iGaming Business – Gamblers in the Scottish city of Glasgow spent over £800 million (€956.1 million/$1.3 billion) on fixed odds betting terminals (FOBTs) over the past year. According to the Herald newspaper, a total of £1,400 in bets per capita was played on FOBTs in Scotland’s biggest city in 2011-12. In addition, new figures also showed a 20% rise in the amount of betting shops since gaming laws were loosened in 2005. Glasgow is now home to 250 betting shops, up from 210 shortly after the change in law around eight years ago. Campaigners have put the rise in the…

Land-based gaming operator Caesars Entertainment Corporation has confirmed that its subsidiary, Caesars Entertainment Operating Company, has agreed to acquire the non-gaming assets of the Atlantic Club Casino Hotel in the US state of New Jersey in a bankruptcy auction. The takeover is still reliant on approval from the bankruptcy court. While the Caesars deal includes the acquisition of the real property, the Atlantic Club’s gaming assets are being acquired by another buyer. The Atlantic Club’s current owner indicated that it plans to close the site on January 13, 2014, with Caesars expecting to close the purchase of the property shortly…

The American Gaming Association – In recent years, thousands of “Internet sweepstakes cafes” have sprung up in storefronts, gas stations and convenience stores in more than a dozen states. Carefully designed to take advantage of state sweepstakes laws and to avoid state antigambling laws and gambling licensing restrictions, Internet sweepstakes cafes are estimated to earn more than $10 billion a year with games that closely mimic the experience of traditional slot and video poker machines. The cafes advertise and sell a product — usually Internet time or long-distance telephone minutes — that the gambler does not actually want. . ….

New York Post – Hard Rock International is in deep talks to buy Atlantic City’s troubled Revel Casino, two sources close to the situation told The Post. The 20-month-old money-losing Revel, which has been through a Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization this year, said last month it had hired Moelis & Co. to explore strategic alternatives. It started looking for a buyer in June, The Post reported exclusively at the time. Orlando, Fla.-based Hard Rock, whose eight casinos contribute to total corporate revenue of roughly $4 billion, has been looking to establish an Atlantic City presence. In September 2012, it canceled…

Spectator.co.uk – The puritan, as devotees of Baltimore’s finest know, is greatly exercised by the fear that someone, somewhere, might be enjoying themselves. Ed Miliband is a puritan. And a hopeless, nagging, fish-faced puritan at that. A ninny, in other words. The Labour leader has a rare gift. He knows, you see, how you should spend your money. What’s more, if you fail to spend your cash in the proper Miliband-approved manner he thinks he should be – nay is! – entitled to coerce you into changing your miserable behaviour. Of course he is not alone in that. Many politicians…

Out-Law.com – Major changes are expected next year in the way remote gambling is regulated and taxed in Great Britain. The reforms, if introduced as currently expected, will fundamentally alter the way in which remote gambling is licensed and will also signal profound changes to the existing tax regime. But it appears likely that the proposed reforms will be subject to a legal challenge by gambling companies operating out of Gibraltar – the tax haven where many of the UK’s best known bookmakers are based and regulated. The issue is just one of a number of developments in the gambling…