Spin Cycle: Potential Next Province Highlights 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 …

New Brunswick enters the chat

Canada’s largest province — Ontario, population approximately 16.2 million — has legal, regulated online gambling. So does Canada’s fourth-largest province, Alberta, with its population of about 5 million.

Well, tiny provinces are allowed to make some tax money off this stuff too, and New Brunswick — the eighth-largest province, at around 870,000 people — is now “exploring options” to legalize the activity, according to the office of Premier Susan Holt, as reported by the New Brunswick Telegraph-Journal.

The Atlantic Lottery Corporation holds a monopoly on digital gambling in the southeastern Canadian province, but watching Ontario and Alberta allow and tax private iGaming operators has officials questioning the current approach. As the Telegraph-Journal reported, Atlantic Lotto believes unregulated gambling is siphoning off more than $250 million in potential tax revenue every year, and lottery revenue is in decline, down about $8 million from two years ago.

“The monopoly exists for boomers who are 65 years old who like to go to convenience stores,” Michael Naraine, a member of the Institute on Sports Wagering and Gaming at San Diego State University, told the Telegraph-Journal. “If you’re like a 22-year-old kid who’s got a cellphone, like everyone does, you’re not going to a convenience store. You’ve seen these ads, you see Connor McDavid doing ads for BetMGM, Auston Matthews doing ads, you want to bet with the stuff you see on social media, the influencer culture.”

In other Canadian gaming news, the Toronto Star reported last Friday that iGaming Ontario, the government agency that oversees the activity in Canada’s biggest province, has hidden the results of its commissioned research study on problem gambling rates. According to records obtained by the newspaper, those problem gambling rates were higher than expected and iGaming Ontario executives elected to keep them confidential. The agency did not respond to the Star’s requests for comment.

More news to know …

• Boyd Gaming announced its third quarter results Thursday, with revenue at $990.5 million, down about 1% compared to the third quarter of 2025. Boyd President and CEO Keith Smith attributed the dip to the continuing declines in travel to Las Vegas. “While quarterly results were impacted by increased softness in destination business to Las Vegas, primarily affecting our Orleans property,” Smith said, “we are encouraged by the continued strength of our Las Vegas locals portfolio.”
• International poker site GGPoker is responding to recent cheating scandals on multiple online poker platforms by banning all use of third-party software. Most notably, that means no heads-up displays (HUDs), which track other players’ tendencies and statistics. HUDs have long been permitted at many sites, but GGPoker is changing its policy in an effort to protect players and avoid future scandals.

• The Illinois Gaming Board (IGB) approved a proposed rule Thursday that adds video gaming terminals to the agency’s voluntary self-exclusion program for problem gamblers, which previously extended only to casinos and sportsbooks. “Integrating Illinois video gaming into the existing self-exclusion program is a gaming integrity and public health priority for the IGB,” said Administrator Marcus D. Fruchter in a press release. “Nothing like this has been implemented at the size and scale of the Illinois video gaming market, which is the largest video gaming network of its kind in the world.”
• In June, the Lumbee Tribe in North Carolina asked tribal members to vote on the possibility of building a casino, and those tribal members voted against it. Afterward, tribal Chairman John L. Lowery said, “I will honor the wishes of the majority, and I will not bring this issue forward again over the remaining 18 months of my tenure.” That honoring of wishes lasted about four months. Last Friday, members of the Lumbee Tribe approved an ordinance to allow Class III gaming in a 14-2 vote. The tribe and the state will still need to authorize opening a casino through negotiation of a compact.

• Virginia state Sen. L. Louise Lucas being indicted Thursday on money laundering and drug charges may not sound on the surface like a gambling industry story, but Lucas was one of the driving forces in bringing commercial casinos to Virginia. She shepherded legislation in 2020 to permit slots and table games, and the commonwealth is now home to five brick-and-mortar casinos. Lucas is maintaining her innocence and has framed the charges from the Department of Justice as politically and racially motivated.

House Rules: Insights from around our network

September Brought Good News For Pennsylvania IGaming

Summer In New Jersey Ends With Near-Record Online Casino Revenue

Michigan Online Casino Revenue Plateau Extends Into September

FanDuel: ‘Customer-Appreciation Gestures’ Not Designed To Induce Gambling

Pennsylvania Skill Game Retailers Propose Lottery Boycott Strategy

Massachusetts Encore Casino Revenue Plunges In First Month Of Strike

Texas Lottery Contributions To State Rise In First Fiscal Year Under New Regulator

Massachusetts Casinos And Tribes Oppose Historical Horse Racing

New Jersey Bill Aimed At Underage Gamblers Doesn't Go Far Enough

Small stakes and hot takes

This week on the Casino Reports podcast Low Rollers, sponsored by TheLines.com, I welcomed George Ng, the co-founder and CEO of a company called GGWP that specializes in online content moderation and has recently expanded into iGaming. Our conversation covered why context and patterns matter, how gambling differs from video gaming, the various forms of live-dealer interaction, and more.

I also dug into the latest news on when Maine’s regulated online casino industry will launch, and I flashed back to a Philadelphia Eagles season prediction I made back in February that could have made me rich — if only I’d backed up my take with a wager.

Full episode:

The Shuffle: Other news and views

Joey Cusumano, A Close Associate Of Tony Spilotro And Survivor Of A Hit Attempt, Dies At Age 90 [The Mob Museum]

Las Vegas Leaders Offer Expertise As Hawaii Weighs Gambling Legalization [KHON 2]

G2E: A Little Nostalgia And A Lot Of Good Marketing [CDC Gaming]

Man Who Stole Flamingo From Vegas Hotel After Allegedly Drinking Over 30 Beers Convicted Of Animal Cruelty [CBS News]

Hard-Fought Cedar Rapids Casino Will Open Next Month [iGaming Business]

Pennsylvania Lawmakers Look To Combat Problem Gambling With New Caucus [ABC 27]

Off-Strip Hotel-Casino Brings Guest Services To ChatGPT [Las Vegas Review-Journal]

The Bonus Round

Completing the Spin Cycle with a few of our favorite social media posts of the week: