NEWS & NOTES

Hong Kong-listed HolLouis XIII dings Ltd. may open its Macau casino earlier than the originally planned. In an annual report released earlier this month, the company indicated it may open earlier than July 1, 2016 because construction is slightly ahead of schedule. It has not yet disclosed which of Macau’s six gaming concession holders will supply the gaming license for the property.  ?  Railroad Pass owner Joe DeSimone has received gaming regulators’ initial approval to run the casino, and is moving closer to a gaming license. The Nevada Gaming Control Board approved of him recently, and is just waiting for final approval from the Nevada Gaming Commission for the casino just outside Boulder City.  •  Full House Resorts CEO Dan Lee has received recommendation from the Gaming Control Board. Full House currently owns three regional casinos, in addition to managing the Grand Lodge Casino at the Hyatt Regency Lake Tahoe. The Nevada Gaming Commission will look into the license on July 23.  •  Jesse Waits, former director of Wynn’s XS and Tryst nightclubs, will leave Wynn Resorts Ltd. to join James Packer’s Alon project. XS has been ranked the No. 1 grossing nightclub in five of the previous six years, according to Nightclub & Bar’s Top 100.  •  Washington’s Suquamish Indian Tribe has completed a 98-room addition to the hotel at its Clearwater Casino Resort on Puget Sound. The expansion includes a new fine dining restaurant and a café and 10,000 square feet of function space for events and entertainment.  •  The Massachusetts Lottery broke the $5 billion mark in sales for the first time ever in the fiscal year ended June 30, the state reported. The lottery awarded $3.64 billion in prizes and took in $983.5 million in profit, $35 million more than anticipated. Officials attributed the results to increased keno sales and strong sales of $20 and $30 instant tickets. The Lottery introduced $30 tickets for the first time last year.  •  The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board has fined four casino operators $67,500 for violations that mostly involved allowing underage patrons to gamble. The Gaming Control Board announced that it approved consent agreements with Mount Airy Casino, for three violations involving underage gambling; Harrah’s Philadelphia, for one instance of permitting underage gambling and a second violation involving payment to a prohibited provider; Valley Forge Casino for a single violation of permitting underage gambling; and Presque Isle Downs for a single violation in the manner it issued a players club card.  •  Giesecke & Devrient (G&D) has been certified “Visa Ready” by Visa for Host Card Emulation (HCE) cloud-based payment services. With the Visa Ready status, Visa ensures that technology and service providers develop and deploy products and services that are compatible with Visa’s requirements. G&D’s data center in Canada has received Visa Ready certification as a provider for cloud-based payment services. G&D’s certification by Visa covers all core services for cloud-based payments.  •  A new study has found that mobile phones have deepened the impact of gambling in Ireland, contributing to secret and hidden activity online. The social study, Playing Social Roulette: The Impact of Gambling on Individuals and Society in Ireland, was carried out by University College Dublin. Researchers spoke to 22 gamblers, all at different stages of recovery for a problem with gambling. Four main types of gambling were identified in the report: social gambling, problem gambling, compulsive or pathological gambling and progressional gambling. The report found that problem gamblers often started gambling as teenagers, and recommends that the impact of social gambling be taken into account when developing treatments for problem gambling.