NEWS & NOTES

The National Football League Raiders announced the selection of Mortenson Construction and McCarthy Building Companies to develop the 65,000-seat domed stadium that will house the team’s move to Las Vegas. Manica Architecture, which created the initial renderings of the stadium, will design it. McCarthy, based in the Las Vegas suburb of Henderson, will serve as the project’s local partner.  •  A federal judge in Nevada has ruled that Carson City’s planned Silver Bullet casino can be built without an accompanying hotel as required by local regulations. U.S. District Judge James Wilson upheld a decision by the city’s Board of Supervisors to grant the new developers the unrestricted gaming license that belonged to the site’s defunct Horseshoe Club, which also operated without a hotel. The neighboring Carson Nugget, Gold Dust West and Casino Fandango had sued to challenge the license award.  •  Las Vegas’ historic Golden Gate casino will double in size with 100 new slot machines and a 24-foot, 360-degree television tower as the centerpiece of an enlarged gaming floor. Additions will include a new entrance fronting on the Fremont Street Experience and an expanded bar. The property completed a major expansion in 2012, adding a five-story hotel tower, a new lobby and new exterior.  •  GEM Realty Capital of Chicago has acquired Las Vegas’ SpringHill Suites, an off-Strip non-gaming hotel on Paradise Road. GEM paid $50.5 million for the 24-story, 299-room property. The seller, Indiana-based White/Peterman Properties opened the hotel in 2009. The SpringHill Suites brand is owned by Marriott International.  •  Novomatic online gaming subsidiary Greentube has signed an agreement under which Leap Gaming will provide its turn-key virtual sports product to Greentube customers. “In the U.S. market, virtual sports is becoming a big thing,” said Gabriel Cianchetto, president of market development for Greentube North America, “and this is the way we can offer virtual sports to our casino clients via the Greentube Pro platform.” Yariv Lissauer, CEO of Leap Gaming, added, “We are excited to partner with Greentube to provide our virtual sports content. We are confident that our virtual sports suite will fit right into Greentube’s existing gaming portfolio and augment it tremendously.”  •  Two Maryland casinos are adding executive-chef restaurants. The Horseshoe Casino Baltimore is opening Gordon Ramsay Steak by the end of the year, replacing Jack Binion’s Steak. At the same time, Live Casino & Hotel—formerly known as Maryland Live!—is planning to debut the first Todd English outpost in the state next year when David’s by Todd English, a 24-hour restaurant serving breakfast all day and international cuisine. The moves are seen as competitive reactions to MGM National Harbor, seen as having upped the ante with its December opening including several high-end restaurants.  •  More than 120 exhibitors have registered for the 2017 MGS Entertainment Show. The annual trade exhibition and conference formerly known as the Macao Gaming Show will be held November 14-16 at Cotai Expo at the Venetian Macao.  ?  More than 15.5 million visitors traveled to Macau in the first half of 2017, a year-on-year increase of 5.4 percent, according to the Census Bureau.The average visit lasted 1.2 days, with visitors from Mainland China increasing 6.1 percent, and those from South Korea almost 39 percent.  ?  Shun Tak Holdings Ltd. will sell a total of seven property units in at the Nova Grand in Taipa to members of the Ho family. Pansy Ho, a director of the company, will buy two units for MOP36.06 million (US$4.8 million). Daisy Ho will buy two apartments for MOP26.07 million (US$3.5 million). Maisy Ho will purchase two units for MOP28.73 million (US$3.6 million).  ?  Construction of the Sino-Portuguese Trade Centre in Hengqin began this month. The RMB1.7 billion (US$251.84 million) complex in the Guangdong-Macao Cooperation Industrial Park will include office space, bilingual secretarial and legal services retail space and a hotel.  ?  The first Beijing-Macau flight from Beijing Capital Airlines landed at Macau International Airport last week, marking the beginning of flights bringing passengers to Macau from Beijing and then to the Lisbon terminal.The flight from Macau to Beijing takes approximately three and a half hours, while it takes approximately 13 hours to fly from Beijing to Lisbon.  ?  In other news about air travel, the daughter of gaming tycoon Stanley Ho may be Macau’s next great aviation executive. Pansy Ho, who tried in 2004 and 2015 to launch her own budget airline, reportedly sees opportunity in the region as Macau continues to recover from a 26-month decline.  ?  Galaxy Macau is battling a series of counterfeit-chip swaps. Since July 19, it lost almost $77,000 in revenues due to the scams. Ten suspects in the most recent scam remained at large as of last week.