NEWS & NOTES

Legends Bay Casino in Sparks has announced an opening date of August 30, according to parent company Olympia Gaming. The long-awaited project is the first new casino to be built in the Reno-Sparks area in more than 20 years. The 80,000 square-foot facility will feature 650 slots, 10 tables, a sportsbook operated by Las Vegas-based Circa Sports and assorted dining options. Circa’s sportsbook will feature a 10-by-15-foot video board and will have a maximum capacity of 140 guests, per CEO Derek Stevens. • On a recent earnings call, Caesars Entertainment CEO Tom Reeg was noncommittal about the company’s summer plans, saying that it may not sell one of its Las Vegas assets after all, despite heavy speculation that it was getting ready to offload either the Flamingo Las Vegas or Planet Hollywood sometime soon. Caesars’ REIT, VICI Properties, already has the right of first refusal if and when the company does decide to sell, but Reeg noted that “there are plenty of interested parties.” The Las Vegas market has seen a much-needed boom in recent months, and the company may be looking to squeeze a little more out of that resurgence before selling off. • James “Jimmy” Thomas, president and co-founder of Hippodrome Casino in London, has died at the age of 88, his family announced. The well-known gaming executive had been in the industry since the early 1950s, when he opened his first casino in Leicestershire at Hurst Hotel. He and his son, Simon, opened the Hippodrome in 2012, which has become one of London’s premier casinos. Thomas received multiple lifetime achievement honors, most recently from the British Casino Awards in 2019. • LeoVegas has been ordered by the Great Britain Gambling Commission to pay a fine of £1.3 million (€1.6 million/$1.6 million) for a series of social responsibility breaches to its license conditions. The fine came after the commission reviewed the operator’s license. One example was setting spend triggers higher than an average customer’s without an explanation. According to the commission, LeoVegas “relied too heavily on ineffective threshold triggers and inadequate information” to decide how much a player could wager. • Central Register of Exclusion of Gaming (CRUKS) of the Netherlands has registered over 20,000 users since the regulated online gaming market went live in October. The figure was reported by the Dutch gaming regulator, Kansspelautoriteit (KSA) during a review on the market’s safer gaming initiatives. The law requires operators to centralize customer databases with the national database. They must consult the database before allowing a player to wager. Vulnerable players may self-exclude from 6 months to indefinitely. CRUKS has a feature where loved ones and close associates can register someone for “involuntary self-exclusion.” • LIVE! Casinos & Hotels celebrated the recent competition for a $1.28 billion prize in the Mega Millions multi-state lottery by purchasing Mega Millions tickets for each of its 4,000-plus team members in Maryland, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. The operator stated that if one employee won the jackpot, the $1.28 billion would be split among all LIVE! employees. None did; the big prize went to one ticket purchased in Illinois. •