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There’s Hope For Louisiana’s Gambling Future, If It Ever Gets Out Of The Past

A Louisiana Senator has introduced a bill seeking to legalize online gambling in the state’s current legislative session. But don’t expect a state still digging itself out of the past when it comes to gambling to embrace the future anytime soon by adopting it.

The legislation won’t exactly make online gambling legal. It just allows parishes across the state to put an online gaming referendum on the ballot. Even then, if the majority of parishes do so, and Louisiana voters get behind the idea, laws authorizing online gambling in the state won’t become effective until January 2020.

The truth is, Louisiana needs the time. Mostly because it still has a long way to go before it gets anywhere near modern when it comes to gambling altogether.

The good news is, it appears to be ready to start working its way towards that point.

Mississippi Riverboat casinos

Legal casino gambling came to Louisiana in 1991. Like a number of other states along the Mississippi River and its tributaries, including Illinois, Indiana, Mississippi and Missouri, casino gambling came in the form of Riverboat Casinos.

Forcing the gambling industry onto 19th century-style paddle steamers cruising up and down the Mississippi was meant to evoke images of Mark Twain and a fondly remembered bygone era in the South. It was also a way of limiting the size and scope of the industry to something more manageable than widespread legal casinos.

Unfortunately, it never really worked out the way anyone intended.

The floating casinos quickly discovered business went South every time the boats set sail. First, they started coming up with every excuse they could to stay in port.

Then, when it became clear the boats weren’t too keen on leaving the docks and were doing everything they could to skirt around the laws forcing them to, legislators ditched the sailing requirements.

Louisiana also saw fit to authorize the opening of a single land-based casino in New Orleans. Plus, three native-run land-based casinos opened up across the state.

None of the 15 riverboat casinos still operational in the state leave the dock anymore. Requirements, including those ensuring gambling takes place on the water and the boats are fit for cruising, are just formalities. Formalities that serve only to keep Louisiana gambling stuck in the past.

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The future of Louisiana gambling

Alongside online gambling legislation, Louisiana lawmakers are also considering a bill seeking to change all that during this legislative session.

The bill authorizes the casinos to build modern gaming facilities on land within 1,200 feet of the boats. It will still limit the industry’s size and scope. However, those pointless water-based requirements will end. Things like having an operational paddle-wheel on a boat that’s clearly are never going anywhere.

Lawmakers will also be considering easing the restrictions on truck stops that operate video poker rooms across the state. Plus, the four racetracks in Louisiana that have slots are asking lawmakers to give them the right to offer table games and video poker.

Additionally, Harrah’s Casino, that New Orleans land-based casino mentioned previously, wants to extend the contract giving it a monopoly on land-based casino operations. It’s also asking for permission to build a second hotel and open up a food court.

Taking Louisiana from the past into gambling’s future won’t be easy. These are all contentious propositions that will be debated at length. Issues that’ll need to be dealt with long before online gambling is seriously considered.

There is hope for online gambling in Louisiana’s future. Just not now, as it has to get out of the past first.

The post There’s Hope For Louisiana’s Gambling Future, If It Ever Gets Out Of The Past appeared first on Play USA.

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PA Lawmakers To Regulators: Limiting Online Gambling ‘Skins’ Was Never Their Intent

Two prominent Pennsylvania lawmakers are urging the PA Gaming Control Board to resist calls to limit the number of online gambling websites (or “skins”) a licensed operator can launch.

That’s according to a letter sent on March 22, first reported by Chris Krafcik of GamblingCompliance.

The state is looking to start the online gambling license process next month and launch iGaming later this year. The issue of skins, meanwhile, remains unresolved.

No limits on online gambling skins?

The two lawmakers — Reps. Rosita Youngblood and Jason Ortitay — were instrumental in crafting the 2017 gaming law PA enacted, particularly the online gaming component.

“As the prime sponsor of the law, I am compelled to advise you that there was never an intent to limit the number of skins,” the letter states. “To the contrary, the legislation I drafted specifically contemplates ‘skins’ in the context of plural and doesn’t use the word in its singular context.”

The letter goes on to say:

“I urge you to consider the notion that limiting skins would decrease competition and protect only the brands of a few interests. Instead, we should look to increase competition, increase tax revenue and improve the quality of interactive gaming products in Pennsylvania, while at the same time improving customer experience by allowing for multiple skins per license.”

[…]

“The Board should not limit the numbers of skins, nor place conditions on how access to the skins occurs. This will increase revenue for the Commonwealth at a pivotal time, instead of limiting competition or placing an undue burden on how a patron obtains access to a skin.”

Youngblood and Ortitay also caution that not only would a restriction on skins cost the state revenue, but since it would go against the intent of the legislation, “limiting the number of skins in any regard would be an unconstitutional usurpation of the specific powers and authority of the legislative branch of Pennsylvania government.”

Why is this an issue

As Online Poker Report has reported, at least two Pennsylvania casino operators — Parx and Hollywood Penn National — have been actively lobbying the PGCB to limit each online operator to a single skin.

Meanwhile, industry groups and New Jersey online casino operators have pushed back against Parx’s and Penn National’s calls for a strict limit on skins.

In a letter sent to the PGCB, the pro-online gaming lobby group iDEA Growth explained that limiting skins would have multiple negative implications on the yet-to-be-launched industry.

  • The firsthand experience in New Jersey shows that the capability to offer multiple skins has grown the market and maximized revenue.
  • The restriction of skins is anti-competitive and would provide the consumer with an inferior product and user experience.
  • The allowance of multiple skins leads to more competition and innovation among stakeholders.

The post PA Lawmakers To Regulators: Limiting Online Gambling ‘Skins’ Was Never Their Intent appeared first on Play Pennsylvania.

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Online Poker Struggles To Gain A Foothold In The Legal New Jersey Market

After a sluggish start, the New Jersey online casino industry has turned into a revenue-generating machine. From 2014 to 2017 revenue has doubled, from $123 million to $246 million.

The sustained growth has been nothing short of remarkable, with year-over-year growth every single month, and with New Jersey online casinos tallying nearly a quarter of billion dollars in gross gaming revenue in 2017, and on pace for even more in 2018.

But not everything is hunky dory. Growth on the casino side of the ledger has masked the struggles of online poker.

The difference between the two couldn’t be more striking.

Other than seasonal trends, online casino revenue has been steadily rising as the market continues to mature.

On the other hand, online poker emerged fully mature and has been deteriorating ever since.

The five best months in New Jersey online poker history were its first five months:

  • December 2013: $2,884,917
  • January 2014: $3,442,271
  • February 2014: $3,109,203
  • March 2014: $3,210,663
  • April 2014: $2,591,839

And aside from a short burst following the entry of PokerStars in the Spring of 2016, online poker has been unable to crack the $2.5 million mark.

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Making sense of it all

There is a logical explanation for online poker’s strong early numbers and subsequent decline.

On April 15, 2011, US online poker players had the rug yanked out from underneath them. That was the day (dubbed Black Friday in the poker world) the US government shutdown the three largest US-facing online poker operators, leaving poker players with a ragtag group of unregulated offshore sites to choose from.

When New Jersey launched its legal online poker sites in November 2013 these players were still engaged and waiting for the return of online poker.

Simply put, online poker players were better aware of legal online gaming coming to New Jersey than potential online casino customers.

However, these players were summarily disappointed with the new legal sites. Players complained about inferior products, technical glitches, new regulatory hoops they had to jump through, and most of all, a lack of liquidity.

They were expecting pre-Black Friday online poker with tens of thousands of players and million-dollar Sunday tournaments. What they got was hundreds of players and $50,000 Sunday tournaments.

Needless to say, online poker quickly fizzled out in New Jersey.

PokerStars offered the early dropouts a glimmer of hope when it launched in the Spring of 2016, but with the liquidity constraints still in place it wasn’t long before the players that thought PokerStars would be different than other New Jersey operators moved on.

That said, the early numbers and the short PokerStars’ surge signal that there are more online poker players in the market.

Nevada will help

Online poker’s struggles can be traced back to one thing: liquidity, or a lack thereof.

New Jersey is expected to start pooling online poker players with Nevada and Delaware before the World Series of Poker begins in a couple months.

Joining the interstate online poker pool will help, but don’t expect miracles. Online poker traffic in Nevada traffic is less than New Jersey, and Delaware only brings a negligible number of online poker players to the table.

Furthermore, WSOP.com Nevada (WSOP.com is the only operator active in all three states) is chock full of solid players. That means new players drawn to the site by the increased traffic will find tough games, which will lead to a high attrition rate.

Interstate pooling with Nevada and Delaware should help bring monthly online poker revenue in New Jersey back over the $2 million mark, but not much higher.

Pennsylvania will help more

New Jersey won’t start to reach its online poker potential until Pennsylvania pools its online poker players with the three other states.

Here’s why:

  • Pennsylvania’s population is equal to Nevada, Delaware, and New Jersey combined.
  • Pennsylvania will have a better mix of casual and serious players.
  • With Pennsylvania, legal US poker sites will boast similar traffic numbers as the remaining offshore operators. That could be tipping point that brings many of the players still playing on unregulated sites into the legal market.

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Poker Industry PRO: Partypoker’s Ambitious Stretches to Satellites with $700K in Weekly Guarantees

Aggressive schedule of daily satellites aims to send over 2000 lower stakes players into prestigious Powerfest events each week.

Online poker operator partypoker has announced an ambitious new schedule of online satellites, guaranteeing almost $700,000 in tickets to its Power Series each week.

The operator recently overhauled its weekly schedule, guaranteeing $10 million in prizes each week—2.5 times larger than the previous weekly schedule—across a most consistent, focused and predictable schedule.

Read the full article on pokerfuse →

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Poker Industry PRO: Business Monitor: Stars Group Q4 and FY 2017

 

The Stars Group reported record full year revenues of $1.3 billion in 2017, boasting of growth across all major products.

In online poker, revenue returned to growth, hitting $877 million for the year, up 4% on 2016. A strong Q3 was followed by an equally impressive Q4: With revenue of $234.4 million, Q4 was its highest in 12 quarters and represents growth of 8% year-over-year.

Read the full article on pokerfuse →

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Not Rain Nor Sleet Nor Snow Will Stop Penn National From Acquiring Pinnacle

The winter weather of Keystone State strikes again.

Once again, the mini-casino auction scheduled this week did not go off. The March 21 meeting was rescheduled after inclimate weather prevented people from making it to Harrisburg. As a result, the next auction date is April 4.

It will be the first one of the subsequent auction round. In this round, Category 3 properties and companies who already bought a mini-casino license are open to bid on another location.

While the auction did not occur, the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board (PGCB) did hold a meeting. During that time, representatives from Pinnacle Entertainment and Penn National appeared to offer an update on Penn’s acquisition of Pinnacle.

More on the Pinnacle and Penn National business

Both Pinnacle and Penn National presented extensive testimony about the acquisition. While there were some questions regarding Federal Trade Commission (FTC) approval of the deal and a possible regional monopoly, the companies assured the deal is not in jeopardy.

At the conclusion of the meeting, PGCB approved the transfer of The Meadows Casino from Pinnacle to Penn National. Penn National is now in control of both The Meadows and Hollywood Casino as well as a forthcoming Category 4 mini-casino.

PGCB issued the following statement about its approval:

“The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board this week approved the Change of Control of the Category 1 Slot Machine Licensee Washington Trotting Association, LLC, operator of The Meadows Casino in Washington County, to Penn National Gaming, Inc.

Under the agreement approved by the Board at its March 21, 2018 meeting, the license held since September 2016 by Pinnacle Entertainment, Inc. will be transferred to Penn National Gaming, Inc., a publicly traded company based in Wyomissing, PA, and also the owner/operator of the Hollywood Casino at Penn National Race Course in Dauphin County.

Gaming and Leisure Properties, Inc., also based in Wyomissing, will continue to own the real estate of The Meadows Casino and lease the property to Penn National Gaming, Inc.”

As part of the deal, Penn National will pay $3.75 million to the state as a fee for transferring the license.

Other PGCB business includes DFS regs, but no skins

Even with the weather, PGCB did manage to check some other business off the to-do list. For example, the group signed off on daily fantasy sports regulations.

The group also okayed some preliminary regulations regarding online gambling of the casino and poker variety. These included:

  • Advertising
  • Game testing
  • Live dealer games like what currently runs in New Jersey

While those matters were on the agenda, one notable omission was a ruling on how many skins each online casino license can offer. Parx Casino is still lobbying hard for a limit of a single skin to each license. However, numerous groups, including those from the successful New Jersey online gambling industry, where multiple skins are allowed, are pushing for multiple skins.

Those with skin in the skin game won’t know anything until April 4 at the earliest. That is, unless more bad weather pushes back PGCB business another two weeks. Which could create quite the time crunch, since applications are available for online casino licenses starting on April 16.

The post Not Rain Nor Sleet Nor Snow Will Stop Penn National From Acquiring Pinnacle appeared first on Play Pennsylvania.

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UNLV Student Has A Solution To Remove Edge-Sorting From Casinos

Casinos may soon get access to new technology to fight back against the technique known as “edge sorting.”

Brittney Martino, a student at UNLV spent her time in a Gambling Innovation class developing a new type of card shoe that could make edge sorting impossible. She has now been granted a patent for her invention. The UNLV class has also produced a prototype model.

 

Phil Ivey brought edge sorting to the public eye

Edge sorting hit the headlines after poker legend Phil Ivey was accused of cheating when he used the technique at Crockford’s Casino in London and at the Borgata Hotel Casino and Spa in Atlantic City.

With the help of an assistant called Cheung Yin Sun, also known as the “Queen of Sorts”, Ivey won nearly $20 million from the two casinos while playing  Baccarat.

Sun has an incredible visual acuity which allows her to identify tiny imperfections in the edge of cards. This information gave Ivey an advantage in knowing when high cards were next to be dealt from the shoe.

Ultimately the advantage came to nothing after the UK Supreme Court ruled in December 2017 that edge sorting was not a legitimate playing tactic and that “intervening with the process of the game” nullified their winnings. Ivey also lost his case against Borgata.

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The new shoe uses flashing lights to obscure the cards

The idea that Martino came up with is certainly ingenious. She proposed fitting the dealer shoe with a set of lights at the front plate of the shoe. The patent, USPTO 9,895,599, explains:

“The purpose of the light(s) is to overlay colors or tones and white background on the back of the playing card. The wavelength, pattern (e.g., discontinuous distribution of light) and intensity of the shone light being sufficient to reduce optical contrast of different colors and/or shades on the back of the first playing card. The pattern can disrupt visible perception of the actual pattern printed on the back of the playing card. The emitted/projected pattern may be significantly different from the printed pattern, or only slightly vary from the printed pattern to confuse optical/visible reading of the printed image.

The patent description goes on to state that the light color can be matched with the colors of the playing cards in use at the particular casino:

“Where the back of the card, for example, has red-and-white colors, the emitted light should be sufficiently red to color and blend the white into the red; when the back of the card is greenish, the emitted light should sufficiently match the green, and similarly with single colors or multiple colors on the backs of the cards and the emitters.”

Technology is playing an even larger role in countering fraud

In the UK case, the judge explicitly said that she didn’t believe that Ivey thought he was cheating. Ivey maintained that he was simply using his skill to get an advantage.

That wasn’t enough to win him the case because the judge ruled that even though there may have been no cheating, the action was an interference in the normal process of the game.

To be safe against any judgments that might go the other way, US casinos are actively deploying technology to ensure that what they deem to be cheating cannot take place.

Playing cards and chips can now be equipped with radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags and camera technology advances mean that players can be monitored from a wide range of perspectives.

The old-school eye in the sky may still exist, but its days are numbered.

Martino said that she was surprised by the reaction she got from fellow students when she came up with her idea, but most of all she surprised herself:

“Let me add, not only did I not have much knowledge of the gaming industry, I’m also not an engineer.”

“Turns out there is value in being the jack of all trades. Recombine information in a “novel, useful, and non-obvious” (in the USPTO’s words) and you might just have something!”

The post UNLV Student Has A Solution To Remove Edge-Sorting From Casinos appeared first on Play USA.