Courier Journal – Gov. Steve Beshear acknowledged Wednesday that the effort he supports to pass expanded gambling legislation in this year’s session is challenged, but added it’s not dead yet. “I think it’s premature to say that it is dead at this point,” he said. “It is a work that is in progress.” The Senate Republican majority caucus discussed the issue on Monday and decided not to move forward, with Sen. Dan Seum, R-Louisville and sponsor of the Senate Bill 33 casino amendment, saying he still lacked the 23 votes to pass the amendment in the 38-member Senate. Senate Majority…

247 Wall Street – Melco Crown Entertainment Ltd. (NASDAQ: MPEL), one of Macau’s biggest casino operators, said profit doubled in the fourth quarter, thanks to its ability to attract so-called premium mass market gamblers. The company is now even moving toward paying its shareholders a dividend. Melco Crown declared a special dividend of $0.34 per American Depositary Receipt (ADR), or $0.115 a share. The company also proposed a dividend policy of 30% of net income. This dividend news has been floated ahead of time by some analysts, but a 30% payout of income initially is strong. The company earned $0.40…

iGaming Business – Gaming products designer and manufacturer International Game Technology (IGT) has announced the appointment of Jim Veevaert as the new vice-president of games at its DoubleDown Casino. Veevaert has spent 20 years in the gaming industry, having held a number of executive positions at the likes of Zynga, Jerry Bruckheimer Games, Microsoft and Vivendi/Sierra Entertainment. In his new role, Veevaert will oversee the long-term game strategy for DoubleDown Casino on social networking website Facebook and mobile devices, as well as championing product initiatives. “IGT’s DoubleDown Casino is the authentic social casino experience, and I’m excited to be joining…

iGaming Business – The UK Gambling Commission has reported that the number of people in the country participating in gambling activities dropped by 2% in the past year. In a study entitled ‘Gambling participation: activities and mode of access’, the regulatory body reported that 55% of respondents had participated in at least one form of gambling in the previous four weeks. The figure was down from 57% in 2012. Punters were most likely to have gambled ‘once a month, less than once a week’ although a significant number of respondents said their participation was ‘once a week’. The report also…

iGaming Business – The Italian Senate has passed an amendment to a government finance bill that will ban radio and television gambling advertising in the country. According to the Pokernews.com website, the amendment proposed to introduce a ban against the advertisement of real-money gambling. The amendment, which did not mention online gambling, was introduced by Socialist party Senator Riccardo Nencini as part of an effort to clamp down in compulsive gambling. Although having been initially opposed by several members of the government, the amendment passed with a unanimous vote and will now return to the Italian House of Representatives for…

The Conversation – “Aboriginal gambling” has become something of a hot-button issue in recent years. A number of academic research articles have documented the “risk factors” for Aboriginal people that increase their likelihood of develop gambling problems – enough to justify a recent overview paper by the Centre for Gambling Education and Research at Southern Cross University. Governments have not been lax in responding to the perceived evils of Aboriginal gambling. Gambling was one of four goods and services that the 2007 Northern Territory Intervention explicitly banned for the purposes of income management. Police in one remote NT community reportedly…