NEWS & NOTES

The much-anticipated MSG Sphere concert venue in Las Vegas will debut with performances from acclaimed Irish supergroup U2 in late 2023, according to Billboard. The 17,500-seat, $1.8 billion arena was slated to open in 2021 but was delayed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Its developer, MSG Entertainment, has called it the “largest spherical structure ever created,” and the exterior can be changed via programmable LED lights. U2’s debut performances are being called a residency, but the dates are non-consecutive, and stretch over a span of a few weeks. • Hit singer Adele has announced that her “Weekends With Adele” Las Vegas residency at Caesars Colosseum will return after a hasty last-minute cancellation back in January. The new dates will run from November 18 through March 25, 2023, with shows every Friday and Saturday night during that span. The Grammy award winner has added eight additional dates onto the original 24-show schedule. Fans who had already purchased tickets to the original shows will get first priority for tickets to the new concerts. • Arizona’s Gila River Resort & Casinos, the gaming offshoot of the Gila River Indian Community, announced recently that it has doubled its table game revenues and increased its casino traffic by at least 50 percent after introducing craps, baccarat and roulette tables to its properties. The move was made possible through an amendment to the state’s gaming laws last year. Aaron Bayne, director of casino games for Gila River, said that the revenue being generated for nearby Indian communities is “insane.” *• Cirque du Soleil has announced that its famous show at the Mirage, “The Beatles Love,” will close at the end of 2023. The Mirage was sold to Hard Rock International earlier this year, which is expected to rebrand the property and reopen it sometime in 2025. Even though Cirque was “thrilled to announce the extension” of the show’s contract “through 2023,” it is unclear at this time how long shows will actually run, given the fact that Hard Rock has already said that it “no longer plans to use the theater for a resident show,” according to casino.org. • Las Vegas’ famous Lotus of Siam Thai restaurant recently announced a flurry of developments, including the opening of a new location inside of Red Rock Resort by year’s end. The company will also close its current location on East Flamingo Road for renovations for the remainder of 2022. On top of that, Lotus’ original location on East Sahara Avenue, which is currently shuttered, will also reopen by the end of the year, meaning that the company will potentially have three locations running by the start of 2023. Lotus had previously been opposed to expansion, but decided now was the right time to make the jump. • Hawaiian Marketplace, a closed retail complex on the Las Vegas Strip, could be demolished by the end of next month. According to court filings from the property’s landlord, Gindi Capital, temporary fencing will start to go up on August 1, and demolition will begin by August 15 at the latest. This is despite the fact that no demolition permits have been issued to Gindi through Clark County, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. There is also an ongoing lawsuit involving Gindi and one of the complex’s tenants—the two sides are in a contract dispute regarding previous lease terms • NagaCorp founder and CEO Chen Lip Keong has transferred a controlling stake in the company to his family trust. NagaCorp, operator of NagaWorld in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, announced last month that Chen had transferred almost 2 billion shares to the Sakai Trust. The trust, which previously held around 2.55 percent of NagaCorp shares, now holds almost 70 percent. ● The Macau government will introduce new measures requiring people to show a negative nucleic acid test (NAT) to enter commercial establishments in the future. The plan was announced as Macau reported zero confirmed cases of Covid-19 in the community for a third consecutive day, with total cases down to single digits. Casinos are now open in the Chinese territory but are limited to half the normal staff and a fraction of gaming tables. ● The U.K. Gambling Commission (UKGC) has updated guidance on customer complaints, of which there are 200,000 annually. The update is part of its policy review prior to issuing new gambling regulations. It is reviewing 34 complaint policies from a variety of sectors. It found that 8 percent of gamblers have submitted a complaint. The objective is to combat the perception that submitting a complaint “is a tedious process,” and that licensees purposely make themselves hard to contact. The idea, said the commission, is to help licensees “handle these well, to improve outcomes for both them and consumers.” • Belgium’s Gaming Commission (BGC), has introduced a new deposit limit for online gaming. Players may deposit up to €200 (£171/$204) a week per licensed website. There is also a provision for players to request an increased limit. This launches a process to see if the player is good credit standing, without defaults.