Author: Josh Andrews

As an avid follower of the crypto world from the beginning since early 2010, Josh has experienced and covered every drop, turn and rise of Bitcoin from the first halving to the countless attempts of regulation. Over the years Josh has developed a keen interest in the different applications and uses of Bitcoin and its current movement within the gambling industry. It's safe to say very few can match Josh's passion for the growth and development of Bitcoin.

Looking For Inspiration? Five Great Gambling Movies for You

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Everybody loves a good Netflix and chill; a romantic comedy, or maybe an interesting documentary. But sometimes all we (gamblers) want to see is the thrill of the pleasant and disobedient air of outstanding gambling movies, whether it is the witty ones, the more gritty ones or just the plain old slick type.

So, from the vast library of Netflix, we have found a few interesting gambling themed movies that are probably the best that the streaming service has to offer. Well, yes, of course, everybody has been making a fuss about some new blockbusters but that will soon pass, but the movies we are recommending are definitely worth watching twice. And if cinema is your thing then we have some honorable mentions for you.

  1. Donnie Brasco

To kick things off we begin with this movie which many people consider to be an absolute classic. Having a star-studded cast that includes a young Al Pacino and an even younger Johnny Depp makes the movie ooze of great and captivating storytelling. The movie is a dark, gritty timeless classic brilliance that should be at the top of your watch, depending on how fast you can get to it.

  1. Hoodlum

Featuring Laurence Fishburne, Tim Roth, and Vanessa Williams, Hoodlum is based on real-life events. The story is based on the activities of black gangs who battled it out with the Italian mob for control over the Harlem numbers racket in the 1930s. This falls on the grittier end but it does give some valuable life lessons.

  1. The Gambler

The title tells it all for this one. Starring Jessica Lange, John Goodman and Mark Wahlberg, The Gambler tells the story of a professor with huge gambling debts who then plots to win big by plotting with one of his basketball star students to save shots during a game. This one delivers more than just a captivating story as it openly portrays the realities of the gambling world.

  1. Win It All

This will probably turn up in Netflix search for ‘gambling movies’ and it indeed deserves a top spot owing to the brilliance that it boasts of. It stars Jake Johnson and the ever-amazing Keegan-Michael Key in an action-packed drama that sees the lead character eventually come out on top.

  1. What Happens In Vegas

What Happens in Vegas boasts of a truly outstanding cast consisting of the ever-brilliant Cameron Diaz, the magnificent Ashton Kutcher as well as the great Rob Corddry. It tells the story of two strangers who awaken to find that they have gotten married after a night of intense partying and hitting the Vegas casino tables.

And there you go folks. Have a great movie break. Just make sure you pay attention to the details – you might actually learn a thing or two.

Artificial Intelligence Transforming Online Casino Gambling

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The age of artificial intelligence (AI) is upon us and its impacts are already being seen with the significant waves of disruption that it has been casting in various industries and sectors. Many businesses are scrambling to capitalize on this new frontier in a bid to understand and utilize it especially in the field of technology. However, these are not the only people who have their sights set on artificial intelligence.

The gambling industry and the online casino operators have not been left behind and they are now part and parcel of the AI transformation or revolution. This has been the case for quite some time – artificial intelligence and casino gaming had been paired as early as 20 years ago when IBM’s Deep Blue computer which was considered to be the epitome of artificial intelligence at the time, beat renowned pro chess player Garry Kasparov 3.5 to 2.5 in a six-game match.

Last year, artificial intelligence once again demonstrated the sheer power it holds as far as gambling is concerned. This was elaborated by Carnegie Mellon’s Libratus AI which (or who) won several thousands of poker hands over master poker players in Heads-Up No. In many ways, it may seem like this how big it can get, but the truth is, the influence of artificial intelligence on casinos and how they operate is just beginning.

Re-imagining User Experience and Protection Against Addiction

The gambling industry has always been at the helm of analyzing and studying customer behavior. In many cases, this is often done through programs that involve the utilization of sophisticated systems that are aimed at deriving meaningful information that will help the business understand their customers better. The data that can be collected is so diverse that eventually the opportunities to collect and leverage this data explodes when it is taken to the online space. As it stands, more people gamble online than in brick-and-mortar casinos.

With AI, casinos can now tap into the benefits of this valuable insights to take users experience (UX) to higher levels. AI allows for this by making it possible to easily track the activity all online casino customers based on their user accounts instead of relying on data from fractions of the total number of players.

Other than tracking customers, artificial intelligence has been used to further improve user experience (UX) customer service touch points. New breeds of AI have proven to be way better than impersonal and often frustrating customer service bots that were part of many online casinos.

Also, thanks to AI, operators can now detect and prevent gambling addiction through the analysis of player behavior that may be problematic or erratic spending. Evidently, artificial intelligence is going to leave a mark on the gambling industry as a whole.

Leveling the Playing Field

What this implies is that AI is a great tool for rooting out unscrupulous players for the good of both other players and the operator using insightful data analysis and machine learning capabilities. AI has been able to quickly identify and eradicate cheating schemes. Malicious individuals will still always find ways to cheat, including their own versions of AI but in the end, the playing field will be evened out which is the most important thing.

Adam Silver Just Made a Mess of the Leagues’ Talking Points

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On Saturday, NBA commissioner Adam Silver cited the extraordinary value of the league’s intellectual property in an argument meant to justify the controversial royalty that the NBA and other professional sports leagues have been asking for in case the Supreme Court legalizes sports betting countrywide. In what was his first public comment following the NBA’s move to outline a model framework for a legal sports betting marketplace back on January 24th, Mr. Silver said that the league should be compensated. The reason he gave was that the league would be incurring more expenses in case the law that prohibits professional sports betting is reversed.

At the New York Senate hearing on January 24th, the league, through Adam Silver, proposed the so-called 1 percent integrity fee for gaming operators from the total handle of all the wagers on the games in states where sports betting is already legalized or will be legalized in the future.

“I would only say from the NBA’s standpoint we will spend this year roughly $7.5 billion creating this content, creating these games,” Silver said at an NBA All-Star Weekend press conference. “Those are total expenses for the season. So this notion that as the intellectual property creators that we should receive a 1% fee seems very fair to me.”

The leagues and their lobbyists have been insisting that the fee is correlated with monitoring that is associated with sports betting. They have further pointed out that the proposed integrity fee will be used for ensuring game integrity due to the “increased expenses” that are part and parcel of sports betting markets. However, the proposed integrity fee does not, in any way, put any strings on how the leagues will need to use it.

Not Many Are Buying the Idea

NBA’s proposal has been met with lots of resistance especially from major international sports books and gambling trading industry trade groups who see the fee as a levy of some sort and this, according to them, will have a negative impact on their operations. Case in point, for a Nevada sportsbook that pays top state taxes amounting to 6.75 percent of its gross sports gambling revenues along with the 0.25 percent federal excise tax, the amount that the professional sports leagues will get out of the sportsbook’s annual revenue lies between 15 percent to 20 percent.

Ohio Lawmaker Gets Involved

NBA’s request is attracting a lot of attention and now an Ohio lawmaker has gotten into it. The lawmaker hopes that the Legislature does not give in to the demands to share potential sports wagering revenue with the leagues.

“I think the 1 percent integrity fee is an absolute joke,” said Fluharty, lead sponsor of the House legislation. “Nevada doesn’t even pay them. I can’t help but see the irony that MLB won’t let Pete Rose in the Hall of Fame because he bet on sports, yet now the league wants to make money on sports betting.”

Telegram Raises an Initial $850 Million for Its ICO

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According to a document filed with the U.S. Securities Exchange and Exchange Commission (SEC) after being signed by Telegram CEO and co-creator Pavel Durov, Telegram’s billion-dollar initial coin offering (ICO) has already amassed a whopping $850 million in the pre-sale stage. The figure was initially expected to get to about $600 million and was to be raised entirely from venture capital firms. As a result, not only has the company reached and surpassed its first milestone by a significantly huge margin but it has also gained a lot more confidence from the venture capitalists it intended to appeal to.

The document that was filed, a “Notice of Exempt Offering of Securities”, that was filed by Pavel and Nikolai Durov with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on February the 13th reported that the $850 million that had been raised under the SEC exemption Rule 506(c) from 81 venture capitalist investors would be for “the development of the TON Blockchain, the development, and maintenance of Telegram Messenger.”

The SEC filing offers a type of securities that is referred to as the “Purchase Agreements for Cryptocurrency” and are filed under the Rule 506(c) exemption. This means that citizens of the United States who invest must be accredited investors, that is, they have to either be worth over a million dollars or have an annual income of about not less than $200,000 in order for the tokens they are investing in not to be registered as securities with the SEC. The investors, in this case, reportedly bought rights to Telegram’s TON internal cryptocurrency known as “Grams” – these will be distributed once the platform is launched next year.

What This Means for the Company

The $850 million raised by the messaging company is the highest amount ever accumulated from a pre-sale – the closest comparisons are from previously completed ICOs by Filecoin and Tezos, which raised $257 million and $232 million respectively. In many ways, this affirms Telegram’s popularity within the crypto community and things are about to get even better as the company plans to use the funds to extend its services to include such offering as VPN solutions, cloud file storage as well as peer-to-peer micropayment transactions.

Considering the huge overshoot of the initial funding, there are a couple of questions that have arisen with regards to how it might affect the proposed public sale that is set to begin in March. However, everything seems to point to the public sale proceeding as planned although it is quite apparent that it might end up being heavily oversubscribed.

The Drew Las Vegas Casino Resort Set to Open in 2020

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Global development firm Witkoff and Marriott International have partnered in a bid to open a new integrated resort and casino on the site of a project that was previously known as the Fontainebleau Las Vegas. The large casino-resort whose construction on the Las Vegas Strip has been left unfinished since 2009 is now scheduled to launch towards the end of 2020 under a new moniker – The Drew Las Vegas.

The site initially hosted the Thunderbird Hotel and Casino that opened in 1948, after which it was later renamed to Silverbird then El Rancho before it was finally closed in 1992. Eight years later in 2000, Fountainbleau Resorts purchased the property but after imploding El ranch bought additional acreage and began a construction project that was halted in 2009 before it was sold to Icahn Enterprises’ L.P.’s majority shareholder Carl Icahn for $600 million.

In addition to featuring a casino and about 4,000 rooms and suites, the new luxury entertainment project will also be hosting the Las Vegas strip’s first JW Marriot. Also, once open, Marriot International will be responsible for managing the hotels.

“It is going to be a design-forward building, and when we bring it all together, people are going to say, ‘I really want to come back,’” said Steven Witkoff, chairman, and CEO of Witkoff. “The structure here is so well conceived, even from nine years ago, that there are a lot of possibilities for us to put our imprint from a design standpoint on that property.”

What to Expect

The resort is expected to include 50,000 square feet of convention and meeting space alongside a variety of nightlife, entertainment, retail and over 20 dining options. Witkoff further mentioned that while the building’s design is yet to be finalized, the existing eight-and-a-half acre pool deck will be redesigned to make it stand out among all other in Las Vegas.

Another project that is also in the works and has an anticipated 2020 launch date is the multibillion-dollar Resorts World Las Vegas that is going to lean more towards Chinese and Chinese-American tourists. In total, the two projects will be offering 7,000 rooms to the area and this will also be at about the same time that a mega expansion of the Las Vegas Conventions Centre will be completed. Looks like Sin City is about to get even more exciting.

Could Bitcoin’s Bounce Back to $10,000 Bring New Buyers?

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Yesterday (Thursday, February 15th), bitcoin rose above the $10,000 mark, surpassing a critical level thanks to stronger trader sentiment. On the CoinDesk Bitcoin Price Index (BPI), the digital currency soared to as high as $10,218. This consequentially made the bitcoin market, which is the largest digital currency market by capitalization, go up by more than 70 percent after a recent low of less than $6,000.

“Hitting $10k demonstrates the renewed energy in the crypto market, as it shakes off some of the volatility from the start of the year,” stated Iqbal Gandham, the UK Managing Director of eToro, a social trading platform.

In general, the cryptocurrency market has experienced wide-spread fluctuations in the last couple of months following speculations and rumors of a number of regulatory developments pertaining to how these digital assets are going to be handled. However, in sentiment driven markets, such as the bitcoin’s, key price levels changes like the bitcoin’s rise to $10,000 appears to attract new buyers who in turn help the price. Bitcoin’s recovery can also be attributed to statements from certain regulators which have gone a long way to alleviate fears of possible severe crackdowns which is a huge motivational factor for new buyers.

For the UK-based eToro social trading platform, user growth decelerated towards the end of January. This was at about the same time that bitcoin’s price started taking some rather significant hits. The rate of withdrawals, on the other hand, has not increased which implies that users were not selling out their bitcoin and that the demand for new customers could have contributed to the previous gains.

Investors Still Down $60 Billion in 2018

While bitcoin’s recovery should be a slice of hope for everyone in the community, investors who bought into the cryptocurrency at the beginning of the year will still have to brave a stormy period. The digital currency kicked off the year at $14,000, down from the $20,000 all-time high of December 2017. As such, since the year began, its market cap is still down by approximately $60 billion.

 

Overwatch’s Shanghai Dragons Announces First Female Player

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The Overwatch League has finally announced the first ever female player – there has been a tremendous amount of speculation regarding the matter in recent weeks and the League officially confirmed it on the team Twitter on Wednesday. The announcement also comes after recent discussions pertaining to the lack of female players in the very popular Esports title.

“I’m kind of shocked with the absence of women in the Overwatch League teams. For such a diverse game, with more than half of its roster being girls, it’s kind of disappointing. Girls play games too, and the lack of representation is not okay,” one critic pointed out on a Twitter post.

In what might seems to be an acknowledgment of concerns by critics, Shanghai Dragons, the team, announced the signing of four new players, who included Kim “Geguri” Se-Yeon, who will be the Overwatch League’s first female player. Joining Geguri will be Le “Fearless” Eui-Seok, He “Sky” Junjian and Chon “Ado” Gi-Hyeon.

The Shanghai Dragons have had a good number of wins in previous seasons and it seems that the only way to go is up. However, the team will have to brace itself for the uphill task it will have to try and make their way up the overall standings in a bid to reach the playoffs by the end of the season. The newly signed players are going to be a critical part of this journey. For instance, Fearless is a tank main who previously played with Element Mystic while Ado is a great DPS player with great strength on Genji and many other Attack heroes. Sky, also, is recognized mostly for his Ana play in China’s Miraculous Youngster squad – in essence, he will be adding a great deal of flexibility to the team.

Being the first ever female player in the Overwatch League is definitely going to make Geguri the biggest name of the four newly signed games, but she brings so much more to the table. She had her first brushes with mainstream popularity within the competitive gaming community for her Zarya play, where she had an amazing 80 percent win rate. While other players thought that she was cheating, it turns out that she just that good. The Shanghai Dragons also seemed to be particularly impressed by her expanded hero pool that now includes D.Va, Roadhog as well as Zarya at higher levels.

Hopefully, these new additions will better Shanghai Dragons’ luck – they have not won a single series in the first stage of the season.

MGM Cotai Finally Opens in Macau As License Renewal Looms

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On Tuesday, MGM Resorts International finally opened its $3.4 billion casino resorts in Macau, a venture that is latest big bet by foreign gaming operators on the Chinese gambling haven. MGM Cotai, the casino, opens after months of delays and will be the new highlight if Macau’s Cotai Strip with its 1,390-room hotel-casino offering. Also, with the Chinese Lunar New Year just around the corner, the casino is expected to draw in massive crowds within the next few days of its launch.

MGM Resorts International is one of the six licensed casino operators in Macau which is the only place in China where the citizens can gamble legally. However, MGM’s operational license in the region is due to expire in 2020 alongside SJM Holdings’ license. The other four operators, that is, Wynn Macau, Sands China, Melco Resorts and Galaxy Entertainment, on the other hand, will be able to operate normally until 2022 when their licenses expire.

While Macau authorities are yet to provide more information regarding the renewal of the licenses, the launch of the new MGM Casino in Cotai is anticipated to hasten the process in one way or the other. In fact, Grant Bowie, the chief executive of MGM China, MGM Resorts International’s Macau unit, believes that the launch was critical for the concession renewal process.

“Concession renewals will be determined on diversifying Macau into more than just a gaming town,” Bowie told a news conference.

Riding the Revenue Boom?

As the license expiration dates draw nearer, MGM Resorts and other operators have worked tirelessly towards diversifying their non-gaming offering in a bid to pacify Beijing which has grown more wary about Macau’s acute dependence and reliance on gambling – 80 percent of revenue in Macau is derived from gambling.

At the moment, Macau gambling revenues are on the upswing having risen by 19 percent in the last year to $34 billion following years of declining fortunes as a result of wealthy Chinese gamblers shying away from the casinos to avoid being probed by an extended corruption campaign by President Xi Jinping. These Chinese high rollers who are making a come-back to the casinos helped to propel Macau’s rapid transformation into what is now considered to be a global gambling powerhouse.

Analysts are anticipating that MGM Cotai will open with about 177 mass gaming tables. VIP gaming is expected to be handled by middlemen junkets that are likely to go live by the end of the first half of year alongside MGM Resorts’ luxury mansion villas.

New Sports Betting Measure Could Favor West Virginia Tracks

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West Virginia is on the verge of allowing sports betting and supposing everything goes well, a hoard of new jobs may come to the Northern Panhandle. One of the biggest beneficiaries of this will be the Wheeling Island Hotel-Casino-Racetrack and Mountaineer Casino Racetrack and Resort which will get quite a big boost.

According to the Eilers and Krejcik gaming research firm, about 700 full-time jobs will be created at the local tracks within the next five years thanks to sports betting. Also, an estimated additional 930 full-time jobs will be created in the state within the same five-year period – the economic impact from sports betting during this period would amount to $229 million.

The firm further predicted that the state would amass annual tax revenues amounting to up to $13.4 million in the first year based on a proposed tax rate of 10 percent on overall gross revenues from sports betting. By the fifth year, the amount is anticipated to rise to about $28.7 million.

The West Virginia Legislature is currently considering a bill that will make sports betting legal in the state in the likely case that Congress acts to legalize sports betting or the United States Supreme Court acts to permits states to venture into sports betting. These bipartisan measures were crafted by lawmakers who had worked alongside West Virginia Lottery Commission’s officials. The legislation will allow the tracks to be in charge of their own sports books as well as monitoring of sports betting activities. However, they would still be under the Lottery Commission’s vision.

“The casinos have the existing regulatory infrastructure in place, and the experience in the industry to implement sports betting in a secure environment and in a timely fashion,” said Senate Majority Leader Ryan Ferns, R-Ohio. He mentioned that the lottery will be responsible for regulating sports betting in the same way as other casino games offered at the tracks and at the Greenbrier.

With the new legislation, West Virginians will not only be able to wager on sports game but they will also be allowed to bet on specific aspects of the game. Other gaming products like in-game betting will also go a long way in enhancing player experience and hopefully lure them away from the rampant illegal sports betting.

Cryptocurrency Mining Creates Huge Energy Demand in Iceland

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This year Iceland is likely to use more energy in mining digital currencies than what it will use to power homes in the country. Considering the large amounts of electric energy required by computers to mine the precious bitcoins, many prominent cryptocurrency mining companies have found Iceland to be the perfect spot for their operations thanks to the countries abundant geothermal and hydroelectric power plants. With this development, the current energy consumption by virtual currency mining companies is expected to double to 100 megawatts this year which is significantly higher than what all the island nation’s households will use collectively.

There are other factors that have attracted miners to the country. The first is that the companies do not need to pay taxes but given the buzz that their power consumption has been attracting, this will definitely not last long. Other important attractions for cryptocurrency mining companies is the natural cooling available for computer servers as well as the quite competitive prices for the available renewable energy. Obviously, this soaring demand for energy is a culmination of the equally soaring cost of digital currencies and Iceland seems to be the go-to place for companies that are seeking to optimize costs or get away from oppressive laws such as the ones in China following the crackdown on mining companies and ICOs.

As mentioned earlier, mining companies being exempted from taxes does not sit well with everyone in the country. Smari McCarthy, a lawmaker for Iceland’s Pirate Party has made the first step by proposing that the profits amassed by bitcoin miners should be taxed.

“Under normal circumstances, companies that are creating value in Iceland pay a certain amount of tax to the government,” McCarthy said. “These companies are not doing that and we might want to ask ourselves whether they should. We are spending tens or maybe hundreds of megawatts on producing something that has no tangible existence and no real use for humans outside the realm of financial speculation. That can’t be good.”