iGaming Business – The UK Gambling Commission has announced it is to host a series of training workshops across the country to help local councils identify and manage the siting of illegal gaming machines in their respective constituencies. Training will be provided by Westminster City Training in partnership with the Gambling Commission’s Local Authority Liaison Unit (LALU), the latter of which regularly supports UK councils and polices forces on joint operations to remove illegal gaming machines. Many of the courses, a number of which are already fully booked, will be hosted in casino premises in order to give participants first-hand…

KITV – The Honolulu City Council is considering making it illegal to own a gambling machine. Councilman Joey Manahan says he wants to give law enforcement more tools to crack down on gambling. He says more establishments with sweepstakes machines have been popping up and neighbors have complained. The bill would make it a misdemeanor to manage, maintain, produce, possess or use the machines. It would be punishable by up to 30 days in jail and a $1,000 fine. Companies that own the machines say they are not gambling devices. SOURCE

Sacramento Bee – The signs of decay linger on Virginia Street, the main casino corridor in “The Biggest Little City in the World.” Pawn shops and cut-rate motels line up alongside the high-end hotel towers. The strip is still pocked with shuttered casinos, victims of the recession and burgeoning competition from Northern California’s Indian tribes. But signs of comeback – slow and steady – are evident as well. Construction crews are turning the old Fitzgeralds casino, closed since 2008, into the outdoor-themed Whitney Peak Hotel. A small slot-machine parlor called Siri’s Casino soon will open next door. In nearby Sparks,…

Las Vegas Review Journal – Professional poker standout Phil Ivey has been sued in federal court by the Borgata in Atlantic City, which claimed the $9.6 million he won at the casino in 2012 was earned through cheating at high-stakes mini-baccarat. The casino, which is 50 percent-owned and managed by Las Vegas-based Boyd Gaming Corp., claims Ivey, one of the world’s best known poker players, manipulated a defect in the playing cards through a special manner of dealing that he requested. According to the lawsuit, filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in New Jersey, Ivey was assisted in the scheme…

Investors – Las Vegas Sands, Wynn Resorts, MGM Resorts International and others with casinos in Macau could be negatively affected by a slowdown in gambling revenue in the Chinese gaming hotspot. Wells Fargo analyst Cameron McKnight said in a report Monday that channel checks show April gaming revenue in the former Portuguese colony, now the top global casino gambling destination, is trending between 5% and 10% growth, well below the bank’s earlier midteens estimate. McKnight had earlier said he expected a slowdown in Macau gaming revenue in mid-2014, due to a possible slowdown in the high-roller “VIP” segment gaming that…

Caesars Entertainment will tap the Montreal market for gambling customers by combining hotel packages with new charter flights between Atlantic City and upstate New York. Service from Plattsburgh, N.Y., to Atlantic City International Airport will begin April 23 and run through August using jets operated by Republic Airways, which handles air charters for Caesars’ casino hotels across the country. Garry Douglas, president of the North Country Chamber of Commerce in Plattsburgh, noted that the summer charter flights will extend Caesars’ reach into the potentially lucrative Montreal metropolitan market consisting of 3.5 million people. “We are Montreal’s U.S. airport,” Douglas said…

Augmented Reality services provider Bitstars has announced the launch a new “provably fair” Bitcoin casino. Offering a range of games already available in the traditional online gaming market, the company said the new Bitstars.net casino offers the added benefits associated with the Bitcoin virtual currency. Bitstars said the new service utilities crypto technology, which means players can see and verify that the game has not been tampered with using the hashing system, as neither they nor the casino software can alter the game after the hash has been sent without it being visible upon checking. Players are able to check…

Motley Fool – Macau’s gaming market is now seven times the size of the Las Vegas Strip and outgrew the Sin City 18.5% to 4.8% in 2013. So, we should at least be pondering if there’s an upper limit to how large the market can grow. It’s the growth of Macau’s overall market that will really drive Las Vegas Sands, Wynn Resorts, Melco Crown, and MGM Resorts over the next few years. Other than trading market share between one another and the other two concessionaires, SJM and Galaxy, that’s the only way to grow. First, let’s look at the size of…