Courier Mail – TOWNSVILLE’S casino will be sold to a hotel and brewing group linked to entrepreneur Chris Morris, the gaming venue’s owner Echo Entertainment revealed on Friday. The price of $70 million is close to the $75 million price tag Echo was murmured to be seeking late last year when it raised the idea of selling the 20-table, 320 gaming facility. The buyer is Colonial Leisure Group, which bought in 2011 the luxury Orpheus Island on the Great Barrier Reef. CLG said it runs 15 hotels in Victoria and Western Australia along with a brewery in the west. In…

Vegas Inc – For years, gaming regulators have created barriers between debit or credit cards and slot machines so that gamblers wouldn’t drain their bank accounts or ruin their credit ratings. While they’ve allowed automated teller machines at casino properties, regulators have never crossed the line of enabling players to put their cards into a slot machine to access money directly. But now, a Las Vegas company is proposing a change in state gaming regulations that would allow the use of a prepaid card for slots that puts casinos one step closer to a player’s bank account. The biggest trade-off…

Daily Herald – The lawmaker seeking approval for expanded gambling in Illinois will conduct several hearings to get public input. Rep. Bob Rita, a Blue Island Democrat, said Thursday that the first hearing will be Jan. 28 at the Casino Queen riverboat casino in East St. Louis. Rita took over the expansion plan last spring after Gov. Pat Quinn vetoed past attempts for lacking ethical and legal safeguards. The idea would add five casinos — including one in Chicago — and slot machines at the city’s airports and the state’s horse racing tracks. Rita says he believes expanded gambling would…

iGaming Business – The New York State Gaming Commission has drafted in UK National Lottery operator Camelot Group to draw up a five-year plan to revive the US state’s New York Lottery competition. According to the Financial Times newspaper, Camelot will carry out market research on potential new lottery games to help ease the Commission’s worries about losing gambling revenue market share to casinos. The appointment of Camelot has also raised the prospect of the US state embracing online gambling products in order to combat the growing competition from other forms of gambling. The news will come as a boost…

iGaming Business – Online affiliate and sportsbetting service Freebets.com has announced its first foray into major horseracing sponsorship as part of an effort to boost its presence in the industry. The firm will lend its name to the 1:50 Grade Three Freebets.com Trophy Chase at Cheltenham Racecourse this Saturday at the track’s Festival Trials Day event. Previously known as the Murphy Group Steeplechase, the race has a prize fund of £50,000 (€60,761/$83,116) and the winner is likely to return to The Festival at the racecourse in March. The race has attracted 19 runners at the provisional stage, with six previous…

Bloomberg – Caesars Entertainment Corp., Genting (GENS) Singapore Plc and MGM Resorts International are in discussions with the Osaka government on plans for a 500 billion yen ($4.8 billion) casino resort. Officials met with Caesars and Genting last year and are scheduled to sit down with MGM in the next few months as Japan’s second-biggest metropolis expects Japan to end its ban on casinos, Osaka Prefecture Governor Ichiro Matsui said in an interview. “It’s just a matter of time before casinos are legalized,” he said. A gambling complex on reclaimed land Osaka owns would lure investment and tourists to a…