Gambling Kingz – The UK based Rank Group, one of the country’s largest gambling entities, has confirmed that it is examining the Northern Ireland market for the possible construction of a casino. Rank said that it has been involved in talks with political groups and lawmakers over Northern Ireland’s first casino, planned to be built in Belfast. Rank believes that up to 200 new jobs could be created in the new multimillion pound complex. A model of the complex, which will also feature hotels and restaurants, will be presented sometime this month. Rank, which manages 55 casinos across Britain, has…

iGaming Business – PMU’s move away from offline pari mutuel and focus on online betting, poker and international business enabled it to make up for a 3% drop in the French group’s historic vertical as tough economic conditions continue to impact its traditional customer base across France in 2013. The group, which describes itself as France’s number one site overall for betting and gaming, recorded a 22,4% rise in online betting stakes to €199m thanks to strong interest in the country’s Ligue 1 football championship and a 10% rise in online poker stakes to €570m during 2013. Gross gaming revenues…

Gambling regulator data on Macau gaming stocks released Thursday showed that three dozen casinos raked in 33.5 billion patacas ($4.2 billion) in December. That brought revenue for 2013 to 360.8 billion patacas ($45 billion), up 18.6 percent from the year before. Macau’s results smashed even the most optimistic expectations, according to an article in the Las Vegas Review-Journal. One analyst told the Review-Journal that 2014 is expected to be an even bigger year for casino operators in Macau. Analyst Grant Govertsen of Union Gaming Research estimated that Macau’s take would be more than seven times the amount earned on the…

Los Angeles Times – Obama administration policies stimulating an expansion of tribal gambling have touched off new battles over proposed tribal casinos in California and elsewhere. Since President Barack Obama took office, the Department of the Interior has recognized dozens of new tribes and approved requests from a handful of others to acquire land that could house a casino, contingent on deals between the tribes and their home states. The department rejected nearly all such applications under President George W. Bush. The federal decisions are causing a ripple effect in California, home to 109 federally recognized tribes, 62 of which…

Macau Daily Times – As Macau’s gambling revenue hits the remarkable value of USD45 billion, casino operators also need to go beyond gambling and closed-door VIP rooms to draw the Chinese upper middle classes’ attention toward other forms of entertainment. According to a feature story published yesterday in UK newspaper The Guardian, “investors say Macau’s bet on the continued prosperity of the middle class is a safe one.” A special correspondent – sent to investigate how this peculiar economy has been shaped around the casino industry over the past years – describes Macau as “a fitting Chinese counterpoint, a temple…

Finance Asia – Asia’s gaming industry is on a roll and attracting a wider array of investor as dominant centre Macao continues expanding and as rival locations emerge. Because casino developments are capital-intensive and can take 2-3 years to complete, gaming companies have historically tended to attract different types of investors with different needs over different phases of a development. They have tended to raise funds in a cycle by issuing equity first and then high-yield or convertible bonds and, finally, by getting syndicated bank loans, industry experts say. But what’s evident from the gaming sector’s capital raising efforts in…