NEWS & NOTES

London has replaced Macau as the city with highest number of top-rated hotels, according to the Forbes Travel Guide 2019. The ranking has London with 13 hotels, one ahead of Macau, thanks to the opening of five new five-star venues. Six new restaurants were awarded the guide’s five-star rating, including three at Macau’s Wynn Palace—Mizumi, Sichuan Moon and Wing Lei Palace—and two at Studio City Macau—Robuchon au Dôme and Pearl Dragon.   • Wonderbox, an indoor family amusement park, will open at Paradise City in South Korea on March 31. It includes carnival-style games and several amusement facilities, including a bungee drop, a Ferris wheel and a carousel. ● MGM Resorts sponsored the opening game of the 2019 Major League Baseball season, held at the Tokyo Dome last Wednesday. The Oakland Athletics and Seattle Mariners faced off in the first time in seven years that MLB has held its opening game in Japan. ● The city of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, has approved the name change of the Sands Casino Resort Bethlehem, which will be known as the Wind Creek Casino Resort upon closing of the $1.3 billion sale of the property by Las Vegas Sands to Wind Creek Hospitality, an arm of the Poarch Band of Creek Indians of Alabama. The Bethlehem Planning Commission approved the name change implicitly, in approving Wind Creek’s request to replace the iconic Sands logo on the iron crane at the entrance of the casino to Wind Creek. The transfer of the license to Wind Creek Hospitality still must be approved by the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board. The tribe has pledged to then immediately invest $190 million into property improvements. • Mohegan Sun Pocono officials say the casino’s sports book will be open in time for the 2019 NFL football season. The retail book will be located just inside the Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania casino’s front entrance. Mohegan Sun President Anthony Carlucci said the book will be ready for football in comments during the kickoff of the harness racing season at the property’s racetrack, The Downs at Mohegan Sun Pocono. Carlucci said the plan is to offer both in-person and online sports bets, although state officials are treading carefully in that area due to the recent U.S. Department of Justice opinion that iGaming would violate the federal Wire Act. • Regulators say Pennsylvania truck-stop gambling will be up and running by the end of the year. Kevin O’Toole, executive director of the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board, told lawmakers that some 43 truck stops have given conditional approval to operate up to five gaming machines at each location. Another 17 locations have applied for video gambling terminals.