NEWS & NOTES

Nagacorp said a planned expansion of its flagship NagaWorld gaming resort in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh will be subject to shareholder approval under the listing rules of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Accordingly, the company said it will convene an extraordinary general meeting to secure the votes. Plans for the US$3.5 billion expansion, known as Naga 3, include five hotel towers, shopping and MICE facilities and family attractions that include a number of virtual reality indoor theme parks. Nagacorp trades on the HKSE under the ticker 3918. • Caesars Entertainment’s Linq Hotel on the Las Vegas Strip has filed plans with Clark County for a virtual reality theater with seating for 62 and housed under a 33-foot dome covering 1,963 square feet. A second dome, 17 feet high, is also planned for ticketing, merchandise, point-of-sale and concessions. • Genting UK, has released plans to upgrade its casino in the London suburb of Luton. The £750,000 project (US$971,500) will feature more gaming space and more machine games (from 28 to 40), a remodeled poker room, renovated bars and lounges and new flooring, décor and furniture in some areas. • Casino and resort operator Macau Legend Development has bought 21.5 percent of a planned entertainment complex on Macau’s border island of Hengqin. The non-gaming project, Ponto, is slated to include more than 300 outlets offering retail shopping, dining and other attractions. Macau Legend spent HK$84.5 million (US$10.8 million) for the stake. • Gila River Hotels & Casinos in Phoenix, Arizona will attempt to get into the Guinness Book of World Records by breaking the world’s record for the largest game of bingo on April 25 to commemorate the casino’s 25^th anniversary. The attempt will include 75 four-foot bingo balls and a 20X20 foot bingo card. Two hundred people will sign up and play for prizes that include $2,500 in free bonus play. • The U.S. Supreme Court declined to intervene in McNeal v. Navajo Nation in which plaintiff Harold McNeal fell in the bathroom floor of Navajo Northern Edge Casino, and blamed the casino for negligence. The non-Indian will now have to litigate within the Navajo Nation’s tribal court system. McNeal had argued that the tribe’s Class III gaming compact authorized liability claims to be heard in state courts. Previous courts disagreed, and now so has the Supreme Court. • Galaxy Entertainment Group has signed a two-year sponsorship deal for the annual Galaxy Entertainment EuroJapan Cup, which features some of European football’s biggest clubs against J-League teams. The maiden game, to be played July 27 at Nissan Stadium in Yokohama, will pit English Premier League giants Manchester City against Yokohama F. Marinos, with the yet-to-be-finalized 2020 contest to take place in Osaka. ● Demolition for Cordish Companies’ new Pennsylvania mini-casino has started inside the former Bon-Ton store at Westmoreland Mall in Hempfield Township. The $131 million casino, a satellite facility of Cordish’s Philadelphia Live! casino under construction in Philadelphia’s stadium district, will open with 750 slot machines and 30 table games on a 100,000-square-foot gaming floor. Stadium Casino LLC paid $40.1 million for the license. “The project as a whole is moving forward, and we will start seeing some community involvement from them in the next couple of months I suspect,” Patrick Karnash, Hempfield’s planning coordinator, wrote in an email to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. • The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board levied fines totaling $242,500 against two casino operators last week, including a $12,500 fine against the Meadows Racetrack and Casino in Washington County. The board reported that the Washington Trotting Association, LLC, operator of the Meadows Racetrack and Casino, was fined for an underage gaming violation. Also fined was Sands Bethworks Gaming, LLC, operator of the Sands Casino Resort Bethlehem, which received a fine of $120,000 for underage gaming violations and a second fine for $110,000 regarding the awarding of free slot play. The Sands, which is being sold to Wind Creek Hospitality, has been dealt more than $500,000 in underage gambling fines. • A committee of the Louisiana state legislature easily passed a bill to license Harrah’s New Orleans for another 30 years as the city’s only casino. Under the measure, Harrah’s pledges to invest $325 million to upgrade the facility, including adding a new hotel and paying millions more in revenue taxes to the state. The bill’s sponsor is House Speaker Taylor Barras, but the measure faces opposition from the other chamber in the form of Senate President John Alario. who wants more paid to the state and the city of New Orleans.