NEWS & NOTES

Scientific Games Corporation announced that the company has signed a new two-year contract with four two-year extension options to provide instant games and related services to the Ohio Lottery. The contract, awarded through a competitive procurement process, began in July and includes instant games as well as marketing, licensed brands and interactive services. “We look forward to partnering with the Ohio Lottery to drive continued growth of instant games to benefit education in the state,” said John Schulz, senior vice president of instant products for Scientific Games.  •  Online gaming content supplier NextGen announced the release of a James Dean-inspired slot game. The slot, themed around the 1950s star of Rebel Without A Cause,  has five reels and three rows of symbols, where players can activate up to 25 bet lines on which to get wins. The theme is based on the life of the movie star, both on the big screen with some of his most iconic films and away from it as a cultural icon.  •  Leading slot manufacturer International Game Technology hit a major gaming industry milestone by paying the 1,000th jackpot of more than $1 million on IGT’s Wheel of Fortune slots. The life-changing jackpot at Golden Nugget Lake Charles in Lake Charles, Louisiana, came on Wheel of Fortune Triple Double Emeralds, The Texas native who won said he’s a longtime fan of Wheel of Fortune slot games.  •  BMM Testlabs North America announced that it has attained ISO/IEC 17065:2012 accreditation. The ISO/IEC 17065 accreditation is an international standard for ensuring the competence of organizations that perform product certifications. The accreditation ensures that BMM’s product certifications are impartial, consistent and based on objective testing and analysis.  •  The Hollywood Casino in Perryville, Maryland, has completed five years of operation.  It was the first casino to open in the state, and in spite of the addition of the larger Horseshoe Casino Baltimore and Maryland Live! casino, it has competed successfully. The casino, owned by Gaming and leisure Properties Inc., has 850 slots, ten poker tables and twelve gaming tables offering games such as roulette and craps. General Manager Matt Heiskell calls the casino, “your neighborhood casino. It’s a safe, comfortable, friendly place where people know your name, you get to know the employees when you come in here. We’re proud of how the business has progressed, and we’re proud of what we’ve been able to bring to the community and Cecil County and Perryville, based on how the business has performed over time.”  •  Jackpocket, the developer of a new lottery app that launched last week in New York says that it hopes to expand into Massachusetts and beyond. Jackpocket CEO Peter Sullivan said, “We’re looking at New Jersey, California and Massachusetts.”  Sullivan, who founded the company, noted that Bay State residents spend on average more on the lottery than in other states. Massachusetts Lottery Interim Director Michael Sweeney says Jackpockets isn’t yet licensed in the site.  •  Jackson Rancheria Casino Resort in northern California has return to full operations after shutting down during the Butte Fire. During the fire the casino opened an evacuation center for displaced persons, providing shelter and relief for more than 1,000. This included providing beds, meals and donations of clothing and other necessities.  The casino is owned and operated by the Jackson Rancheria Band of Miwuk Indians.  •  Rush Street Gaming through its Rush Street Interactive division has launched the CASINO4FUN Website at the SugarHouse Casino in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The website allows visitors to play online slots and table games using virtual credits. Players can also win actual prizes redeemable at the casino. The site features scores of popular slot machines. It can be accessed with all mobile platforms and laptop computers.  •  The Sheraton Old San Juan Hotel & Casino in San Juan, Puerto Rico, last week became the ninth casino to close in the last five years on the U.S. commonwealth. The hotel and casino was recently sold to Tishman Hotel Corporation, which plans to convert the site into retail. In July the island’s struggling economy brought down the seaside Condado Plaza Hilton, the seventh casino to close.  •  ADK Hospitality paid $605,000 for a 35,000-acre parcel upon which it plans to build a $5.5 million, 84-room hotel adjacent to Batavia Downs Gaming in Batavia, New York, was slated to get underway this week.  •  The Nevada Commission on Tourism allocated $4.4 million to use a rocked-up version of Cole Porter’s Don’t Fence Me In for its newest tourism ad campaigns.  •  Las Vegas-based Remark Media now owns travel booking site Vegas.com, which Remark agreed to buy from The Greenspun Corporation and attracts 3.4 million visitors each month.  •  New York Gaming Commission Executive Director Robert Williams said a final vote awarding four casino gaming licenses in the state will be done by the end of the year.  •  The Tulalip and Swinomish tribes of Washington state recently opened 350 acres of wetlands to threatened salmon and other species and initiated a forest conservation measures to improve the local environment and native habitat.  •  Reno, Nevada, will have to overcome an image of being cheap, dirty, and geared to “another generation” to attract younger adult tourists, a study by EMC Research indicates.  •  Nevada Gaming Revenues fell for a third straight month as casinos statewide took in $908.2 million from gamblers in August, a 1.4 percent decline, mostly due to decreases in baccarat gaming, the Nevada Gaming Commission reported.  •  Two major horse races, the Singapore Airlines International Cup and the KrisFlyer International Sprint have been discontinued, the Singapore Turf Club has announced. The club said “the objectives set out for the two races,” founded in 2000 and 2001, “have been achieved.”