SiGMA Group has announced that, due to the COVID-19 global crisis, both the SiGMA Manila and AIBC Manila expos, planned for June 8-9 2020, will now be rescheduled to May 27-28, 2021.

At the height of an unprecedented national crisis, a group of American leaders traveled to one of the country's most expensive tourist destinations, where they set about the business of righting the ship of state. There were plenty of distractions in their decadent surroundings, and many in the group gambled nightly. These were not banking executives secluding themselves at Mandalay Bay to salvage their assets or develop a plan for mitigating their toxic loans.

Nevada's tax revenue predictions are grim. Monday's Economic Forum concluded that the state is in a recession it's unlikely to recover from within the next two years. And as News 3's Jesse Corona explains, over 60 percent of our state tax base depends upon two sources tied closely to tourism. Economic Forum Chairwoman Cathy Santoro relayed the sobering news: Gaming tax revenue is down 11 percent and isn't expected to make an improvement by the end of the fiscal year.

It’s likely that Macau will join Las Vegas in dispelling the conventional wisdom that gambling is a recession-proof business. Efforts to change things are brewing. The planned Vegasization of Macau can be seen in the ambitions of Adelson’s Las Vegas Sands. A year ago, few quibbled with Macau bulls such as Steve Wynn, Sheldon Adelson and, long before the Vegas tycoons showed up...

Jean-François Cot, secretary general of the employers’ association of Casinos de France, told Le Figaro that the crisis through which the sector is presently going could deeply affect about ten of them, that is about 5% of the casinos. ”It is clear that the drop in GGR won’t recover any soon. And we all know that in the other countries, it took several years to revert to a slightly comparable turnover,” he specified on Wednesday 13 August.

Brussels, Belgium: Belgium's gaming commission took international gambling Web site Unibet to task on Wednesday over its game allowing gamblers to place bets on when the country's political crisis will come to an end. The commission said it filed a complaint with the Brussels prosecutors office claiming Unibet's game of chance on when Belgium's deeply divided political leaders will form a new national government was against the law. Elections were held June 10.

The financing of Publishing and Broadcasting Ltd's (PBL) Macau casino joint venture has been restructured as a consequence of the global credit crunch. Melco PBL Entertainment Ltd (MPEL) says it has signed a USD 1.75 billion senior debt facility with a syndicate of six major international banks rather than the original USD 2.75 billion finance deal announced in June.