Murren’s comments came via an interview with News3LV in Las Vegas, in which he touched on a number of subjects. At the end, the interviewer broached the subject of online gambling; Murren spent more than four minutes talking about the issue, sometimes passionately. Loosely referencing the Sheldon Adelson-backed effort to ban online gambling at the federal level — the Restoration of America’s Wire Act — Murren once again dismissed the idea that prohibition is an effective way to deal with the issue: “People are gambling illegally online — Americans — right now,” Murren said. “We don’t know how old they…

Chinese police have arrested 15,000 people on suspicion of cybercrimes (including gambling) as the government tightens its control over the Internet, the Ministry of Public Security said Tuesday. Police throughout the country have investigated more than 7,400 cases of possible cybercrimes, including hacking, online fraud and illegal sale of personal information, resulting in 15,000 arrests, the ministry said. It did not say when the arrests were made. Authorities launched a six-month special operation to clean the Internet in July, but some of the cases date back as far as December. Beijing considers the Internet to be a virtual territory that…

Having blown past their soft deadline of July 1, Pennsylvania’s Republican-controlled state legislature is still trying to iron out a budget agreement with newly-elected Democratic Governor Tom Wolf. And so far, that has not included talk of online gambling expansion. Wolf is intent on raising revenue by overhauling the state’s income tax code and creating new taxes on, among other things, natural gas production. On the other hand, the legislature would like to raise the necessary revenue without raising taxes. Republicans are of the opinion this can be accomplished by reforming existing revenue channels. One of the proposals put forth…

Eighteen months ago, the Golden Nugget was hardly an afterthought in a New Jersey online casino market dominated by the likes of the Borgata and Caesars. Yet by April 2015, the Nugget was topping the revenue charts, owning 31 percent of the market and becoming the first operator to generate more than $3 million in casino revenue. In the latest issue of iGaming Business North America, Landry’s VP of Online Gaming, Thomas Winter, recounts Golden Nugget’s meteoric rise from virtual obscurity to Operator of the Year. The Golden Nugget’s entry into New Jersey’s iGaming market was marred by technical difficulties,…

The Malta Gaming Authority (MGA) has suspended the licences of a number of gaming companies in the country due to alleged relationships between the operators and Mafia-type criminal organisation, the Calabrian ‘Ndrangheta’. According to the Times of Malta newspaper, the allegations claim the companies form part of a global network also involving operators in Italy, Austria, Romania and Spain. Led by Italian national Mario Gennaro, the Ndrangheta is said to have set up a number of betting companies in Malta as part of the organisation’s illegal gaming activities. Gennaro yesterday (Wednesday) appeared in Maltese court alongside six other Italians, all…

The European Commission has joined the chorus of critics of Germany’s stalled online gambling regulatory regime. Late last month, the EC issued a formal rebuke of Germany’s three-year-old federal interstate gambling treaty. It’s been nearly one year since Germany awarded 20 federal online sports betting licenses but legal challenges by rejected applicants have prevented any of these licenses from taking effect. This failure to launch loomed large in the EC’s shaming letter, but it was far from the only criticism. The EC also chastised the lack of transparency during the license application process and questioned the reasoning behind Germany’s decision…