NEWS & NOTES

Horseshoe Casino in Baltimore opened a new sports bar and restaurant in time for the Super Bowl. Brew Brothers features four video walls to screen games. ● FanDuel had an impressive January with its sports betting app, finishing the month with a download share of 39 percent. FanDuel’s share rose six points from December, according to Thomas Allen of Morgan Stanley. Caesars surpassed DraftKings for number two, leaping 10 percentage points to 24 percent, helped by the debut of mobile sports betting in New York. DraftKings fell from 26 to 22 percent. BetMGM had a disappointing 9 percent down from 12, rounding out the Top 4. ● The Gold N’ Silver Inn, a long-time dining institution in Reno, Nevada, has been sold to developer Jacobs Entertainment. As “Reno’s oldest casual restaurant,” the restaurant has been run by three generations of local families for more than six decades and was featured on the popular Food Network show Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives. Jacobs Entertainment is buying up land along the corridor for a proposed Reno Neon Line entertainment district. ● Agents of the Nevada Gaming Control Board spent two weeks tracking down an Arizona man who left Las Vegas without realizing that he had won a $229,000 progressive slot machine jackpot at Treasure Island. A newspaper account attributed the mistake to “a communications glitch on the machine” that prevented the player and casino floor personnel from determining whether he had won the jackpot. ● Country superstar Garth Brooks is “thinking about a residency” in Las Vegas after his current stadium tour is over in September. He reportedly made the comment during a one-nighter at MGM Resorts’ Dolby Live at Park MGM. Brooks had a prior residency at Encore Theater from 2009 to 2014. ● The Life is Beautiful music and arts festival in Downtown Las Vegas could be expanding to other cities. Rolling Stone magazine has acquired a majority stake in the event and its parent company Penske Media Corp. plans to make further inroads in the live event space, according to the publication. The magazine said it will bring the festival to “other territories.” ● Tokyo’s Bureau of Port and Harbor has secured JPY10 million (US$87,000) for research on integrated resorts as part of the city government’s financial-year 2022 budget. The Japanese government will choose up to three IR operators this year in Phase 1 of a casino liberalization program. More IRs can be added in seven years. The deadline for applications is April 28; three jurisdictions will apply: Osaka, Wakayama and Nagasaki. ● Australia’s Star Entertainment Group will compensate current and former staff members for approximately AU$13 million (US$9.2 million) in underpayments as part of a retrospective wage review. The underpayments date back six years. ● The Chukchansi Economic Development Authority, operator of Chukchansi Gold Resort & Casino in California’s Yosemite Valley has announced that it has cleared the remaining balance of $9.7 million in secured notes due in 2028. The authority credited “conservative financial decision-making” for the outcome, which strengthens its balance sheet and frees up “valuable resources for reinvestment in its businesses and its community.” ● NUSTAR Resort and Casino in Cebu in the Philippines, is preparing for the soft launch of a hotel facility, a five-star venue called Fili Urban Resort, in May. That nation is planning to open its borders to fully-vaccinated tourists from overseas, effective February 10. ● Melco Resorts and Entertainment will offer senior secured notes to generate the remaining cap-ex required for the expansion of Studio City in Macau. The expansion, which is expected to be completed by December, will add 900 hotel rooms, additional gaming space, a movie theater, a fine dining restaurant, meetings and exhibition space and one of the world’s largest indoor and outdoor water parks. ● Chinese-American chef, author and TV host Martin Yan will open his first Las Vegas Strip restaurant at the newly re-branded Horseshoe Las Vegas later this year. At M.Y. Asia, the host of the PBS program “Yan Can Cook” will “bring authentic Asia to the resort,” according to a release. Bally’s Las Vegas will be transformed into the Horseshoe this spring. ● Malaysia’s National Recovery Council has proposed that from March 1, the country’s borders fully reopen to international travelers without mandatory quarantine. Resorts World Genting, the only casino complex in Malaysia, had been a destination for foreign tourists prior to the Covid 19 pandemic. It will welcome them back with its new $789 million theme park, Genting SkyWorlds, which is expected to bring more business to the complex. ● Authorities in Australia have announced dates for the reopening of international borders, almost two years after they closed due to the global Covid-19 outbreak. Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Australia’s borders would open to all fully vaccinated tourists starting February 21. ● Sands China recently hosted a full-day training course, “Knowing More About Responsible Gaming,” with the Youth Volunteers Association of Macau at the Venetian Macao. It was part of the company’s on-the-job training for its Responsible Gaming Ambassadors and its ongoing support of the local government’s “Lost Control, Lose Family” responsible gaming promotions. ● The Swedish Gaming Inspectorate, Spelinspektionen, has announced a new nationwide campaign aimed at discouraging the use of unlicensed operators. As part of the “Games Need Rules” campaign, the inspectorate will release a series of films across social media. “The purpose is to inform the public that there is a choice to make between gaming companies that have a Swedish license and gaming companies that do not,” said Yvonne Hejdenberg, Inspectorate communications manager. ● Caesars Entertainment announced last week it will host a national hiring event this month for more than 50 of its properties across the U.S., including those in Las Vegas. The event will take place February 24 with positions from “the casino floor to managing financial transactions or even designing casinos.” ● U.S. tribal operator Mohegan Gaming & Entertainment says it has resumed construction of its South Korean integrated resort, Inspire Korea, after completing financing late last year. The development is slated to include three hotel towers, an arena, a foreigners-only casino, dining, retail, convention and entertainment options, a year-round indoor water dome experience and an outdoor family park. It will be the second integrated resort to open in Incheon after Paradise City. ● U.S. lottery sales this year are expected to fall 6 percent year-over-year to $100 billion as a result of the normalization of instant-game and draw-based sales following impressive growth last year, according to Eilers & Krejcik Gaming’s fourth-quarter lottery tracker report. Sales grew 17 percent to a record $106 billion last year across the 46 jurisdictions that Eilers tracks. Instant games were up 13 percent to $72 billion and draw-based games rose 24 percent to $33 billion. ● Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Sacramento in California has announced a partnership with Live Nation for the Hard Rock Live entertainment venue. The indoor concert venue is due to open this spring. The casino will own and operate the 65,000 square foot building that has 2,500 seats. Live Nation will book and promote the shows there. The facility has the ability to host meetings and tradeshows, boxing and MMA, as well as concerts.