NEWS & NOTES

Amaya Gaming has agreed to pay former PokerStars owners Isai and Mark Scheinberg three months of late fees in exchange for more time to pay off a balance of approximately $200 million remaining on its $4.9 billion purchase of PokerStars. Amaya acquired PokerStars from the Scheinbergs’ Rational Group in 2014 and was required to complete the purchase by February 1. The new agreement allows Amaya to spread the payments over the course of 2017.  •  U.S. District Judge Andrew Gordon has dismissed a complaint against Las Vegas Sands, its Chairman and CEO Sheldon Adelson and former COO William Weidner that accuses them to lying to shareholders to pump up the value of the company’s shares on the eve of the Great Recession in 2007 and 2008. The shareholder class action, originally filed in 2010, focused on company statements made at the time allegedly downplaying the potential impacts of the financial crisis on its Macau operations.  •  MGM Resorts International held a career fair at the Las Vegas Convention Center earlier this month to recruit seasonal employees for its Strip casinos. The gaming giant is looking fill more than 1,000 poolside positions, including hosts, cocktail and food servers, cooks, bartenders, receptionists, security officers, lifeguards and massage therapists.  •  Golden Entertainment plans to open seven new taverns in the Las Vegas Valley in 2017. The buildout will give Golden a total of 60 venues in Nevada. The company’s brands, which are permitted to operate limited machine gaming, include PT’s, Sean Patrick’s, Sierra Gold and SG Bar. Golden opened five taverns in 2016.  •  Riviera Boulevard in Las Vegas has been renamed Elvis Presley Boulevard to honor the popular music legend, who would have turned 82 on January 8.  The street runs four-tenths of a mile from the Strip to Paradise Road near the Convention Center and the Westgate, where Presley was the headliner in residence from the late 1960s through the early ’70s when it was the International Hotel and later the  Las Vegas Hilton.  •  New casino facilities at Malaysia’s Resorts World Genting may open in time for Chinese New Year on January 28, according to Maybank analyst Samuel Yin Shao Yang. The revamped casino may add up to 250 tables for a total of 850. The complex is opening in phases. A Sky Plaza will debut during first quarter this year; and a high-speed cable car system called Awana Skyway opened in December.  ?  Macau’s former Prosecutor General Ho Chio Meng continues to deny hundreds of charges against him before the Court of Final Appeal. He has been accused of running a crime syndicate, money laundering, abuse of power, fraud and outsourcing city contracts to family businesses. His trial began in December.  ?  Chile’s comptroller general has ordered municipal governments to exercise greater control of gambling machines and shut down any that don’t comport with regulations. Games of chance are not allowed outside casinos, according to the guidelines; a recent study determined that more than 33,000 illegal machines operate in Chile.  ?  Wynn Macau Ltd. is dragging its feet when it comes to new tables for its $4 billion Wynn Palace resort, which opened last year. The resort is entitled to 25 new tables in the new year, but has yet to file a request from the city’s Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau.  ?  The New Macau Gaming Workers’ Rights Union organized a protest last week demanding pay raises of at least 5 percent for workers, along with a cut in the number of foreign workers. About 300 workers joined the march.  ?  The Ohio Casino Control Commission reports that casino revenues were down at three of the four casino resorts, and up at one, creating the 2 percent overall decline for 2016. Revenue declined at the Hollywood Casino Toledo in Cincinnati and the Jack Entertainment casino in Cleveland. The outlier was Penn National Gaming’s Hollywood Casino Columbus, whose income rose.  The Toledo facility declined 1 percent compared to a 5 percent increase the year before.  Its 2016 revenues were $191.6 million, compared to $213.5 million for the Columbus casino, $189.3 million for the Jack Entertainment Cincinnati and $203.6 million for the Jack Cleveland.  •  The U.S. Supreme Court indicated last week it would take up the case of whether a tribe’s sovereign immunity extends to employees who are personally sued while on tribal business. The case involved an employee of Foxwoods, in Connecticut, who was involved in a car accident. The injured couple declined to sue the tribe, instead suing the employee for neglect. The tribe argues that sovereign immunity extends to its employees.   •  Churchill Downs Incorporated and Saratoga Casino Holdings LLC have completed their previously announced purchase of the Casino at Ocean Downs and Ocean Downs Racetrack, a slots-only racino on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, from a private ownership group led by Mr. William M. Rickman, Jr. The purchase of the property by Old Bay Gaming & Racing, LLC, a new 50-50 joint venture formed by CDI and SCH, follows the approval of the transaction by the Maryland Lottery and Gaming Control Agency and the Maryland Racing Commission. The Casino at Ocean Downs and Ocean Downs Racetrack are located in Berlin, Maryland, about five minutes from the coastal resort community of Ocean City, Maryland. The Casino at Ocean Downs, which opened in 2010, hosts 800 video lottery terminals and electronic table games.  •  Pennsylvania casinos reported gross gaming revenues of $2.36 billion for 2016, down 0.23 percent from the previous year. SugarHouse Casino in Philadelphia and Parx Casino in Bensalem recorded the biggest percentage gains in slot win—SugarHouse reached $181.2 million last year, up nearly 4 percent; Parx won $389 million, up 2.8 percent. At Harrah’s Philadelphia in Chester, slot revenues fell 5 percent, and at Valley Forge Casino Resort in King of Prussia, they were down less than 1 percent.  • The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board has fined SugarHouse Casino $100,000 for five incidents of underage gambling involving 10 individuals last year. The $100,000 fine for SugarHouse is among the largest levied for underage gambling by the gaming board, and the largest overall fine ever levied against SugarHouse. SugarHouse officials told the gaming board that it has started using new scanners that are better at picking up fake IDs, and that it has instructed security guards to ask tougher questions of individuals with suspicious IDs.  •