Inside Asian Gaming

INTERNATIONAL BRIEFS about $435 million, according to Bloomberg Industries estimates. State officials say player registrations with Atlantic City’s casinos, the state’s exclusive providers by law, have exceeded 150,000 two months into operations. Nevada was the first state to legalize the sector but allows only poker. Delaware went online in the fall with a full array of casino games operated under the auspices of the state lottery. New Jersey also allows casino games. Bwin.Party Digital Entertainment, the world’s largest publicly traded online gambling company, operates in the US through a joint venture with MGM Resorts International and Boyd Gaming, co- owners of Atlantic City’s Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who signed the online wagering law last year, also supports the introduction of sports betting in the state and is fighting a federal ban on the sector. Major professional and college sports organizations are in favor of keeping the ban— although 28 NBA teams have casino sponsorships and 20 have lottery deals—and the National Football League and Major League Soccer also prohibit sponsorships from online gambling. Major League Baseball says it considers such agreements on a case-by- case basis. There are none currently, a spokesman said. In UK, War on e-Tables Heats Up Britain’s Labour Party plans to call on Parliament to impose restrictions on the spread of a controversial class of electronic table game in the country’s high street betting shops. With the casino-style machines, known as fixed-odds betting terminals, decried by problem gambling and community activists as a major social ill and opposed by local councils trying to stem a tide of betting shop license applications, Labour is joining the Liberal Democrats in making a campaign issue of the machines. A report by the BBC said the party will use an upcoming Opposition Day debate in the House of Commons to force the debate into the national spotlight. Leader Ed Miliband said FOBTs are “becoming an epidemic” and has vowed to amend planning laws in England, Scotland and Wales to curb their growth if Labour regains power. The current limit of four machines per shop had led to “clusters” of shops opening together, he said, with councils powerless to stop them. He said his government would review the number of machines allowed per license and would legislate to place shops in a separate zoning class, which would allow councils to use planning powers to control their numbers. In some cases he said he wants councils to have the power to ban the machines outright, and he is pushing to slash the maximum bet size from £100 to £2 and implement technologies to limit play and remind gamblers of their spending. It was Tony Blair’s Labour government that relaxed decades- old regulations to allow the FOBTs to mushroom in the first place. However, the party has accused bookmakers of exploiting the reforms to target poorer areas of the country. There are about 33,000 of the machines in operation in the UK, where they generate in excess of US$2.46 billion annually for the larger bookmakers, or about half their annual profits. So far, the Conservative government has resisted calls to limit bet sizes and prizes, although Prime Minister David Cameron has promised to examine the issues. Casino Games Make Facebook’s Top 25 The popularity of casino-style games on Facebook has grown to the point that five were among the social networking giant’s top 25 titles last year. Facebook’s recently released “Games of the Year” list for 2013—compiled from a combination of “user ratings, Facebook implementation, growth and overall quality”—included eight cross-platform titles that integrate with the site on both Internet and mobile platforms. The five casino games were: Slotomania from Playtika- CIE; DoubleUp Casino from International Game Technology; Heart of Vegas from Madness-Aristocrat; DoubleU Casino from AFewGoodSoft; and Hit it Rich Casino from Zynga. December 2013 | INSIDE ASIAN GAMING 45 Nevada Casinos Lose $1.35B in 2013 Nevada’s largest casinos suffered a combined net loss of US$1.35 billion in 2013, the fifth year in a row the industry has failed to record an overall profit. On the plus side the total revenue of the 263 casinos included in the annual report released by the state Gaming Control Board rose for the third consecutive year, to $23 billion, an increase of 0.4% over 2012. On the down side, losses grew by 11.2%, or $136 million, which a Control Board analyst blamed on increased expenses. Net income or loss is what casinos retain from total revenues after expenses have been paid, but before deductions for federal income taxes and accounting for extraordinary expenses. Total revenue is the money patrons spent on gambling, rooms, food, beverage and entertainment. On the Las Vegas Strip gambling revenue rose 3.5% to $5.7 billion while total revenue was up 1.7% to $15.5 billion. Most of the state’s casinos are in Clark County, which includes the Strip. The 150 Clark casinos included in the report had a combined net loss of $1.3 billion on total revenue of $20.6 billion. Nevada casinos haven’t posted a net profit since 2008, when combined net income totaled $721 million. The following year the recession hit in full force. The loss for the industry in 2009 was nearly $6.8 billion. Before the current string of yearly losses, the only other net loss recorded by Nevada casinos was in fiscal year 2002, after the September 11 attacks. Casinos on the Las Vegas Strip bucked the state-wide decline.