Spin Cycle: ESPN + WSOP + Omaha 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 …

Edited WSOP broadcasts: Not enough of a good thing

Starting in 2003, this was how the world experienced the World Series of Poker Main Event: on ESPN, on weeknights, tightly edited down to the most interesting hands, accompanied by the voices of Lon McEachern and Norman Chad, who favored humor and storytelling over strategic analysis.

Over the past two weeks, all of that returned — this time with the Manning brothers’ Omaha Productions calling the shots instead of the groundbreaking crew at 441 Productions — and, in my opinion, it was an absolute delight. Nostalgia started the engine, and crisp editing, personality-driven vignettes, and high production values kept it humming.

Just one complaint: They didn’t give us anywhere near enough.

Twelve days of poker action had gotten us to the final table, with somewhere in the neighborhood of 120 hours of play (across multiple TV tables) to choose from. ESPN2 aired a grand total of four hours of it — including commercials. So, actually, about three hours.

We got an episode covering one of the four Day 1 flights, one covering one of the two Day 2 flights, a Day 6 episode, and a Day 8 episode. We got snippets. Glimpses. Moments. We were introduced — minimally, in most cases — to the nine players who made it to next week’s final table. But it just wasn’t enough for there to be any narrative flow.

Lon and Norm were on their game, Ali Nejad and Nick Schulman made for a perfect occasional change of pace (despite Schulman unforgivably attributing a Hyman Roth quote to The Godfather when everyone knows it was from The Godfather Part II), and there was never a dull moment. But we needed more. Much more.

Here’s hoping the ratings were good enough to pave the way for Omaha and ESPN to deliver 12 hours — one for each day of play — next summer. Make it a four-week delay instead of a three-week delay, air four hours of play per week for three weeks, and we’re good.

Speaking of this year’s three-week delay, it’s nearly over — the tournament resumes Monday, with ESPN2 and later ESPN livestreaming (on slight delay) every hand until a champion is crowned. One notable update: The shot clock implemented late in the tournament will not be in effect for the final table.

More news to know …

• Update on the legal proceedings surrounding the allegedly rigged poker games in which Chauncey Billups was a supposed “face card”: One of the alleged ring leaders, Shane Hennen, pleaded guilty Tuesday in federal court to wire fraud conspiracy and is scheduled for sentencing in January. He also faces charges in separate high-profile indictments for his involvement in alleged basketball betting schemes.
• BetMGM held its quarterly earnings call this week, and CEO Adam Greenblatt singled out the three jurisdictions he’s most optimistic about for online casino legalization in 2027: Virginia, Indiana, and Washington, D.C. As for the financial side of the Q2 call, BetMGM reported a 3% year-over-year increase in revenue (to $711 million), with sports betting flat but online casino up 8%.

• There were several unpleasant news items in the world of poker this week, so we’ll combine them all into one quick, ugly paragraph and move on. Israeli poker pro Gal Yifrach is facing federal illegal gambling charges and was detained by ICE on July 20 at Los Angeles International Airport. Matt Stout, the founder of the Charity Series of Poker, faces accusations of assault stemming from an incident at a private poker game in Las Vegas, with his accuser posting incriminating videos on social media. And Alabama-based poker pro Mark Davis, who won a World Poker Tour title in 2022, died Saturday at the age of 46 after suffering a series of strokes. Davis had career tournament earnings exceeding $2.3 million.
• On a much more upbeat note, as reported by Fox 5 in Las Vegas, a slots player at The Venetian playing for fairly high stakes on a Huff N’ More Puff machine hit the “Grand Jackpot” of just over $1.25 million on a $75 spin. Combined with other smaller prizes awarded on the spin, the player claimed a $1,283,510 score. The lucky Huff N’ Puff-er chose to remain anonymous.

House Rules: Insights from around our network

MGM Resorts CEO Provides Update on People Inc. Offer

Underdog Sold To IG Group Holdings For $1.3 Billion With Upside

Evolution’s Largest Shareholder Triggers Potential Takeover Bid

Massachusetts Online Lottery App Arrives After Lengthy Regulatory Odyssey

New Illinois Law Recognizes Gambling Disorder As An Addiction

Fertitta Set To Take Over Caesars Business Struggling On Strip, Thriving Elsewhere

New Illinois Law Recognizes Gambling Disorder As An Addiction

Sho And Tell: ESPN Podcast Peels Back Layers Of Ohtani Interpreter Scandal

How Many Spins Can You Jam Into A Minute Of Online Slot Play? A Lot

Skillz Awarded $719 Million in False Advertising Judgment Against Papaya

Small stakes and hot takes

This week on the Casino Reports podcast Low Rollers, presented in partnership with DraftKings Casino, I welcomed Michael "Gags" Gagliano, one of the nine poker players vying for $10 million at the WSOP Main Event final table next week. We talked about how much he’s been studying the livestreams and how much he can get out of that, his thoughts on combating a dominant chip leader, why he chose poker over a more typical job, exactly how many WSOP bracelets he's won, and more.

I also gave my quick takes on recent guest articles by Adam Bjorn, Caleb Davies, Matt Osgood, and Mitch Malherbe, and I opined on one casino game I just can’t get into.

Full episode:

The Shuffle: Other news and views

US Court Revives Lawsuit Claiming AI Software Fueled Price-Gouging By New Jersey Casinos [Reuters]

Station Casinos Test Drives A New Way To Pay At Slot Machines [Las Vegas Review-Journal]

Power Outage Temporarily Shuts Down Gaming At Thunder Valley Casino Resort [CBS News]

Resorts World Expansion In NYC Is Adding Much Of What Draws People To Atlantic City [The Press of Atlantic City]

Circa Resort & Casino Hosts Second Annual Slotapalooza [FOX 5 Las Vegas]

The Lonely Fight To Keep The Cheap Las Vegas Buffet Alive [The Wall Street Journal]

Philly Men Stole Guns, Credit Cards Out Of Parked Cars In Casinos, Prosecutors Say [Philly Voice]

Casino Del Sol Gives First Look Inside New Tucson Location [KVOA News 4 Tucson]

Maryland Casino Blames Vendor For Louis Vuitton-Style Giveaway Bags [The Daily Record]

The Bonus Round

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