Trends, News & Interesting Reads

If you live in the US northeast and one day should feel the urge to play at a land-based casino, Wynn Resorts has indicated that it still intends to open its Encore Casino Resort, this summer. This, despite the fact that Massachusetts’ Gaming Commission has not yet released its report regarding whether the controversy over former CEO Steve Wynn’s sexual misconduct should render the company ineligible to hold a Massachusetts casino license. In the meantime, keep your Grande Vegas online casino close for spontaneous, enjoyable, online casino play.

REITs -- Real Estate Investment Trusts -- have become an important part of how casinos are owned. These trusts are similar to mutual funds but instead of owning stocks, the investor develops a portfolio of residential and/or commercial properties or a portfolio of the mortgages for those online casino or brick-and-mortar properties.

Taking a short break from our Grande Vegas online casino news, let's look at what's new at one of the most famous land-based casinos in the world.  A summary of Nevada’s biggest casinos’ fiscal standing showed that most of the $1.2 billion casino-based losses in the state could be traced to Caesars Entertainment. The casino giant’s bankruptcy restructuring was blamed since, other than that blip, the reports show that Caesars did relatively well.

The territorial government of Macau was pleased to host a record number of Vegas casino tourists during this month’s celebration of the Chinese New Year. The Chinese New Year is celebrated over the course of a week and officials were pleased to note a large jump in year-on-year tourism which brought the numbers of visitors to close to 38 million for the year. 

The American Gaming Association has released a report that indicates that the war against illegal sports betting may finally be over. The AGA surveyed individuals across a wide spectrum of American society and found that, if given the opportunity to engage in Vegas casino legal sports betting, 38% would be willing to use a regulated platform exclusively and 71% would use a regulated platform at least part of the time.

Baccarat is generally regarded as the number one casino game in the world. Baccarat has been a staple of the Grande Vegas Casino and for many years. Since the waning years of the 20^th century, the popularity of all variations of baccarat has skyrocketed, particularly in Asia and in America. In 2014 almost 91% of Macau casinos’ total income came from Punto Banco, the most popular variant of the baccarat game.

Bet.Works will be launching a New Jersey sports betting app in the coming weeks. The Bet.Works app will be operated by the online casino sports media company theScore.

Marc Brody was named as Senior Vice President of Business Development for Bet.Works. He will be responsible for overseeing company business development as he defines opportunities for the company’s growth across the US. 

PH Resorts, a Philippine-listed firm, has received approval from the Philippines’ Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to move forward on plans to fund several casino-related projects. PH Resorts, owned by businessman Dennis Uy, was formerly known as Philippine H2O Ventures Corp. They plan to sell 1.786 billion common shares using  the China Banking Corp. as the domestic lead underwriter for the offering. 

Following the introduction of sports betting in New Jersey, the state's reported $1 billion increase in gaming revenues is prompting other legislatures to look into the possibilities of bringing sports betting to their own states. 

New York Assemblyman Gary Pretlow is planning to go ahead with a new bill that would authorize retail sports betting at New York racetracks. The bill also provides for the introduction of online casino mobile sports betting.