Casino operator Wynn Resorts will receive $41 million from ex-boss Steve Wynn and insurance carriers as part of a settlement in shareholder lawsuits that accused company directors of failing to address allegations of a decades-long sexual misconduct pattern leveled against Mr. Wynn.

In a statement issued Wednesday, Wynn Resorts said that neither the company itself nor former or current directors and higher standing officials were found to have committed any wrongdoing relating to the pending settlement.

The proposed deal is subject to approval of a Las Vegas judge. Under its terms, Mr. Wynn will have to pay $20 million in damages, while the remaining $21 million will be paid by insurance carriers on behalf of current and former Wynn Resorts staff.

Mr. Wynn quit Wynn Resorts in February 2018. His departure occurred about a month after the publication of a bombshell report by the Wall Street Journal in which former and current employees at Wynn Resorts’ two casinos in Las Vegas accused the embattled businessman of subjecting them to unwanted sexual advances and abusing his authority to force them into performing sex acts on him. The disgraced businessman has denied all allegations.

The Settlement

The settlement stems from multiple shareholder lawsuits, all filed in 2018 and later on consolidated into a single one in Clark County District Court in Las Vegas. Plaintiffs include the New York State Retirement Fund, Pennsylvania’s Operating Engineers Construction Industry and Miscellaneous Pension Fund, and municipal firefighters in California.

Lawsuits alleged that Wynn Resorts officers and directors knew about the incidents of sexual misconduct involving the company’s founder and former CEO and Chairman, but did not disclose or address those properly.

Wynn Resorts said Wednesday that the settlement reached credits it with $49 million for changes it has made since the publication of the WSJ report. Measures implemented include new policies for workers’ protection and the addition of eight new independent board members, including four female directors.

Commenting on their lawsuit and the recently reached settlement, New York Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said Wednesday that they have filed their lawsuit “in response to serious and repeated allegations of sexual misconduct by Steve Wynn and the prior board’s alleged failure to stop it.” Mr. DiNapoli is in charge of New York’s $209 billion retirement fund. The fund is estimated to hold $23 million worth of Wynn Resorts shares.

The state Comptroller added that they are “gratified that the reforms in this agreement and those undertaken following the initiation of our lawsuit will protect Wynn Resorts employees and shareholders against future harm.”

The sexual misconduct allegations against Mr. Wynn prompted regulatory investigations in Nevada and Massachusetts, the two states where Wynn Resorts is licensed to operate casino resorts. In Nevada, the company had to pay a $20 million fine for failing to address the allegations against its former boss, while Massachusetts regulators hit it with a $35 million penalty. Mr. Wynn has not been ordered to pay anything so far by regulators.

Source: Steve Wynn to pay half of $41 million settlement with pension fund after sex allegations, MarketWatch

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Live Casino supplier Evolution Gaming’s US expansion push has just hit another important milestone as the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement granted the company permission to expand its Atlantic City live studio.

Evolution opened the Live Casino facility at Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Atlantic City in August 2018. The studio was the company’s second one in North America and first on the territory of the United States. Evolution also runs a Live Casino studio in Canada, which it launched in British Columbia in early 2018.

In a petition filed on November 7, the major provider of Live Casino solutions asked New Jersey’s gambling regulator to allow it to dramatically expand its facility in Atlantic City. The Division of Gaming Enforcement gave the nod to the planned expansion of the studio last week.

Evolution will thus be able to more than double the studio and to add more tables to its existing offering. The company will expand the facility by 3,163 square feet to 5,386 square feet. The now approved expansion will also include the addition of 26 gaming tables, including one Money Wheel table, one Side Bet City table, and 24 Blackjack tables.

Approval Subject to Conditions

The New Jersey gambling regulator told Evolution that it will have to ensure that it has fulfilled certain conditions before being allowed to use the expanded Live Casino space. The company will need to make sure that it is compliant with the state’s CCTV requirements to record all gaming tables no matter whether active or inactive.

In addition, all CCTV cameras in the expanded Live Casino studio will have to be accessible from the Division of Gaming Enforcement’s monitoring system.

The Hard Rock Security Department will remain responsible for the security of the Live Casino studio since the facility is located at Hard Rock’s Atlantic City property.

Once the expansion process is complete, the Division of Gaming Enforcement will conduct inspections at the studio to ensure that all changes made conform to rules and regulations. The regulatory review will include, but will not be limited to, an “assessment of the adequacy of CCTV and security coverage.” Evolution will be able to use the expanded space only after the state gambling watchdog has completed its inspections.

In 2013, Evolution became the first supplier of Live Casino solutions to be awarded Preliminary Waiver approval by the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement. Opening the company’s first US Live Studio last year, CEO Martin Carlesund said that their US entry “has been a carefully considered long-term project” and that it was the right time to set foot in New Jersey.

Aside from New Jersey, Evolution is also poised to expand to neighboring Pennsylvania where it received a conditional Interactive Gaming Manufacturer license in September. The company has also revealed plans to build a Live Casino studio in the Keystone State. The facility is expected to open doors sometime next year.

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With fall upon us and its thick fog rolling in like cotton wool, nothing can warm up an avid slots player’s heart and cold-bitten fingers quite like a new exclusive tournament for members of the LCB community.

The tourney is hosted by FatBoss casino and is sponsored by online gaming content provider Red Rake Gaming. Only LCB members can enter it to compete for a trio of great prizes.

Licensed in Curacao, FatBoss offers its players a wide range of games by some of the industry’s big hitters. The casino’s theme presents throwback experience and allusions to the gangster past of gambling, a world that many found as fascinating as dangerous and that has inspired some of the greatest works of modern art.

Boss Harvest – Exclusive Tournament for LCB Members

The Boss Harvest tournament is set to start Monday, November 18 and to run for the next seven days. It will be hosted by FatBoss and only LCB members will be able to take part in it.

This exciting new tourney is sponsored by Red Rake Gaming. The major online casino content supplier is also providing the prizes for the top three contestants.

The three participating games are all delivered by Red Rake to the hosting online casinos. These are Super 12 Stars, known to be the provider’s highest grossing game ever, Mystic Mirror, Red Rake’s best performing title this year, and new release Million 7, which offers players a million ways to win.

Participating games:

• Super 12 Stars
• Mystic Mirror
• Million 7

Tournament Requirements and Prizes

Only FatBoss players registered through LCB.org will be able to take part in the tournament for a chance to win one of three prizes. LCB’ers should place a minimum stake of €10 per spin to get in the running for one of the three prizes up for grabs.

The top three players who wager the most over the course of the week-long tournament will win the prizes. And the prizes themselves are as follows:

1st Place – PlayStation 4
2nd Place – €100 Bonus
3rd Place – Free Spins

More information about this exclusive tournament and how interested players can participate will be added in the LCB forum in the coming days ahead of the start of the contest. If you don’t have an account with FatBoss casino, make sure to open one through LCB, in order to be able to take part in the tournament.

Head over to our big brother LCB.org for more exclusive contests, casino news, and tons of other industry-related content.

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Police in the Dutch city of Venlo arrested earlier this week four individuals at Holland Casino after surveillance staff at the gambling venue caught them in the act of trying to manipulate the outcome of an automated roulette machine.

Police said that all of the arrested roulette scammers were from Georgia and were persons of interest in reference to similar crimes currently investigated by Interpol. The arrested individuals were believed to have targeted other casinos around the Netherlands and in other European countries.

As mentioned above, the four scammers targeted Holland Casino’s electronic roulette machines. Police officers said that they conducted their scam by first breaking the lid of a gambling device and then lifting the glass off the roulette machine.

They then made sure that the ball landed in the right box in order for the machine to register a win. Police said that they have seized a large sum of money from the four suspects as well as a number of yet to be redeemed vouchers they had obtained through their illicit scheme.

Over the course of an investigation opened into the four arrested individuals’ activities, police officers discovered that they might have been active in other casino locations around the Netherlands. They are also believed to have targeted and scammed other European casinos, as well.

The House Always Wins

Commenting on the incident, Venlo police said in a statement that “the crooks bet at the wrong casino and outbid themselves.” The statement went on that the “house has won, and to speak in Monopoly terms, the crooks have drawn the ‘Go Directly to Jail’ card.”

The four arrested individuals have also drawn the attention of authorities in other European countries. Dutch police said that they have been working with counterparts in other countries where casinos might have been targeted by the suspects.

Police officers from the Netherlands have also been cooperating with Interpol as part of a broader initiative to tackle mobile banditry – the term used for international crime groups that are active across borders. Such groups are often linked to burglaries, theft, pickpocketing, fraud, and casino scams in the case of the recently caught group of four Georgians.

Commenting on the recent incident, a spokesperson for Holland Casino said that they have never experienced this type of scam. However, the gambling venue in Venlo does not see a reason to take any specific measures, “because our employees have thwarted the criminals’ attempt” to defraud the casino.

The spokesperson’s statement went on that “Holland Casino has state-of-the-art techniques to detect fraud” and that they are constantly working to improve their tools and practices to detect all forms of fraud.

Earlier this year, police in the Cypriot city of Limassol arrested a dealer working at the local casino on suspicion that he had tempered with the roulette wheel to help a patron scam the gambling venue out of €5,800. The fraud was caught on CCTV.

Source: FOUR GEORGIANS ARRESTED OVER CASINO ROULETTE SCAM, NL Times

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This coming Monday, November 4, will be an eventful day for Pennsylvania’s online gambling market as it will see two major brands enter it – one bringing digital sports betting experience, while the other debuting the state’s first online poker website under its new gambling regulatory regime.

Major sports betting operator DraftKings announced this week that it is gearing up preparations to soft-launch its mobile betting app in the Keystone State on November 4. That same day will see PokerStars’ entry into Pennsylvania’s online poker space.

DraftKings will be able to go live in Pennsylvania after it received a Sports Wagering Operator License from the state Gaming Control Board during the regulator’s October 30 meeting.

The regulatory green light means that the operator can now soft-launch its product for a test period that will be overseen by the board. If everything goes according to plan during the test period, DraftKings expects to officially launch its full digital betting operation several days later.

DraftKings will be the sixth operator to go live with online wagering in the Keystone State since this summer when the first such operation was launched. Pennsylvania legalized sports betting in the fall of 2017 as part of a larger gambling expansion effort signed into law by the state’s Governor, Tom Wolf.

Growing Mobile Footprint

One important deal paved the way for DraftKings to enter Pennsylvania’s nascent mobile betting market. Over the summer, the company signed a 10-year partnership agreement with local casino operator Penn National Gaming. The deal covered seven states, including Pennsylvania.

The launch of DraftKings’ digital and mobile betting operation in the Keystone State marks the fourth state where the operator is present with an online wagering product. Last summer, DraftKings launched New Jersey’s first digital sportsbook. It quickly established itself as one of the leaders in that state’s betting space, behind only archrival FanDuel.

DraftKings has also recently gone live with a mobile betting app in West Virginia and Indiana.

Entering Pennsylvania’s sports betting space presents a huge growth opportunity for DraftKings as well as for any other locally licensed wagering operator. Many suggest that Pennsylvania could eclipse Nevada and New Jersey in future as the Keystone State has larger population than the latter two combined.

It is to be seen whether DraftKings will be able to gain momentum in Pennsylvania as quickly as it did in New Jersey. After all, it was the earliest entry into the Garden State’s market, while in neighboring Pennsylvania it will face staunch competition from operators that have already gained some foothold, including its biggest rival FanDuel.

It is namely FanDuel that is currently ruling the sports betting roost in Pennsylvania. According to figures from the state gambling regulator, more than 81% of all wagers placed in September were handled by the state’s digital sportsbooks and half of them were placed via FanDuel’s online sports betting operation.

Betting handle, or the amount of bets placed through Pennsylvania’s sportsbooks, retail and digital, totaled $194.5 million in September. Online betting handle amounted to $158.1 million. And FanDuel’s online sportsbook took $85.1 million in bets in September.

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