“I do not want it to be an empty apology. My commitment is to assure that I never do it again. From now on, I guarantee that we will not be using these chat mechanisms to sustain this type of dialogue in order to focus on work for Puerto Rico.”
—Ricardo Rosselló Nevares, governor of Puerto Rico, on texts in which he called a female political opponent a “whore” and told his government’s oversight board, “Go f*** yourself”
“These actions, if not carefully and quickly reconsidered, will serve to drive out companies, such as us, who are good corporate citizens. Instead, the gaming industry will go underground, increasing illegal and underage participation, money laundering criminality and unregulated offshore operators claiming the market.”
—Betin, gaming operator whose license hangs in the balance in Kenya and whose payment system has been blocked
“We want to get that money so our children can use it in sports and culture. Gambling is not for children … Some money should be given to the government.”
—Uhuru Kenyatta, president of Kenya, to gaming firms who complain that they are unfairly charged with peddling to underage players
“This is becoming the Sin City of China with very little benefit to Filipinos and our economy.”
—Joel Villanueva, Philippine senator, on the influx of Chinese
“We’re against the idea of gambling, and so the little bit of money we might get from it isn’t going to change our mind. Even if they gave us a lot of money, it probably wouldn’t change our mind because pretty clearly our citizens are against it.”
—Strasburg, Pennsylvania Mayor Bruce Ryder, ahead of a municipal vote to ban truck-stop video gaming terminals under a new law signed by Governor Tom Wolf
“Our citizens get new freedoms and new liberties, our businesses get more opportunities to make more revenue, the state gets new opportunities to make more revenue, and probably the biggest win of the whole thing is that the education system gets more money out of this.”
—Rep. Timothy Lang, New Hampshire lawmaker whose bill making sports betting legal in the Granite State just became law
“This lawsuit seeks to return the millions of dollars Encore has brazenly stolen and will continue to steal from its customers unless and until it changes its practices to conform with Massachusetts law.”
— Law Offices of Joshua N. Garick, alleging that the Encore Boston Harbor casino is cheating blackjack players by paying them at different odds than mandated by Massachusetts law
“An open bid process would result in the state receiving $100 million or more in upfront money for these incredibly valuable gaming rights or would result in the state paying hundreds of millions of dollars less for the contracted services.”
—Marc Crisafulli, Twin River executive, arguing for an open bid process to provide slot machines to Rhode Island’s two casinos, both operated by Twin River Worldwide Holdings
