NEWS & NOTES

Sands China’s Parisian Macao has attracted more than 5 billion media impressions since opening in September 2016. The milestone was revealed by Chairman and CEO Sheldon Adelson in a filing to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.  ●  UK National Lottery operator the Camelot Group has called for its first creative agency pitch in more than 10 years, as the firm’s new leadership looks to revitalize the brand reach a broader, social media-based audience. Presently, the account belongs to London marketing agency AMV BBDO (BBDO Group).  ●  Visitation to Macau during the first three days of the Chinese New Year celebration grew is 18.2 percent year-on-year to more than 210,000, according to the Macau Government Tourism Office. The total number of visitors was 314,841, up 9 percent.  ●  A former IT staffer and his wife were sentenced to stiff jail terms for fleecing Australian sports betting and lottery operator Tabcorp Holdings for more than A$600,000 by cashing in unclaimed winning bet slips. A court concluded that Trevor Raine used his position as an IT staffer to search Tabcorp’s databases for unclaimed winning tickets, printing bogus tickets with the same serial numbers and bar codes. Raine’s wife Talanoa would then take the tickets to TAB agencies in Sydney and Melbourne to claim the winnings. Raine was handed 26 months in jail for the scam; his wife got 15 months. The scam was unraveled when one of the winners tried to redeem his authentic ticket.  •  Food Network celebrity chef Giada de Laurentiis revealed details of her trattoria-style restaurant opening at Horseshoe Baltimore, which she says will offer a “casual but elegant” experience.  “At the beginning of this discussion everybody just said to me, ‘Let’s just rebuild Giada Vegas but in Baltimore,’” she told the Baltimore Sun. “And I thought, ‘No, it doesn’t work here.’ It’s not the same community, which is why I had to spend time here to understand it.” She said she designed the restaurant after researching the area and talking to local chefs, creating dishes “a little bit different than most Italian restaurants.”  •  Oddsmakers at the Westgate Superbook in Las Vegas have named the expansion Vegas Golden Knights hockey team as the new favorite to win the 2018 Stanley Cup. The Knights are 9-to-2 favorites after falling to 4-to-1 on Sunday. The new team opened at 200-to-1 to win the Cup last June, with odds as high as 500-to-1 right before the season. “The Knights started off as the longest shot on the board to win the Stanley Cup,” Westgate Sports Book Director Jay Kornegay told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “No one was betting them. There was no interest, which totally makes sense for an expansion team. Now it’s crazy to say they’re the favorite to hoist the Cup.”  •  The Clark County Commission has unanimously approved the sale of up to $400 million in bonds over the next two years to help pay for the $1.4 billion expansion and renovation of the Las Vegas Convention Center. The bonds will be backed by a 0.5 percent increase in the county hotel room tax. The increase, paid by hotel customers, commences March 1.  •  Aria on the Las Vegas Strip has completed a $170 million, 200,000-square-foot expansion of its convention and meetings space. The resort’s four MICE levels now total more than 500,000 square feet.  •  Las Vegas’ South Point Hotel, Casino & Spa plans to spend $40 million to remodel its 2,100-plus rooms and suites with new flooring and other features, including upgrades to the bathrooms and other amenities. The project is slated to begin in April and take three years to complete.  •  Kenneth Rosevear has resigned as a non-executive director of MGM China. The Hong Kong-listed operator, a majority held subsidiary of MGM Resorts International, said Rosevear was retiring and his departure was effective immediately. The company recently which opened its second resort in Macau, MGM Cotai.  •  New York City’s popular Comedy Cellar is opening a branch at Las Vegas’ Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino. The 300-seat venue debuts April 5. Shows will run Thursdays-Sundays, at 7, 9 and 11 p.m. Tickets to individual shows will go on sale February 22 with Marc Cohen hosting the opening weekend performances by comics Mo Amer, Kyle Dunnigan, Jessica Kirson and Nathan McIntosh.  •  The Westin Las Vegas, managed by Crescent Hotels & Resorts, recently replaced 8,000 square feet of gaming floor near the lobby of the hotel into a restaurant and bar called Jack & Eli and increased its meeting room capacity by 20 percent. The Westin also got rid of smoking inside and at the pool area. These changes makes the hotel the odd man out for Las Vegas hotels, although the number of slots in Las Vegas are trending down from the peak of 61,000 in 1999 to 38,000 today.  •  The winner of a $559.7 million Powerball Jackpot who is suing to remain anonymous, will get her money while the courts determine if the New Hampshire Lottery must release her name, as it claims is required by the state’s Right to Know Law. While the case is decided the winning lottery ticket, with her signature, will be stored in a vault.  Her attorneys claim she signed the back of the ticket without realizing her name would be subject to release.