator. Its market cap stood at around $55 billion as of early December.

Las Vegas Sands Properties:

Sands Expo and Convention Center
The Venetian Las Vegas
Sands Macao
The Venetian Macao
The Palazzo Las Vegas
The Plaza Macao
Sands Bethlehem
Marina Bay Sands
Sands Cotai Central
The Parisian Macao

Net Worth: $16.4 Billion (Forbes: December 2017)/ Self-Made Billionaire

Carl Icahn is yet another billionaire businessman who was raised in relative poverty, but had a bent for business that eventually rocketed his name to the very top part of the world’s richest list. Icahn was born in 1936 and grew up in the Far Rockaway neighborhood in Queens, New York. The neighborhood was and still is quite a poor one.

His mother was a school teacher and his father was a lawyer and cantor at the neighborhood’s synagogue. Icahn himself said that he has always had a drive for success.

The businessman was a gifted student and was very keen on going to college. His parents said that they would pay his tuition fees only if he was admitted in an Ivey League college. Icahn applied to Harvard, Princeton, and Yale and was accepted by all three. He eventually picked Princeton where he studied philosophy. Icahn has said in interviews that his years at Princeton helped him succeed in his future business endeavors.

The businessman is widely known as one of Wall Street’s most colorful representatives and one of the most aggressive investors out there. Sometimes brash and controversial, his business tactics have won him the reputation of a corporate raider.

Icahn has been involved in different businesses over the years through his holding company Icahn Enterprises. The conglomerate has invested in real estate, auto parts, casinos, entertainment, and energy, among other things.

In 1998, Icahn was given the green light by the Nevada Gaming Commission to operate the bankrupt Stratosphere Casino and Arizona Charlie’s casino, which was under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection at the time. The businessman agreed to sell the two properties as well as the Boulder casino and Aquarius Casino Resort (both located in Nevada) and a portion of empty land in Las Vegas to Goldman Sachs’ Whitehall Street Real Estate Funds in 2007 for the total amount of $1.3 billion. The deal was completed at a profit of nearly $1 billion for Mr. Icahn.

The purchase and the subsequent sale of the unfinished Fontainebleau casino resort on the Las Vegas Strip was yet another highly profitable move. Mr. Icahn bought the property in 2009 for $156 million. Here it is important to note that the complex was under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection at the time. In 2015, the billionaire businessman listed Fontainebleau for sale at a price of $650 million. He sold the unfinished resort in August 2017 to investors New Valley LLC and Witkoff Group for the total amount of $600 million.

Mr. Icahn’s casino interests also spread to New Jersey and more specifically to Atlantic City. In 2009, the state’s Casino Control Commission backed the investor’s bid to assume control over Tropicana Casino Resort. His proposal to buy the then struggling property emerged a year earlier at a bankruptcy auction.

Back in 2009, Mr. Icahn was also battling now US President Donald Trump over the latter’s bankrupt Atlantic City casino resort business Trump Resorts Entertainment. The company was the owner of the now shuttered Trump Plaza, Trump Taj Mahal as well as of Trump Marina, which was bought by Tilman J. Fertitta’s Landry’s Inc. and now operates as Golden Nugget Atlantic City.

Mr. Icahn eventually acquired Trump Resorts Entertainment in 2015. Trump Plaza had already been shuttered by that time, and Trump Taj Mahal barely escaped bankruptcy. The latter property closed doors in October 2016 after a prolonged workers’ strike, during which staff picketed the casino resort over contract dispute with its owner. Mr. Icahn actually blamed Trump Taj Mahal’s closure on the strike. He sold the shuttered casino this spring to Florida-based casino developer Hard Rock International.

Net Worth: $12.1 Billion (Forbes: December 2017)/ Self-Made Billionaire

At the age of 88, Chinese businessman Lui Che Woo survived the atrocities of World War Two, grew up in extreme poverty, and used every lesson life served him to build his business empire. Mr. Lui is one of Asia’s wealthiest people and most successful entrepreneurs.

He was born in Mainland China’s Guangdong province, but spent most of his childhood in Hong Kong. At the age of 13, he became his family’s breadwinner. This was when he gradually began entering the world of business.

He sold peanuts for a while to support his five sisters and the rest of the family. Later on, Mr. Lui joined his uncle’s car parts company as a stock keeper. He founded his own car parts company after gaining experience at his uncle’s.

He made his “first pot of gold” when he sold heavy machinery left behind in Japan after the Korean war to Hong Kong contractors. This helped him launch K. Wah Group in the 1950s. It later on became the parent company for his other businesses.

Over the years, Mr. Lui expanded his operations across different fields including construction materials supply, real estate, hospitality, and casino gambling. He also extended his businesses’ footprint across Southeast Asia and the United States.

He entered the hospitality industry in the 1970s when he purchased a waterfront site to build what would become Hong Kong’s first star-rated hotel. The businessman believed that he was onto something big and that demand for world-class hotels in the region would explode. And he turned quite right.

In 2002, Mr. Lui founded Galaxy Entertainment Group, the company that later on became parent to his casino operations. The businessman decided to explore the world of gambling after the Chinese government had given the nod to the construction of casino venues in Macau. Galaxy Entertainment was selected as one of the six preferred bidders for the city’s gaming concessions.

The company now operates its flagship property Galaxy Macau, an integrated resort with a gaming floor and multiple hotel, entertainment, dining, retail, and convention facilities, as well as several city casino clubs. It has recently emerged that Galaxy Entertainment has partnered a Philippine developer to build a $500-million integrated resort on the Boracay Island.

Net Worth: $7.2 Billion (Forbes: December 2017)/ Self-Made Billionaire

The founder of international gambling company NOVOMATIC Group is yet another self-made billionaire. Mr. Graf was born in 1947 in Vienna, Austria. He was raised by his grandparents in a single-room apartment without running water.

He apprenticed as a butcher at a young age and his family hoped that he would take over their butcher business. However, Mr. Graf had different plans for his life. Sensing a good opportunity, he began importing pinball machines to his home country through Belgium. He distributed the gaming devices across cafés, pubs, and other facilities around Austria.

With the popularization of electronic gaming machines, Mr. Graf grabbed what he believed was yet another good opportunity to extend his business, and formed Novomatic Automatenhandels AG in 1980. The company saw a quick growth which allowed it to expand its geographic footprint to Switzerland and across the East Bloc.

NOVOMATIC has grown into a company that annually generates billions of dollars in revenue, produces slot machines, electronic table games, video poker and video lottery products, and runs a chain of land-based casinos, with most of the venues operating under the Admiral brand. NOVOMATIC has offices in more than 40 countries and supplies its products across 80 countries.

Net Worth: $4.5 Billion (Forbes: December 2017)/ Self-Made Billionaire

Mark Scheinberg and his father, Isai Scheinberg, are recognized as the founders of PokerStars, the world’s largest online poker room. Mr. Scheinberg was born in Israel in 1973, but moved to Canada with his family at the age of 13. He was admitted to Fanshawe College of Applied Arts and Technology in London, Ontario, but spent only a year there before dropping out and moving to Toronto.

In Toronto, he started a job in hospitality and spent the next several years of his life traveling around South America and Asia.

The Scheinbergs eventually entered the world of online gambling in September 2001, when they launched PokerStars. The website initially offered play-money games only. The real-money wagering options arrived in December 2001.

Mark and his father, an experienced computer programmer, held a controlling stake in PokerStars’ parent company, Rational Enterprises. Although the online poker room was launched at a time when the Internet was still a bit of a weird place, its popularity among players grew exponentially within a very short period of time.

It can be said that PokerStars was at the center of what has become known as the boom of online poker in the mid-2000s. In 2003, Chris Moneymaker won the WSOP Main Event after securing a seat into the world’s most prestigious No-Limit Hold’em tournament through a PokerStars online satellite. The next several years saw an explosion in demand for online poker, a trend that many dubbed the Moneymaker effect.

In 2011, Isai Scheinberg was one of the people indicted by the US Department of Justice on five charges related to the provision of real-money online poker services to US players in the years following the implementation of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006.

In 2014, the Scheinbergs sold their stake in PokerStars’ parent company, the Rational Group, to Canadian gambling company Amaya Inc. (now The Stars Group). The deal was at the time the largest one to have ever taken place within the online gambling space. With Canadian businessman David Baazov at the company’s helm, Amaya paid the amount of $4.9 billion for the online poker business.

The sale actually made Mark Scheinberg one of the world’s youngest billionaires. The businessman reportedly cashed around $3.6 billion from the deal. He has been investing in different other fields since cashing out from the Rational Group. It has recently emerged that he is participating in a development project for the construction of a multi-purpose complex in Madrid.

The post Wealthiest Gambling Bosses of 2017 – the Rags-to-Riches Stories of Five Remarkable Visionaries appeared first on Casino News Daily.

Bitcoin Cash (BCH) adoption is looking rosy. Coinbase and Gdax have all launched their BCH services recently and helped this young cryptocurrency gain further momentum. The time is ripe for the opening of the first BCH Embassy – and this community center will be located in Limassol, Cyprus, the region’s second-largest city.

The embassy opening is due in early 2018 and it will be a get-together venue for cryptocurrency enthusiasts and users where they will be able to exchange their ideas and views, attend seminars and discussions and meet experts of the industry. It will be opened by the same company that inaugurated the first Bitcoin ATM in Limassol one month ago – Hello Group.

There is a one key reason why Cyprus was chosen for this. The island has many financial offshore centers that are used by companies from the larger part of Europe and Middle East as well (being so geographically close to this region) that take this opportunity to quickly transfer their money overseas. Another fun fact also proves that the island is one of the unlikely cryptocurrency centers of the world: University of Nicosia (country's capital) is offering Msc in cryptocurrencies, making it the world's first academic institution to do so.

An increasing number of gambling operators are adopting BCH, businesses are also making it their own on a daily basis, it is more cost-effective and quicker than Bitcoin... these are all just some of the reasons why BCH is stirring excitement in the community. With Bitcoin breaking all the records this year and reaching new peaks in value (then stumbling down a bit again – at the time of this writing, Bitcoin value has dropped from $19000 to $13500, although it is expected to rise), transactions are now reported to be agonizingly slow: Roy Sebag, the founder of Goldmoney, has tweeted that he was waiting for 10 hours for a BTC transaction to complete, while he experienced no issues of such kind with BCH. Even the president and CEO of SBI Holdings, one of the largest financial firms in Japan, has stated that Bitcoin Cash is more true to the philosophy of the cryptocurrency than Bitcoin: “The vision of the original Bitcoin white paper written by Satoshi Nakamoto calls for a peer-to-peer electronic cash system. That is a powerful vision, and SBI Group will devote resources to enable a future world where Bitcoin Cash is used globally for daily payments.”

Source:

“Bitcoin Cash Embassy to Open in Limassol, Cyprus”, Mizrahi Avi, bitcoin.com, December 21, 2017.

After unwrapping their Christmas presents and emptying their Christmas socks, many would likely feel tempted to head to a nearby or not so nearby casino for some holiday edition poker action. If there are such avid poker players among our readers, we at Casino News Daily have compiled a list of some of the poker events that will take place in the week after Christmas and before New Year. Here is a little bit more information about these.

The Borgata Casino, one of the casinos gracing the emblematic Atlantic City Boardwalk, will welcome players between December 26 and December 29 to celebrate Christmas with them and to offer them the chance to take part in four No-Limit Hold’em tournaments.

A single single-day tournament will take place on each of the four days within the Deepstacks Challenge. The $120 No-Limit Hold’em with a guaranteed prize pool of $15,000 will open the poker bonanza at the Borgata. The buy-ins and the guaranteed prize pools will grow with every day.

The second day of the festival will welcome players for a $180 buy-in tournament with a guaranteed prize pool of $20,000. The third day will feature a $230 event with a guaranteed prize pool of $25,000. Finally, the festival will be concluded with a $300 buy-in tournament that will offer $40,000 in guaranteed money.

Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Hollywood, Florida, known to be a popular poker destination, will host an exciting festival in sunny Florida in the days between December 26 and December 30. Players will be able to enter six different tournaments, with those featuring different structures.

The two-day $250 No-Limit Hold’em Big Stack with $50,000 in guaranteed prize money will be the opening event. There will also be two tournaments with guaranteed prize pools of $25,000, a $350 No-Limit Hold’em Bounty and a $250 No-Limit Hold’em Big Stack. Fans of Deep Stack Turbo poker will be offered the opportunity to enter two such tournaments in the days between Christmas and New Year festivities. Both events will be $130 buy-in ones and will feature guaranteed prize pools of $15,000.

Holland Casino in the Dutch city of Breda will welcome players from here and there for a nice post-Christmas and pre-New Year festival. Dutch Open Poker Series action at the hosting gambling venue is set to begin on December 27 and to last all the way through December 30. As many as six tournaments are scheduled to take place within the series’ Breda stop.

A €250 No-Limit Hold’em Steal the Button event will open the festival at Holland Casino. There will also be a Deepstack Bounty event with a buy-in of €800 as well as a Turbo and a team event with buy-ins of €400 and €500, respectively. The Main Event will kick off on December 28 with a buy-in of €1,500.

The Christmas Edition of the German Poker Tour is set to take place on December 25-30 at King’s Casino Rozvadov. The festival will feature five tournaments and several satellites to the Main Event. The German Poker Tour will kick off with the €115 Christmas Deepstack with a guaranteed prize pool of €20,000.

The German Poker Tour Main Event with a buy-in of €299 will certainly be the most exciting tournament on the schedule. It will feature a guaranteed prize pool of €200,000. The event will take place from December 26 to December 30. It will include three starting flights and two more days of action.

The post Upcoming Poker Tournaments – Holiday Edition appeared first on Casino News Daily.

Casinos across the US and its territories, as well as in Macau, bore the wrath of Mother Nature over the past 12 months. In the end, it was gambling revenues that took the hit, as numerous Cat 4 and 5 hurricanes and typhoons pummeled both the American and Asian gaming markets in 2017.

Macau was hit hard by mother nature this past fall, with August’s Typhoon Hato causing severe damage. It was but one of a series of catastrophes that left its mark on the casino industry globally. (Image: Anthony Wallace/Getty)

Casino closures, guest room cancellations, and inaccessibility following storm damage were among the factors that caused the industry to feel the pain at the bottom line this past year.

The 2017 Atlantic hurricane season was hyperactive, with six major Category 3 or stronger storms hitting the US, Puerto Rico, and the Caribbean. Over 420 people died, and final damage estimates are predicted to be close to $200 billion across the board.

Harvey

The first major hurricane this year to make landfall in the US was Hurricane Harvey, a Category 4 storm that hit Texas and the Houston area in late August. While the hurricane devastated much of southeastern Texas, riverboat casinos located in nearby Lake Charles, Louisiana, were spared.

Despite being docked in Galveston, the Jacks or Better casino cruise ship got lucky. Just 50 miles southeast of Houston on the Gulf of Mexico, the company, not necessarily advisedly, resumed providing gambling tours just days after much of the state endured a Category 4 hurricane.

Hato

Almost at the exact time that Harvey was doing damage in Houston, over 8,000 miles away in Macau, Typhoon Hato was delivering massive blows to China’s special gaming enclave in August.

Executives from the six licensed casino companies in Macau, which will begin seeing permits expire as of 2020, stepped up to help aid in the city’s recovery. Combined, the six operators donated $26.7 million to Macau charities. Las Vegas Sands and its founder Sheldon Adelson led the way, with a $12.3 million pledge. Wynn Resorts gave $3.75 million to Macau, and another $3.75 million to Houston’s Harvey, an altruistic move, considering there are no legal land-based casinos in Texas.

Irma

Hurricane Irma, a Category 5 storm that was deemed the most powerful hurricane ever recorded in the Atlantic basin outside the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico, hit landfall in the US in early September. The storm pummeled towards Florida, but casinos and parimutuel tracks fared well.

Many gambling venues provided electricity and a climate-controlled escape, as power was slow to be restored in the southern part of the steamy and warm Sunshine State.

Maria

The final bad weather chapter in 2017 was devastating. Category 5 Maria targeted Puerto Rico, and made landfall on September 20. The storm caused catastrophic damage, and led to a humanitarian crisis, as hundreds of thousands went without fresh water, fuel, electricity, phone service, and other vital basic necessities for weeks.

Casino resorts across the island were closed for days after the storm, but began reopening in the weeks following Maria.

The post Casinos Pay Price for Unusually Stormy Year, as Mother Nature Lets Loose in 2017 appeared first on Casino.org.

With online cash game poker being in a state of decline for years, it was last summer when the regulators of four European segregated markets decided that something should be done, and done quickly. The French gambling regulator ARJEL initiated year-long discussions with its counterparts from Italy, Spain, and Portugal, which discussions produced the shared online poker liquidity agreement this summer.

The shared liquidity project will allow operators licensed in the four countries to merge their player pools in a bid to improve their profitability in the respective markets and to hopefully boost regulated cash game activity there. While it was expected that an initial phase of the shared liquidity network would be launched by the end of the year and later on became clear that this would not happen, significant progress was made in 2017 in relation to the project’s eventual realization. Here is what regulators and other participants in the scheme managed to do over the past 12 months and how this would contribute to the success of the shared liquidity scheme and to the coveted improvement of Europe’s cash game poker.

Portugal Completes Shared Liquidity Technical Standards Framework

The country completed the necessary step of crafting a technical standards framework in relation to the shared liquidity project in early 2017. Basically, the framework was important as it would make it possible for locally licensed poker operators to merge their Portuguese player pools with their player pools in the other participating countries.

The set of technical rules was reviewed by the European Commission and received the necessary approval in April, thus making it possible for Portugal to participate in the shared liquidity project.

Winamax Seeks Italian-, Spanish-, and Portuguese-Speaking Staff

French online poker operator Winamax made it known in late January that it was seeking Italian-, Spanish, and Portuguese-speaking staff for its planned expansion across Europe. With that, the poker room revealed its interest and intentions to participate in the shared liquidity project. Winamax is the largest poker operator in its domestic market, and it has probably seen a good opportunity to extend its footprint across other regulated jurisdictions through the shared liquidity scheme.

PokerStars Restricts French Site to Local Players Only

In early February, PokerStars announced that it would restrict its French operations to players located in France and its overseas territories. Prior to that, its .fr website had been available to players from other European jurisdictions where local regulations had not banned access to the online poker website.

The online poker room cited the constantly changing regulatory environment as a reason for its decision, but many also believed that the move could have been partially motivated by the upcoming launch of the shared liquidity network.

France, Italy, Spain, and Portugal Sign Shared Online Poker Liquidity Agreement

The online gambling regulators of the four participating countries signed the shared liquidity agreement at a special meeting in Rome, Italy on July 6, 2017. The inking of the agreement concluded a year of negotiations in relation to the project and its eventual implementation. And while it was an important step towards the realization of the shared liquidity scheme, the agreement was not the final step towards that goal. Regulators still had a lot to sort out before interested operators were able to merge their player pools from the four participating segregated markets.

For instance, they all had to present technical requirements and additional information in relation to the way poker services would be provided. France and Spain produced that information towards the end of July. Portugal, too, completed that step in the next few months.

Italy Misses Deadline for Call for License Applications

It was originally expected that Italy’s gambling regulator Agenzia delle dogane e dei Monopoli would launch a call for new license applications and for license renewals in late September. However, that move was never undertaken, and eventually risked Italy’s timely entry into the shared liquidity project. According to recent information, France would seek an early 2018 start of the project. And it seems that the country as well as Spain and Portugal will be able to launch the shared liquidity network within such timeframe. However, Italy is expected to join a bit later.

Italian Opposition to Shared Liquidity

Casino News Daily, along with other news outlets, reported in October that the shared liquidity scheme had quite some opposition in Italy.

Italian politicians, including Deputy Paola Binetti and Senator Franco Mirabelli, were among the powerful figures who voiced opposition to the online poker scheme. According to them, and other members of Italy’s political elite, the shared liquidity project would create conditions for illegal activities and increased gambling addiction rates.

Winamax Buys Italian License and Hires New Ambassadors

While Italian politicians were going vocal against the shared liquidity project, Winamax bought the Italian iGaming license of online gambling brand bet-at-home. The move would make it easier for the French poker operator to enter the Italian market than if it had waited for the local regulator to launch the application process for granting new licenses.

As part of its strategy to enter the four markets that participate in the shared liquidity project, Winamax added two new ambassadors to its team. Italy’s Mustapha Kanit and Spain’s Adrian Mateos were recruited to promote the French poker brand in their homelands and across Europe.

PokerStars Receives First Shared Liquidity License

Earlier this month, PokerStars became the first online poker operator to receive the green light to participate in the shared liquidity project from French iGaming regulator ARJEL. Under the terms of its license, PokerStars will have to make sure that it merges its player pools only in the four participating jurisdictions. Here it is interesting to note that PokerStars is the only online poker operator that is licensed to operate in each of the four countries, and many believe that it will be the single big winner from the upcoming launch of the scheme.

It very much seems that France is pushing for early 2018 launch of the shared liquidity project. The country was actually the main initiator of the whole scheme, when it passed a law last summer that allowed it to enter shared liquidity negotiations with other interested countries.

As reported earlier this month, Spain and Portugal might be ready to join the project upon launch. As for Italy, it will probably have to wait a little longer as it is yet to renew the licenses of its existing iGaming industry stakeholders and to issue licenses to new operators. It is believed that the country will enter the project at a later point in 2018. It is yet to be seen whether this will happen and how the shared liquidity scheme will impact the online poker environment of the four participating countries and of Europe as a whole.

The post Shared Online Poker Liquidity Progress: Will the Project Go Live in 2018? appeared first on Casino News Daily.

Online betting giant GVC Holdings is closing out the year in style with the announcement of coming to a deal to purchase Ladbrokes Coral for a whopping £4 billion.

Casino companies spent a lot of time and effort focused on non-gaming entertainment in 2017, not so much of a surprise after visitor spend on non-gambling activities in 2016, such as hotel stays, dining, dancing, and attending shows, accounted for 55 to 65 percent of casino resort revenues.

Las Vegas resorts are more committed than ever to their non-gaming features. (Image: Daylight Beach Club/Mandalay Bay)

From Las Vegas to Macau, to regional casinos around the world, non-gaming became a buzzword in the board rooms of numerous gambling and hospitality conglomerates.

Plenty of factors led to gaming bosses deciding to look at non-gaming. Millennials, and their seemingly low interest in playing simple games of chance like slot machines, are one cause. Economic factors, first generated by a worldwide recession in the late 2000s, are also to blame.

But whatever the true root cause, it’s undeniable that in 2017 non-gaming was a key topic in the world of gaming.

In Macau, focusing on non-gaming was out of necessity, as resorts sought to become less reliant on high roller play due to People’s Republic President Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign. After years of gaming revenues growing at exponential rates, topping out at $45 billion in 2013, China began more closely monitoring VIP junket companies that were transporting wealthy mainlanders to the only area of the country where gambling is permitted.

Catering to more of the mass market instead of VIPs paid off. “Las Vegasization” became the term referring to resorts overhauling their amenities.

The Las Vegas Sands’ Parisian hotel opened with a water park, shopping center, and half-sized replica of the Eiffel Tower. And the newly opened Wynn Palace gives visitors breathtaking views of the Strip on its “SkyCab” ride.

In the US, the millennial demographic, those born between 1981 and 1997, are beginning to start families and settle down. The 20- and 30-something adult demo has long been a coveted age range for Las Vegas, but the current group isn’t sitting down at the slots at nearly the same rates of their preceding generations.

Las Vegas has also begun booking younger and hipper residencies. No longer is it just Cher, Celine, and Wayne Newtown gracing Strip marquees, but also millennial-cherished names such as Britney, Mariah, J-Lo, and the Backstreet Boys.

When it comes to bringing new people to Sin City, casinos in Las Vegas were thrown a bone in 2017 through the inclusion of pro sports. The NHL Golden Knights began play at T-Mobile Arena this year, and the NFL’s Oakland Raiders soon will be renamed the Las Vegas Raiders.

The most obvious non-gaming movement came from Las Vegas’ biggest casino operator. In September, MGM released an over-the-top marking campaign titled Welcome to the Show.

The one minute commercial spot makes no reference to actual gambling, instead focusing on MGM’s wide array of nightlife, dining, entertainment, and what they call the “Holy Sh*t Business.”

“The world’s leading producer of OMG,” MGM declared.

The post How ‘Non-Gaming’ Became a Casino Industry Buzzword in 2017 appeared first on Casino.org.

TokenStars, the first celebrity management platform on the blockchain, today announces the launch of the Charity Crypto Xmas Auction. Worldwide famous stars will donate their personal items to one of the first auctions powered by blockchain. Each item is unique and will be sold to the donor who places the highest bid. All money goes directly to the charity picked by each celebrity

The charity event will start on December 20th and will last until January 7th. Participants can bid in BTC, ETH and TokenStars ACE tokens. Blockchain will ensure the transparency of donations and will help increase the volume of proceeds, as well as enable to track every transaction and see what path the donations took. Once the auction is over, TokenStars will publish a report showing all the transactions.

TokenStars is among the first blockchain platforms to be used it for charity purposes. The idea received massive support from the famous athletes and musicians, including:

The items to be sold include the original jerseys, tennis tanks, racquets, balls and high-class professional ski gear from the celebrities with their personal signatures. Each item will go to the participant who places the highest bid. The starting bid for each item is $250.

All the money raised will go to nonprofit organisations all over the world, chosen by the celebrities. The list of charities includes FC Herzogenaurach Youth Development, Downside Up, Right to Play, Laureus Sport for Good and the Marat Karpeka Lemur Foundation.

Lothar Matthäus, a German football star, FIFA World Cup winner and the first ever FIFA World Player of the Year said, “Using technology to create positive impact is a wonderful idea. I’m especially excited that proceeds from the auction will be donated to FC Herzogenaurach youth team, a football club where I began my career. I know how it’s important to support young players and help them develop their talent, and I’m honored to be part of it!”

“We at TokenStars truly believe that kindness is the best way to countdown to Christmas. We also understand how transparency and trust are important for the charity. So we came up with an idea of the charity event, powered by blockchain, the most transparent and secured technology,” says Pavel Stukolov, CEO at TokenStars. “We highly appreciate the support from all the celebrities who responded to our initiative. The items they’ve donated are absolutely unique and extremely valuable for anyone who is passionate about sports and music. We are honored to join forces with such established names in order to draw more attention to the charities”.

To learn more about the auction and participate, please visit our website.

TokenStars is the first celebrity management platform on the blockchain, providing advanced tools and incentives for deeper interaction between stars, fans, and advertisers. Having successfully started with the ​​ACE ​t​oken sale ​f​or ​t​ennis ($4.9M+ raised as of the sale end date!), ​TokenStars has enhanced its team with top-notch experts and stars to launch the TEAM token: Lothar Matthäus, Valery Karpin (football), Tommy Haas, Robin Söderling, Cedric Pioline, Anastasia Myskina (tennis), Nikita Kucherov (hockey), Alexander Anter (poker) and Rico Torres (Hollywood) are among the celebrities supporting TokenStars. Learn more about the project here.

The post Charity Crypto Xmas – Discover the Celebrity Auction on Blockchain! appeared first on Bitcoin Chaser.

A year of big changes may be coming for Atlantic City and New Jersey’s gambling industry. In the first place, Atlantic City, once the only casino gaming hub on the US East Coast, will see the re-opening of at least one previously closed casino. This is hoped and expected to boost the city’s casino industry after a streak of unpleasant events from the past several years.

In the second place, New Jersey might emerge the winner from a legal battle against major US sports leagues over the legality of sports betting in the state and the nation. The lawsuit is currently reviewed by the Supreme Court, and it is believed that a ruling will be issued sometime in the first half of 2018.

Prior to 2008, when the Great Recession sunk its teeth into the US, Atlantic City was one of the world’s most popular casino destinations. With the major economic crisis and the opening of new casinos in other states along the East Coast, the city gradually lost its luster and clientele to experience unprecedented drop in gaming revenue. That eventually culminated in the closure of five casinos over a period of two and a half years.

It can be said that Atlantic City has improved significantly since five of its twelve casinos closed doors between 2014 and 2016. What is more, there has been growing investment interest in the city and its casino industry.

The spring purchase of the former Trump Taj Mahal casino resort by Florida-based operator Hard Rock International came as a very clear signal that Atlantic City may be ready to move on from its tumultuous times. Hard Rock pledged $500-million investment into renovating and reopening the gambling venue, originally owned by US President Donald Trump, and expressed optimism about its future success. The property is slated to open doors in the summer of 2018.

Earlier this month, news emerged that another closed property may reopen next year. The former Revel, which opened in 2012 and was shuttered in 2014 after failing to make a profit, was reportedly sold to Colorado-based AC Ocean Walk LLC for $200 million. Florida real estate developer Glenn Straub, the current owner of the closed casino resort, denied reports about the sale.

However, those reports were joined by ones according to which AC Ocean Walk has applied for a casino license with the New Jersey Casino Control Commission with the intention to restart operations at the property in 2018.

It is still to be confirmed whether the sale and the reopening will take place. If this happens, this will mean that nine casinos will be welcoming patrons on the Boardwalk at a time when Atlantic City is striving for revival.

The US Supreme Court held its first hearing on the sports betting case earlier this month. While a decision may be up to half a year from being made, supporters of the legalization of sports betting saw indications of support from the nation’s highest ranking court and are optimistic about a positive outcome.

During the hearing, there were justices who commented on the fact that the current federal law prohibiting sports betting in the country actually does not have the right to “tell [New Jersey] how to legislate”. If this argument gains more support, this may result in a ruling that will change the gambling landscape not only in New Jersey, but also in the US as a whole.

According to information from the American Gaming Association, over $150 billion is annually wagered on sports by Americans. If sports betting is regulated and legalized beyond the four states where the activity is currently legal (those being Nevada, Delaware, Montana, and Oregon), this will create one of the world’s largest sports gambling markets.

However, analysts voiced concerns that even if New Jersey’s case gains support from Supreme Court justices, their ruling may be narrowed to just that state, and may not involve a general lift of the current nationwide ban.

The post New Jersey’s Gambling Industry Enters Year of Big Changes appeared first on Casino News Daily.