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Saturday, September 30, 2023
Media Man News Blog: US government hours from shutdown, funding chaos
Media Man News Blog
US government hours from shutdown, funding chaos
The US government on Saturday was hours from shutting down after the far right of the Republican Party scuppered final attempts at a temporary budget agreement, throwing into doubt everything from access to national parks to Washington's massive support for Ukraine.
The closure of all but critical government services, set to start after midnight Saturday (0400 GMT Sunday) if lawmakers fail to reach a deal, would be the first since 2019 -- immediately delaying salaries for millions of federal employees and military personnel.
The two chambers of Congress are deadlocked, with a small group of Republicans in the House of Representatives pushing back against stopgap measures that would at least keep the lights on.
On Friday, House Republicans defeated a plan proposed by their own leader, Speaker Kevin McCarthy, to keep funds flowing, deepening the sense of growing chaos within the party ahead of 2024 elections where hard-right former president Donald Trump hopes to return to the White House.
The White House Office of Management and Budget's director Shalanda Young said there was "still a chance" of avoiding a shutdown if Republicans could end internal divisions.
And White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre made clear that President Joe Biden, who is seeking a second term in 2024, did not intend to wade in.
"The conversation needs to happen between Speaker McCarthy and his caucus. That's the fix, that's the chaos that we're seeing," she said.
Speaking to the news outlet ProPublica on Friday, Biden said McCarthy has made "a terrible bargain. In order to keep the speakership, he's willing to do things that he, I think, he knows are inconsistent with the constitutional processes."
McCarthy, however, blamed Democrats, saying they are the ones blocking a solution.
- Big question on Ukraine -
All critical government services will remain functioning. However, a shutdown would mean the majority of national parks, for example -- from the iconic Yosemite and Yellowstone in the west to Florida's Everglades swamp -- would be closed to public access beginning Sunday.
With student loan payments resuming in October, officials also said Friday that key activities at the Federal Student Aid office would continue for a couple of weeks.
But a prolonged shutdown could cause bigger disruptions.
A shutdown "unnecessarily" places the world's largest economy at risk, White House National Economic Council Director Lael Brainard told CNBC.
Risks that could percolate through the wider economy include air travel delays, with air traffic controllers asked to work without pay.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned a closure could also delay infrastructure improvements.
"In the immediate term, a government shutdown will only reduce GDP by 0.2 percentage points each week it lasts," said a report released Friday by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank.
"However, halting critical trade functions of the United States will also undermine the United States' overall credibility as a commercial partner, impede ongoing negotiations and hinder export control enforcement capabilities," the report added.
The mess casts a growing shadow over Biden's policy of arming and funding Ukraine in its desperate war against the Russian invasion. For Republican hardliners behind the derailment of a new budget, stopping aid to Ukraine is a key goal.
Most Republican members of Congress continue to support US backing for Ukraine, but the shutdown will at minimum raise questions over the political viability of renewing the multibillion-dollar flow of assistance.
Wednesday, September 27, 2023
Media Man News Blog: Andrews Leaves a Winner
Media Man News Blog
Andrews Leaves a Winner
By Cory Bernardi
27 Sept 2023
Hi there,
While many politically right-of-centre Australians would be cheering the resignation of Victorian Premier Dan Andrews, the bloke leaves as a winner.
He won three elections and ran Victoria with an iron fist while misusing buckets of taxpayers money.
His government was mired in corruption scandals and linked to the largest number of COVID deaths in Australia. He ran Victoria into record debt while imposing new and outrageous taxes targeting his non-supporters.
On top of that, Andrews pursued a radical social agenda on euthanasia, abortion and drug use.
It's incredible to think he was largely untouched by Victoria's Liberal opposition despite the target-rich environment.
That's why he is a winner.
He leaves on his terms, is off the hook on his COVID accountability and, while leaving Victoria in a parlous state, he has a taxpayer funded statue in his honour.
It says a lot about politics and the media in Victoria that he leaves virtually unscathed.
The opposition didn't lay a glove on Andrews. He suffered more damage from internal Labor foes than his political opponents.
As I have said before, where the adversarial politics of accountability fails, it falls to the media to do their job of exposing bad actions and policies.
Unfortunately the media in Victoria failed too.
They repeatedly failed to ask the hard questions during Andrew's rein and were particularly sycophantic during the COVID pandemic.
So while Andrews emerges a winner, we are all losers as a result.
The template for authoritarian politics is now set. Politicians have learned that they can get away with almost anything as long as they keep the media on side.
They act as the gatekeepers to shaping public opinion and their omissions are even more effective than their exposes.
Where the mainstream media fails, the independent media often succeeds.
However, these revelations are usually dismissed as conspiracy theories or misinformation by those with a vested interest in outcome.
We've seen that with propaganda outlets like their ABC, the biased fact-checkers and the tech titans.
Thanks to Senator Alex Antic and his Freedom of Information requests, we also know that government has a role in censoring content they deem inappropriate.
So the two most untrustworthy public voices - politicians and a biased media - are trying to close down access to the truth through alternative outlets.
That only makes those outlets even more important.
Have a great day.
Cory
Monday, September 25, 2023
Media Man News Blog: News Media
Media Man News Blog
News Media
Showbiz News from Hollywood; Screenwriters reach tentative deal with studios to end strike
The show must go on - eventually, anyway! With or without a dash of AI et al.
The Writers Guild of America, which represents thousands of Hollywood writers, advised Sunday PM that it has reached a tentative agreement on a new contract with the major entertainment studios, paving the way to end the 146-day strike that has brought television and film production to a standstill. That's right - 146 days! That's some kind of record.
"The WGA and [Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Produces] have reached a tentative agreement," according to an online WGA statement that discloses that more details will follow after the contract language has been finalized...ink had dried, you know the drum.
Though the AMPTP trade alliance of major film and television producers has yet to comment on the development, WGA described the contract to members in a letter as "exceptional." It contains "meaningful gains and protections for writers in every sector of the membership," it said.
The roughly 11,000 writers were demanding "economic fairness," streaming-service residuals and regulation on the use of AI (artificial intelligence) - take that, you bots!
"What we have won in this contract ... is due to the willingness of this membership to exercise its power, to demonstrate its solidarity, to walk side-by-side, to endure the pain and uncertainty of the past 146 days. It is the leverage generated by your strike, in concert with the extraordinary support of our union siblings, that finally brought the companies back to the table to make a deal," it said.
The language of the contract was being finalized, it said, with guild members to vote on whether to accept it in the coming days.
Union members are being advised that "no one is to return to work" unless specifically authorized by the guild.
"We are still on strike until then," it said, though it was suspending picketing.
The Hollywood writers went on strike early May after negotiations with the studios and streaming services fell through, following six weeks of talks, which brought a halt to television productions.
Many insiders as well as regular consumers of streaming media shows and other had noticed a dive in overall quality.
In mid-July, the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists joined the movement, shutting down any active studio productions.
The deal announced late Sunday does not mean the resumption of Hollywood productions, as SAG-AFTRA members remain on the picket lines, and WAG is encouraging its members to join in the actors' fight.
SAG-AFTRA issued a statement congratulating WGA on the deal it said it would review.
"We remain on strike in our TV/Theatrical contract and continue to urge the studio and streamer CEOs and the AMPTP to return to the table and make the fair deal that our members deserve and demand," it said.
The agreement was reached following a recent breach in a stalemate in negotiations, which began about mid-August.
The two sides were quiet until Sept. 14, when they said they had agreed to return to the negotiating table, and they have been hashing out a deal since Wednesday.
"After a nearly five-month long strike, I am grateful that the Writers Guild of American and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers have reached a fair agreement and I'm hopeful that the same can happen soon with the Screen Actors Guild," Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said in a statement.
"Now, we must focus on getting the entertainment industry, and all the small businesses that depend on it, back on their feet and stronger than every before."
The strike, which has waylaid productions for months, has hurt the bottom line of studios, with Warner Bros. Discovery telling the Securities and Exchange Commission earlier this month in a filing that the strikes have "negatively impacted" the company by a cost of up to $500 million. Some folks in and around the biz are pleased that that likes of a somewhat "woke and broken" Disney had lost so much money.
Under the watercooler Media heard, "More about fairness, distribution of funds, and a fair days pay for a fair days work. We showed the world and this script kind of wrote itself"!
If 99pc of start-ups fail, how do AirTree and Blackbird make money?
Starting an ambitious technology company is undeniably hard, but fresh data suggests failure rates aren’t as high as parts of the industry say.
On a darkened screen, a line of text lays out the stakes for The New Hustle, a 2017 documentary series: “Over 92 per cent of start-ups fail. What separates those who don’t?”
Six years later, the production company behind that feature, Founder Films, was back with a new documentary series called Founder on the same topic. This time, the odds seemed to be stacked even higher against start-up founders. “Ninety-nine per cent of start-ups fail,” the on-screen text from the documentary reads.
Apparently, those six years were a grim time for start-ups, whose founders were portrayed as valorous figures surmounting almost impossible odds. Yet between 2017 and early 2022, start-up funding soared in Australia, giving even questionable firms war chests of cash to sustain their dreams for years.
Statistics requested by The Australian Financial Review from the country’s biggest tech venture investors suggest many more start-up companies are staying afloat than the most heightened founder mythology suggests.
The disparate figures reflect an industry that does not have a uniform definition of failure even as commentators contend that failure is discussed too harshly, or too much, or not enough. And they show how failure rates are deployed to either showcase investment performance or valorise founders.
Startmate, the long-running accelerator, has reported that 63 per cent of the more than 230 companies it has a stake in are still active. AirTree Ventures, the large Sydney-based fund that was founded in 2014, said its failure rate – defined using the fairly common rule of investments where it has got back less than it invested – is lower than 20 per cent. Company closures in its portfolio are even lower, at less than 3 per cent.
Blackbird Ventures, meanwhile provided data from its first fund, raised in 2013, where 25 per cent of the companies have closed down, compared with the same number of exits and 10 that are still operating. Square Peg, the third major Australian venture fund, did not make any data available.
Better than regular businesses
Those start-up failure rates compare fairly favourably to the economy as a whole. For the past four years, failure rates for all Australian businesses with staff have hovered around 8 per cent, according to data from the Bureau of Statistics.
But unlike small-business investors who want to preserve capital and grow slowly, venture capitalists bet on a host of companies hoping a small percentage will become enormously valuable in the knowledge many will fail.
That has led some start-up industry figures such as Finder founder Fred Schebesta to argue some high-profile failures should be celebrated to avoid discouraging founders.
James Alexander, a partner at early-stage investor Galileo Ventures, said he did not support the idea of “celebrating” failure, though he acknowledged that founding a business, whether small business or start-up, was very hard.
“Do I think failure is positive? No, I don’t,” Mr Alexander said. “I don’t think [failures] are positive, but I don’t think they’re anywhere near as bad as people make them out to be.”
Mr Alexander’s portfolio has four failures, defined as firms shut down or sold that returned less than invested capital, out of 18 bets. But he said that if one of those surviving companies became a super valuable firm akin to Google, “No one’s going to mind if we lose money on five, 25 or 30 per cent of the investments or even more.”
Founder Films, owned by the founder of $2.7 billion start-up SafetyCulture Luke Annear, declined to comment on its figures, but a spokesman pointed to a 2012 Wall Street Journal article reporting Harvard research that 95 per cent of start-ups fail to hit projected figures. The 92 per cent failure rate number is also all over the internet, with the figure derived from a 2011 report by an organisation called Startup Genome that no longer appears online.
Mr Alexander said that high failure rate figures were a reflection of the way venture firms sought out exceptional results.
“When people throw out these things like ‘90per cent of businesses fail’, I think usually they mean 90 per cent of businesses never become big,” Mr Alexander said.
Murray Hurps, who runs the industry survey project Startup Muster, did not provide data on failure rates because the varying definitions make it hard to collect. But he said that average failure levels were not as useful as understanding the proposition of investing or building an individual firm.
“There are many kinds of lower risk, technology-enabled entrepreneurial pursuits that entrepreneurs should be considering, and more today than there ever were before,” Mr Hurps said.
What Lachlan Murdoch told fundies in Sydney two weeks ago - September 23, 2023
Lachlan Murdoch’s been in and around Australian business circles for most of his working life, but had little to do with the country’s big investors. Until a few weeks ago.
A couple of weeks ago, Lachlan Murdoch, 52, broke cover with Australia’s investor ranks.
Not one to normally front Australia’s fund managers on roadshows, Murdoch was the headline attraction at a small and private dinner held only a few kilometres from his home in Sydney’s inner-east.
The small crowd were all fund managers – big name stock pickers from the larger institutional equities shops in Sydney – most of who had little to do with Murdoch or his father Rupert over the years, and some of who had never met him despite him being in and out of Australian business circles his whole working life.
Murdoch spoke off the cuff. There were no notes or powerpoint slides, no script and no minders, just an update on the family’s two businesses News Corporation and Fox Corporation, and where he wanted to take them.
Perhaps playing to the small crowd, he repeatedly stressed he was 100 per cent focused on creating shareholder value, according to those at the dinner. It was a friendly crowd; money is the name of the game in funds management, and fund managers tend to bow down to billionaires. He was valued at $3.35 billion on this year’s AFR Rich List.
He was clearly proud some of the investments he had overseen – high growth and conviction bets like News Corp’s $13 billion stake in REA Group, student loans business Credible and streaming business Tubi Corporation for example – and gave the impression of a hands-on and pretty passionate senior executive.
He travels back to US head office every second week from his home in Sydney, where his children go to school. When he’s in Sydney, he tends to work New York hours. That’s the sort of stuff that top Sydney money managers are glad they do not have to worry about.
There were no hints about what was to come and fund managers left the dinner not knowing that only a few weeks later, Murdoch would finally get the keys to his father Rupert’s News Corporation.
He was announced as News Corp’s executive chairman on Thursday night, the same role he holds at sister company Fox Corporation, while his 92-year-old father would step off the board and become chairman emeritus of both companies.
Changing of the guard
Lachlan Murdoch’s succession may end a tumultuous 12 months for the family’s two companies. This time last year, the Murdochs were planning to reunite their News Corp and Fox businesses, calling it the next logical step of the strategy that led the media billionaires to sell entertainment giant 21st Century Fox to Disney in 2017 for $US52 billion.
It was about bringing together live sport and news, two things that consumers want immediately and are arguably less discretionary than TV entertainment and movies – but the deal was off a few months later called “not optimal for shareholders of News Corp and Fox at this time”.
In reality, it also faced considerable backlash from investors including Sydney-based Airlie Funds Management, who didn’t want to see News Corp combined with Fox. News Corp owns the company’s stake in REA and Move in the United States, Foxtel in Australia, Dow Jones and HarperCollins, among other businesses, and trades at a significant discount to its asset backing.
Soon after, it also abandoned talks to sell its US digital real estate business Move for about $US3 billion ($4.4 billion).
Murdoch’s comments from the dinner were ringing through those fund managers’ heads on Friday, as they tried to work out what it meant for the future of the family’s media empire.
It was a timely introduction to a man who’s well known in media circles – there are plenty of former News Corp executives who’ll give their two cents worth and recount fronting him when they hadn’t made budget or wanted money for something – but less in local markets.
Those close to him say he’s been fronting investors in the US for a while, just not Australia. Fox Corp isn’t listed in Australia, while News’ ASX-listing is small.
One thing that stuck in the Australian fund managers’ heads were Murdoch’s remarks about M&A.
He said large media sector deals were hard to get past the antitrust regulator in the United States – which is similar to deals in every concentrated sector (banking, energy, tollroads) in Australia.
So, investors are thinking there is unlikely to be any giant strategic pivot in the near to medium term, at least, although are fully aware that deals (big and small) have been a big part of the family business under Rupert Murdoch and Lachlan has been at the table for plenty of them.
“Evolution not revolution” is how his backers were putting it on Friday, pointing out that he’s done a long apprenticeship under his father at News Corp and has been Fox executive chairman since 2105 (it was 21st Century Fox before a $US50 billion sale of its film production business to Disney) . It is still all about news, sport and digital, and looking forwards not backwards.
Closing the gap in value
The ASX-listed shares were up 1.9 per cent to $32.25 in Friday afternoon trade.
Murdoch junior’s most notable was paying about $10 million for a 44 per cent stake in realestate.com.au (later REA Group), following a direct approach from Sydney real estate agent and company director John McGrath, while others for the company include Credible, where loans are up three-times since News Corp’s acquisition, Tubi, which has tripled subscribers.
Of course, it has not been all winners. He’s still remembered for One.Tel, a telecommunications company that collapsed in 2001, and Channel Ten owner Ten Network Holdings, which went into administration in 2017. News Corp’s betting play is also in trouble.
One of his loudest supporters in Australian markets is Sydney stockbroker Angus Aitken, who is known for backing family-led businesses and was quick to tell clients that News Corp was in good hands.
“Lachlan Murdoch has the same entrepreneurial genes as his Dad and has zero to prove, he already has proved himself in spades,” he said in a 1400 word note to fund managers that hit inboxes as the sun rose over Sydney Harbour.
“Anyone who has heard Lachlan talk about these businesses knows he knows these businesses inside out and knows how to allocate capital and back people within these firms with that capital for the long term.”
He said Rupert Murdoch had turned a three-paper tiddler into $US100 billion of assets, if you add the market capitalisations of News and Fox (about $US30 billion) and some of the big asset sales (c$US70 billion). “It is hard to think of anyone who will replicate that in life.”
Lachlan Murdoch will likely struggle to create anywhere near that much value, but he also doesn’t have to. Investors will be happy enough if he can close the discount between New Corp’s share price and asset value – which funds like Melbourne’s L1 Capital have talked about for years. That discount was so glaring that stockbroker UBS for a while was putting out a regulator News Corp note, pointing out the difference between the sum of its parts and share price.
The bigger news on Friday was the end of the Rupert Murdoch-era, after a career stretching seven decades. Lachlan’s ascension to the top of both companies was telegraphed by his father in the past few years. Second son James moved to the fringes of the family business after the Fox/Disney deal in 2019.
'Take it over’: Perth lands WWE’s first Aussie event in six years - September 23
One of the world’s biggest sporting organisations is coming back to Australia for the first time since taking over the MCG in 2018.
The WWE will return to Australian shores for the first time since 2018 in February after the Elimination Chamber event was announced for Perth’s Optus Stadium.
After months of speculation, the sports entertainment behemoth announced that the 60,000 seat stadium would host the live event on Saturday February 24.
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The last time the WWE came down under was in 2018 when the Super-Show Down took over the MCG with Ronda Rousey stunning a packed house before Triple H pinned The Undertaker.
In the meantime, Aussie Rhea Ripley has become one of the sports’ biggest names and is expected to star as the WWE comes back to Australia, while Grayson Walker is also a near certainty to fight.
While the schedule has not yet been released, it will culminate in at least one six-man cage match with some of the promotion’s biggest names set to visit just one month out from WrestleMania 40.
Wrestlers Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods joined WA Premier Roger Cook for the announcement.
“These are set to be the hottest tickets in town and fans can pre-register and secure their spot from today,” Cook said.
“We expect the premium live event at Optus Stadium will be a sellout with thousands of east coast and international fans flocking to Perth, Western Australia to witness this exclusive show.”
The show is expected to reach an audience of one billion people worldwide and Kingston, who is one of the members of The New Day alongside Woods and Big E, said the Elimination Chamber could “totally change the trajectory of whatever is going on in the WWE landscape”.
“Two combatants enter and there are four pods with the other combatants within them,” Woods added.
“As time passes, one of those pods will open until all of their combatants are inside of the ring.
“And then the match officially begins and you lose by pinfall or submission until there is one combatant standing and they are the winner.
“And the reason that this is so intense is because you are waiting for people to get into this match.”
The wrestlers involved are expected to have community activations and meet-and-greets with fans, and Kingston said they “really come into a town and take it over”.
The WWE has recently merged with the UFC, which had a massive show earlier this year in Perth when Alexander Volkanovski lost a controversial bout to Islam Makhachev for the lightweight title.
Expend4bles
A new generation of stars join the world's top action stars for an adrenaline-fueled adventure in Expend4bles. Reuniting as the team of elite mercenaries, Jason Statham, Dolph Lundgren, Randy Couture, and Sylvester Stallone are joined for the first time by Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson, Megan Fox, Tony Jaa, Iko Uwais, Jacob Scipio, Levy Tran, and Andy Garcia. Armed with every weapon they can get their hands on and the skills to use them, The Expendables are the world's last line of defense and the team that gets called when all other options are off the table. But new team members with new styles and tactics are going to give "new blood" a whole new meaning.—Lionsgate
The Unbreakable Bunch
An Alien Force Came To Conquer - They Had No Idea This Bunch Was In Town.
Producers Ray “Glacier” Lloyd and Steve Luther Wilson, aka “Big Sexy” Luther Biggs, trained at the Power Plant and broke into the business about the same time. A decade ago, the two started talking about a movie.
“We had this idea,” says Lloyd, “What if a bunch of pro wrestlers had to step out of their wrestling world and into a fantasy world where they have to battle aliens?”
“We’re both big fans of The Magnificent Seven, The Wild Bunch, The Dirty Dozen, and The Professionals. They were all ensemble casts, and most of them were somewhat diverse. We thought, ‘What if we could make a movie like that and celebrate the wrestling business?’”
Most wrestling movies either focus on the dark side, or they go for the campy humor,” says Lloyd. “They make movies like The Wrestler, which was very good and yes, that is how some guys turn out. Or they make fun of wrestling and wrestling fans. We wanted to celebrate what’s great about being a wrestling fan and what’s fun about the business without making fun of it. We didn’t think that anyone else was going to make a movie like that, and even if they did, they probably wouldn’t get it right.”
“The story changed a lot from that first draft, but we tried to stay true to the essence of the characters and what they stood for,” explains Lloyd.
Ernest “The Cat” Miller
Stan Hansen
Tonga Uli’uli Fifita, aka Haku, aka Meng
Larry Zbyszko
Diamond Dallas Page
David “Gangrel” Heath.
“An ensemble cast like this has never been done in a wrestling film.” says Lloyd. “We also worked with some great actors we cast in the non-wrestling roles. Nicholas Logan did a tremendous job in our movie, and he’s had some great roles before and after The Unbreakable Bunch. I’m excited to see where his career goes.”
“These are men like us who have their life together,” says Lloyd. “They have good jobs, a nice home. You also see how these guys come together to put on a show. It’s a team effort, whether it’s for one night or a tour. Then they all go their separate ways. That’s something we’ve never seen in a movie about wrestling, and we wanted to portray that.”
“Wrestling is at its best when everyone can enjoy it,” says Lloyd. “A lot of the fans I meet at shows and convention are grown ups who were kids when I was first on TV. Now they’re bringing their kids because they want the next generation to enjoy wrestling like they did. There’s definitely some action, but we kept it to a PG or PG-13 level. We really want families to enjoy this picture, even if they don’t watch wrestling.”
“We want this movie to be something that wrestlers and wrestling fans will be proud to recommend to people,” says Lloyd. “At the end of the day, it’s about camaraderie, loyalty, friendship. It’s about the noble side of professional wrestling.”
WWE Hall of Famer Larry Zbyszko via aQ&A on AdFreeShows.com. In addition to taking fan questions, he also talked about the movie, “The Unbreakable Bunch” that Ernest Miller, himself, and several other wrestlers are in:
"Ray Lloyd, Luther Biggs, had been working their butts off for some years to get this movie going. They wrote it, and then they had to get financed. At the end of 2009, we filmed it and it really came out great. I mean, it's a movie about wrestlers saving a town from aliens, but it's not a wrestling movie. It's kind of a science fiction action movie with emotion and you'll find yourself laughing when you don't expect to. I mean, it was really well done. It's a family friendly movie. Nothing dirty, nothing raunchy. I mean, if you're not a wrestling fan, you're gonna love it too because it's not about wrestling. But it was really well done. I've been dying to see it. As soon as we finished it, like at the end of 2019 right before Christmas, a couple of months later this stupid COVID hit and slowed it down a little bit with the editing, but there was the guy alone editing in the booth. So it's finally all done with the editing and the sound and the music and the special effects, and I hear it's going to come out October 13th. I can't wait to see it."
Zbyszko talking about two movies he should have been in:
"I should have been in two big movies. I'll tell you a story quickly. Alright, 1976 or something I was wrestling in California a little bit. I was wrestling a man and I got a message to talk to some producer in the audience. So after the match, I went to talk to this guy. He said, 'Hey, I'm making my first movie. It's a low budget movie, but I'd like to have you in it because I like the way you look and move.' So I said, 'Okay.' So I went down to his office which turned out to be a crap hole and got a script and read it and I'm going, oh my God. Three weeks in the desert shooting this movie for hardly any money for the guy's independent little movie. It's eating babies and stuff. I said, 'Oh God.' So I nicely told the guy I couldn't do it. I was busy. It turned out the guy's name was West Craven and it was his first movie, 'The Hills Have Eyes.' It became a classic and I'm supposed to be it."
"Then some years ago in like the mid 80s or something. I got a message at the NWA office to call Jerry Reed. I'm thinking Jerry Reed? The only Jerry Reed I know is the country western singer, unless it's Jerry Reed the IRS guide. So I call this number and it's Jerry Reed the singer. He says, 'Son, you're my favorite guy.' We talked and he wanted me to be in the last Smokey and the Bandit movie they were going to make because Jackie Gleason just died and they wanted me to play the part of a young a**hole sheriff after the bandit in the last movie. But right when they were going to do the last movie, that's when Burt Reynolds went off the deep end taking all the Halcyon pills and getting divorced from Loni and getting wiped out, so they never made the movie. So I was supposed to be in the Hills Have Eyes and the last Smokey and the Bandit never happened, but The Unbreakable Bunch, I'm in like the whole movie and I can't wait to see the thing."
AEW WrestleDream - October 1, 2023.
Broadcast into Australia via FITE
Bryan Danielson vs. Zack Sabre Jr.
Hangman Page vs. Swerve Strickland
AEW Tag Team Champions FTR defend against Aussie Open
ROH Tag Team Champions Adam Cole & MJF defend against The Righteous (Vincent & Dutch)
NJPW Strong & ROH World Champion Eddie Kingston defends both titles against ROH Pure Champion Katsuyori Shibata
TNT Champion Christian Cage defends against Darby Allin in a two out of three falls match
TBS Champion Kris Statlander defends against Julia Hart
Will Ospreay, Konosuke Takeshita, and Sammy Guevara vs. Kenny Omega, Kota Ibushi, and Chris Jericho
Additional matches have been added to next Sunday's AEW WrestleDream card.
Don Callis on Saturday’s Collision revealed that Will Ospreay will team with Konosuke Takeshita and his newest family member Sammy Guevara against Kenny Omega, Chris Jericho, and Kota Ibushi. This stems from events that took place on Friday’s Ramapge, where Omega made the save for Jericho after Guevara and Takeshita jumped Jericho.
In addition, Christian Cage will defend the TNT title in a two out of three falls match against Darby Allin. On Saturday’s Collision, Allin had a three-way title match won between himself, Cage, and Luchasaurus when Cage posted Allin, allowing himself to pin Luchasaurus. In a backstage interview, Tony Schiavone told Cage he would be defending the title at WrestleDream.
Eddie Kingston in a promo revealed that he will be putting up both the ROH and New Japan Strong titles against Katsuyori Shibata at WrestleDream, saying that he wanted a match that would honor Antonio Inoki.
WWE PPVs
Saturday, Oct. 7
WWE Fastlane
Indianapolis
WWE Crown Jewel 2023
November 4, 2023
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Saturday, Nov. 25
WWE Survivor Series
Chicago
WWE Survivor Series 2023
November 25, 2023
Rosemont, Illinois (Chicago) - Allstate Arena
Lachlan Murdoch inherits a daunting to-do list. Observers are divided over how he will cope = 23rd September 2023
First among equals is how media mogul Rupert Murdoch once described his eldest son Lachlan, when asked about the succession plan at his global media empire. Now with Rupert’s retirement this week from the boards of Fox Corporation and News Corporation, Lachlan’s position at the top of the family-controlled empire is cemented.
However, 52-year-old Lachlan inherits a daunting task. He takes control of the global newspaper and television businesses as both face major challenges. He becomes head of one of the most influential American media companies as the US goes into perhaps its most important presidential election in recent history. And, his every step will be measured against his father’s legacy.
Former News Corporation executive John Cowley has no doubt that Lachlan is up to the task. “He was trained by the best. His father would have rubbed off on him, but he’s also his own man. He will do a good job,” Cowley said.
Lachlan’s first real job in the Murdoch empire was working for Cowley. It was three decades ago, when at the age of 22, he joined Queensland Newspapers as its general manager. Fresh from having studied philosophy at Princeton University, the young Murdoch would walk the newsroom floor with his shirt sleeves rolled up – exposing a tribal tattoo on his left arm – discussing stories with journalists, much as his father had once done.
Over seven decades, Rupert Murdoch, 92, built a global media empire from a single Australian newspaper. As his business expanded so did his influence and he became one of the world’s most powerful, polarising and right-wing businessmen, owning outlets such as Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, The Times, and The Australian.
Rupert pitted Lachlan from an early age against two of his siblings, older sister Elisabeth and younger brother James, to take over the family empire.
Lachlan, Elisabeth and James would come and go from the family business, vying for their father’s affection and at times falling out with him. But it would be Lachlan who would return to the fold and stay.
The Murdoch family governs News Corporation and Fox Corporation through a family trust. Rupert has six children from three wives. The family trust owns almost 40 per cent of the voting shares in both companies.
Each of Murdoch’s children know how difficult it is being the progeny of a successful parent. Put simply, if the adult children of successful parents make good, it’s because of what their parents left them. If they don’t, people ask what’s wrong with them.
This is what Lachlan is up against, even in his middle age.
Billionaire James Packer can sympathise, as he spent most of the first half of his life being compared against his father – the late media tycoon Kerry Packer.
James multiplied the wealth he inherited from his father. But then his publicly listed Crown casino business became embroiled in a Chinese money-laundering scandal. It was fined, and he sold it, and since then, has focused on private investments.
“Lachlan will do very well. He’s following in a legend’s footsteps, one of the biggest, being Rupert, and that’s never easy,” says Packer, who has been friends with Lachlan for more than three decades. “But I think Lachlan’s ready, and he’s the right man for the job.”
Not everyone agrees.
Rod Tiffen is an emeritus professor at the University of Sydney, who has published books on the news media, including about Rupert Murdoch. He’s critical of Lachlan’s rise to the top of News Corporation and Fox Corporation.
“The idea that a position like that should go by heredity belongs more in the age of Jane Austen than of the contemporary corporate world,” Tiffen says. “It might be okay for the corner store to pass from father to son, but a global corporation should be based on some sort of merit, and not just having the same surname.”
Lachlan becomes chair of News Corporation, which owns newspaper and real estate assets, and also the chair and chief executive of Fox Corporation, which owns Fox News and Fox broadcasting.
In 2019, Fox sold its $US71.3 billion film and television business to Walt Disney, predicting the streaming war that is now playing out, and which has cost companies such as Disney, Netflix and Amazon billions. It was a clever move hailed as Rupert’s crowning achievement.
However, it has left Fox much smaller than many of its peers, with a focus on news and sport. The broadcast and cable TV outlets in the US are declining, and Fox is also competing against bigger players such as Amazon, Netflix, Comcast, Disney and Warner Brothers in securing sporting rights.
The embattled news arm was also sued after broadcasting conspiracy theories and claims of vote rigging promoted by Donald Trump in the 2020 election. Earlier this year, Fox settled a defamation lawsuit with Dominion Voting systems for $US787.5 million ($1.2 billion). It is now facing another lawsuit from a voting machine manufacturer, Smartmatic, which is likely to be at the top of Lachlan’s to-do list to resolve.
Another problem for Lachlan is that Donald Trump is shaping up as the most likely Republican candidate for the 2024 election, if he’s able to overcome the legal cases that he is facing.
However, it would be hard for Fox News to back him given Rupert has publicly criticised Trump and disowned him. And yet, much of the Fox News audience are Trump supporters. Fox News will risk alienating its audience more if Trump becomes the Republican candidate, and it doesn’t back him.
News Corporation has real estate assets such as REA Group and owns newspapers such as The Times, The Australian and the Wall Street Journal. The print assets are declining while the digital side of those newspapers has been growing, particularly the Dow Jones group in the US.
Matt Williams is head of Australian equities at Airlie Funds Management. It owns 2 per cent of the voting shares in News Corporation, which he argues remains undervalued. “Over the last ten years management have done a very good job with the Dow Jones business in re-aligning the business from being reliant on advertising to much more now a subscription-based business.”
He says Lachlan has been a good steward of News Corporation, and expects the strategy of that group to remain unchanged.
However, Tiffen expects there will be pressure to shut print newspapers when Rupert dies. “Everyone rightly goes on about what a terrific global media empire Rupert Murdoch has built. On the other hand, if you were writing his obituary now, you would say that he’s lost more money on newspapers than anyone else in history. And chances are that won’t continue after he dies.”
Tiffen expects that Lachlan will not make any significant changes to either Fox Corporation or News Corporation’s strategy while his father remains alive. “It’s much more likely that any changes will have to be after Rupert’s death, and then it’s quite unpredictable.”
The unpredictability is over whether Lachlan’s siblings who have voting rights in the trust – Prudence, Elisabeth and James – will be happy with his leadership of Fox Corporation and News Corporation, and the right-wing agendas they have pursued.
“In the short term, while Rupert’s alive, the other three children are going to be respectful,” says Tiffen. “But after he dies, then Lachlan’s relations with his other siblings will be much more difficult to predict.”
(SMH)
Rear Window - September 14, 1999
Kostya, TAB go down fighting
It had more celebrities than a Saturday night in Atlantic City. In one corner, "Break Even" Bill Mordey; in the other, Russian-born dynamo Kostya Tszyu and a gaggle of heavy-hitters including Packer confidant Theo Onisforou and Jeff Fenech.
Mordey won round one when NSW Supreme Court Justice Russell Bainton last year ordered Tszyu to pay $7.3 million to Mordey's Fightvision Pty Ltd for breach of contract, in the process describing the Russian-born boxer as a "spoiled brat".
Yesterday, round two ended with a TKO to Break Even, who managed to deliver a haymaker to TAB boss Warren Wilson. Having bought Sky Channel from Packer's Publishing & Broadcasting and Rupert Murdoch's News Corp last year, TAB will now have to partially foot a $7.3 million damages bill after three appeal judges found Sky Channel had induced Tszyu to breach his contract with Mordey.
Sky Channel will have to pay the costs of Fightvision's original claim against Sky Channel and its appeal in a result Wilson said was disappointing. TAB is considering whether it has any further legal avenues.
The stoush began when Tsyzu appealed against last year's decision, claiming the damages awarded against him were excessive. That prompted Mordey's counterpunch, appealing against the cases he lost to the other five defendants: Fenech, Sky Channel, Onisforou, Tszyu's new promoter, Vlad Warton, and Tszyu's company, Tszyu Enterprises.
The NSW Court of Appeal yesterday dismissed Tszyu's appeal. Mordey had a victory against Sky Channel, Warton and Tszyu Enterprises, but struck out against Onisforou and Fenech. Warton and Tszyu Enterprises will be back for a third round after the court ordered a new trial in relation to Mordey's claims.
Mordey and Fightvision had sought compensation from Tszyu for lost promotion revenue after the fighter breached his contract in early 1995 by agreeing to give Optus Vision or Sky Channel exclusive rights to broadcast his bouts.
In his judgement, Justice Bainton found Tszyu entered into a binding three-year contract with Mordey's Classic Promotions in 1992 and that contract contained an option of renewal for two years. The company wound up in 1993 and Fightvision took over its promotions.
Justice Bainton found that the renewal option in Tszyu's contract had been effectively exercised in January 1995, and that the boxer had broken that contract almost immediately.
Fightvision was entitled to recover from Tszyu profits it would have made from promoting his fights from January 1995 to January 1997 in total $7.3 million.
Room with a view? Er, I'll settle for the ground floor, thanks all the same
While travelling always presents its challenges, Rear Window's Tasmanian tourism operative appears to have struck an unusual problem while cycling through the Apple Isle.
During a bracing journey down the Midland Highway from Launceston to Hobart, our peleton wanabee sought refuge at a cosy bed and breakfast in the hamlet of Campbell Town, where the civic motto is: "Reaching out across the land, over the sea, through the air, towards the stars, Campbell Town is reaching out to you."
Noting the prominent "Vacancy" sign, our operative entered, only to be told by the landlady: "Sorry, we have no vacancies."
But what about the sign? "We haven't got around to making a `No Vacancy' sign yet. Getting the floors fixed comes a long way ahead of a `No Vacancy' sign in our priorities."
We'd advise getting a room on the ground floor.
Rupert shows UK interest but his ratings keep falling
Not content with wading into the murky world of Chinese-Tibetan relations, Rupert Murdoch has turned his hand to matters economic.
Murdoch has attacked the Bank of England in the wake of last week's surprise decision to lift British interest rates, expressing dismay that the central bank should be worried about the United Kingdom's 1.5 per cent economic growth when "the US economy is charging along at 4 per cent with no sign of inflation".
In an interview with London's Sunday Business newspaper, Murdoch also attacked UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown, claiming Brown was "wrong" to give the BoE the power to determine interest rate policy one of the central tenets of central bank indepence worldwide.
"We elect governments to govern, not to give up power to faceless bankers," Murdoch reportedly said, highlighting his growing schism with the government of Tony Blair, who only a few years ago attended News Corp's Hayman Island executive love-fest.
Just last week, Murdoch was kowtowing to the Chinese Government, claiming he had heard cynics say the Dalai Lama was "a very political old monk shuffling around in Gucci shoes" and questioning whether Tibet a "terrible old, autocratic society out of the Middle Ages" had any culture before China invaded.
It is all reminiscent of Murdoch's comments at News Corp's 1995 annual general meeting in Adelaide, where he blasted the Australian economy as "a disgrace" as he offered an opinion on all manner of non-media topics.
By 1997, a chastised Murdoch said son Lachlan had told him he was "not allowed" to talk about Australian politics. "I'm now under very strong instructions from my son to keep my mouth shut because I can go back to America and he has to live with what I have said," the elder Murdoch said.
The Sun King might be better off worrying about the performance of his News Corp empire, which recently suffered a hefty drop in profitability and has kicked off the latest United States television season in unspectacular fashion.
Ratings for News Corp's core Fox group are down an average 6 per cent, with not even the 10th series of its old standby, Beverly Hills 90210, improving the situation.
Guess who's late for dinner?
Here's hoping the 2000 Olympics are better organised than Rear Window, which battled the gremlins in yesterday's paper only to have an item about tomorrow night's glamour Australian Olympic Committee 1999 Countdown Dinner run about two weeks too late. Times have changed since the AOC first sought a plug for the function: the dinner is now sold out, with 1,000 people each paying $1,000 to raise a more than $700,000 for the Australian team. A number of team members will be there on the night, with dual gold medallist Kieren Perkins one of the 100 past and present Olympians who will each sit at the tables snapped up by companies including Telstra, CUB and Westfield. Major Olympic sponsor Westpac is holding its own function.
(AFR)
Sunday, September 24, 2023
Media Man News Blog: Casino and Gaming News
Media Man News Blog
Casino and Gaming News
High Stakes: The ‘life-or-death’ battle over a company name
Two stars of Australia’s new economy – the similarly named share trading platform Stake and online cryptocurrency casino juggernaut stake.com – are locked in a life-or-death court battle over naming rights amid growing concerns the gambling outfit has major plans for its home country.
Stake the share platform launched legal action in the Federal Court in August seeking to enforce its trademarks and stop stake.com, a multibillion-dollar enterprise, from using that name for its business in Australia.
The fast-growing Sydney-based share trading platform, the third-largest broker in the country, alleges that the casino group stake.com has been breaking Australian consumer law and has misled consumers through the use of its brand in Australia and its marketing, including its sponsorship of the Alfa Romeo team and the sale of apparel.
Stake the share trading platform, which owns the URL stake.com.au, alleges stake.com’s use of the name in Australia has potentially led to consumers believing the two brands are related when they are not.
The share trading platform Stake, founded in 2017 by entrepreneurs Dan Silver and Matt Leibowitz, alleges there is a threat that more consumers could be misled if stake.com is allowed to continue with its plans to grow its business significantly in Australia under the brand name Stake.
The casino group, led by Melbourne-based twenty-somethings billionaires Ed Craven and Bijan Tehrani, is expected to seek to have the matter summarily dismissed.
A spokesperson for stake.com said: “We are aware of a frivolous claim lodged in the Federal Court by Stakeshop, which in part claims that our global Formula One team sponsorship impinges on their ability to sell trucker hats.”
“We are proud of the global stake.com brand. As a group, we abide by the laws of the countries in which we operate, and do not offer our stake.com platform to Australian customers. We believe the claim has no legal merit and will vigorously defend our rights.”
The court case has shed new light on stake.com’s expansion plans for Australia, where it remains blocked to Australian users.
Court documents reveal the casino group has sought to buy the stake.com.au website from the sharemarket trading platform business. According to the court documents, the casino group has also registered several Australian website domains for its Australian expansion and applied to register a slew of trademarks including Stake Australia, Stake Bet and Stake Casino.
The Federal Court action comes after years of simmering tensions between the two groups over the use of stake.com’s name in Australia.
Stake.com was established in 2017 but flew under the radar in Australia until late 2021, when this masthead revealed the local origins of the business that had grown to be one of world’s largest online casinos, processing hundreds of billions of bets on sports, virtual table games and online slot machines.
In early 2022, stake.com signed hip-hop megastar Drake as its lead ambassador. Later in 2022 it signed a multi-year deal to become lead jersey sponsor for English Premier League team Everton FC as well as its sponsorship of Alfa Romeo’s F1 team.
The significant increase in stake.com’s marketing and media presence was noticed at the share trading platform group that built its user base during the COVID-inspired boom in Gen Y and Gen Z investors, thanks in part to its ultra-low cost brokerage fee model, savvy marketing and the broadening into other financial services including a superannuation product.
A spokesman for Stake the share trading platform said that since the group was founded in Australia it had built a client base of more than 500,000 and more than $2.5 billion in assets under management.
“Over the past six years, we have established a trusted and culturally relevant Australian brand that reflects our dedication to meeting customer needs. It permeates all parts of our business, spanning products, content, internal culture, customer interactions and much more, making it our most valuable asset. We are committed to protecting the Stake brand and the high level of consumer trust associated with it,” the spokesman said.
“We are concerned by the threatened use of the Stake brand in Australia by stake.com in relation to gambling, casino and sports betting services, due to the potential for customer confusion and damage to our brand and reputation.”
Stake.com is not available in Australia but according to court documents, the group is already making arrangements for a major expansion in this country and is seeking a sports betting licence.
In October 2022, stake.com casino executive Brais Pena Sanchez contacted Stake share trading founder Silver on LinkedIn and arranged a video conference meeting where the pair discussed Stake the share platform selling its Australian URL, stake.com.au, to the Curacao-registered, Australian-operated casino group.
During those discussions, Sanchez – the casino group’s chief strategy officer – informed Silver that stake.com planned to launch in Australia under the name Stakebet, or similar, according to court documents. A deal never ensued and the website remains owned by the share trading platform.
Tensions flared again in early 2023 after stake.com the casino was announced as the new team sponsor for Formula 1 team Alfa Romeo, sparking a flurry of legal letters between the two groups ahead of the Melbourne race.
According to the court documents, the casino group’s lawyers assured the share trading Stake that it would not use its logo in conjunction with the Melbourne Grand Prix and did not intend to display the name on any vehicles or uniforms or as part of the Alfa Romeo team name.
However, the share trading Stake alleges that during the four days of the Grand Prix, Stake casino logos appeared on banners for official team merchandise, the team display and on signs at the event and in the race program.
In May, Stake.com was applying to register a large number of new trademarks for goods and services. This included Stake Australia, Stake Bookie, Stake Betting, Stake Gaming, Stake Esports, Stake Casino, Stake Sportsbook, Stake Bet, Stake Punt, Stake Sports, Stake Pokes and Stake Slots.
The casino group has also registered a series of Australian website names under the “.au” domain including stakebet.au; stakecasino.au, stakesports.au and playstake.au.
The case continues.
Crown to launch digital self-exclusion scheme for casinos - July 2023
People with gambling problems will be able to ban themselves from Crown casinos over the internet instead of having to do so in person, as part of a wider overhaul of the group’s approach to harm minimisation.
Crown Resorts’ new safer gambling program also includes the establishment of a dedicated gambling policy team, which will monitor customer playing behaviour and create interventions to better prevent gambling harm from occurring.
Crown boss Ciaran Carruthers joined the business last year following an overhaul of Crown’s management, after a series of bruising inquiries into the company. Carruthers, who has led other global casino groups including Wynn Macau, said the new leadership of Crown was committed to making gambling safer, even if it meant less turnover in its casinos.
“I have been in this business for 34 years and I can tell you – no one does this,” Carruthers said.
“It is critically important to me that when I look at the long-term viability of this business that people see our resorts as entertainment to enjoy safely.”
Under the changes, customers will be able to block themselves from entering a Crown casino through a new digital self-exclusion portal. Those who wanted to ban themselves from Crown venues were previously required to visit, in person, a designated responsible gambling centre run by the group.
The group has also moved to cashless gaming at Crown Melbourne and Crown Sydney – a condition of its temporary gaming licences in NSW and Victoria– as well as introducing $10 maximum bet limits on poker machines at Crown Perth. The technological overhaul required to facilitate the changes has so far cost the business $13 million.
Carruthers pointed to changes Crown has already made which go beyond government regulation, such as encouraging customers to take breaks every three hours, as an indicator of its commitment to shifting problem gambling patterns.
The group said it wanted to establish advisory panels to work with state regulators and community groups to improve gambling harm education and share its research.
Carruthers conceded some aspects of its new approach to harm minimisation, called Crown PlaySafe, would not be welcomed by heavy gamblers. But he argued the changes would make the casinos more appealing to the general public.
Crown’s new head of gambling policy research, Dr Jamie Wiebe, said the most critical shift in the groups gambling policy was a move away from harm minimisation to prevention.
“We want to prevent a problem from ever happening,” she said.
The new program was unveiled just weeks after the Federal Court determined Crown will pay one of the biggest penalties in Australian corporate history to the financial crimes watchdog, after past anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism failings in its Perth and Melbourne casinos.
The $450 million fine is about five per cent of Crown’s last listed market capitalisation before it was taken private by Blackstone Capital for $8.9 billion in May last year.
In 2019, an investigation by this masthead and 60 Minutes revealed Crown had been infiltrated by international criminal syndicates and money launderers.
Crown was forced to overhaul its board, management and procedures to satisfy the regulators, who approved a conditional licence for Crown to operate its Barangaroo casino in June 2022. The conditional licence is valid until the end of this year.
Carruthers said the integrated hospitality offerings at Crown meant the casino could afford to embrace the shift.
“I want people to enjoy the experience of our casinos whether they’re coming for dining, casino or retail. I’m fairly agnostic across which one of those experience or how many of those experiences you want to enjoy,” he said.
Reclusive Sydney gambling mogul emerges as kingmaker in South Africa - September 2023
Reclusive online gambling mogul Martin Moshal is playing an increasingly influential role in a push to oust the South African government.
Mr Moshal, who lives on the exclusive Sydney Harbour row of Camp Cove alongside shopping centre billionaire Steven Lowy, is not on many rich lists but has made a fortune from online casino technology.
Herman Mashaba is the leader of ActionSA, one of a handful of opposition parties Mr Moshal has backed in the lead up to the 2024 South African national election. Mr Mashaba, known for taking a tough line on immigration and endorsing hard labour for prisoners, is hoping the gambling tycoon will continue his support.
“I wish he won’t give up on us and help us democratically remove the [incumbent African National Congress] and bring about a peaceful transition... please help ActionSA,” Mr Mashaba said in an interview with The Australian Financial Review.
“I have been lucky to have known Martin long before I went into politics,” he added. “I approached him and he was willing to back me up because he knows me as a capitalist... Martin was one of the first to come to the party.”
President Cyril Ramaphosa’s social democratic African National Congress party is set to come under pressure next year amid South Africa’s dire economic troubles. A senior party official has warned the country could become a failed state.
Mr Moshal is the largest individual political donor in South Africa in the last two years. He has given 46.5 million rand ($3.8 million), according to electoral records analysed by My Vote Counts, a non-profit advocating for more transparency in politics.
“Given the amounts donated it has become clear to us he now has a large stake in our politics,” said Robyn Pasensie, a researcher at the organisation.
The size of Mr Moshal’s wealth is unknown. He is extremely private and only admitted to his ownership of online gambling giant Betway after UK journalists traced his ownership back to offshore trusts. Mr Moshal did not respond to a request for comment.
Aside from ActionSA, Mr Moshal has donated to the Democratic Alliance (DA), Build One South Africa and said he also intends to support the Inkatha Freedom Party. Mr Moshal is ActionSA’s biggest backer. The Australian Financial Review is not suggesting Mr Moshal supports the party’s policies.
“I’m not saying these parties are all perfect, but we shouldn’t let perfect be the enemy of good... They are all far better than the government we have today,” Mr Moshal told The Jewish Report earlier this year.
“Pirkei Avot was my late dad – John Moshal’s – favourite part of the Talmud within which Rabbi Tarfon is quoted as saying, ‘It’s not up to you to finish the task, but you aren’t free to avoid it’.”
Mr Moshal said he believed South Africa needed a new government and was on its way to becoming a failed state.
“[This is a] government that’s corrupt, cannot provide basic security and opportunity to its citizens... we need the change of government and leadership that these parties can provide.”
ActionSA is known for advocating for life sentences and hard labour for serious offenders and also wants to repeal the ANC’s Broad-based Black Economic Empowerment (B-BBEE) policy, a form of affirmative action introduced post-apartheid.
“Martin knows my views on racial policies and how dangerous they are,” said Mr Mashaba, who started off in business and was the founder of African hair care brand, Black Like Me.
ActionSA has also been vocal on immigration, views labelled as “xenophobic” by some critics and politicians.
“We recognise that South Africa was built... on the back of migrants,” said Mr Mashaba. “But they must come here legally... you break our laws, we will send you back to your country, the country where you came from.”
One of South Africa’s main economic problems is mismanagement and corruption inside the country’s electricity utility Eskom. The utility has been forced to implement rolling blackouts, which have further stymied economic growth.
“If Eskom cannot run on a commercial basis then it must die a natural death,” Mr Mashaba said, adding changes were needed to give other companies the opportunity to compete.
Mr Moshal’s Entrée Capital is one of Israel’s most active funds in the Israeli VC space. He is the beneficiary of a trust which is the largest individual shareholder in Super Group, which became the parent of Betway and online casino brand Spin after a 2022 listing. The group reported net gaming revenue of €1.3 billion ($2.1 billion) in 2022.
“Moshal is one of the least visible betting entrepreneurs in the world,” Guardian reporter Rob Davis wrote in his book Jackpot: How Gambling Conquered Britain.
“Moshal made much of his fortune from his home in Durban where he patented a series of technological solutions for the online gambling world and developed them via his company Microgaming. The company has since become one of the industry’s leading software players”
A philanthropist, he sits on the capital management advisory committee of Sydney’s Moriah College, alongside Steven Lowy and former Babcock & Brown chief executive Phil Green. He is also a life trustee of the Moriah Foundation and previously donated to Israel’s SpaceIL project attempting to land spacecraft on the moon.
SkyCity puts aside $45m for potential AUSTRAC penalty - August 2023
SkyCity Entertainment set aside $45 million for a penalty if it is convicted of breaches of anti-money laundering and counterterrorism laws.
The financial crimes watchdog, AUSTRAC, lodged proceedings against SkyCity in December over alleged serious and systemic non-compliance with the laws at its Adelaide casino.
SkyCity said on Monday it was difficult to determine the size and timing of the penalty, given the proceedings are in the early stages. But it decided to lodge a $45 million provision on the basis that each breach attracts a maximum civil penalty of between $18 million and $22.2 million.
“Estimating the potential exposure to penalties with any degree of accuracy at this stage of that ongoing process remains challenging, particularly given the outcome is highly dependent on a range of factors which are not yet known,” a statement said.
AUSTRAC has alleged “serious noncompliance” with anti-money laundering laws against SkyCity, claiming the company allowed 59 suspicious patrons to churn more than $4 billion in dirty cash through its Adelaide casino. The independent review is on hold because of the Federal Court action.
The company cut full-year earnings expectations at an investor day in May, with a slowdown in revenue from the international business and rising legal and compliance costs related to a crackdown on money laundering weighing on its bottom line. Analysts have provisioned about $50 million for the AUSTRAC fine, but there is no guarantee that will be enough.
In late May, SkyCity announced it would hire an independent expert to review its anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism programs. It is still waiting for South Australia’s investigation into whether it should hold a casino licence to recommence.
“Judgements in civil penalty proceedings bought by AUSTRAC to date demonstrate that the Court’s determination of the appropriate penalty ... is very specific to the fact in each case and that the Court will have regard to a broad range of factors,” SkyCity said.
SkyCity’s provision announcement coincided with a $45.6 million write-down of the Adelaide casino licence, which was attributed to the value and timing of future discounted cash flows.
The company said the impairment and provision were non-cash and would not affect earnings for fiscal year 2023. Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation remain in line with guidance of $NZ300 million ($276.6 million) to $NZ310 million.
SkyCity’s provision comes a month after the federal court agreed on rival casino operator Crown’s $450 million fine for breaches of anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism laws. The fine is being paid over a two-year period without interest.
Shares closed on Friday at $2.09.
Hotel room rates plummet for F1 Las Vegas Grand Prix weekend - September 2023
Hotel room rates for Las Vegas Grand Prix weekend have fallen by nearly 60 percent in some cases since they were first posted last fall. But an industry expert says that does not necessarily mean interest in the event is failing to meet expectation.
When select Las Vegas resorts in November 2022 opened their booking schedules for race weekend, listed prices were as high as they have been seen in the city’s history. While still at higher than normal rates, a major decrease has occurred.
When a drop in booking pace occurs, it automatically triggers revenue management systems to suggest the lowering of room rates, according to Dr. Mehmet Erdem, professor of hotel operations and technology at UNLV’s William F. Harrah College of Hospitality.
Pennsylvania online casinos cross $5 billion in lifetime revenue - September 2023
Business is booming in Pennsylvania. The Keystone State is the clear market leader when it comes to online casino revenue within the US. After August’s total of $171.9 million, Pennsylvania surpassed the $5 billion threshold for lifetime revenue.
Pennsylvania online casinos are constantly upgrading and adding new content, and customers are responding. It doesn’t appear the market will be slowing down anytime soon, either.
Pennsylvania has set the US online casino revenue record four times over the last 11 months, and almost did so again. August’s revenue total of $171.9 million came second to March’s figure of $181.5 million. It was the second-best month of all time for any state with legal online casinos.
Atlantic City: Five-year turnaround of Ocean Casino Resort among city’s greatest successes - September 2023
In the winter of 2019, if any New Jersey sportsbook had tried to offer odds on the Atlantic City casino hotel then known as Ocean Resort Casino making it through another summer, no gambler in their right mind would have taken the bet.
Fast forward to the end of summer 2023, and the property now called Ocean Casino Resort is one of the city’s best performers. In fact, an argument can be made that Ocean’s rise to the upper echelon of the Atlantic City casino market is the most remarkable turnaround of any gambling parlor in history.
From its failed origins as Revel Casino Hotel to its seemingly doomed trajectory in February 2019, the $2.4 billion casino at the north end of the AC Boardwalk felt almost cursed (if you believe in that kind of stuff). But, apparently, the gambling gods decided Ocean was deserving of a better fate.
Once shunned by casino operators, responsible gaming campaign turns 25
At a time when problem gambling matters were rarely mentioned in gaming company boardrooms, Harrah’s Entertainment decided the issue needed to be raised on casino floors.
But it wasn’t just rival corporate executives that looked askance at the idea of employees learning how to spot signs that a customer might have a gambling problem.
“Our own lawyers tried to block it,” recalled Jan Jones Blackhurst, who was then a Harrah’s senior vice president. With the support of company CEO Phil Satre, she led Harrah’s launch of the casino industry’s first responsible gaming initiative in the mid-1990s.
“We had employees that wanted to be educated on the subject. They wanted to be able to help,” said Jones Blackhurst, who completed two terms as Las Vegas mayor before joining Harrah’s. “Maybe because I came out of politics. You have a responsibility to your communities, your customers and your employees. We believed it was the right thing to do.”
Sportsbooks ratchet up targeted advertising at start of NFL season
Shortly after the NFL forged authorized gaming partnerships with a host of leading sportsbooks in the 2021 offseason, operators began flooding the airwaves with a series of humorous spots that featured celebrities hawking their products.
Caesars Sportsbook spent lavishly on an ad package starring the Manning Brothers and actor J.B. Smoove as the eponymous emperor. During Super Bowl LVII last February, Kevin Hart expressed his displeasure for “taking the under” in a DraftKings spot while standing mere feet from WWE wrestler The Undertaker. Another commercial from FanDuel featured a live field goal attempt by former New England Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski, one that drifted wide left of the upright at the last second.
Former lieutenant governor calls for Nevada Gaming Commission cyber briefing after MGM and Caesars hacks - September 2023
In light of cyberattacks on MGM Resorts International and Caesars Entertainment, former Nevada Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki, now a Nevada Gaming Commission member, called for a briefing on the hacking incident to shed more light on what happened and how it can be prevented in the future.
The suggestion comes the same day the Massachusetts Gaming Commission met in executive session “to consider information related to an MGM cybersecurity issue.” It held a similar closed meeting on Monday.
After it returned to the public session on Thursday, the Commission entered into an executive session regarding security at MGM Springfield, according to the Commission agenda.
Krolicki made his comments at the end of Thursday’s five-hour meeting of the Nevada Gaming Commission. Since it was made during the public comment session, the commission could not take up the matter, but it’s likely the issue will return to the Commission and the Nevada Gaming Control Board at some point.
In the latest cyberattack that started being felt Sept. 10 and went into this week, hackers knocked slot machines out of commission and created havoc with ATMs and computer systems. MGM, which is reported by a Wall Street analyst to have lost between $4.2 million and $8.4 million a day with the hack, said its systems were operating normally across their properties nationwide as of Wednesday. Caesars reported it was hacked in late August and had customer information stolen but paid a $15 million ransom that avoided any shutdowns.
In December, the Commission approved cybersecurity regulations for the state’s gaming industry to protect operators’ information systems from attacks that could shutter casinos and compromise customer data. The rules went into effect Jan. 1. That approval came right after BetMGM reported that its customers’ personal information – including Social Security numbers – was obtained in an unauthorized manner and included information on their transactions.
In the regulations, casinos were required to do a risk assessment of their systems by the end of 2023 and take any necessary steps on an ongoing basis to ward off an attack. If any breach was successful that compromised player data, credit card information and other records, including that of employees, properties would be required to report it to gaming regulators within 72 hours.
“It would be important and enlightening given the recent events of the past week regarding cyber security and ransomware in particular at MGM and our friends at Caesars and look at how it impacts our world and regulatory responsibilities,” Krolicki said, later adding, “I think at some point in time when there’s the energy and understanding of what just happened if we could get some kind of briefing of what transpired that’s appropriate for public record and perhaps policies going forward of how do we avoid these things and if they do happen whether the reporting schemes on whether it was immediately reported to the Gaming Control Board. There are a lot of questions and a lot of publicity. It’s a global story, and I just think it would behoove all of us to get a good handle on what just happened.”
The Nevada Gaming Control Board released a statement on Sept. 13 saying Gov. Joe Lombardo and the board “are monitoring the cybersecurity incident with MGM Resorts and are in communication with company executives. Additionally, the Nevada Gaming Control Board remains in communication with other law enforcement agencies.”
Casino consultant Brendan Bussmann, managing partner of B Global, which tracks gaming boards and commissions, said the Massachusetts hearing won’t be the last and expects states across the country to hold similar sessions wanting to hear from MGM executives.
“Nevada is the second regulator that I know has raised their hand on this after Massachusetts,” Bussmann said. “It should be about what happened and how it happened, which should be considered confidential information. This is going to be a question that every regulator for both commercial gaming and tribal gaming is going to be concerned about. Since we’re still trying to figure out what happened, then we can see what tools we need as an industry to beef up our efforts on cyber-related events.”
While everyone is focused today on MGM and Caesars, this is not the first cyber attack, Bussmann said.
“This can go back to the Las Vegas Sands attacks in 2014 from the Iranians and any other data breaches that happened between then and now,” Bussmann said. “I would expect every state at a minimum has MGM and Caesars in it to at least say what happened and what can we do regulatory to help this and what can we do with testing and what can we do IT and host of things.”
Bussmann said the regulators can’t be reactionary but instead should get evidence on how it happened and use the best resources outside of the casino industry, such as security firms, to do it right.
“There’s no one better suited to regulate Nevada on this issue than the Gaming Control Board in working with law enforcement partners across the country,” Bussmann said.
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