Spin Cycle: Rounders As Survivors, Collapsing Casino Ceilings 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 …

Do poker players make the best sports bettors?

It’s a small sample size, to be sure, but the results of this year’s Circa Survivor VI contest suggest that the answer to the above mini-headline question is yes.

The annual Circa contest — wherein entrants pick an NFL winner every week and are eliminated when they get one wrong — attracted 18,718 entries this year and an $18.718 million prize pool, which was split five ways ($3,743,600 apiece) when five entries made it to end of the season unscathed. And of those five entries, as poker pro David Baker noted on social media, four of them were powered in whole or in part by the wisdom of poker players:

Galen Hall, a pro since 2009 with more than $7 million in live poker tournament earnings, was part of not one but two of those five winning entries, while fellow World Series of Poker bracelet winner and popular poker streamer Jason Somerville had a piece of another winning entry and two-time bracelet winner Matt Graham shared in another winner.

Many forms of gambling come down to pure luck. But poker and sports betting — at least within the context of a contest, where the competition is the field — involve psychology and skill. So it shouldn’t be any surprise to see a handful of the best at the former discipline thriving at the latter.

Churchill Downs wins battles, war in Michigan

In the final 2025 edition of Spin Cycle, we reported on a court win for Churchill Downs over the Michigan Gaming Control Board (MGCB) in the fight over whether Churchill Downs’ advance-deposit wagering (ADW) app was allowed to continue operating in the state. Now, in time for the first Spin Cycle of 2026, we have another ruling in the case, from the Western Michigan District Court, that also sides with Churchill Downs and appears to wrap up the dispute.

Judge Hala Y. Jarbou granted summary judgment Tuesday, declaring the case closed as she agreed with the prior rulings and determined this matter governed by the federal Interstate Horseracing Act (IHA), meaning individual states can’t enforce their own regulations.

“The Sixth Circuit’s reasoning for affirming the preliminary injunction also warrants granting summary judgment to TwinSpires,” Jarbou wrote. “Thus, the Court will convert its preliminary injunction into a permanent injunction and enter final judgment in this case.”

Wider implications of the ruling — in terms of a federally legal form of gambling being permitted to operate free from state regulation — will potentially be felt in the months and years ahead.

The sky is falling

When industry folks talk about brick-and-mortar casino overhead, I don’t think this is what they mean.

Bay Mills Resort & Casino in Chippewa County, Michigan, was the site of a scary moment on Tuesday, when a part of the roof collapsed at Sacy’s Restaurant inside the casino. Fortunately, there were no reported injuries, and the gaming floor was quickly reopened after a brief precautionary closure.

“Our deepest gratitude goes out to the employees at Bay Mills Resort & Casino, who, due to their rapid response and quick evacuation, helped ensure the safety of both guests and staff,” Bay Mills President Whitney Gravelle said.

Sacy’s remained closed as of press time Friday, and the Friday Night Comedy Club show in the casino was canceled.

House Rules: Insights from around our network

THE MAINE EVENT: Wall Street weighs in on surprise Maine online casino legalization [by Jeff Edelstein]

GOD’S PLAN?: Rapper Drake, YouTuber Adin Ross named in another Stake class-action suit, RICO invoked [by Brant James]

NEITHER BIG NOR BEAUTIFUL: Sen. Lankford’s opposition threatens effort to fix gambling tax [by Jeff Edelstein]

HOOSIER HOPES: Indiana inching closer to allowing online lottery sales [by Jeff Edelstein]

ATTENTION CAESARS SHOPPERS: What do casino floors and grocery stores have in common? [by Kathy Urban]

DOOMED TO REPEAT: Remember sweepstakes? It appears prediction markets don’t [by Jeff Edelstein]

ADS UP: Google To Allow Prediction Market Ads In US [by Daniel O’Boyle]

COLD STREAK: The SAD truth about my online casino tilt [by Jeff Edelstein]

IN THE HOLE: Baseball, beaning, betting: An athlete’s tale of rise, recovery, and redemption [by Jill R. Dorson]

Small stakes and hot takes

This week on the Casino Reports podcast Low Rollers, I welcomed 2006 World Series of Poker Main Event champion Jamie Gold for his reflections 20 years on from his $12 million win and discussions of what people got wrong (and still get wrong) about him, the power of charity poker, and his sports betting picks site, Gold Luck Sports. I also analyze Indiana’s approach to the question of whether to ban sweepstakes casinos, and I share a delicious bite from Jeff Edelstein’s highly important ranking of slot machine fruits. Full episode:

The Shuffle: Other news and views

BOARDWALK BLUES: NY casinos, possible smoking ban, gambling struggles will challenge Atlantic City in 2026 [The Press of Atlantic City]

SQUEEZE PLAY: ‘We’ve lost our bravery’: Gaming entrepreneur calls on Vegas casinos to stop nickel-and-diming [Las Vegas Review-Journal]

ADDING MASS: Encore Boston Harbor casino owner reaches hotel expansion deal with Everett [CBS News]

PACIFIC NORTHWEST PUSH: Washington’s tribal-owned casinos bet on the future despite risks [The Seattle Times]

DO ADJUST THAT DIAL: Truist analyst lowers Caesars and MGM earnings outlook because of latest Las Vegas revenue and visitation [CDC Gaming]

PUBLIC PRESSURE: Bally’s casino jackpot winner says he got paid after story aired on CBS News Chicago [CBS News]

WON IF BY LAND: More Iowa casinos pulling out of the water this year [Radio Iowa]

The Bonus Round

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

• How’s your new year going? Good? Well, it’s probably not going quite as spectacularly as that of a guest at Encore Boston Harbor, who, on New Year’s Day, turned a $5 side bet on a Royal 9 Baccarat table into a property-record $1.62 million progressive jackpot hit.

• BetMGM announced a partnership this week with FashionTV Gaming Group, ushering in a series of FashionTV-branded online casino games. According to the release, “FashionTV-branded table games offer players an immersive, high-gloss experience that merges casino action with the style, sophistication, and global prestige of FashionTV.” For now, FashionTV Blackjack and FashionTV Roulette are available to play at BetMGM Casino in Michigan and New Jersey.

• The gambling exploits of the great Charles Barkley were back in the headlines this week, as the aggregators (specifically those at Basketball Network) had some fun with quotes from Sir Charles recounting his 2007 Super Bowl weekend spent in Las Vegas. Between a hot run of blackjack and betting on Peyton Manning’s Colts to beat Rex Grossman’s Bears, Barkley won about $700,000 that weekend. Anyone object if we change his nickname to “The Round Mound of Doubling Down”?