Gambling News in January 2015: Review

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Gambling is a huge business, and it’s hard to keep track of everything that goes on. Laws change everyday, casinos come and go, sports books rise and fall, and the vast majority of news passes gamblers by. In this article, and many others like it on the Real Money Gambling website, we try our best to keep you up to date with the latest gambling news. In this article we will look at the news that came out during January 2015, with everything from falling profits in the richest gambling city in the world, to arrests and fines in Europe and Asia.

Macau in Trouble

Some of the biggest gambling news to be announced this month was that Macau’s gambling revenues fell for the eighth month in a row. The total loss came to just under $3 billion, which is huge by anyone’s reckoning. This will shock anyone who has been to Macau in recent months, as it seems that things are on the up for this rich and glamorous city and that they have a license to print money, but it seems that things are looking a little shaky behind the scenes.

One of the biggest hit was Wynn Resorts, who only own one casino in this gambling city. This is the first annual loss that the casino industry has suffered in Macau since 2001, when it became the Las Vegas of the East. This is not all bad news though as the revenue in Macau is still seven times greater than the revenue in Las Vegas, but it shows that gambling is on the decline in the East and that something needs to be done if they are going to turn that around.

Jersey Gambling

This month also saw the first license granted to allow online gambling in Jersey. Not New Jersey, they have already had their fill of gambling with Atlantic City, but the country Jersey, also known as the millionaire’s playground. This license could mean a lot to the economy of the region, as it will mean that many online gambling firms turn to them to be regulated, as is the case with other Channel Islands.

It is still early days so we will need to wait to see how this one turns out, but it could be that in a decade of so Jersey will play host to many online casinos, taking business away from neighbouring island Alderney.

Less Means More

This month it was announced that the world’s biggest poker event, the World Series of Poker, was changing its prize structure. It was taking away the $10 million first prize in order to increase the number of players that were paid. So, rather than giving the majority of the money to the winner and those that make it to the final table, it will be spread more evenly to all of the in-the-money finishers, with the total number of players paid increasing to 1,000. The professionals will not appreciate this, as they are happy to go with the all-or-nothing “big score”, but this will appease many amateur players and will certainly go a long way for those players that scraped money together to get themselves a ticket, and those that won their ticket through cheap satellites.

German Player Fined

This month Pinsent Mason, a German gambler, found himself in a whole heap of trouble after playing on a UK casino. Blackjack was Pinsent’s game, and it seems he was rather good at it, but he should have made himself more acquainted with the law before he sat down for a big session on his favourite card game. Pisnent was fined heavily by the German authorities. Not only did they take 64,000 Euros from him, but they also took 70 days’ worth of wages.

How much he was playing with wasn’t made clear, nor was it mentioned whether he won or not, but we can only hope that Pinsent scored big and was able to cover some of these losses.

This is a very rare case, but if you’re worried it will happen to you, then don’t. Online gambling is legal here in Canada and there has been no such cases of Canadians being arrested for gambling online.

Koreans Arrested in Thailand

13 Koreans were also arrested this month for online gambling, as a large number of police raided a building where illegal betting was taking place. These were acting as a sports book, rather than punters, and it was claimed that they had over 10,000 people on their books, betting on everything from the English Premier League, to basketball games in the United States. They had been running an illegal online betting site for a very short time, but didn’t have any difficultly attracting a great deal of customers early on.

The arrest took place in Thailand and as the people arrested were foreign nationals, it was suggested that they might face deportation.