The Nevada Gaming Control Board has filed a motion in U.S. District Court in Las Vegas to dismiss a racial discrimination lawsuit brought in September by a former Control Board department head.
The Nevada Attorney General’s office, representing the Control Board, said a complaint brought by Jaime Black is baseless and asked the court to dismiss it.
“Despite the redundancy and voluminosity of her assertions, all of Black’s retaliation claims fail to state a plausible claim because the complaint does not adequately allege that she (Control Board Member Brittnie Watkins) engaged in any action that was protected conduct under Title VII (of the Civil Rights Act),” the motion to dismiss says.
Hello and welcome to this week’s Igaming Focus newsletter.
On the slate this week:
NFL hold improves in Week 8…
… but Q4 gets off to a bumpy start.
Hail Mary for OSB operators: In a week when we were treated to the rare sight of a successful Hail Mary sealing the win for the Washington Commanders against the Chicago Bears, OSB operators had their own reasons to cheer as Week 8 hold levels came in at above average and app downloads improved year-on-year.
Promo factor: Deutsche Bank said that “across the four states that reported September (PA, MI, CT, KS), promotional spend was up 30.5% YoY for the month, while gross gaming revenue was up 47% and promos accounted for nearly 46% of GGR in September vs. nearly 52% of GGR in September 2023.
Keep it on the download: App download numbers are heading in a positive direction. A note from JMP showed U.S. and Canada downloads increased 29% YoY to 936,000 during Week 8; the highest rate of growth through the first eight weeks of the season.
Caesars’ digital rise catches the eye
The U.S. casino giant said it was pleased with digital figures but remains cautious.
Digital promise: Caesars Entertainment’s group revenues and EBITDA were flat YoY at $2.9bn and $1bn respectively in Q3, but the $52m adj. EBITDA – an “all-time quarterly record” – that the company’s digital divisions booked during the quarter was the highlight of the group’s update.
F1 hits MGM as group looks to digital projects
Cyber chops: MGM Resorts’ Q3 net revenues of $2.4bn were a company record but adjusted property EBITDAR was 2% lower than Wall Street forecasts at $1.2bn. Truist Securities said the drop would have been between 3% and 6% if the cyberattack the group suffered in September last year had not happened.
Rush Street execution paying off
Runners’ rush: Rush Street Interactive chief finance officer Kyle Sauers and chief executive Richard Schwartz were both highly positive about the company’s outlook as Q3 revenues increased 37% YoY to $232m and adj. EBITDA shot up to $23.4m vs. $4m last year.
Better Collective hit by affiliate turmoil
Affiliate giant has already cut 100 positions as it seeks €50m in savings.
Better Collective also feels the heat: Times have been tough for online gambling affiliates and the leading firm in the sector Better Collective has already cut 100 jobs as it seeks to make savings of €50m following the lowering last week of its FY24 revenue and EBITDA guidance by 25% to €355-€375m and €100-€110m respectively.
Keep your friends close…
Joining forces: Indian Gaming Association conference chair Victor Rocha’s latest webinar on sweepstakes and DFS saw Chris Cylke, the American Gaming Association’s senior vice president of government relations, tell listeners that sweepstakes’ legal standing was “murky” and too risky for AGA members to offer to their customers.
Following our flagging up of Sports Handle and US Bets’ state-by-state datasets last week, we thought it only fair to highlight these excellent resources from Casino Reports for online sports betting and icasino and this latest data website from industry analyst Aflonso Straffon.
DraftKings is set to close its Atlantic City live dealer casino studio and lay off 101 employees from January. Next.io reported that the company announced the news to all staff at the studio on Monday and said the move was part of its integration of Golden Nugget Online Gaming, which it acquired in 2022 for $1.5bn.
