NEWS & NOTES

State legislators in Pennsylvania adjourned before a bill could be introduced in the state Senate to authorize video lottery terminals in bars, taverns and liquor-licensed restaurants. Several Senate leaders had been reportedly working on legislation not only to legalize VLTs—left out of the state’s 2017 gaming expansion law, due to opposition from casinos—but to legalize and regulate the so-called “skill games” that have proliferated in non-casino retail locations around the state. Legislation is expected to be introduced after lawmakers reconvene in the fall. • In June, Macau International Airport handled only five daily passenger flight a day due to travel restrictions related to Covid-19. The figure could grow to at least 10 daily flights in July. • The poker room at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas reopened at 4 p.m. Friday, July 3. The room has Plexiglas dividers between players to allow six-handed play, per guidelines from the state Gaming Control Board, like sister properties the Aria and Bellagio. No spectators or food are allowed in the poker room. • Nobu Hotel at Caesars Palace was the seventh Caesars Entertainment property to open since Nevada lifted its three-month Covid-19 shutdown. All employees and guests are required to wear masks inside all properties. • The known number of Nevadans who have tested positive for Covid-19 reached 22,909 last week, according to the Nevada Health Alliance. The latest estimate of Covid-19’s effective reproduction number in the state is 1.36, meaning each infected person transmits the disease to 1.36 other people on average. The number is down from 1.44 last month, but it’s still the highest rate in the U.S. • China Civil Engineering Construction Corp. announced that it has completed the capping of the main structure of the new integrated resort Resorts World Macau, Lago 1 project at the Nam Van Lake. Genting Group plans to develop a hotel and casino in the site. • A Douglas County, Nevada man who tested a Stateline casino’s mask requirement on July 4 was taken into custody for trespassing. The man was sitting at the bar at the Hard Rock without a mask when security advised him to put on a mask or leave the casino floor. The man refused and became belligerent. A local justice ordered him to wear a mask or other face covering in Nevada and California and that stay out of Stateline casinos. •   European lottery and gaming operator Sazka Group has completed its acquisition of a 17.19 percent stake in Casinos Austria from Novomatic. It increases Sazka Group’s shareholding in the Austrian casino and lottery operator to 55.48 percent. • The Tesuque Pueblo in Northern New Mexico recently converted its former Camel Rock Casino into Camel Rock Studios, a 25,000-square-foot motion picture production facility. Last year Universal Pictures filmed Tom Hanks’ “News of the World,” in the casino, which closed in 2018. This convinced the tribal leaders to make the conversion