Australian and international pundits, casino billionaires, politicians... you know who you are! The world famous Australian Casino Wars continue with more industrial strike action. It's enough to give 'Casino Jack' dreams or nightmares. Media Man and Gambling911 once again don the frequently used bullet proof vests and grab the baton and plastic handcuffs. Lights, cameras, action, strike!...
Melbourne's Crown Casino staffer are threatening to "walk off" the job during the hot Spring Racing Carnival unless a wage dispute is resolved pronto like.
Union mugs (satire) er...members voted in favour of taking "protected strike action" in a ballot count confirmed by powers that be at the Australian Electoral Commission on Tuesday.
The strike action was expected to take place before the Melbourne Cup on November 2, advised Jess Walsh, Victorian secretary of the Liquor Hospitality and Miscellaneous Union (LHMU).
Casino staffers, young and old - all comers, including super important gaming dealers and foodie and drinks staff have flat out rejected a wage increase offer of roughly 3.5% annually and changes that could end up costing experienced table dealers almost $5000 bucks a year. Ouch hey, but it might be just temporary pain, for a greater good, and fatter pay packet, if they get their way.
Union members want about a 13.5% per cent wage increase over 3 years, with protection for dealers' career structure.
Walsh said Crown's offer is roughly 11% over three years Insiders tip members may take 12.5% to save face, and get back to work.
Crisis talks were scheduled with Crown powers that be later this week to try to resolve the dispute.
"The strike is the last resort and we're hopeful that Crown will put an offer on the table. Then we'll be having discussions with members about where we go next. We'd be hopeful it (the dispute) was resolved well before the Melbourne Cup."
Walsh advised strike action would severely disrupt Crown Casino's operations during the busy time of the Spring racing carnival.
"Most Crown staff are irreplaceable, both in terms of licensing and training, and also experience and knowledge of the particular requirements of this casino," she fed to the press.
"It will be impossible to bring in outside replacements, who would not be qualified to work at this casino."
Crown spokesman Gary O'Neill advised Crown was confident its contingency plans were adequate to ensure the precinct continued to operate efficiently.
O'Neill said 4,448 employees were covered by the casino's Enterprise Bargaining Agreement (EBA) and only 19% of those voted in the ballot.
"Crown believes that the contingency plans it has in place are more than adequate to make sure not only that the property will continue to perform, but it will perform fully," he advised press.
"We'd prefer that this didn't happen but we think it's a very modest result for the union. We are more than capable of meeting any threat of industrial action."
Well folks, as they say, may the best team win. Punters, good luck on the slots and tables, and quick, grab a cold beer and hot and juicy t-bone steak while you still can.
More reading...
Crown Casino Workers To Strike; Rumours - Star City Casino And Others May Follow Trend...
http://www.gambling911.com/gambling-news/australian-casino-wars-casino-strike-action-091010.html
Insider rumors tip that they may be another kind of "strike", but that may be just heat coming from the readership of the likes of the very loud Media Man, Casino News Media and Gambling911.
Media Man On The Record...
A Media Man spokesperson said "Regarding the talk of another kind of strike in the Australian casino sector, don't look too deep into it. Our journalist and correspondent friends are known for talking things up, mind you, stranger things have happened in the past like the casino shaft man, Ferrari thief man, and even a couple of bomb threats a few years back, so I guess anything is possible. We think the hard working staff might just get the pay increase, and hopefully it won't negatively effect the share price. Mr Packer's operation is still pretty much head and shoulders about the competition so it should still be fair winds, and let us not forget the Packer and Warnie X factor, so Crown will keep powering for the foreseeable future in any event."
Media Man Profiles
Australia
Australian Casinos
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Wrap Up...
Readers... er, punters, what's your view on the casino wars and potential strike action? Is other "strike action" on the cards? Keep checking daily for updates. If you have a bet, please bet with your head, not over it, and for God's sake, have fun.
Crown Limited Share Price: $8.610
*Greg Tingle is a special contributor for Gambling911
*Media Man http://www.mediamanint.com is primarily a media, publicity and internet portal development company. They cover a dozen industry sectors including gaming and offer political commentary and analysis.
*The writer owns shares in Crown Limited
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Thursday, October 07, 2010
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Blog: Pop culture news
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Netflix finally reveals how much it makes from Australians - 1st June 2023
Netflix made more than $1 billion from Australians last year, a figure the company reported for the first time after deciding no longer to funnel revenues through a Netherlands-based subsidiary.
Accounts lodged by the streaming giant show Netflix Australia made $1.06 billion in 2022, up from $30.7 million the year before.
The increase in reported revenue came after the company’s local subsidiary changed how it bills. It now describes itself as a “distributor of access” to Netflix Service as opposed to a provider of services for its parent company.
It was previously estimated that Netflix made between $790 million and $1.4 billion from Australians, but customers were billed by Netflix International BV. But from January 1 last year, customers were billed by Netflix Australia, meaning subscription revenue was recognised and taxed locally.
The accounts, filed with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, show Netflix Australia paid $966 million to the Netflix Group in distribution fees and other costs, meaning it made just $22.7 million from total revenues of $1.06 billion.
After paying $6.9 million in income tax, it reported $15.8 million profit for the year.
“As Netflix continues to grow and invest in Australia, we want our corporate structure to reflect our business activities here,” a spokesman for Netflix said last year when The Australian Financial Review reported the structural change.
In 2021, Netflix Australia reported $30.7 million in revenue, $2.4 million in profit pre-tax, and $1.5 million in profit after its $868,000 income tax bill.
Netflix does not disclose subscriber numbers for Australia, but the revenue figures included in its latest accounts implies the service has around five million customers locally, if its standard plan, $16.99 per month, is used as a guide. It has four monthly price tiers including a new, cheaper one that now adds some advertising.
According to the Australian Communications and Media Authority, streaming services made a combined $2.49 billion in Australia in 2021.
The disclosure of Netflix’s true Australian revenue comes as the federal government considers introducing quotas that would force streaming companies to spend a certain amount making shows locally.
Some suggestions have been forcing them to spend between 10 and 20 per cent of local revenue on Australian shows, meaning Netflix would be required to spend, depending on the rate, between $100 million to $200 million.
ACMA estimates streaming providers spend $335.1 million on Australian content in the 12 months to the end of June last year, up from $178.9 million the year before.
Netflix has been contacted for comment.
News
Mistakes and miscalculations: How the Murdochs and Fox got it so wrong - 30th May 2023
In August 2021, the Fox Corp. board of directors gathered in Los Angeles. Among the topics on the agenda: Dominion Voting Systems’ $US1.6 billion ($2.5 billion) defamation lawsuit against its cable news network, Fox News.
The suit posed a threat to the company’s finances and reputation. But Fox’s chief legal officer, Viet Dinh, reassured the board: Even if the company lost at trial, it would ultimately prevail. The First Amendment was on Fox’s side, he explained, even if proving so could require going to the Supreme Court.
That determination informed a series of missteps and miscalculations over the next 20 months, according to a New York Times review of court and business records, and interviews with roughly a dozen people directly involved in or briefed on the company’s decision-making.
The case resulted in one of the biggest legal and business debacles in the history of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire: an avalanche of embarrassing disclosures from internal messages released in court filings; the largest known settlement in a defamation suit, $US787.5 million; two shareholder lawsuits; and the benching of Fox’s top prime-time star, Tucker Carlson.
And for all of that, Fox still faces a lawsuit seeking even more in damages, $US2.7 billion, filed by another subject of the stolen election theory, voting software company Smartmatic.
Caught flat-footed
Repeatedly, Fox executives overlooked warning signs about the damage they and their network would sustain, the Times found. They also failed to recognise how far their cable news networks, Fox News and Fox Business, had strayed into defamatory territory by promoting President Donald Trump’s election conspiracy theories — the central issue in the case. (Fox maintains it did not defame Dominion.)
When pretrial rulings went against the company, Fox did not pursue a settlement in any real way. Executives were then caught flat-footed as Dominion’s court filings included internal Fox messages that made clear how the company chased a Trump-loving audience that preferred his election lies to the truth.
It was only in February that Murdoch and his son with whom he runs the company, Lachlan Murdoch, began seriously considering settling. Yet they made no major attempt to do so until the eve of the trial in April, after still more damaging public disclosures.
At the centre of the action was Dinh and his overly rosy scenario.
Dinh, a high-level Justice Department official under President George W. Bush, declined several requests for comment, and the company declined to respond to questions about his performance or his legal decisions. “Discussions of specific legal strategy are privileged and confidential,” a company representative said in a statement.
The second half of 2020 brought Fox News to a crisis point. The Fox audience had come to expect favourable news about Trump. But Fox could not provide that on election night, when its decision desk team was first to declare that Trump had lost the critical state of Arizona.
In the days after, Trump’s fans switched off in droves.
The Fox host who was the first to find a way to draw the audience back was Maria Bartiromo. Five days after the election, she invited a guest, Trump-aligned lawyer Sidney Powell, to share details about the false accusations that Dominion, an elections technology company, had switched votes from Trump to Joe Biden.
Soon, wild claims about Dominion appeared elsewhere on Fox, including references to the election company’s supposed (but imagined) ties to the Smartmatic election software company; Hugo Chávez, the Venezuelan dictator who died in 2013; George Soros, the billionaire investor and Democratic donor; and China.
‘Fox News did its job, and this is what the First Amendment protects. I’m not at all concerned about such lawsuits, real or imagined.’
Fox’s chief legal officer Viet Dinh
On November 12, a Dominion spokesperson complained to Fox News Media chief executive Suzanne Scott and Fox News Media executive editor Jay Wallace, begging them to make it stop. “We really weren’t thinking about building a litigation record as much as we were trying to stop the bleeding,” said Thomas A. Clare, one of Dominion’s lawyers.
As Fox noted in its court papers, its hosts did begin including company denials. But as they continued to give oxygen to the false allegations, Dominion sent a letter to Fox News general counsel Lily Fu Claffee, demanding that Fox cease and correct the record. “Dominion is prepared to do what is necessary to protect its reputation and the safety of its employees,” the letter warned.
Fox, however, did not respond to the Dominion letter or comply with its requests — now a key issue in a shareholder suit filed in April, which maintains that doing so would have “materially mitigated” Fox’s legal exposure.
Three months after the election, another voting technology company tied to the Dominion conspiracy, Smartmatic, filed its own defamation suit against Fox, seeking $US2.7 billion in damages. Dominion told reporters that it was preparing to file one, too.
Dinh was publicly dismissive.
“The newsworthy nature of the contested presidential election deserved full and fair coverage from all journalists. Fox News did its job, and this is what the First Amendment protects,” Dinh said at the time. “I’m not at all concerned about such lawsuits, real or imagined.”
The Fox legal team based much of the defence on a doctrine known as the neutral reportage privilege. It holds that news organisations cannot be held financially liable for damages when reporting on false allegations made by major public figures as long as they don’t embrace or endorse them.
An early warning came in late 2021. The judge in the case, Eric M. Davis, rejected Fox’s attempt to use the neutral reportage defence to get the suit thrown out, determining that it was not recognised under New York law, which he was applying to the case. Even if it was recognised, Fox would have to show it reported on the allegations “accurately and dispassionately”, and Dominion had made a strong argument that Fox’s reporting was neither, the judge wrote in a ruling.
That ruling meant that Dominion could have access to Fox’s internal communications in discovery.
That was a natural time to settle. But Fox stuck with its defence and its plan.
Treasure trove
At nearly every step, the court overruled Fox’s attempts to limit Dominion’s access to private communications exchanged among hosts, producers and executives. The biggest blow came mid-last year, after a ruling stating that Dominion could review messages from the personal phones of Fox employees, including both Murdochs.
The result was a treasure trove of evidence for Dominion: text messages and emails that revealed the doubts that Rupert Murdoch had about the coverage airing on his network, and assertions by many inside Fox, including Carlson, that fraud could not have made a material difference in the election.
The messages led to even more damaging revelations during depositions. After Dominion’s lawyers confronted Rupert Murdoch with his own messages showing he knew Trump’s stolen election claims were false, he admitted that some Fox hosts appeared to have endorsed stolen election claims.
During Carlson’s deposition last year, Dominion’s lawyers asked about his use of a crude word to describe women — including a ranking Fox executive. They also mentioned a text in which he discussed watching a group of men, who he said were Trump supporters, attack “an Antifa kid”. He lamented in the text, “It’s not how white men fight,” and shared a momentary wish that the group would kill the person. He then said he regretted that instinct.
There is no indication that Carlson’s texts tripped alarms at the top of Fox at that point.
The alarms rang in February, when reams of other internal Fox communications became public. The public’s reaction was so negative that some people at the company believed that a jury could award Dominion more than $US1 billion. Yet the company made no serious bid to settle.
All along, the Fox board had been taking a wait-and-see approach.
But the judge’s pretrial decisions began to change the board’s thinking. Also, in those final days before the trial, Fox was hit with new lawsuits. One, from former Fox producer Abby Grossberg, accused Carlson of promoting a hostile work environment. Another, filed by a shareholder, accused the Murdochs and several directors of failing to stop the practices that made Fox vulnerable to legal claims.
The weekend before the trial was to begin, the board asked Fox to see the internal Fox communications that were not yet public but that could still come out in the courtroom.
The board learned for the first time of the Carlson text that referred to “how white men fight”. Dinh did not know about the message until that weekend, according to two people familiar with the matter.
By the time the board learned of the message, the Murdochs had already determined that a trial loss could be far more damaging than they were initially told to expect. A substantial jury award could weigh on the company’s stock for years as the appeals process played out.
“The distraction to our company, the distraction to our growth plans — our management — would have been extraordinarily costly, which is why we decided to settle,” Lachlan Murdoch said at an investment conference this month.
The text also helped lead to the Murdochs’ decision to abruptly pull Carlson off the air. Their view had hardened that their top-rated star wasn’t worth all the downsides he brought with him.
Still pending is the Smartmatic suit. In April, Fox agreed to hand over additional internal documents relating to several executives, including the Murdochs and Dinh. In a statement reminiscent of Dinh’s early view of the Dominion case, the network said that Fox was protected by the First Amendment.
“We will be ready to defend this case surrounding extremely newsworthy events when it goes to trial, likely in 2025,” the statement said.
News
Lachlan Murdoch explains $1.2b settlement, says Fox News won’t change ‘successful strategy’ - 10th May 2023
Fox News paid $US787 million ($1.16 billion) to settle a recent lawsuit on its reporting after the 2020 election to avoid a divisive trial and lengthy appeals process, its parent company’s chief executive said.
Lachlan Murdoch, executive chairman and CEO of Fox Corp., also noted that a Delaware judge “severely limited” Fox’s defences against Dominion Voting Systems, which said the network defamed it by airing bogus charges of election fraud that it knew was untrue.
Fox Corp announced that it had lost $US50 million the previous three months, which it attributed to the lawsuit settlement. Murdoch, who answered questions from financial analysts, was speaking in public for the first time since the case ended and Fox fired its most popular anchor, Tucker Carlson. Carlson has just announced he is launching a new show on Twitter.
Murdoch said viewers, and investors, should expect no change in direction from Fox News.
“We made the business decision to resolve this dispute and avoid the acrimony of a divisive trial and multi-year appeal process, a decision clearly in the best interests of the company and its shareholders,” he said.
Fox still believes it was properly exercising its First Amendment rights to report on newsworthy fraud allegations made by former President Donald Trump, even though that defence was shot down in a pre-trial court ruling in the Dominion case, Murdoch said.
That’s important, since Murdoch said Fox intends to use the same defence against a similar lawsuit by another elections technology company, Smartmatic. That case is not expected to go to trial until at least 2025, he said.
Despite being asked directly about Carlson’s exit, Murdoch didn’t mention the former prime-time host’s name and referred to his reign obliquely. Fox has not explained why it cut ties with Carlson.
“There’s no change in programming strategy at Fox News,” he said. “It’s obviously a successful strategy. As always, we are adjusting our programming and our lineup and that’s what we continue to do.”
Although hurt by the Carlson exit, Fox News remains the leading cable news network.
Fox has lost viewers following Carlson’s firing. Last week’s substitute host, Lawrence Jones, reached between 1.28 million and 1.7 million last week in a time slot where Carlson usually drew around 3 million, the Nielsen company said.
Yet Fox has gained more than 40 new advertisers in that hour, the network said, confirming a report in Variety. Advertisers like Gillette, Scott’s Miracle Gro and Secret deodorant that had considered Carlson’s show a toxic environment have signed on.
(AP)
News
Jesse Armstrong on the roots of Succession: ‘Would it have landed the same way without the mad bum-rush of Trump’s presidency?’ - 27th May 2023
It has been the TV drama of our time – a brutal, hilarious unpicking of how power works. As the series comes to an end, its creator looks back at its origin and the unholy trinity of men who helped inspire Logan Roy
My first vivid memory of the project that would develop into Succession was trying to get out of it. It was about 2008 and I was on location for the filming of Peep Show, the UK sitcom my longtime writing partner Sam Bain and I wrote together. Between that show and my work on The Thick of It and In the Loop, and a bunch of other things, I was feeling overcommitted. That particular day we were pretending a very normal field in Hertfordshire was a safari park. I sloped off from set and, hiding from imaginary lions, tried to elegantly step away from the project.
I failed. And in the following months as I wrote, slowly, I became certain the script was a dud. It was stodgy and odd. The original idea, a faux-documentary laying out Rupert Murdoch’s business secrets, with them delivered straight to camera, evolved as I worked into a sort of TV play, set at the media owner’s 80th birthday party. Channel 4 were supportive, but it was an odd form, this docudrama/TV-play, and difficult to make happen. Around 2011, after a read-through in London where John Hurt played Rupert, the project essentially died.
My US agent was the first person I recall suggesting a totally different approach. A fictional family, a multi-series US show. For five years or so, I dismissed the idea, certain that a portrayal of a fictional family would never have the power of a real one. Four works changed my mind: HBO’s excellent Robert Durst documentary, The Jinx; Sumner Redstone’s grimly business-focused autobiography, A Passion to Win; James B Stewart’s propulsive DisneyWar; and Tom Bower’s fascinating Robert Maxwell biography Maxwell: The Final Verdict. These turned the idea of doing a media-family drama without a singular real-life model from a terrible betrayal of reality into a tantalising chance to harvest all the best stories. Here was an opportunity to explore all the most fascinating family dynamics within a propitiously balanced fictional hybrid media conglomerate. I took a long, deep dive into rich-family and media-business research.
I talked about this, as-yet-unwritten, idea in half-ironised terms as ‘Festen-meets-Dallas’
When Sam and I decided to bring things to a close on Peep Show, I flew out to pitch this media show around LA. I had a clear idea of where I wanted to develop it, but my agent persuaded me appetites would be whetted if we had a number of potential homes. So I spent three days doing a round of pitch meetings where I talked about this as-yet-unwritten idea in half-ironised terms as “Festen-meets-Dallas”. No stars, Dogme 95 camerawork. Scared of driving on the five-lane highways, I bumped around town in the back of a Honda Civic while a nice young man from my US agent’s mailroom ferried me between rooms stocked with identical tiny bottles of water and executives of vastly varying degrees of interest.
Eventually, I got to HBO, the place I most wanted the show to land, home to The Sopranos and Six Feet Under. I knew they might be receptive. Frank Rich – once known as the “Butcher of Broadway” for his theatre criticism, but now an in-house consigliere – had championed my work there to the boss, Richard Plepler, and I’d previously developed a show with them. So, out the back of a French-style bistro on a three-cappuccino high, I pitched it to their head of drama and comedy, Casey Bloys.
Sometimes a pitch stretches thin and threadbare, the fabric renting as you go, the other party peeping grimly through the holes. Other times, the air thickens, and you can feel the atmosphere in the room turn oxygen-rich as the enthusiasm you are trying to project transforms into an enthusiasm you are actually feeling.
By the time I left LA, HBO had made an offer and Adam McKay, fresh from The Big Short, had said he would be interested in directing. I’d written another Succession forerunner, a script about the US political strategist Lee Atwater, for Adam and his producing partner Kevin Messick. It had been one of the few LA experiences I’d had where the excitement expressed at the start of the project sustained through the writing and attempts to get it made.
This was 2016 and, once back in the UK, I wrote the pilot through the spring and summer in a one-room flat I rented on Brixton Hill, south London, walking across Brockwell Park each morning, listening to podcasts and reading news about the Brexit referendum. Scotland had recently voted by a narrow majority to stay inside the UK and the abiding sense right before the Brexit vote was, yeah, change looms, it glistens, menacingly, promisingly, but it doesn’t happen. Not really. Really, everything stays the same.
But then it did happen. And across the Atlantic, the Trump campaign was igniting – even if initially his candidacy felt like a slightly amusing, slightly too-vivid flash in the pan. Into early autumn, in fact, all serious people were still explaining to one another that Trump couldn’t happen. Although I suppose, looking back, there was a notable lack of detail in terms of the mechanism by which he would be stopped.
I think a lot of the better films and TV shows I’ve been involved with have at their heart a quite simple impulse around which the more subtle layers are spun. In the Loop’s spark was anger at the Iraq war. Chris Morris’s Four Lions I think was driven by his gut feeling that something was very wrong with the way we understood jihadi terrorism in the UK. Peep Show was about oddball male friendship, perhaps even “masculinity”.
I guess the simple things at the heart of Succession ended up being Brexit and Trump. The way the UK press had primed the EU debate for decades. The way the US media’s conservative outriders prepared the way for Trump, hovered at the brink of support and then dived in. The British press of Rothermere, Maxwell, Murdoch and the Barclay brothers, and the US news environment of Fox and Breitbart.
The Sun doesn’t run the UK, nor does Fox entirely set the media agenda in the US, but it was hard not to feel, at the time the show was coming together, the particular impact of one man, of one family, on the lives of so many. Rightwing populism was on the march across the globe. But in the fine margins of the Brexit vote and Trump’s eventual electoral college victory, one couldn’t help but think about the influence of the years of anti-EU stories and comment in the UK press, the years of Fox dancing with its audience, sometimes leading, sometimes following, as the wine got stronger, the music madder. It was politically alarming and creatively appealing: to imagine the mixture of business imperatives and political instinct that exist within a media operation; to consider what happens when something as important as the flow of information in a democracy hits the reductive brutality of the profit calculation inside such a company. How those elements might rebound emotionally and psychologically inside a family as it considered the question of corporate succession.
For Logan Roy, Murdoch, Redstone and Maxwell were my holy trinity of models. But Conrad Black, Brian L Roberts of Comcast, Robert Mercer of Breitbart, Julian Sinclair Smith of Sinclair, Tiny Rowland, Rothermere, Beaverbrook and Hearst all fed in. The three central models were wildly different, of course: the self-made refugee Maxwell and the already-rich Murdoch, a scion of Australian journalistic royalty, both so different from the tough Boston lawyer Redstone who started with a couple of his father’s drive-in cinemas.
But they were connected by a strong interest in a few things: a refusal to think about mortality (Redstone and Murdoch both used to make the same joke about their succession plan: not dying); desire for control; manic deal-making energy; love of gossip and power-connection; a certain ruthlessness about hirings and firings. And most of all, an instinct for forward motion, with a notable lack of introspection.
Perhaps the best part of Redstone’s autobiography for a casual reader is the opening, where he recounts clinging by one hand to a hotel balcony through a fire. Despite suffering third-degree burns over half his body, years of rehabilitation, excruciatingly painful skin grafts, he says this event, after which he made all his biggest business plays, had no impact whatsoever on the trajectory of his life.
Whether due to all this grist, or the aligning of the political planets (in)auspiciously, the pilot came unnervingly easily. Getting names in a script to feel real can be hard for me – they’re a tell-tale sign of whether I’m living inside it. Kendall, Shiv, Roman, Connor. They all felt right straight off the bat. Their inspirations, I suppose, were the children of these magnates: three of the Maxwell kids, the ones closest to the business (the boys, Ian and Kevin) and to their father (Ghislaine). Brent and Shari Redstone, with whom Sumner played a tough and complicated game of bait-and-switch over CBS-Paramount succession. And the Murdoch children, Prudence, Lachlan, James, Elisabeth, Chloe and Grace.
But getting those names for the Roy children made them feel like their own individuals to me. It allowed me to pour in just what I wanted from the real world, fill each with all the faults they might have inherited, while giving me room to add some extra, just for them.
Greg and Tom came fast, too. Tom from two roots. One was thinking about the sort of lunks I’ve occasionally seen powerful women choose as partners. Plausible, manly men with big watches and a soothing affable manner. That mixed with the deadly courtier, a more 18th-century figure, minutely attuned to shifts in power and influence, an invisible deadly gas that occurs in certain confined places and rises to kill anyone unwise enough not to take precautions. A hanger-on sustained by some Fitzgeraldian illusions about the world, a sense that perhaps the rich really are different from us and a romantic ambition to make it in New York City.
Greg, I guess, was a distant relative of the sort of political adviser I had myself briefly been. Gormless, clueless, out of place and gauche. But not without an eye for a deal. And, I hope, a little more wheedling and insinuating than I ever was.
The scenes flowed. I put all research aside and followed my nose and wrote pretty much exactly what I wanted
The charge between these two semi-outsiders struck me from the start as toxic and comic. Tom, the interloper, is like an organism that has found a precarious but rewarding perch above some deep oceanic vent and adapted itself to conditions perfectly. He is not pleased at all to see a similar creature scuttling along hoping to share the same cramped evolutionary niche. That first half-bullying, half-provocative exchange they share in the outfield at a softball game in the pilot landed them right in the middle of a stew they’ve been cooking in ever since.
The scenes flowed. I had eaten a very large amount of research, but once I was writing I put it all aside and followed my nose and wrote pretty much exactly what I wanted. It felt funny but odd and broken-ended, fragmentary, abrupt, oblique and slightly brutal. When I emailed it off, I had the familiar feeling that Adam, Frank and HBO might email back to say not only was it not good, it wasn’t even actually, technically, a script. But their response was frighteningly positive. Almost as though the script was finished, after what was, I thought, a quick first draft. I think every other episode of Succession has gone to at least 30 drafts – usually 50. The pilot barely hit 15.
We had our read-through in New York on US election day 2016. Before we started, I made the sort of joke lots of people made that day, assuming the polls were right and Hillary Clinton was going to squeeze it. That night we gathered in Adam McKay’s apartment to watch the results roll in. Much later, I walked a long walk back from Soho to where I was staying near the United Nations looking at the electoral college numbers projected on to the Empire State Building.
We started filming the next day.
I still wonder whether Succession would have landed in the same way without the mad bum-rush of news and sensation Trump’s chaotic presidency provided. Trump wasn’t the firebombing of German civilians, and nor is Succession Slaughterhouse-Five, but I do sometimes think about Vonnegut saying no one in the world profited from the firebombing of Dresden, except himself.
This is an edited extract from Succession: The Complete Scripts – Seasons One, Two and Three (Faber & Faber), out now at £20 each. To support the Guardian and Observer, order your copies for £17.60 each from guardianbookshop.com.
The final episode of Succession airs in the UK on Sky Atlantic/Now on Monday. Jesse Armstrong donated the fee for this article to the Writers Guild of America strike assistance fund.
News
LIV Golf announces new pay-per-view option - 26th May 2023
"The hope for LIV is to grow off the success first seen on YouTube in 2022, where the league attracted tournament audiences of several hundred-thousand views in the U.S. and abroad."
Going forward, LIV Golf Series events will be available via a pay-per-view option on YouTube.
The new deal was detailed by James Colgan of Golf.com.
“Less than six months after signing a media rights agreement with the CW, LIV announced Friday that it has created a new, pay-per-view broadcast option to run on YouTube,” Colgan reported. “The PPV broadcast will cost $3 per tournament day, LIV said in a release announcing the decision, and will run in addition to the league’s agreement with the CW.”
Colgan also detailed that “A LIV source indicated that the CW is aware of the decision to introduce a pay-per-view model, and that the decision does not violate any of the league’s preexisting broadcast agreements.”
“The hope for LIV is to grow off the success first seen on YouTube in 2022, where the league attracted tournament audiences of several hundred-thousand views in the U.S. and abroad. The league already has its own direct-to-consumer subscription platform, LIV Golf Plus, which the PPV channel will run counter to. LIV broadcasts will continue to be streamed for free on the CW app.”
This announcement comes less than two weeks after a rather embarrassing moment for the tour. One week before LIV’s Brooks Koepka triumphed at the PGA Championship, the Saudi-backed golf series was in Tulsa.
On one hand, it was a perfect showcase event for LIV. Two of its most high-profile players, Dustin Johnson and Cam Smith, went to a three-way playoff (along with Branden Grace). But most of the people watching did not get to see Johnson’s eventual triumph.
The CW, the league’s primary broadcast partner, went away from coverage in the vast majority of its markets, showing “regularly scheduled programming.” Jim Nantz was quick to make a joke at LIV’s expense on the matter at the PGA Championship. The CW also announced a change, saying that all events will be shown to their conclusions going forward.
[Golf.com]
News
WWE Night Of Champions Reportedly Earned Highest Viewership Of Any Saudi Arabia Show - 31st May 2023
According to a report from Fightful Select, Saturday's Night of Champions PLE scored WWE the highest viewership out of any of the company's Saudi Arabia events since the partnership between the two began in 2013. The report states that Night of Champions brought in an 18% increase in viewership compared to last year's Crown Jewel event, and the company is reportedly quite happy with its holiday weekend results.
Night of Champions was headlined by Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn successfully defending the Undisputed WWE Tag Team Championship against Roman Reigns and Solo Sikoa of The Bloodline, with a major angle taking place on the show that saw The Usos turn on Reigns after more than a year of build-up and tension.This marks the second time a tag team match has served as the main event of a major WWE show in recent months. Additional matches on the show included Seth Rollins vs. AJ Styles to decide the first WWE World Heavyweight Champion, a singles match between Becky Lynch and Trish Stratus, and a Backlash rematch pitting Brock Lesnar against Cody Rhodes, among others.
To date, WWE has held nine PPVs and PLEs in Saudi Arabia, along with three house shows. Back in 2019, WWE announced that they had "expanded their partnership" with Saudi Arabia, and that they would be hosting two major events per year in the Middle Eastern nation through at least 2027. Though it hasn't been announced yet, WWE will likely return to Saudi Arabia for another Crown Jewel event later this year.
News
Pat McAfee Comments On Empty Seats At AEW Double Or Nothing - 31st May 2023
All Elite Wrestling's Double or Nothing pay-per-view took place this past weekend at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. During the event, Wrestlenomics' Brandon Thurston tweeted images of empty seats inside the venue. Wrestling Observer's Bryan Alvarez also posted a photo from his ringside position, which showed many unoccupied places behind Orange Cassidy after he retained the AEW International Championship in a Blackjack Battle Royal. Former "WWE SmackDown" commentator Pat McAfee has weighed in with his thoughts.
"Anytime you get a shot away from hard cam, you know what I mean, you can really see a lot of things," McAfee said on "The Pat McAfee Show." "AEW found out this weekend or whatever at one of their events, it's like three quarters of an arena completely empty. They don't want that photo out anywhere."
Ahead of the pay-per-view going live on Sunday night, WrestleTix revealed 10,229 tickets had been distributed for an 11,641 setup inside the T-Mobile Arena, leaving 1,412 tickets available. An Anarchy in the Arena match headlined the show, with Blackpool Combat Club's Bryan Danielson, Jon Moxley, reigning ROH World Champion Claudio Castagnoli, and Wheeler Yuta picking up the win in that bout against The Elite's Kenny Omega, Matt Jackson, Nick Jackson, and "Hangman" Adam Page.
AEW's next major standalone show, All In, which will take place on August 27 at Wembley Stadium in London, England, has currently sold over 65,000 tickets and has a gate of over $8 million. No matches have been announced for AEW's first event across the pond as of this writing. Ticket sales for All In have slowed following an initial surge.
News
WWE-UFC merged company to be called ‘TKO Group Holdings’ - 16th May 2023
A name has emerged for the group.
Coming out of WrestleMania, it was announced by Endeavor that an agreement had been reached with WWE and the company would be merging with UFC to form a new sports and entertainment company.
The deal has not been formally finalized but a name for the merged group has been revealed. CNBC’s Alex Sherman and Mike Calia published a story and an Endeavor spokesperson confirmed to the outlet that the new group is going to be called ‘TKO Group Holdings’.
It will trade under the New York Stock Exchange as ‘TKO’.
The merger between WWE and UFC is being valued at $20 billion. Endeavor CEO Ari Emanuel will be the CEO of TKO Group and Vince McMahon is going to serve as Executive Chairman.
News
Nick Khan Says WWE In Talks With International Cities For 2024 PLEs
It sounds as though WWE will continue expanding its PLEs into international markets next year. Speaking at the JP Morgan Global Technology, Media & Communications Conference, WWE CEO Nick Khan stated that the company was discussing the potential for additional overseas shows in 2024.
"We're in conversations now with a lot of international cities about doing 2024 shows there," Khan said. "Also, part of the intent is to match those up with our media rights, even if they're not up to over-deliver for incumbent partners who can then invite their partners in the international city to the event, and host them. It's good for our overall business." Khan's comments came as part of a conversation about countries offering subsidies to WWE for bringing shows there, as the company brings a great deal of revenue to the city for major events. Khan cited recent events in Puerto Rico as well as the Dallas, Texas area as examples.
Previous rumors pointed toward Australia as a potential location for a future international WWE PLE. However, it's unknown if negotiations with the country have progressed in the months since.
WWE has steadily ramped up its major international shows over the last five years, with the company holding several yearly events in Saudi Arabia, as well as last year's Clash at the Castle and the upcoming Money in the Bank both being held in the United Kingdom. It seems fans around the world should stay on the lookout for upcoming announcements regarding WWE's international schedule in 2024.
News
“We Let People Go”: Months After $21.4 Billion UFC-WWE Deal, Endeavor CEO Recalls “Horrible” Time for Organization - 2nd June 2023
The year 2020 brought unprecedented challenges for individuals and organizations alike, and the UFC was no exception. The promotional frontman Dana White has reflected on those uncertain times and shared the struggles the organization faced in keeping things going. Despite the pandemic, White was determined to keep the show running and provide entertainment for fight fans worldwide. While the rest of the world was shut down, the UFC managed to organize consistent events, albeit on a smaller scale. However, this arduous journey was not without its fair share of hardships.
Ari Emanuel, the CEO of Endeavor, the parent company of the UFC and William Morris Endeavor talent agency, revealed the significant challenges they encountered during the COVID-19 pandemic. Even though Endeavor recently secured a massive $21.4 billion deal to acquire the WWE, during the COVID-19 days, the company found itself at rock bottom struggling to stay afloat.
When Covid-19 posed a threat to the UFC
In an interview on the “Freakonomics Radio” podcast, Emanuel shared how the pandemic affected the company financially. During the interview, podcast host Stephen Dubner asked Emanuel, “Did you think COVID might kill Endeavor?”. Reflecting on this, the 62-year-old CEO replied, “It was bad,” He continued, “I’d never had to fire that many people.”
Emanuel mentioned that the continuation of UFC fights during the pandemic played a crucial role in saving the company, accounting for approximately 70% of their revenue that year. Further talking about the struggles to keep the organization alive during the pandemic, the Endeavor CEO stated, “We had our ESPN deal. We then started making deals for writers. So we stored all the cash. We didn’t let anything out. We let people go, which was horrible, or furloughed them.”
Through the storm, Endeavor’s leadership team, led by Emanuel, proved to be the lighthouse that guided them to safer shores. The UFC’s resilience and the implementation of innovative strategies, such as the ‘Fight Island’ events, not only salvaged the company but also became a beacon of hope for other professional sports leagues.
News
“Very, Very Easy for Jon Jones”: Ex-UFC Star Ruthlessly Shuts Down Tyson Fury Days After Boxer’s Callout of UFC Champ in Ugly Public Feud - 1st June 2023
The claim made by Joe Rogan that Tyson Fury would stand no chance against Jon Jones has sparked an intense and never-ending debate. Recently, another prominent figure from the UFC, the world of mixed martial arts, has jumped into this heated discussion. However, ‘The Gypsy King’ himself strongly opposed the take of the UFC commentator and didn’t hold back in expressing his views. In fact, he went as far as bashing Rogan and proudly proclaimed himself to be ‘the baddest man on the planet’.
As the back and forth continued between Fury and Rogan, UFC president Dana White has stepped in, proposing a potential fight between Fury and Jones. However, the WBC heavyweight champion firmly refused to step into the octagon, dismissing the idea altogether. This decision faced an immediate backlash from fans who had eagerly anticipated the materialization of this debate inside the fighting arena.
Despite the disappointment felt by fans, it becomes evident that the 34-year-old boxer has no intention of venturing into the octagon. On the contrary, a former UFC welterweight challenger believes that Fury would fare well in the realm of mixed martial arts. However, he warns that there may be unforeseen challenges along the way.
Tyson Fury will have a Jon Jones threat in MMA
During a recent interview, the former UFC fighter Dan Hardy shared his reflections on the latest happenings in the combat sports world, ranging from boxing to MMA. However, it was the Tyson Fury-Jon Jones debate that took center stage.
The 41-year-old Hardy began by heaping praise on ‘The Gypsy King’ for his potential in MMA, stating, “Tyson Fury doesn’t come from a boxing background. He comes from a fighting man background. Tyson Fury sees himself as a fighter first that boxes, and I think he looks at mixed martial arts and sees lots of ways he can capitalize on the changing of the rules.”
Continuing his analysis, Hardy mentioned Fury’s collaboration with Tom Aspinall and how he has showcased proficient elbows and knees in the videos shared with him. ‘The Outlaw’ confidently stated, “I feel like Tyson Fury would be really good if he crossed over to mixed martial arts. Of course, there’d be a lot for him to learn. The main issue would be, he’d be very, very easy for Jon Jones to take down. And I think that’s something that Tyson has not experienced and has not and has not really quite comprehended.”
Meanwhile, Jon Jones recently made a strong statement in his heavyweight debut, securing a first-round victory against Ciryl Gane at UFC 285 after returning from a three-year-long hiatus.
This certainly explains Dan Hardy’s warning to Tyson Fury. How do you think ‘The Gypsy King’ would fare in MMA?
News
Dwayne Johnson to Return as Luke Hobbs in New ‘Fast and Furious’ Standalone Film - 7th June 2023
Dwayne Johnson is returning to the “Fast and Furious” universe with a new standalone film, reprising his franchise role as Luke Hobbs.
Universal Pictures announced the project on Thursday. Longtime “Fast and Furious” collaborator Chris Morgan wrote the untitled film’s script. Plot details were not available, though individuals familiar with the deal said the new movie will bridge between the events of the just-released “Fast X” and the upcoming “Fast X: Part II,” which is expected in 2025. Johnson just appeared as Hobbs, a diplomatic security service agent, in a credits scene for “Fast X.”
Johnson will produce the film with Dany Garcia and Hiram Garcia for their Seven Bucks Productions, along with Vin Diesel and Samantha Vincent via their One Race Films. Additional producers include Chris Morgan for his Chris Morgan Productions, Jeff Kirschenbaum for Roth/Kirschenbaum Films and Neal Moritz for Original Film.
Screenwriter Morgan wrote and produced “Fast and Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw” and “The Fate of the Furious.” He’s also scripted and executive produced the fifth, sixth and seventh entries in the franchise. Directed by Louis Leterrier, “Fast X” opened at No. 1 around the world in May with $320 million and became the second-biggest global opening of 2023.
Johnson announced Hobbs’ return with a video posted to social media with the caption: “Your reactions around the world to Hobbs’ return in ‘Fast X’ have blown us away. The next ‘Fast & Furious’ film you’ll see the legendary lawman in will be the Hobbs movie that will serve as a fresh, new chapter & set up for ‘Fast X: Part II.'”
“Last summer Vin Diesel and I put all the past behind us,” Johnson added. “We’ll lead with brotherhood and resolve – and always take care of the franchise, characters & fans that we love. I’ve built my career on an ‘audience first’ mentality and that will always serve as my north star.”
Johnson is repped by WME, lawyers Gang, Tyre, Ramer, Brown & Passman, Inc. and The Lede Company.
Seven Bucks has co-produced films like Disney’s “Jungle Cruise” and the DC Studios entires “Black Adam” and “DC League of Super-Pets.” Original series include NBC’s “Young Rock” and “The Titan Games.” Johnson will next produce and star in “Red One” at Amazon Studios and Disney’s live-action “Moana.”
News
13 States Comment On Possibility Of Allowing Gambling On WWE Matches
In March 2023, CNBC reported that WWE was working toward legalizing gambling on wrestling matches, enlisting the services of accounting firm Ernst & Young, with Michigan, Colorado, and Indiana mentioned as the initial targets. As of now, betting on WWE matches is only available at offshore sportsbooks like BetOnline.ag, based out of Antigua, and Bovada, based out of Latvia. Betting on matches in America would open up new streams of revenue for WWE and add some mainstream legitimacy to the sports entertainment powerhouse.
Since that report broke, however, it's been nothing bad news for WWE in the gambling department. Dave Meltzer has reported that WWE's efforts aren't going well — Colorado denied talking to WWE and said that "By statute, wagers on events with fixed or predicted outcomes ... are strictly prohibited in Colorado." Indiana told Casino.org that it had "no interest in approving wagering on scripted events," and Michigan also denied any recent talks with WWE, while New Hampshire Lottery Commission executive director Charlie McIntyre deemed it "very unlikely" betting on WWE gets approved in New Hampshire.
In light of this, Wrestling Inc. reached out to multiple states about the possibility of legalized betting on WWE matches. Each gambling commission was asked 1) how likely WWE would be to succeed if they pitched gambling on matches to them, and 2) if there were any regulations, laws, or statutes that barred betting on something with predetermined outcomes. 13 states -– Arizona, Connecticut, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, Ohio, Oregon, South Dakota, and Washington -– responded. While their responses varied slightly, overall, they paint a picture of increasingly fewer opportunities, and increasingly more obstacles, for legal gambling on WWE matches to get approved.
At least three states say they wouldn't allow gambling on WWE as a matter of policy, even if there are no explicit laws against it.
Kerry Hemphill, Manager of Sports Betting Product at the Oregon Lottery, made it clear that gambling on WWE wouldn't be allowed as a matter of policy in the Beaver State: "Although there is no law or statute that forbids it, Oregon Lottery sports betting policy is to not accept wagers on scripted events with predicted outcomes."
Seth Elkin, Assistant Director of Communications for Public Affairs for Maryland Lottery and Gaming, also told us his state had made a determination on the matter. "Maryland's sports wagering law and regulations prohibit forms of wagering that are contrary to public policy or unfair to bettors," he said. "We've determined that it is unfair to bettors, and therefore not in the public's interest, to accept wagers on sports entertainment events that have predetermined outcomes, like professional wrestling."
Meanwhile, a representative from the South Dakota Department of Revenue simply said, "WWE wrestling matches would not be eligible for sports wagering in South Dakota."
Iowa and Ohio say no to betting on predetermined events
Two more states said that predetermined events weren't permitted, but made a point to highlight policy and procedure. Brian J. Ohorilko, Administrator of the Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission, also shot down gambling on wrestling for the time being.
"Predetermined events are not permitted in the State of Iowa," he told Wrestling Inc. "Iowa law defines and permits professional sporting events and sports-related events; however, fixed or predetermined outcomes are not explicitly permitted. As such, and for other integrity concerns, the commission has not permitted predetermined events in any of the approved wagering markets."
Ohorilko also brought up the process that would be required for any kind of legalization: "From a practical standpoint, any request would need to come with a legal opinion as to how this would be permitted under Iowa law," he said. "It would need to go through legal review with consultation from the AG office. If legal review passes, the commission would still need to review policy and integrity concerns with respect to the activity having predetermined outcomes. Approval would be needed before this type of wagering activity could take place."
Ohio tells a similar story. Jessica Franks, Director of Communications for the Ohio Casino Control Commission, pointed us towards Rule 3775-11-01 of the Ohio Administrative Code — the process for adding to Ohio's catalog of wagers and events. She said the Commission's review of such requests includes, but is not limited to, the following criteria:
The quality of the governing body's documented integrity program.
The general availability of information related to the governing body.
The professional or skill level status of athletes.
The history of integrity related to events sanctioned by the governing body.
This already puts the WWE in shaky territory, but it's seemingly locked out for good with the following consideration: "Please note that the Commission will not approve requests for wagers/events involving 'Events which are pre-recorded or in which the outcome has been otherwise previously determined.'"
Arizona and Connecticut have laws against betting on fixed outcomes
At least two states have laws in place that would ban gambling on WWE matches.
Max Hartgraves, Public Information Officer at the Arizona Department of Gaming, provided a straightforward statement: "Arizona statute prohibits gambling on fixed events."
Meanwhile, when asked how likely WWE would be to garner approval for gambling on matches, Kaitlyn Krasselt, Communications Director at Connecticut Department of Consumer Protections, said "I cannot speculate on that." That said, she did inform Wrestling Inc. about state regulations on gambling: "Connecticut law only allows wagering on sporting or athletic events. WWE is sports entertainment. The 'matches' are predetermined by the company and are scripted. There is no regulation body for professional wrestling, and WWE is one of several companies that offers this type of entertainment. With a predetermined outcome, this would not be considered a sport. It is considered entertainment. Wagering on the Oscars, for example, is also not permitted in Connecticut."
That last part is significant, since CNBC's report mentioned that WWE executives were using Oscar betting as an example for regulators.
Maine and Montana agree with most of their colleagues
Two states specifically cited the statements from Colorado, Indiana, Michigan, and New Hampshire in their responses. After hearing that four other states had expressed skepticism over betting on WWE, Maine Gambling Control Unit Executive Director Milton Champion said, "On the surface, without looking into the matter, I would concur with my colleagues. Operators will submit with their application events that they want to take wagers on, and I shall approve them."
Daniel Iverson, Content Manager for the Montana Lottery, said something similar. "Montana does not intend to add WWE markets, for the same reasons our counterparts cited," he advised, before directing any questions on state law to the Montana Department of Justice Gambling Control Division.
New Jersey and Massachusetts punted, for now
Two states we contacted declined to comment on the matter, not wanting to address issues that haven't come before them yet. Thomas Mills, Communications Division Chief of the Massachusetts Gaming Commission, said, "I appreciate your question, but am unable to speculate on a hypothetical action the Commission may or may not take."
Dan Prochilo, Public Information Officer at the New Jersey Attorney General's Office, responded that "The Division of Gaming Enforcement (DGE) cannot comment on any hypothetical discussion with an operator or league about future sports betting opportunities." He added that "In New Jersey, an entity seeking permission for a contest to be authorized for wagering on a sports event is required to submit its proposal to DGE for evaluation and approval pursuant to state law and regulations."
Prochilo also provided the state's legal definition of a "sports event" for the purposes of gambling. Notably, it includes the phrase "A 'sports event' shall include any live competition or talent contest, including awards competitions[.]"
New Jersey and Massachusetts are two of the only states that allow betting on the Oscars, with New Jersey okaying it in 2019 (the first state to do so) and Massachusetts greenlighting it in 2023. It's unknown if WWE will approach either state or how each state would respond, but at bare minimum, WWE's argument to treat wrestling like the Oscars for betting purposes might carry some weight.
Washington and New Mexico illustrate the challenges of Tribal gaming
Washington is unique among the states who responded to us, in that sports wagering is only available on Tribal lands yet still regulated by the state. Sports wagering was legalized, subject to terms of Tribal/State Compacts, on Tribal lands in 2020. All wagering, even online betting, must take place on Tribal lands, and each casino decides bets within certain limitations. The Angel of the Winds Casino and Resort and the ilani Casino Resort, for example, don't 100% overlap on sports offered for betting.
But WWE, or any wrestling, won't be joining those offering under current rules and regulations. Dan Wegenast, Agent In Charge for the Tribal Gaming Unit of the Washington State Gambling Commission, pointed Wrestling Inc. towards the Tribal/State Compacts for sports wagering. He also stated that "Washington State law and the Tribal/State Compacts for sports wagering ... prohibit wagers on events with known outcomes."
To further illustrate the complications of garnering approval for gaming on Tribal lands, a representative from the New Mexican Gaming Control Board told Wrestling Inc. that sports betting is illegal in their state, but legal with some Tribes. That said, New Mexico does not regulate Tribal gaming, meaning that approval would likely have to be worked out with each Tribe individually.
There are other obstacles, too
It's worth noting that gambling laws are constantly changing. Many states without gambling –- such as North Carolina -– have spent years hammering out legislation that would approve gambling off Tribal lands. Additionally, for states with legalized gambling, internal policies are not inherently laws, and can be subject to change under the right circumstances.
That said, even if WWE manages to get gambling on matches approved anywhere, that's only one part of the battle: They still need casinos and/or sportsbooks to be willing to accept wagers at all, and there's resistance in this field, as well, as demonstrated in subsequent coverage from CNBC. FanDuel deems it unlikely that they'd ever accept bets on WWE, noting that the Academy Awards –- which held once per year -– are vastly different than dealing with WWE's weekly programming. Additionally, when BetCEO Adam Greenblatt was asked if he had any interesting in accepting bets on WWE, he responded "NFW."
Between the overwhelming majority opinions of the 13 states who responded to Wrestling Inc., the states that have already responded, and the reluctance of sportsbooks to include anything that looks less than credible, WWE faces an increasingly uphill battle if they want to make betting on wrestling matches legal anywhere in the United States.
Tuesday, October 05, 2010
American Wiseguys; Australian Wiseguys Uprising?, by Greg Tingle - 4th October 2010
Wiseguy hey? What is a wiseguy? The United States has them... heard of 'The Mob'? So does Italy. The casino and larger gambling industry is understood to be home to a few "wiseguys", some recently busted lurking in the entertainment - ticketing sector, and now speculation rises as to who may be a wiseguy down under in Australia. Media Man and Gambling911 load up the Cadillac, shovels, knock squad and navigate the odd horses' head with this special 'Wiseguys" report...
American Wiseguys online ticketing scheme...
Legal eagles for a foursome of Americans accused of illegally purchasing more than 1 million concert tickets online, then going on to sell them for a massive $30 million profit, are seeking to have the case thrown out of court.
The four Californian natives are charged with the serious offences of conspiracy and fraud.
They are accused of bypassing safeguards meant to restrict the number of tickets each customer can buy.
The US government alleges their company... wait for it...Wiseguy Tickets, resold the tickets for $30 million in estimated profit.
According to a 43-count indictment unsealed in March of this year, the foursome used a nationwide network of computers to flood websites such as Ticketmaster and Major League Baseball and even developed a computer program that could automatically get past web pages that require purchasers to manually type in sample words before they can proceed. Cleaver cookies hey.
The quad squad focused on highly coveted premium tickets to high-profile events such as concerts by Bruce Springsteen, Bon Jovi, Dave Matthews and Hannah Montana and sporting events such as the baseball playoffs, the 2009 Sugar Bowl and the 2007 BCS college football championship game, federal authorities have gone on record with.
The case is being prosecuted in New Jersey as many of the live events were held at Giants Stadium, Izod Centre and Prudential Centre; others were spread across the United States at venues in New York City, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Tampa, Florida, according to the indictment.
Kenneth Lowson, Kristofer Kirsch and Faisal Nahdi, all of LA, and Joel Stevenson, of Alameda, California, face charges that include conspiracy, wire fraud and unauthorised computer access.
The wire fraud counts are the most serious and carry a maximum prison sentence of 20 years per count upon conviction.
Lowson, Kirsch and Stevenson have been freed on bail since their arrests, while Nahdi is a fugitive and is believed to be abroad... on the run, as they say.
Mark Rush, a lawyer for Lowson, argued in federal court on Monday that the foursome might have violated websites' terms of service - use, but are not liable under existing federal law.
Federal prosecutors sought to play down the unusual nature of the men's alleged crimes.
"We see cases like this in federal court all the time," Assistant US Attorney Erez Lieberman said during a motion hearing before US District Judge Katherine Hayden.
Lieberman said the defendants "lied, lied and lied some more" when they purchased tickets using hundreds of fake internet domain names and created a method of bypassing safeguards meant to limit the number of tickets available to individual buyers.
"Each and every step of the way it was a traditional fraud," Lieberman said.
The judge heard arguments on the defence's motion to dismiss the indictment on the grounds that federal law does not cover what Rush said were merely violations of the terms of use on internet sites including Ticketmaster.
Rush argued that while the defendants' actions might be deemed unsavoury to say the least, they did not rise to the level of criminal activity but should more appropriately be taken up as a civil matter.
"This isn't Ticketmaster versus Wiseguy, but perhaps it should be. But it shouldn't be the United States of America versus Wiseguy. Congress has not criminalised ticket brokers or ticket scalpers. What if they hired 100,000 people to all get on the site at the same time? Would we be here?" Rush asked.
"Or was it because it was a computer? If we are struggling to figure out if this is a violation of federal criminal law, then the indictment should be dismissed."
Australian Wiseguys Background And Uprising?...
Australian history books show a bit of ticketing "funny business" going back to Harry M. Miller circa 1982, with Computicket but that's ancient history now. If you want to find out more about Harry and Computerticket, you can buy his book 'Confessions of a Not-So-Secret-Agent'.
Speculation is rife about who is, or will be, the new breed of Australian born and breed "Wiseguys".
Casino, gambling and sports betting types have likely heard of the "Australian Gumleaf Mafia", but are they also the "Aussie Wiseguys"?
It's often been joked that "The Mafia" runs American media, Hollywood and Australia's entertainment, gambling, but how much is talked up and what's fact or fiction can be very difficult to ascertain.
Talk around 'Sin City' Sydney of late speculates that Kings Cross nightclub owner - operator John Ibrahim may be described as a "wiseguy". What is interesting is that in July 2009, Ibrahim's bodyguard, Semi "Tongan Sam" Ngata, was arrested following a raid on his home by a special gang violence taskforce that netted bulk quantities of a methamphetamine precursor. Ibrahim is portrayed by Firass Dirani in the 2010 television miniseries Underbelly: The Golden Mile. Media Man talent, part time bodyguard, and new 'Aussie Gumleaf Mafia' recruit, John 'Vulcan' Seru, also featured with Dirani on a number of 'Underbelly' episodes last season. A few months back Durani scored a role opposite Robert Di Niro in 'The Killer Elite'. Readers will recall that it was De Niro who played Sam "Ace" Rothstein (Frank 'Lefty' Rosenthal) in the Martin Scorsese film 'Casino'. Ah, small world isn't it.
So, who are Australia's real life 'Wiseguys'? Are they more likely to be Harry M. Miller types? 'Gumleaf Media types', sports betting fixes seen around the Australian - Indian - Pakistan cricket matches, or more of the types that are invisible to all but those in the underworld? We would suggest the later wiseguys!
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Events
Punters, a friendly reminder... bet with your head, not over it, and have fun... Wiseguys!
*Greg Tingle is a special contributor for Gambling911
*Media Man http://www.mediamanint.com is primarily a media, publicity and internet portal development company. They cover a dozen industry sectors including gaming and offer political commentary and analysis.
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American Wiseguys online ticketing scheme...
Legal eagles for a foursome of Americans accused of illegally purchasing more than 1 million concert tickets online, then going on to sell them for a massive $30 million profit, are seeking to have the case thrown out of court.
The four Californian natives are charged with the serious offences of conspiracy and fraud.
They are accused of bypassing safeguards meant to restrict the number of tickets each customer can buy.
The US government alleges their company... wait for it...Wiseguy Tickets, resold the tickets for $30 million in estimated profit.
According to a 43-count indictment unsealed in March of this year, the foursome used a nationwide network of computers to flood websites such as Ticketmaster and Major League Baseball and even developed a computer program that could automatically get past web pages that require purchasers to manually type in sample words before they can proceed. Cleaver cookies hey.
The quad squad focused on highly coveted premium tickets to high-profile events such as concerts by Bruce Springsteen, Bon Jovi, Dave Matthews and Hannah Montana and sporting events such as the baseball playoffs, the 2009 Sugar Bowl and the 2007 BCS college football championship game, federal authorities have gone on record with.
The case is being prosecuted in New Jersey as many of the live events were held at Giants Stadium, Izod Centre and Prudential Centre; others were spread across the United States at venues in New York City, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Tampa, Florida, according to the indictment.
Kenneth Lowson, Kristofer Kirsch and Faisal Nahdi, all of LA, and Joel Stevenson, of Alameda, California, face charges that include conspiracy, wire fraud and unauthorised computer access.
The wire fraud counts are the most serious and carry a maximum prison sentence of 20 years per count upon conviction.
Lowson, Kirsch and Stevenson have been freed on bail since their arrests, while Nahdi is a fugitive and is believed to be abroad... on the run, as they say.
Mark Rush, a lawyer for Lowson, argued in federal court on Monday that the foursome might have violated websites' terms of service - use, but are not liable under existing federal law.
Federal prosecutors sought to play down the unusual nature of the men's alleged crimes.
"We see cases like this in federal court all the time," Assistant US Attorney Erez Lieberman said during a motion hearing before US District Judge Katherine Hayden.
Lieberman said the defendants "lied, lied and lied some more" when they purchased tickets using hundreds of fake internet domain names and created a method of bypassing safeguards meant to limit the number of tickets available to individual buyers.
"Each and every step of the way it was a traditional fraud," Lieberman said.
The judge heard arguments on the defence's motion to dismiss the indictment on the grounds that federal law does not cover what Rush said were merely violations of the terms of use on internet sites including Ticketmaster.
Rush argued that while the defendants' actions might be deemed unsavoury to say the least, they did not rise to the level of criminal activity but should more appropriately be taken up as a civil matter.
"This isn't Ticketmaster versus Wiseguy, but perhaps it should be. But it shouldn't be the United States of America versus Wiseguy. Congress has not criminalised ticket brokers or ticket scalpers. What if they hired 100,000 people to all get on the site at the same time? Would we be here?" Rush asked.
"Or was it because it was a computer? If we are struggling to figure out if this is a violation of federal criminal law, then the indictment should be dismissed."
Australian Wiseguys Background And Uprising?...
Australian history books show a bit of ticketing "funny business" going back to Harry M. Miller circa 1982, with Computicket but that's ancient history now. If you want to find out more about Harry and Computerticket, you can buy his book 'Confessions of a Not-So-Secret-Agent'.
Speculation is rife about who is, or will be, the new breed of Australian born and breed "Wiseguys".
Casino, gambling and sports betting types have likely heard of the "Australian Gumleaf Mafia", but are they also the "Aussie Wiseguys"?
It's often been joked that "The Mafia" runs American media, Hollywood and Australia's entertainment, gambling, but how much is talked up and what's fact or fiction can be very difficult to ascertain.
Talk around 'Sin City' Sydney of late speculates that Kings Cross nightclub owner - operator John Ibrahim may be described as a "wiseguy". What is interesting is that in July 2009, Ibrahim's bodyguard, Semi "Tongan Sam" Ngata, was arrested following a raid on his home by a special gang violence taskforce that netted bulk quantities of a methamphetamine precursor. Ibrahim is portrayed by Firass Dirani in the 2010 television miniseries Underbelly: The Golden Mile. Media Man talent, part time bodyguard, and new 'Aussie Gumleaf Mafia' recruit, John 'Vulcan' Seru, also featured with Dirani on a number of 'Underbelly' episodes last season. A few months back Durani scored a role opposite Robert Di Niro in 'The Killer Elite'. Readers will recall that it was De Niro who played Sam "Ace" Rothstein (Frank 'Lefty' Rosenthal) in the Martin Scorsese film 'Casino'. Ah, small world isn't it.
So, who are Australia's real life 'Wiseguys'? Are they more likely to be Harry M. Miller types? 'Gumleaf Media types', sports betting fixes seen around the Australian - Indian - Pakistan cricket matches, or more of the types that are invisible to all but those in the underworld? We would suggest the later wiseguys!
Media Man Profiles
Australia
Mafia
Events
Punters, a friendly reminder... bet with your head, not over it, and have fun... Wiseguys!
*Greg Tingle is a special contributor for Gambling911
*Media Man http://www.mediamanint.com is primarily a media, publicity and internet portal development company. They cover a dozen industry sectors including gaming and offer political commentary and analysis.
Website Network
Media Man International
Media Man
Media Man Australia
Media Man Asia
Media Man Canada
Media Man Games
Media Man Brand
Media Man Network
Casino News Media
Poker News Media
Global Gaming Directory
Monday, October 04, 2010
Australian Casinos And Gambling Landscape Red Hot, by Greg Tingle - 3rd October 2010
Australian land based casinos and the gambling sector as a whole remains one of the world's most healthy, profitable and political, as we learn in this weeks special Aussie news round up. Media Man and Gambling911 continue to bring you the best from down under...
Crown Limited Top Brass Rolling In Cash...
Crown Limited top dog Rowen Craigie has been thanked for returning Crown to profitability, with his salary rising to more than $7 million big ones. The company's annual report clearly demonstrates Craigie's total paypacket jumped 15%, bolstered by a $1m short-term incentive bonus. He and the head honcho of Crown's Melbourne operations, David Courtney, were awarded 100% of their potential short-term bonuses. Courtney's overall salary rose from $2.7m to $2.9m. The James Packer-backed casino and hotel firm increased the salaries of most of its key managers after posting a $292.3m profit for the year ended June 30, up from its previous $1.1 billion loss. The company's share price during the same period rose from $7.11 to $7.77 and is now trading at roughly $8.39. After its US-based investments suffered greatly as a result of the global credit crunch and subsequent financial crisis, Crown made clear its intention to focus on its Australian operations, and its own bet has paid off and shareholders such as Media Man are delighted. Crown plans to spend $790m during the next 3 years targeting the growing VIP market, upgrading its casinos in Melbourne and Perth, including building new private games suites. It will also undertake major hotel renovations, provide more restaurants and increase its fleet of private jets. Last year's $16.35m "management remuneration bill" also included a $1.44m termination payment to chief financial officer Rob Turner, who departed 2 years before his contract expired. Yep, Packer and the board are also making the tough and smart calls.
Land Based Smart Systems Big Brother Privacy Concerns...
The Australian government is considering the use of fingerprint technology in clubs to help track problem pokie players. But Prime Minister Julia Gillard says the system, suggested by Senator "Mr X" Nick Xenophon, is just one option to enforce mandatory pre-commitment limits. "We'll be looking at the whole range of technology that could be used to meet the same pre-commitment," she told the press. "The Productivity Commission (inquiry into problem gambling) did not define which technology to use. That has to be the subject of inquiry and discussion." Gillard has promised to take action on problem gambling by 2014 in a deal struck with the anti-pokies campaigner, independent MP Andrew Wilkie. Wilkie and Senator Xenophon have been appointed to a parliamentary committee to work out the best course. The options include smartcards to police daily limits for individuals and a USB stick bearing a gambler's fingerprints, also with a daily limit. The clubs sector is concerned the fingerprint option may give rise to a government-controlled database of pokie players. Senator Xenophon has dismissed that suggestion, describing it as "a beat-up even boxer Mike Tyson would be proud of". "There will not be a fingerprint database," he said in a statement, adding a player's pre-commitment to gambling limits was not about invading privacy. "I would never support any such scheme, and no scheme has ever been proposed by the federal government." Gillard said many Australians were concerned about problem gambling and families had been "torn apart" by the problem. "But at the same time many Australians like to place the occasional bet ... and it's just another form of entertainment," she said.
Australian And Canadian Gambling Crimes Set For Slap On Wrist By Law...
A United States judge's decision to sentence a Canadian internet gambling tsar to home detention raises the prospect accused Aussie fraudster Daniel Tzvetkoff will also receive a slap on the wrist and dodge a long stint in an American prison. Douglas Rennick, a 35-year-old man from British Columbia, faced 55 years in a US federal prison, but his punishment will be 6 months at his sister's home in the San Diego, after prosecutors scrubbed the most serious charges in a plea deal. "The defendant will remain at his sister's place of residence," US District Judge Sidney Stein ordered at Rennick's sentencing in New York on September 15. The case against Rennick mirrors the one against 27-year-old Tzvetkoff, who just a few years ago held the crown as one of Queensland's most successful young businessmen with an estimated personal fortune of more than $A80 million. Tzvetkoff has been facing 75 years in prison, but it appears he has struck a plea deal with prosecutors, who are based out of the same Southern District of New York office as Rennick's prosecutors. US authorities accused Rennick and Tzvetkoff of creating separate schemes for gambling companies to process extraordinary amounts of illegal gambling money into the US. Rennick's scheme allegedly involved $US300 million. Tzvetkoff is accused of dreaming up aka devising a money laundering scheme that illegally processed more than $US500 million in transactions. While US prosecutors initially took tough stances against Rennick when he was arrested last year and Tzvetkoff when the Australian was arrested at a Las Vegas casino on April 16, the treatment of both soft.
Rennick eventually entered a guilty plea to a relatively minor transmission of wagering charge, a long way off from the original conspiracy to commit money laundering and bank fraud charges that carried hefty jail sentences and were dropped. Speculation is mounting Tzvetkoff has turned into an informant, is working with prosecutors and could have his bank fraud and money laundering charges replaced by a minor charge. Prosecutors and Tzvetkoff's American lawyer, Robert Goldstein, have declined to comment on the status of the case. Prosecutors originally aggressively fought at bail hearings to keep Tzvetkoff in jail, but in a big about face shrouded in secrecy, Tzvetkoff was released on bail in August and his whereabouts are currently unknown. Public court records do not show a bail hearing taking place, adding to speculation a plea deal will be, or has been done and he is being held in a safe house. Media Man friend Gambling911 has been following the case closely, for those who can't get enough of the Aussie and Canadian gambling crim news.
Australian And New Zealand Internet Gambling On Rise...
Media Man an a number of informed sources are now stating on the record that internet gambling (slots, poker, sports betting and other) are on the rise in Australia and New Zealand. This news will come as little or no surprise to old hands, newbies, mainstream media or gaming media. The news is confirmed as the Australian and New Zealand government try to crack down on gambling in pubs, hotels and clubs, also known as pokie palaces. Internet gamblers can almost always bet more online that at land based premises, and can do so in the comfort of their own home, without worrying about travel, petrol, food and other expenses, and also get to sidestep the fights at the pub that Australia is so well known for. Online punters also find the 24 / 7 always open hours attractive, along with the wide variety, branded slots like Marvel and other Hollywood themes. PartyGaming, the world's leading igaming company is by all accounts the most popular supplier of online gambling(slots, table games and poker) in Australia at this time, with Betfair, Centrebet, Captain Cooks Casino, Roxy Palace and a few others all in the chase. Agencies and web portals like Media Man help bridge the game between the casinos and punters, sometimes offering exclusive deals through their website portals as well as insider information, that punters are unlikely to find out elsewhere (like how to sidestep internet filters, or where the best casino bonuses can be located). The online gaming industry is open to becoming fully regulated by applicable government departments, and its most likely that national gaming regulation body would be the most effective to ensure that both punters and the industry achieve a win - win.
So punters, how did you enjoy today's casino news? Tell us in the forum.
Media Man Profiles
Australia
Australian Casinos
Politics
Casino Reviews
The Late News...
Australian 'Gumleaf Mafia', Media Man and Gambling911 hear that the Australian government is becoming more open to securing b2b deals with world's leading igaming operators like PartyGaming and Virgin Games. Read about these two operators at Media Man and Gambling911, and stay tuned for updates, as Media Man is in close liaison with a number of high profile Australian senators and informers about developments in this exciting sector. Friendly reminder... bet with your head, not over it, and have fun.
*Greg Tingle is a special contributor for Gambling911
*Media Man http://www.mediamanint.com is primarily a media, publicity and internet portal development company. They cover a dozen industry sectors including gaming and offer political commentary and analysis.
Website Network
Media Man International
Media Man
Media Man Australia
Media Man Asia
Media Man Canada
Media Man Games
Media Man Brand
Media Man Network
Casino News Media
Poker News Media
Global Gaming Directory
Crown Limited Top Brass Rolling In Cash...
Crown Limited top dog Rowen Craigie has been thanked for returning Crown to profitability, with his salary rising to more than $7 million big ones. The company's annual report clearly demonstrates Craigie's total paypacket jumped 15%, bolstered by a $1m short-term incentive bonus. He and the head honcho of Crown's Melbourne operations, David Courtney, were awarded 100% of their potential short-term bonuses. Courtney's overall salary rose from $2.7m to $2.9m. The James Packer-backed casino and hotel firm increased the salaries of most of its key managers after posting a $292.3m profit for the year ended June 30, up from its previous $1.1 billion loss. The company's share price during the same period rose from $7.11 to $7.77 and is now trading at roughly $8.39. After its US-based investments suffered greatly as a result of the global credit crunch and subsequent financial crisis, Crown made clear its intention to focus on its Australian operations, and its own bet has paid off and shareholders such as Media Man are delighted. Crown plans to spend $790m during the next 3 years targeting the growing VIP market, upgrading its casinos in Melbourne and Perth, including building new private games suites. It will also undertake major hotel renovations, provide more restaurants and increase its fleet of private jets. Last year's $16.35m "management remuneration bill" also included a $1.44m termination payment to chief financial officer Rob Turner, who departed 2 years before his contract expired. Yep, Packer and the board are also making the tough and smart calls.
Land Based Smart Systems Big Brother Privacy Concerns...
The Australian government is considering the use of fingerprint technology in clubs to help track problem pokie players. But Prime Minister Julia Gillard says the system, suggested by Senator "Mr X" Nick Xenophon, is just one option to enforce mandatory pre-commitment limits. "We'll be looking at the whole range of technology that could be used to meet the same pre-commitment," she told the press. "The Productivity Commission (inquiry into problem gambling) did not define which technology to use. That has to be the subject of inquiry and discussion." Gillard has promised to take action on problem gambling by 2014 in a deal struck with the anti-pokies campaigner, independent MP Andrew Wilkie. Wilkie and Senator Xenophon have been appointed to a parliamentary committee to work out the best course. The options include smartcards to police daily limits for individuals and a USB stick bearing a gambler's fingerprints, also with a daily limit. The clubs sector is concerned the fingerprint option may give rise to a government-controlled database of pokie players. Senator Xenophon has dismissed that suggestion, describing it as "a beat-up even boxer Mike Tyson would be proud of". "There will not be a fingerprint database," he said in a statement, adding a player's pre-commitment to gambling limits was not about invading privacy. "I would never support any such scheme, and no scheme has ever been proposed by the federal government." Gillard said many Australians were concerned about problem gambling and families had been "torn apart" by the problem. "But at the same time many Australians like to place the occasional bet ... and it's just another form of entertainment," she said.
Australian And Canadian Gambling Crimes Set For Slap On Wrist By Law...
A United States judge's decision to sentence a Canadian internet gambling tsar to home detention raises the prospect accused Aussie fraudster Daniel Tzvetkoff will also receive a slap on the wrist and dodge a long stint in an American prison. Douglas Rennick, a 35-year-old man from British Columbia, faced 55 years in a US federal prison, but his punishment will be 6 months at his sister's home in the San Diego, after prosecutors scrubbed the most serious charges in a plea deal. "The defendant will remain at his sister's place of residence," US District Judge Sidney Stein ordered at Rennick's sentencing in New York on September 15. The case against Rennick mirrors the one against 27-year-old Tzvetkoff, who just a few years ago held the crown as one of Queensland's most successful young businessmen with an estimated personal fortune of more than $A80 million. Tzvetkoff has been facing 75 years in prison, but it appears he has struck a plea deal with prosecutors, who are based out of the same Southern District of New York office as Rennick's prosecutors. US authorities accused Rennick and Tzvetkoff of creating separate schemes for gambling companies to process extraordinary amounts of illegal gambling money into the US. Rennick's scheme allegedly involved $US300 million. Tzvetkoff is accused of dreaming up aka devising a money laundering scheme that illegally processed more than $US500 million in transactions. While US prosecutors initially took tough stances against Rennick when he was arrested last year and Tzvetkoff when the Australian was arrested at a Las Vegas casino on April 16, the treatment of both soft.
Rennick eventually entered a guilty plea to a relatively minor transmission of wagering charge, a long way off from the original conspiracy to commit money laundering and bank fraud charges that carried hefty jail sentences and were dropped. Speculation is mounting Tzvetkoff has turned into an informant, is working with prosecutors and could have his bank fraud and money laundering charges replaced by a minor charge. Prosecutors and Tzvetkoff's American lawyer, Robert Goldstein, have declined to comment on the status of the case. Prosecutors originally aggressively fought at bail hearings to keep Tzvetkoff in jail, but in a big about face shrouded in secrecy, Tzvetkoff was released on bail in August and his whereabouts are currently unknown. Public court records do not show a bail hearing taking place, adding to speculation a plea deal will be, or has been done and he is being held in a safe house. Media Man friend Gambling911 has been following the case closely, for those who can't get enough of the Aussie and Canadian gambling crim news.
Australian And New Zealand Internet Gambling On Rise...
Media Man an a number of informed sources are now stating on the record that internet gambling (slots, poker, sports betting and other) are on the rise in Australia and New Zealand. This news will come as little or no surprise to old hands, newbies, mainstream media or gaming media. The news is confirmed as the Australian and New Zealand government try to crack down on gambling in pubs, hotels and clubs, also known as pokie palaces. Internet gamblers can almost always bet more online that at land based premises, and can do so in the comfort of their own home, without worrying about travel, petrol, food and other expenses, and also get to sidestep the fights at the pub that Australia is so well known for. Online punters also find the 24 / 7 always open hours attractive, along with the wide variety, branded slots like Marvel and other Hollywood themes. PartyGaming, the world's leading igaming company is by all accounts the most popular supplier of online gambling(slots, table games and poker) in Australia at this time, with Betfair, Centrebet, Captain Cooks Casino, Roxy Palace and a few others all in the chase. Agencies and web portals like Media Man help bridge the game between the casinos and punters, sometimes offering exclusive deals through their website portals as well as insider information, that punters are unlikely to find out elsewhere (like how to sidestep internet filters, or where the best casino bonuses can be located). The online gaming industry is open to becoming fully regulated by applicable government departments, and its most likely that national gaming regulation body would be the most effective to ensure that both punters and the industry achieve a win - win.
So punters, how did you enjoy today's casino news? Tell us in the forum.
Media Man Profiles
Australia
Australian Casinos
Politics
Casino Reviews
The Late News...
Australian 'Gumleaf Mafia', Media Man and Gambling911 hear that the Australian government is becoming more open to securing b2b deals with world's leading igaming operators like PartyGaming and Virgin Games. Read about these two operators at Media Man and Gambling911, and stay tuned for updates, as Media Man is in close liaison with a number of high profile Australian senators and informers about developments in this exciting sector. Friendly reminder... bet with your head, not over it, and have fun.
*Greg Tingle is a special contributor for Gambling911
*Media Man http://www.mediamanint.com is primarily a media, publicity and internet portal development company. They cover a dozen industry sectors including gaming and offer political commentary and analysis.
Website Network
Media Man International
Media Man
Media Man Australia
Media Man Asia
Media Man Canada
Media Man Games
Media Man Brand
Media Man Network
Casino News Media
Poker News Media
Global Gaming Directory
Sunday, October 03, 2010
PartyCasino News: Enter The Kitchen! Unleash A Fortune When You Become A Kung Food Master At The World's Largest Online Casino
Casino News Media: Enter The Kitchen! Unleash A Fortune When You Become A Kung Food Master At The World's Largest Online Casino
Enter The Kitchen! Bruce Pea And Crispy Duck Norris! Unleash A Fortune When You Become A Kung Food Master!
Gibraltar – 30th September 2010 - Hungry for adventure? Then enter the kitchen and prepare yourself for Kung Food, the brand new all-action slot from PartyCasino.com that’s serving up a feast of thrills, extreme cash prizes and an ass-kicking to all other slots that get in its way.
Take on the role of Bruce Pea as he faces four formidable foes – Jet Leek, Jackie Clam, Crispy Duck Norris and Jean-Claude Van Ham – in his quest to become the Kung Food master. A small taster of the unique special sauce in this slot can be found at PartyCasino.com
A PartyCasino.com spokesman said: "This brilliant fun new slot has only just gone up on the site but is already one of the most popular with customers – it has a winning recipe and plenty of kick ass. Don’t let the bad guys take the Pea. With the lean, green wrecking machine on your side you can be victorious."
Remember, this is no ordinary food fight: check out the ingredients of this very special recipe!
· Round one!
Spin the five reels of this 30-payline slot to unleash its astounding features, including the Kung Food ‘wild’ symbol that substitutes for all symbols (except the Fight feature symbols) and gives you more chances to win.
· Round two!
Trigger the bonus feature and enter the Kung Food Fight feature. You choose which killer moves Bruce will inflict with cash awarded after every attack.
· Round three!
If all five bonus symbols are in view Bruce will take on all four enemies in a row, racking up a huge a pay day where you could win up to $450,000!
· You win!
Win up to 7,500 times your line bet if five Wise Old Fortune Cookie symbols land on a winning line
PartyCasino.com, the world’s largest online casino, has the most frequent game launches and largest jackpots in the industry and offers over 150 games, including over 100 slots. PartyCasino.com pays out easily over $10 million EVERY DAY to players. The new instant casino is now live. Play direct from the website in 14 languages with the improved user interface. ‘The Big One’ at PartyCasino.com, the largest progressive seeded jackpot in the online gaming industry, is now over $2,500,000, while the Gold Mega Jackpot currently exceeds $1,300,000! In total PartyCasino.com’s jackpots total over $4,000,000!
Media Man, Casino News Media and Global Gaming Directory do have a b2b relationship with PartyGaming, as they do with dozens of other companies in the gaming, igaming, media and entertainment industry.
Websites
PartyCasino.com
PartyPoker.com
World Poker Tour Casino
Profiles
PartyCasino.com
The Big One
Gold Mega Jackpot
PartyCasino.com Jackpots
PartyCasino.com New Games
PartyPoker.com
World Poker Tour
PartyGaming
Enter The Kitchen! Bruce Pea And Crispy Duck Norris! Unleash A Fortune When You Become A Kung Food Master!
Gibraltar – 30th September 2010 - Hungry for adventure? Then enter the kitchen and prepare yourself for Kung Food, the brand new all-action slot from PartyCasino.com that’s serving up a feast of thrills, extreme cash prizes and an ass-kicking to all other slots that get in its way.
Take on the role of Bruce Pea as he faces four formidable foes – Jet Leek, Jackie Clam, Crispy Duck Norris and Jean-Claude Van Ham – in his quest to become the Kung Food master. A small taster of the unique special sauce in this slot can be found at PartyCasino.com
A PartyCasino.com spokesman said: "This brilliant fun new slot has only just gone up on the site but is already one of the most popular with customers – it has a winning recipe and plenty of kick ass. Don’t let the bad guys take the Pea. With the lean, green wrecking machine on your side you can be victorious."
Remember, this is no ordinary food fight: check out the ingredients of this very special recipe!
· Round one!
Spin the five reels of this 30-payline slot to unleash its astounding features, including the Kung Food ‘wild’ symbol that substitutes for all symbols (except the Fight feature symbols) and gives you more chances to win.
· Round two!
Trigger the bonus feature and enter the Kung Food Fight feature. You choose which killer moves Bruce will inflict with cash awarded after every attack.
· Round three!
If all five bonus symbols are in view Bruce will take on all four enemies in a row, racking up a huge a pay day where you could win up to $450,000!
· You win!
Win up to 7,500 times your line bet if five Wise Old Fortune Cookie symbols land on a winning line
PartyCasino.com, the world’s largest online casino, has the most frequent game launches and largest jackpots in the industry and offers over 150 games, including over 100 slots. PartyCasino.com pays out easily over $10 million EVERY DAY to players. The new instant casino is now live. Play direct from the website in 14 languages with the improved user interface. ‘The Big One’ at PartyCasino.com, the largest progressive seeded jackpot in the online gaming industry, is now over $2,500,000, while the Gold Mega Jackpot currently exceeds $1,300,000! In total PartyCasino.com’s jackpots total over $4,000,000!
Media Man, Casino News Media and Global Gaming Directory do have a b2b relationship with PartyGaming, as they do with dozens of other companies in the gaming, igaming, media and entertainment industry.
Websites
PartyCasino.com
PartyPoker.com
World Poker Tour Casino
Profiles
PartyCasino.com
The Big One
Gold Mega Jackpot
PartyCasino.com Jackpots
PartyCasino.com New Games
PartyPoker.com
World Poker Tour
PartyGaming
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