Spin Cycle: Sweeps, Slots, Spookiness 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 …

Trick or treat for ACE Casino?

Let’s begin this Halloween edition of Spin Cycle with a look at a sweepstakes casino donning the costume of … well, a pre-2025 sweepstakes casino.

While most sweeps operators have spent this year exiting various states under legal threats, ACE Casino is now doing the opposite. Bracing for a major loss of revenue because of California passing an anti-sweeps bill this month, ACE has reopened for business in four states it left earlier in the year: Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, and Maryland.

There have been either lawsuits filed or cease-and-desists sent in all four of those states, but ACE Casino is wagering that the revenue is worth the risk and that the various lawsuits and orders will prove not to have teeth. (Or fangs, to keep the Halloween theme going.)

California is estimated to represent 20% of sweepstakes operators’ revenue, making this a potential trend to watch going forward, as sweeps casinos take calculated risks to maintain player bases.

Barahona binks in Bahamas

The 2025 World Tournament of Slots is history, and the winner is Toronto’s Hector Barahona, who is now $1 million richer after prevailing among a field of 500 hopefuls at the Atlantis on Paradise Island, Bahamas.

Reigning World Series of Poker Main Event champion Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi was probably the most famous contestant in the tourney,. His hot streak flamed out, and it was Barahona who emerged victorious after two days of competition. And Barahona’s triumph was capped off with a check presentation from Wheel of Fortune’s Vanna White:

Other celebs in attendance besides Vanna and The Grinder included model/actress/writer Jenny McCarthy and reality-TV star Heather Dubrow.

More content constraints

Seven months after YouTube announced new rules regarding gambling content — rules that have caused much consternation in the poker-streamer community and elsewhere — the platform this week announced additional restrictions that will take effect on Nov. 17.

Starting on that date, there will be limitations on videos directing viewers toward sites or apps where they can gamble using digital currency or assets. Taking it a step further, there will be age restrictions on videos featuring social-casino-style gaming, even if no real-money wagering is featured.

Additionally, videos promoting in-game purchases — another social casino staple, as well as a staple of many ostensibly “free” video games — may face age restrictions.

Ultimately, it is apparent that YouTube is going to great lengths to prevent underage audiences from seeing gambling-related material. It remains to be seen if the side effects will be similar to those from the March changes, which left content creators complaining that the YouTube algorithm was limiting their videos’ ability to reach audiences of legal gambling age as well.

House Rules: Insights from around our network

FLORIDA, MAN: Hard Rock Bet launches new form of online sports betting in Florida that feels like slots [by Jeff Edelstein]

ARROWS POINTING UP: Survey suggests US gambling participation, casino visitation at all-time highs [by Eric Raskin]

ARROWS POINTING DOWN: DraftKings, Flutter shares fall further amid new prediction market entrants, unfavorable NFL results [by Daniel O’Boyle]

THE KING OF QUEENS: Donovan Richards wants to make Queens gambling royalty [by Chris Altruda]

OFF TRACK: Lawsuit alleges institutional collusion to defraud horse racing bettors [by Brian Joseph]

STRANGE BEDFELLOWS: The Trump family, prediction markets, and an end to the orderly age [by Richard Schuetz]

LAUGH NOW CRY LATER: Rapper Drake sued, accused of promoting illegal gambling via Stake online casino [by Brant James]

BOOM OR BUST: A modern history of poker scandals [by Eric Raskin]

AHEAD OF THE CURVE: Jim and Maureen Downs, architects who foresaw the rise of prediction markets [by David Hill]

EXCLUSIVE INVITE: The Blackjack Ball: Costumes, legends, and the man who beat the dealer [by Jeff Edelstein]

Small stakes and hot takes

This week on the Casino Reports podcast Low Rollers, I welcome PokerGO VP of Marketing Donnie Peters to offer a sense of the poker community’s reaction to last week’s high-profile cheating scandal — as well as to reflect on his 163rd-place run in this past summer’s World Series of Poker Main Event. Here’s a taste:

I also discuss Hard Rock Bet boldly launching a new game in Florida that sure looks and feels a lot like online casino, and I tell the tale of a 26-to-1 sports equinox parlay that includes physical illness, 18th-inning miracles, and pangs of regret even in times of triumph. Full episode:

The Shuffle: Other news and views

RATES RECONSIDERED: MGM Resorts’ CEO Hornbuckle admits company erred with pricing this summer [CDC Gaming]

WRECKING BALL: Boyd Gaming to demolish Eastside Cannery hotel-casino after five-year closure [KTNV-13]

SOONER THAN LATER: Turning Stone Resort Casino’s huge expansion project is coming in far ahead of schedule [NYup]

LOUD AND PROUD: Hard Rock gaming getting heard around the world [iGaming Business]

WHAT LIES BENEATH: Casino boss Derek Stevens acquires land under historic Vegas hotel [Las Vegas Review-Journal]

DIGGING IN: Miccosukee Tribe breaks ground on $40M expansion at casino and resort [Local10]

EMPEROR’S NEW OPTIMISM: Caesars CEO says Las Vegas’s recovery underway and overpricing stories will fade [CDC Gaming]

BONE TO PICKERING: Ontario First Nation says province violated agreements in opening Pickering Casino [Insauga.com]

The Bonus Round

Completing the Spin Cycle with some odds and ends and our favorite (Halloween-themed) social media posts of the week.

• Luck be a lady at FanDuel Casino. The streaming personality known as Lady Luck HQ (real name: Francine Maric) is the latest addition to FanDuel’s roster of casino ambassadors, the operator announced Monday. The release explains, “As part of this partnership, Lady Luck HQ will create engaging content, inform customers of FanDuel Casino’s offering of slot games and exciting promotions, educate on responsible gaming practices, and appear at exclusive FanDuel Casino customer events.”

• According to The Hollywood Reporter, Lionsgate’s plans to turn the Shohei Ohtani/Ippei Mizuhara scandal into a scripted series have hit a snag. As the outlet reported, “acquisition executives are concerned that taking on the project might damage their parent companies’ current or future relationships with Major League Baseball.” Oh well. Guess that means more time for me to rewatch Chad Powers.

• Alternative idea for the next gambling-focused scripted streaming series: How about the Las Vegas poker player who doubles as a madam? The 8NewsNow headline about Bing Du tells most of the story: “Poker player accused of running illegal Las Vegas brothel, money laundering.” But the second line of the headline is even better: “Police search trash, find condoms in bulk.”

• Here’s a more positive story, and one that hits close to home. NBC Philadelphia reports that retired NBA great Charles Barkley is opening a new steakhouse and cigar lounge inside Valley Forge Casino Resort in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania — the town where I grew up. Man, when I was a kid, the best restaurants we had were Pastabilities and Rib-It.

• One last Halloween-and-gambling-themed X post to end on. The ThunderCast pod is starting ‘em young, it seems: