Smoking bans inside land-based casinos have been a hot topic across the US in recent years. Employees have campaigned hard to have more protection in the workplace, with many of them pointing out the major health risks associated with second-hand inhalation.
This debate is now reaching Las Vegas. Wynn Resorts, which operates two properties on the Las Vegas Strip, is going to hold a shareholder vote on whether the company should look into the benefits of introducing such a ban, one which the board opposes:
Shareholders will vote on the smokefree policy at Wynn’s casinos. Not a chance in hell it succeeds, but they can say the question was asked. pic.twitter.com/MEVbXCTSSe
Most workplaces across the US don’t allow indoor smoking, with casinos often the sole exception under state laws, including in Nevada. The only resort on the Las Vegas Strip that is completely smoke-free is the Park MGM, although a recent survey from local residents showed that most people favor a complete statewide ban.
Wynn has experienced significant ownership change in recent times, with Tilman Fertitta now owning almost 12% of it.
INTERPOL has revealed it arrested 306 people across seven countries in Africa as part of an extensive campaign to combat online scams, including some related to fake lotteries and casinos.
Operation Red Card began in November 2024 and concluded last month, with local law enforcement in Zambia, Togo, South Africa, Rwanda, Nigeria, Côte d’Ivoire, and Benin assisting.
One of the biggest crackdowns was in Nigeria, where police apprehended 130 people, most of whom were involved in running fraudulent investment sites and online casinos. The suspects tried to hide the proceeds using cryptocurrency.
fake lottery scheme in Rwanda that used social engineering to defraud people worldwide
Another major scam was a fake lottery scheme in Rwanda that used social engineering to defraud people worldwide. Police arrested 45 people in the country after they swindled more than US$305,000 in 2024. The scammers pretended that the victims had won the lottery and obtained sensitive information from them to access their bank accounts.
Talking about the success of Operation Red Card, INTERPOL Director of the Cybercrime Directorate Neal Jetton said it “sends a strong message to cybercriminals that their activities will not go unpunished.”
A Maltese casino software company is not doing a particularly great job of protecting the sensitive information of customers, according to an IT security expert.
Lilith Wittmann explained in a blog post that she was able to access the “treasure trove of data” as a result of weak protections by The Mill Adventure, a company based in St Julian’s Malta. Wittmann is a member of the Chaos Computer Club, an association for hackers based in Europe.
weak protections were found in Slotmagie.de, Crazybuzzer.de, and Merkurbets.de
According to Wittmann, weak protections were found in Slotmagie.de, Crazybuzzer.de, and Merkurbets.de, which are all online casino companies operated by subsidiaries of German company Merkur. She was able to access player names, email addresses, credit card details, postal addresses, and casino IDs.
In addition, the hacking expert said she accessed more than 70,000 ID photos, selfies, and proofs of address. “Almost all of the data stored in their casino systems [is] publicly accessibly,” she said, referring to Merkur.
Wittmann notified the German Gambling Authority and has confirmed that the vulnerability has now been fixed. However, it is unclear if anyone accessed the data beforehand. The Mill Adventure told local media that it was “an unprecedented event” that resulted in “immediate action to address the issue.”
The UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) has introduced several new curtailments on how licensees offer promotions, the most notable of which prevents gambling sites from providing bonuses that combine offers from different gambling verticals.
people who use multiple products are more likely to suffer from gambling-related harm
This will end the practice of combining free sports bets and casino deposit bonuses in the same deal. Research shows that people who use multiple products are more likely to suffer from gambling-related harm, and the terms of these offers can also be confusing.
Another big move sees operators having to cap their wagering requirements for bonuses at 10x, as bigger requirements can lead people to gamble for longer and faster than they otherwise might.
These rules, which go into effect on December 19, 2025, aim to better protect consumers and simplify the industry. UKGC Research and Policy Executive Director Tim Miller said the measures will give people “much better clarity on, and certainty of, offers before they decide to sign up.”
The embattled Resorts World Las Vegas has had a tumultuous few years. Between extensive anti-money laundering compliance failures that led to a $10.5m fine and underwhelming visitor numbers, the property is having a tough time.
Things could be about to get even worse if rumors that Vital Vegas is hearing are true about the potential layoffs of approximately 400 workers in the near future:
We told you to gird. Hearing Resorts World is gearing up to lay off about 400 people. This goes far beyond the “wholesale changes to executive leadership” required by the Gaming Control Board following the resort’s money laundering kerfuffle, this is a reflection of business…
While people expected changes in the property’s executive team following mismanagement in recent years and an order from the Nevada Gaming Control Board off the back of its recent fine, this latest speculation comes as a surprise.
only opened its doors in June 2021 after costing $4.3bn to build
The Genting Group-owned Resorts World Las Vegas only opened its doors in June 2021 after costing $4.3bn to build, a record development cost for a resort in the city. Many people replied to the X post from Vital Vegas, giving their views on why the facility is struggling:
I've never had any employee engage in any verbal communication. Never. Were they told to never interact with guests. The shopping mall vibe permeates the entire property. The rooms I've seen are sparkly uninspired. Do something to make it inviting. Plants
I walked through RW on July 4th last summer. Beautiful place, but casino was very dead. I wanted to sign up for a player's card, but sign at club said "Open at 2 pm". It was a little past 1pm. Players club closed til 2 on a holiday?? They didn't get any $$ from me.
Others believe this trend will be seen with other Las Vegas properties this year. MGM Resorts International, for example, is reportedly cutting its workforce at the Excalibur and looking to get the Luxor Hotel and Casino off its books. There were also rumors that CEO Bill Hornbuckle would be departing his position in the near future.
Las Vegas’s first AI-powered hotel-apartment complex has started to take bookings for the summer.
Otonomus Hotel, owned by a Vegas-based global development firm, announced it will take reservations starting July 1.
Via an AI-powered app, guests can streamline and tailor their stay. including check-in, housekeeping, room service, and on-site retail shopping and dining.
four planned restaurants all of which will be able to order from remotely”
The AI-powered complex includes 303 units, around 1,100 beds, and 40,000 square feet of retail. According to reports 21,000 square feet of inline retail will include “four planned restaurants all of which will be able to order from remotely.”
The Growth Holdings-owned project developed in collaboration with Airbnb sits on 13 acres, which the Philippe Ziade-backed firm states is just “a seven-minute drive from Allegiant Stadium.”
Zialde’s multi-billion-dollar global development firm states the majority of Las Vegas’ attractions are “concentrated within walking distance” of the off-Strip Otonomous Hotel.
Prices for guests looking to rent start at “$1,950 for a one bed, one bath, 872-square-foot apartment.”
PokerStars has announced Live! Casino Philadelphia will host its first-ever live US tournament April 21-27.
qualify for the PokerStars Open Philadelphia via online poker satellites
On Monday, the Flutter Entertainment-owned brand on said players in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Michigan, and Ontario can qualify for the PokerStars Open Philadelphia via online poker satellites.
Poker and chess champion Jennifer Shahade took to X after the news, stating the event was coming to Philadelphia, “the greatest city in the World!”
The PokerStars Open is coming to the greatest city in the World, PHILADELPHIA!
Players that get through will play for $550,000 in guaranteed prize money at the April event in Philadelphia.
PokerStars on a roll
Executives from both PokerStars and Live! Casino Philadelphia expressed excitement over the tournament, which closely follows the recent success of the PokerStars Open Campione Main Event in Italy. The tournament attracted more entrants than the town’s entire population.
Live! Casino & Hotel Philadelphia is, meanwhile, geared up to welcome its own horde of poker players next month.
Anne Tran, Director of Poker for the casino-hotel, stated that her casino’s poker room “and all our dedicated team members are ready to welcome poker enthusiasts from across the region.”
Tran added that the Philly casino was excited to be “the first North American host location for this year’s PokerStars Open live series” and that she expected it “to deliver an unforgettable experience during this world-class tournament.”
Philadelphia tournament embodies its host city
PokerStars North America Vice President Steve Priess, meanwhile, said the PokerStars Open Philadelphia tournament embodies its host city, and makes the Live! venue a perfect fit.
Shades of Rocky
Priess also expressed his excitement over the tournament coming to a city “that knows what it means to compete, fight, and never give up.”
The PokerStars exec channeled his inner Rocky Balboa, adding: “Poker is about heart, strategy, and knowing when to take your shot.”
“There’s no better place to showcase that spirit than in Philly.”
London Mayor Sir Sadiq Khan has recently come under increased fire for not delivering on his 2021 re-election manifesto to ban gambling ads on the London Underground.
According to The Standard, detractors accuse Khan of “backtracking.”
wait for Londoners’ complaints and media outcry
In a recent written question, a member of the London Assembly asked Khan when he “will implement an ethical advertising policy for TfL, rather than wait for Londoners’ complaints and media outcry to remove gambling adverts from the transport network.”
In 2021, the mayor promised to instruct Transport for London to ban gambling adverts on the Tube network “given the devastating way gambling addiction can destroy lives and families.”
Waiting on a definition
Mayor Khan told the assembly member he wanted to “hear more detail about the Government’s plans in this area” before “looking further at any implications for TfL’s policy.”
Khan has now said that he will wait for the Government to “provide a national framework to addressing this issue” before taking any action on behalf of City Hall.
UK capital’s problem gambling rate was twice the British average
Khan’s response followed a warning to him in March by The London Assembly’s health committee that the UK capital’s problem gambling rate was twice the British average.
According to reports, the mayor’s health advisor, Dr. Tom Coffey, told the commission’s investigators that Underground ad bans “had been held up.” The reason Coffey gave was that “City Hall could be subject to legal challenge if it introduced restrictions based on its own definition of ‘harmful gambling.’”
At that time, City Hall was said to have already requested the UK Government and public health partners “to help develop a national definition” of problem gambling.
Khan’s health advisor, however, warned against anyone getting ideas of litigation, saying they would not want him to “do something that would cost millions in legal challenges and not move the dial one little bit.”
Palms Place condominiums is a defendant in a negligence-focused civil lawsuit after a woman allegedly suffered injuries from an elevator at Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas.
Rebecca Keith Wood filed an amended civil suit in Clark County District Court last week against Palms and the Otis Elevator Company after an elevator allegedly fell 22 stories.
failing to maintain, inspect elevators
Wood accused both Palms and the elevator firm of negligence over failing to maintain, inspect elevators on the Vegas property.
The claimant is suing the two firms for “financial compensation in excess of $15,000 for general and specific damages in addition to attorney’s fees.”
Wood claims her elevator ordeal took place in May 2023 while staying at Palms as an invited guest.
The civil complaint puts forward that Wood: “received medical and other treatments for injuries sustained to her bodily limbs, organs and nervous systems, all or some of which conditions may be permanent and disabling.”
Wood’s suit alleges Palms and Otis were duty-of-care bound to warn guests about the “dangerous, obvious condition” of the elevators. The lawsuit also alleges the defendants should have kept the elevator “safe and operational” while inspecting it for any defects.
Suit ties up loose ends
Wood’s suit has, however, undergone several tweaks. In her original suit filed March 3, Wood named the off-Strip casino-hotel and its “listed owners, FP Holdings L.P., Otis and TK Elevator Corporation as defendants.”
An amended March 14 suit removed TK from the claim, while the latest amended complaint on March 20 names Palms Place as a defendant instead of former owners Station Casinos. Palms Casino Resort and Palms Place are owned and operated by the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians, which purchased the property from Station Casinos in May 2021 for $650m.
According to the LVR-J, Palms, its attorney, and Wood’s did not respond to requests for comment.
To celebrate the 10th anniversary of The Chip Race podcast, I’ve delved into my memory to recall ten significant moments in the early evolution of the show.
1. Do we even know what this is?
It’s March 2015, and after a few meetings with an Irish company that makes podcasts aimed at different niches (they have ones already for rugby, cricket, and horse racing), they pitch the idea that we do one on Irish poker. David and I agree to do it. There’s no money but we agree to give up the next seven Monday afternoons to do seven episodes for free. The hope is if the show gets an audience, a sponsor can be found to make it worth all our time.
in a sea of obscure and in some cases obsolete terms, one immediately stood out: the Chip Race
I had done a couple of podcasts already (Irish Poker Radio with Iain Cheyne about five years earlier, and my own short lived Poker Lounge), but David was a podcast virgin. We both liked the “radio show” idea, recognizing that any show aimed just at Ireland needed to be as broad in appeal as possible, hitting every possible demographic within poker. So it was we conceived the idea of a show of segments: two interviews, strategy, a topical, news, bookended by an intro and an outro. To keep with the radio theme, we originally wanted to use the name “The Calling Station,” but it was already taken. We brainstormed a few other suggestions, only to find they were all taken too. In the end, the head of the company commissioning the podcast gave his secretary a glossary of poker terms, which she then whittled down to the ones that weren’t already gone. This was forwarded to us, and in a sea of obscure and in some cases obsolete terms, one immediately stood out: the Chip Race.
The initial idea actually came from David’s best friend, Rob O’Connor, who worked as the photographer for the company in question. He told his boss poker was a niche with a hardcore audience, and he knew just the guys to do it.
After we agreed the format, we decided we needed a third wheel to do the news. Looking into our wider circle of friends, Nick Newport seemed the best candidate. He wasn’t keen on the amount of work required, so we asked Daragh Davey, a much shyer soul at the time. Daragh had no problem putting in the work but his natural shyness made him uneasy. In the end Daragh and Nick worked out a compromise with Daragh agreeing to do all the research and write the script, leaving Nick just to show up and read it.
As any online poker pro will quickly tell you, Monday is absolutely the worst day to try to get us to do anything. Sunday was and still is the biggest online grind of the week: back then I typically started my grind at 1 pm, and finished 15-18 hours later in the early hours of Monday. So it was that Nick basically didn’t show up to the first show, and we had to twist Daragh’s arm to step in. He did a great job and was therefore stuck with it for the rest of the first season.
This photo of the three of us was taken by Rob. The fourth person in the photo is our friend and future Irish Open champion Dan Wilson who gave us arguably the most memorable strategic concept ever in that first season: the tournament half life.
2. We get stopped in the street
April 2015. The first show went out with the popular Tom Kitt as lead guest. We were very happy when it exceeded our wildest expectations and clocked up over 1,000 listeners. Towards the end of that season, we were dragging our tired asses to the studio in Clonskeagh to interview Andy Black when we were stopped by an excited guy neither of us had ever seen before. He proceeded to tell us how much he loved the podcast. We were obviously aware we were reaching a growing audience as the numbers were growing from episode to episode but this really brought it home that the show was a hit.
Eventually we gave up waiting for him to stop so we could start the interview properly, and just pressed record
Andy arrived at the studio on a bicycle and was already talking a mile a minute before he’d parked it. He kept it up for the next hour in the studio. Eventually we gave up waiting for him to stop so we could start the interview properly, and just pressed record. The next hour became the interview that went out, and afterwards Andy walked with us to a pub in Ranelagh, giving us another hour of his unique insights.
3. Over before we got going properly
July 2015. After finishing the first season we were buoyant and optimistic a sponsor would be found to pay for the show going forward. I returned from the World Series of Poker a couple of months later, feeling even more optimistic after a successful and profile raising campaign that saw me commentate on two final tables and chop an event heads up myself. Then the bad news came: the company who owned the podcast had gone into liquidation. Since they owned everything including the name of the show, that seemed to mark the end.
4. But it better not be sh*t, David
February 2017. We have just signed as ambassadors with Unibet. In the course of researching us, one of their advisors stumbles on the Chip Race:
“You used to have a podcast and it was very well received. Maybe you could bring that back.”
It’s fair to say David was a lot more excited at the prospect than I was (although that may have been down to him being keen to avoid Twitching, which was the other option). There were a number of fresh challenges: we didn’t own the name for one thing. Unibet initially suggested they’d look into buying it from the liquidator, but then came back and said it wasn’t possible. We weren’t that keen on calling it something as self limiting as “the Unibet podcast,” so we ended up buying the name ourselves (for a grand if memory serves).
The next problem was that it could no longer be an Irish only facing show for the simple reason that Unibet were not licensed in Ireland at the time. Finally, after being pampered first season with a professional studio and sound engineer at our disposal, we were basically on our own this time around, using our own microphones and laptops to record the show. Faced with all these challenges I wasn’t sure about the wisdom of bringing the show back but in the end I agreed to it with the words:
“But it better not be sh*t, David.”
5. Ambushing Iany
March 2017. Unibet had signed a bunch of other ambassadors simultaneously, so that at least gave us an initial pool of interviewees to draw from. The problem was that apart from Ian Simpson, otherwise known as Iany, none of them were even remotely well known at the time. David and I both felt it could be a stretch to reclaim our old Irish audience with a bunch of non Irish guests they’d never heard of. For this reason we decided to lead with Ian, also strongly suspecting he’d give us the best interview.
we were taking a risk with our sponsors, potentially undermining their new ambassador
As a twist, we came up with an idea to make the interview more entertaining and therefore more likely to attract listens: instead of just doing a straight interview, we’d start in that vein but then without warning, pivot to a hostile interview mid way through, effectively ambushing Iany. He was the only one on the team we figured we could take this risky approach with as he had the best sense of humour of the lot and the least sense of self importance. Nevertheless, we were taking a risk with our sponsors, potentially undermining their new ambassador, so we decided we’d better clear it with them in advance. They not only loved the idea, but insisted on being there to witness it, rightly anticipating that the unsuspecting Ian’s reaction would be hilarious. It was, and news of the ambush helped us hit the ground running and recapture our Irish audience. I mean, what Irish person doesn’t love the thought of two Irish men ambushing an Englishman? Revenge for Skibbereen.
That concludes the first part of my trip down memory lane. In Part 2, I’ll talk about the dark days when it seemed the show was dying, how we turned it around, and how we got Phil Hellmuth to give arguably the most honest and touching interview of his life.
