Lawrence Ho’s skilled negotiating has sealed the share buy-out by Melco Resots & Entertainment in Crown Resorts, sending Melco’s shares up by over 25%.

After signing a preliminary agreement with Delaware North in November, 2018, SkyCity Entertainment Group has finally concluded the sale of its Darwin casino for the amount total of AUS$188 million.

The deal received a final nod from the Northern Territory Government and the Attorney General, Natasha Fey, transferring the property to Delaware North.

BetEasy launched a request to terminate Sportsbet brand name. These two Australia’s sports-betting giants were fighting a legal battle over brand naming.

BetEasy’s counter legal action started after Sportsbet received a temporary ruling stopping CrownBet from renaming as “Sportingbet” after the separation from Crown Resorts. All this is happening just before the Melbourne Cup Carnival which is considered to be the busiest betting period in Australia.

The second-biggest casino operator from Australia, The Star Entertainment Group, makes record profits at the end of the 2018 financial year, recording a 50% revenue rise. Asian VIP clients have returned to gamble. These high rollers, who are a significant source of revenue for those running casino games, have been betting large sums of money in its resorts and enjoying periods of repeated success, as the firm discloses.

Gambling executives are not holding back on buying stocks following the recent U.S Supreme Court ruling that lifted the federal ban (Professional Amateur Sports Protection Act) on sports betting in the country. Timothy J. Wilmott, the Penn National Gaming Chief Executive bought shares worth $3.1 million of the company, betting it will continue winning. His was the largest purchase by an insider in over 15 years. This was followed by the Penn National announcing that it would be launching sports betting at the company’s Hollywood Casino based at Charles Town Races in Charles Town, West Virginia, and 5 Mississippi casinos.

William Hill Australia and CrownBet have announced the re-brand to BetEasy. The re-brand was announced on Thursday by Matt Tripp, the CEO of CrownBet, who also added that BetEasy will reopen in August. This merge of William Hill Australia and CrownBet will be 3rd biggest sports betting operator in Australia.

The thoroughbred racing controlling body in Australia – Racing Australia, in other words – will allegedly enforce new rules beginning with next month. The rules have been designed so as to ensure that affiliates do not bet their money with offshore gambling operators.

Against all odds

At present, Australian punters are captivated by illegal offshore wagering. Firms offer better chances of winning and ROI to entice, along with anonymous wagering, to entice bettors. The industry does not make any money from race field fees. It has been estimated that unlicensed bookmakers cost the country’s horse racing industry $300 million each year. The reason for this is that they cannot impose race field fees. As stated in The Sydney Morning Herald, the offshore market is likely to grow as high as $664 by 2020.

Since the fuss around gambling started to happen in Australia, authorities became more active when supervising this industry. The Australian authorities started to ban the gambling operators and the websites that seem not to respect the law. The authorities responsible for regulating the gambling industry are represented by ACMA (Australian Communications and Media Authority). Lately, the offshore gambling websites are under the strict observation of ACMA, as many of them are performing outside the regulations of the country.

Cirrus Network’s dream has finally become true. The Australian IT service provider has managed to land a large managed services contract with Crown Melbourne and Crown Perth. They have agreed to a five year, $2.5 million contract. Cirrus Network will manage data networks, as well as voice infrastructure at the two gambling establishments and entertainment complexes, in an effort to reach performance, business continuity, and availability goals.

Crown Melbourne resort has a casino, 3 hotels, rooms for formal social gatherings, restaurants, and shopping and entertainment facilities. As far as Crown Perth is concerned, the resort and casino have a convention center, theater, and 2 ballrooms.

Upon the newest set of regulations implemented by the Australian government, it seems like numerous “synthetic” lotteries have had to suffer, the latest example being Lottoland, whose betting website has been recently banned.  This has come as great news for the biggest player in the local gambling scene, Tabcorp gaining a leaping advantage over its competitors.

All websites operating online bets without demanding from gamblers the actual purchase of a lottery ticket will not be able to access the Australian gambling scene, once the landmark law approved by the parliament comes into operation starting from 1th of January 2019. Lottery providers that offered traditional gambling opportunities, such as the one mentioned above, have been under threat since the rise of synthetic lottery sites, so this news comes as a huge victory.