Billionaire Sheldon Adelson’s casino company is paying almost $7 million to U.S. authorities to end a more than five-year corrupt practices investigation of the firm’s former relationship with a consultant in Macao and China, company and federal officials said Thursday. With the agreement, Las Vegas Sands Corp. resolved twin probes of more than $60 million paid to an unnamed agent retained in 2006 to acquire a Chinese basketball team, plus other business dealings that include a Beijing real estate deal to promote casinos on the Cotai Strip of Macao, U.S. Justice Department and FBI officials said. The $6.96 million penalty…

Nevada casinos posted profits in fiscal 2016, the first time the industry has been in positive territory since before the Great Recession. This week, the Nevada Gaming Control Board released their annual Nevada Gaming Abstract, which showed the 273 gaming venues that earned more than $1m in revenue in the 12 months ending June 30, 2016 generated a combined income of $979m versus a net loss of $662m in fiscal 2015. Overall revenue at state-licensed gaming venues reached $25.2b, up from $24.6b in fiscal 2015, and only around $100m off the all-time peak of $25.3b in fiscal 2007. Casinos also…

Atlantic City casinos posted their first annual gaming revenue gains in a decade, and the credit is primarily due to their online gambling operations. Figures released Thursday by the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement show the state’s seven surviving casinos generated brick-and-mortar gaming revenue of $189.7m in December, a 6.8% gain over December 2015. Throw in the $18.4m generated by state-licensed online gambling sites and the year-on-year gain rises to 8.6%. If you compare only the revenue generated by the seven casinos that were open to the public in both Decembers, the year-on-year brick-and-mortar gain rises to 13.6%, while…

William Hill, America’s leading Race & Sports Betting company, is partnering with Caesars Entertainment to bring back pari-mutuel simulcast wagering to the Horseshoe Council Bluffs Casino. Bettors at the William Hill Race Book inside the Horseshoe Council Bluffs Casino will be able to wager on major Thoroughbred, Harness, and Greyhound tracks from around the country – seven days a week. The simulcasting area will be adjacent to the main Casino floor and include a state-of-the-art Sports Bar and video wall. Pending regulatory approvals and the construction schedule, the William Hill Race Book will open prior to the 2017 Kentucky Derby….

Two video lottery terminal (VLT) users have cleared a hurdle in their legal fight against Canada’s Atlantic Lottery Corporation (ALC) over practices that they claimed are deceptive, dangerous and illegal. The legal battle dates back to 20017, when lead plaintiff Douglas Babstock and Fred Small filed a lawsuit accusing ALC of designing its VLT line of games to be deceptive. In the lawsuit, Babstock said the machines—which he started using in the late 1990s—“gradually sucked away his money” and took over his life. To have the lawsuit certified, the group’s lawyers dug deep into the past and found a more…

The gambling industry in the state of New Jersey has seen better days. Lawmakers of the state have been trying to come up with ways to give the industry a boost, especially after a referendum to allow two casinos in the northern portion of the state was shot down by voters in November. Now, it seems that lawmakers have created a bill to try and expand the online gambling industry in efforts to bring in much-needed revenues. The new bill would allow casino operators of the state to partner with the Meadowlands Racing & Entertainment venue as well as the…

Apparently, skill gaming is the border dividing casino gambling and video games lies somewhere between a nightclub and a sports book — at least that’s where Hakkasan Group will open a space named Level Up in MGM Grand later this month. Level Up — which Hakkasan describes as a social lounge — will sit between Hakkasan and the sports book and will be roughly divided into two areas. One is a new arena with stadium seating where 40 gamblers at a time can play social versions of table games, such as blackjack, poker, keno and roulette. At craps, roulette or…

A dozen politically powerful American Indian tribes are not likely to reach the consensus needed to move an online poker bill in the 2017 California legislative session, tribal officials said this week. A tribal/card room coalition with Amaya/PokerStars plans to again introduce legislation to legalize California online poker, Robert Martin, chairman of the Morongo Band of Mission Indians, told Online Poker Report Wednesday. But Martin, whose tribe is business partners with PokerStars, the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians and three Los Angeles area card rooms, is not optimistic other tribal governments will agree on bill language that will grant…