Spin Cycle: Play Money’s Place Highlights Week In Gambling
Plus: Nevada gaming numbers, Virginia campaign donations, Ontario auto-play penalty, and more
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 …
There’s always a place for social casino
“Social casino is the perfect incremental content choice” for players in states without legal iGaming, said Rory Shanahan, general manager of Ruby Seven Studios, during a webinar Wednesday presented by Vector Solutions and titled, “The State of Mobile Gaming, Compliance & Payments.” The panelists covered a variety of topics over the course of the hour-plus discussion, including cashless gaming and minimizing friction in online deposits and withdrawals, but it was the role of social casinos within the larger ecosystem that stood out.
As Shanahan expanded: “There’s a number of brick-and-mortar casinos that have been using social casinos successfully — as an incremental revenue source, but more as a way to engage customers.”
Shananan and fellow panelist Bob Akeret, the general manager of Gamewise, are both connected to Delaware North’s recently rebranded Ember Casino, and Akeret agreed about the value to land-based casinos of operating free-to-play social casinos. He described social as akin to “an affiliate, driving customers to the property,” and “being able to keep their attention on an Ember-branded site keeps them loyal and engaged.”
That idea of keeping them loyal was echoed by Charlie Skinner, president of Marker Trax, who described three different play options — retail, real-money online, and social — as a “flywheel of loyalty.”
Other notable quotes from the webinar:
- Skinner on payment friction: “If it takes two minutes because of who knows what, and it’s spiraling to find the bank link-up, that’s not good. And that potentially loses the customer for the operator.”
- Akeret, on leaning into AI: “We do take a very conservative approach to using it because we operate in heavily regulated markets, and we don’t want to piss off regulators.”
- Skinner, on cashless payments at brick-and-mortar casinos: “The market is maturing, it’s getting better. But if you’d asked me where we’d be five years ago, I did think we’d be a little further along.”
- Also, Akeret noted Ember Casino is working toward launching in Pennsylvania by the end of 2026, pending regulatory approval.
More news to know …
- Nevada numbers for July are in, with the Gaming Control Board reporting Thursday a total gaming win for the month of $1.39 billion, a 2.1% year-over-year increase. One big differentiator: Table-game “drop” (wagering handle) on the Strip specifically was up 24% Y-o-Y. The state collected $98.5 million in gaming taxes for the month, up 3.4% over July 2025.
- DraftKings Casino announced Thursday a multi-year deal with Games Global for exclusive rights to the CASHINGO game brand, which features a bingo-inspired slot mechanic. Said Games Global U.S. Chief Commercial Officer Joann Pierce via press release: “CASHINGO may be one of the newer Games Global franchises, but it has already established a position as one of our strongest-performing brands. The expansion of our agreement with DraftKings Casino grants them exclusive rights to the series in the U.S.”
- Sad news from the poker world: Belgium’s Pierre Neuville, best known for reaching the final table of the WSOP Main Event at age 72 in 2015, died from prostate cancer at 83. Neuville retired from his day job in 2008 and devoted more time to his passion for poker. He ended up with just over $5 million in live tournament earnings, including a shade over $1.2 million for his seventh-place finish in the 2015 Main Event.
- In happier news from the poker world: The annual Variety Children's Charity Poker Event in L.A., co-hosted over the summer by 2006 WSOP champ Jamie Gold and UFC announcer Bruce Buffer, raised more than $250,000 for the Variety Children's Charity of Southern California.
- As political reporter David M. Poole divulged on Substack, five Republican state senators in Virginia who voted in February to legalize online casino in the state received donations from the Sports Betting Alliance (SBA) four months later. The donations are entirely legal, but as Poole noted, “what stands out about the transactions is the checks’ size.” The SBA donated $100,000 to each of the senators’ campaigns, representing by far the largest donation some of them have ever received.
- Unlike U.S. legal iGaming jurisdictions, Canada’s two provinces that regulate the vertical, Ontario and Alberta, have strict rules about “auto-play” on slots, banning the option to set games for multiple spins with a single press of a button. Booming Games apparently violated that restriction, and the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario fined the Malta-based company CA$70,000 for failure to comply. Fortunately for Booming Games, the commission does not use repeating auto-fine technology.
House Rules: Insights from around our network
Bet365 Expands With West Virginia Online Casino And Sportsbook Launch
As Hawaii Studies Lottery, Key Question Arises
Slots Influencer ‘Vegas Matt’ Morrow Banned From The Venetian, Reason Unclear
Ten Casinos, One Night: Is Downtown Las Vegas Still Worth The Gamble?
Sports Betting A Second Chance For Missouri PG/RG?
Gaming Pains: A Vegas Cocktail Of Phish, Acid, And Alan Thicke
Blood, Sweat, And Tiers: Caesars Rewards Targeting The Elite Of The Elite
Prediction Markets Have Broken The Sports Betting Information Business
Arizona Town Council Tie Settled By High Card Draw
Small stakes and hot takes
This week on the Casino Reports podcast Low Rollers, presented in partnership with DraftKings Casino, I welcomed Victor Strategies Executive Vice President Gene Johnson for a conversation covering the cannibalization debate, the outlook for iGaming legalization, the legality of sweepstakes casinos and prediction markets, Johnson’s outspoken business partner Victor Rocha, and more.
I also gave a stern lecture to media and industry folks who blindly promote perplexing poll and study results, and I talked about a ridiculous NFL Best Ball draft in which Joe Burrow went No. 1 and Jahmyr Gibbs fell all the way to No. 4 and I have to assume alcohol and/or other potent substances were involved.
Full episode:
The Shuffle: Other news and views
Report Warns More Than A Third Of Atlantic City's 21,000 Jobs Could Be Lost To New NY/NJ Casinos [Press of Atlantic City]
Altruda Analyzes: Pennsylvania iCasino Revenue, July 2026 [Straight to the Point]
Caesars Entertainment Sets Shareholder Vote On Fertitta Buyout [CDC Gaming]
Bally’s Chicago Contractors Owed Millions In Dispute Over Work At Casino Site [Chicago Tribune]
$1.5M Slot Jackpot Hits At Las Vegas Strip Casino [Las Vegas Review-Journal]
Lottery Approves The Greenbrier’s Casino License After Refinancing With New Equity Partner [Metro News]
Las Vegas Sports Executives Urge Federal Action On International Travel, Visa Hurdles [Las Vegas Sun]
Maybank: Genting Malaysia’s US Operations To Contribute 36% Of Earnings By 2027, Led By New York Growth [Inside Asian Gaming]
Casinos Look To Sports, Spas And Street Food To Attract Gen Zs [Bloomberg]
The Bonus Round
Completing the Spin Cycle with a few of our favorite social media posts of the week:
Eric has been a professional editor and writer for more than 25 years, including nearly 20 years of experience covering the gambling industry. He was editor-in-chief of the poker magazine All In from 2005-2015 and manag…
