Spin Cycle: Poker Friends Fighting, Casino Owner Fraud-ing Highlight Week In Gambling

Welcome to “Spin Cycle,” Casino Reports’ weekly Friday roundup of all things impactful, intriguing, impressive, or idiotic in the gambling industry. Pull up a chair, grab a stack of chips and a glass of your beverage of choice, and take a spin with us through this week’s news cycle …

Maria vs. Norman

I hate seeing my friends fight.

I should probably step back and acknowledge that it’s a huge leap to call Maria Konnikova my “friend,” as I’ve only spoken to her once, when I interviewed her for a Casino Reports “Reel Lives” profile, but I did find her lovely to talk to and I thoroughly enjoy listening to her every week on the Risky Business podcast she co-hosts with Nate Silver. And it’s at least a small leap to call Norman Chad my “friend” — he’s more like a longtime acquaintance (we first met in 2006) with whom I occasionally trade wise-cracking messages and to whom I’ve spoken on podcasts a time or two.

So, OK, neither Maria nor Norman is really my friend. But I like them both quite a bit, I respect them both, and it pains me to see them fighting.

Here’s what happened. Konnikova won an online WSOP bracelet early Monday morning, her first. (Congrats, by the way, if you’re reading this, Maria!) Chad, whose personality veers toward the snarky and negative, was not exactly magnanimous in his reaction on Twitter/X:

Konnikova did not take kindly to Chad using her tournament victory as an occasion to rail against online events and re-entry events awarding bracelets. She dedicated what was supposed to be the victory-lap edition of her Substack newsletter to clapping back at him and concluding that his singling her out was driven by sexism.

In Chad’s social media replies, Konnikova’s poker mentor, Hall of Famer Erik Seidel — a mild-mannered dude if ever poker has seen one — did some clapping back of his own, helping prompt Chad to issue assorted apologies and insist “she was collateral damage” in his crusade against re-entry events.

This probably doesn’t qualify as high drama. But it’s more drama than I like to see between two fine poker ambassadors. So, someone please broker a peace here. (Someone who’s actually a mutual friend of Maria and Norman.)

Or maybe they can settle it the old-fashioned way: With a high-stakes heads-up no-limit hold’em match.

I’ll let the two of them negotiate whether there will be re-entries.

Putting the ‘con’ in ‘Concord’

New Hampshire does not have any commercial casinos or tribal casinos. What it does have are so-called “charitable gaming” facilities, which are mandated to donate a portion of proceeds to local non-profits. One of those facilities is Concord Casino. But its owner, Republican former state Sen. Andy Sanborn, may not be such a charitable fella after all.

Sanborn was arrested Wednesday and charged with fraudulently misappropriating pandemic relief funds, with the New Hampshire Attorney General’s office alleging he falsified his casino revenue figures to receive more financial support during the early months of COVID-19 than he was entitled to. The arrest warrant accuses Sanborn — whose wife Laurie is a current New Hampshire state representative — of misreporting by a full million dollars and receiving $188,474.33 more than he should have.

Last December, shortly after an investigation into the alleged fraud was announced, a judge suspended Sanborn’s gaming license and ordered him to sell Concord Casino. He has not sold the casino yet, however, delaying as the investigation and legal process have been playing out.

In total, Sanborn received $844,000 in pandemic relief funds, and he and his wife are accused of using the money to purchase two Porsches and a Ferrari.

Sanborn, meanwhile, is suing the state of New Hampshire over aspects of how it has handled the case.

Supply, demand, and the Vegas room rate

Veteran reporter Howard Stutz authored a piece this week in The Nevada Independent exploring how the implosion of The Tropicana impacts, and will continue to impact, the number of hotel rooms available in Las Vegas. Stutz’s numbers: The closures of the Trop and the Mirage in July combined to remove about 4,500 hotel rooms, leaving Vegas with a little under 151,000.

So the Vegas hotel room supply is down just under 3%, and it’s anticipated that only about 500 additional rooms are coming before 2026. Can a supply reduction of about 3% cause a noticeable change in the cost for visitors looking for a place to stay in Sin City?

We shall see, but the article noted that “J.P. Morgan Financial gaming analyst Joe Greff wrote that costs for early November are up 21 percent from a year ago. Properties operated by MGM Resorts International are up a combined 15 percent and hotel rooms controlled by Caesars Entertainment cost 27 percent more than last year.”

That may not be the perfect representative sample, as there happens to be a glut of conventions coming in that early November time period. But it suggests that, yes, losing 3% of all rooms and not replacing them will make staying in Vegas a little more pricy. The Mirage will re-open as the Hard Rock Las Vegas, but there is no word yet on its hotel capacity. Bally’s is also planning to open a hotel-casino alongside the new MLB ballpark on the former Tropicana lot, but details on the number of rooms are a mystery.

The bottom line: If you’re a price-sensitive Vegas visitor, for the next year or two, there’s value in calling your buddy who lives in Henderson to see if his pull-out couch is spoken for.

The Shuffle: Other news and views

THERE’S BIG $$ IN ICASINO: Online casino revenue in New Jersey breaks $200 million in a month for first time ever

THERE’S VERY BIG $$ IN ICASINO: Pennsylvania iCasino revenue surges 11% year-over-year in September, to $176.7M

NO, SERIOUSLY, THERE’S HUGE $$ IN ICASINO: Michigan’s online casinos have second-best month ever

DIAMOND DEAL: FanDuel lands naming rights TV deal with Diamond Sports

FAMILIAR FEELING: Sweepstakes discourse reminiscent of decade-old DFS fight

DON’T LET THE BED BUGS BITE: Woman claims bed bug bites from off-Strip casino left her scarred

I’VE LOST INTEREST: Interest rates and the lottery — the relationship is not necessarily what you think

FEED FRENZY: Kambi Group signs first major odds feed partnership with leading US operator Hard Rock Digital

OTHER IDEAS: iDEA Growth challenges NERA’s report on New Jersey’s iGaming industry

HOT DOG! DraftKings acquires golf pricing supplier Mustard Golf

RAMPS LIKE US: Chart illustrates drastic shift in way sports betting markets ramp up post-launch

BOOKING A WIN: Despite some hiccups, CT has reaped the financial benefits of legalized sports betting

RATE BRITAIN: UK considers major increase in gambling taxes, raising global operator concerns

NOTHING BUT NET: NetGaming snags iGaming deal with Caesars

SCRATCH THAT ITCH: Jackpot.com launches digital scratch tickets in Massachusetts, Ohio, and Texas

THE WAIT IS (ALMOST) OVER: Norfolk casino project leaders to break ground at the end of October

CHIP OFF THE OLD BLOCKED: Restricted US access may hurt Bovada more on iGaming than sports betting

MIN CASH: Minnesota stakeholders have ‘framework’ but politics still in play

COUNT THE VOTES: Arkansas ruling clears path for vote on controversial casino license repeal

DOUBLE YOUR PLEASURE: Two new casinos proposed just blocks apart at Biloxi beach — here are both plans

ROCHA RANT: California tribal leaders declare war on sweepstakes and DFS 2.0 companies

HARD ROCK HEART: Seminole Tribe and Hard Rock commit $1 million to hurricane relief

BET THE UNDER(GRAD): Social sportsbook Fliff’s CEO explains the product, as industry critics begin to pile on

The Bonus Round

Completing the Spin Cycle with some odds and ends and our favorite social media posts of the week:

• It’s an all-DraftKings edition of “The Bonus Round” this week. First up: The name “ShaqKings” just rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it? (OK, maybe not.) Anyway, Shaquille O’Neal is the newest DraftKings ambassador, signed just in time for NBA season. “DraftKings is thrilled to welcome NBA legend Shaquille O’Neal to the family,” said DK Chief Marketing Officer Stephanie Sherman. “Shaq’s personality and unparalleled energy will elevate our brand through various marketing initiatives all NBA season.”

• It was a big week for online poker in my home state of Pennsylvania, from the news that PA is finally on its way to joining the interstate pact, to the arrival in the state of DraftKings’ Electric Poker game. Well, I played a couple of games of Electric Poker. My review: Not great. The action moves way too slow. On PokerStars, one hand ends and the next one begins within about two seconds; on DK, it’s about seven seconds, which feels like an eternity in a short-stacked hyper game. Also, an important gripe: I am self-excluded from casino games on DraftKings (I don’t trust myself not to blow my hard-earned sports betting/DFS bankroll), and that exclusion did not automatically carry over to Electric Poker. Seems less than ideal from an RG perspective.

• Right now, as I type these words on Friday afternoon, DraftKings Casino in Michigan is home to the largest jackpot in regulated U.S. iCasino history, over $6.46 million. The progressive is available across 26 different online casino games. Time to see if I can get from Pennsylvania to Michigan (and lift my online casino self-exclusion, of course) before the jackpot hits …