Spin Cycle: Expected Bally’s Buyout Of Evoke 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 …

Bally’s atop the Hill?

It was bigger news in Great Britain than it was in the United States, but it’s potentially major industry news here just the same: Bally’s is reportedly very close to buying Evoke, the struggling owner of the William Hill brand.

Revealing further the difference in perspective depending on which side of the Atlantic Ocean you’re on, London media outlet The Times described Bally’s as “known for its front-of-shirt sponsorship of Nottingham Forest Football Club,” which is not exactly what the operator is known for in its home country. In any case, Evoke, formerly 888, is widely known to have been in rough shape financially for about the last five years, and the U.K. gambling tax hike last year represented something of a breaking point. But now Bally’s has apparently made a $304 million bid to take over Evoke and is said to be the British company’s preferred bidder.

Rhode Island-based Bally’s, which has a monopoly on brick-and-mortar casinos, online casino, and sports betting in its home state, has been in the news in the U.S. over the past year or so for its land-based casino projects. Bally’s is building a $1.7 billion Chicago casino (though the process has not been smooth), it’s perhaps constructing a casino on the Las Vegas Strip next to the in-the-works baseball stadium for the A’s, and it somewhat unexpectedly got one of the three licenses for a casino in the New York City area.

Despite all that, apparently there was money left over to bid on Evoke. But the deal is not official yet.

More news to know … 

• Golden Nugget owner Tilman Fertitta’s bid to take over Caesars Entertainment for a tidy $18 billion is progressing, according to Bloomberg, but talks have been delayed and extended following the death of Fertitta’s father, Vic, on April 8. Fertitta is believed to be the sole bidder, but it’s a complex deal that includes the assumption of more than $11 billion in existing Caesars debt and a possible need for Fertitta to divest other properties in order to get regulatory approval.
• Alberta update: Ahead of the province’s iGaming and sports betting launch July 13, Service Alberta Minister Dale Nally told reporters that 33 companies have already applied for an online casino license and 20 of them have paid their deposit.
• Bad news for Vegas residents and visitors with big appetites: The MGM Grand Buffet is set to close at the end of May, leaving only six operational buffets on the Strip — down from an estimated 70 or so across Strip properties at the high point of the all-you-can-eat establishments.
• BetMGM announced Monday that its partnership with game supplier AGS now includes a period of exclusivity for all new games in the popular Rakin’ Bacon! franchise. “Securing first-to-market rights is a natural extension of the strong relationship we’ve built with top-tier game suppliers like AGS,” said BetMGM Senior VP of Gaming Oliver Bartlett in a press release.

House Rules: Insights from around our network

Penn Reports 15% Online Casino Revenue Increase, Eyes Alberta Launch For Next Leap

Resorts World In Queens To Offer Table Games Next Week

Coding Error Impacted DC Lottery Drawings, Prevented Certain Numbers From Winning

Don Schlitz, Songwriter Of ‘The Gambler,’ Passes Away At 73

Maryland Not Joining The Ranks Of States Banning Sweeps This Year

Will Congress Act On Prediction Markets? Don’t Rule It Out

BetHog Announces $10 Million Funding Round, Launch Of AI Live Dealer Studio

Small stakes and hot takes

This week on the Casino Reports podcast Low Rollers, I welcomed the UNLV International Gaming Institute’s Brett Abarbanel and Kasra Ghaharian for a discussion about their recently released report The State of AI in Gaming in 2026, what sectors of the industry are proactively adopting AI, and what sectors are lagging behind. Plus, if you’ve always wanted to know what the UNLV IGI executive director’s favorite episode of Seinfeld is, the answer was revealed on this podcast.

I also pondered, following the latest eye-popping online casino revenue numbers out of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, when (or if) growth will level off. And I closed the show with some thoughts on AI live dealer games and whether there’s much audience overlap with the human live dealer games.

Full episode:

The Shuffle: Other news and views

SC Business Owners Sue Dave & Busters Over Gambling Laws [WSPA 7 News]

Midwest And South Help Boyd Gaming Overcome Las Vegas Tourism Decline And Renovations In Q1 [CDC Gaming]

Will Transparency Fold Under Gov. Pritzker’s Plan To Revamp The Illinois Gambling Board? [Chicago Sun-Times]

Pro Poker Player Who’s Won More Than $48 Million Says New Tax Laws Forced Him Into Semi-Retirement [CNBC]

How A Youth Wrestling Club Became A Multimillion-Dollar Gambling Operation [The Wall Street Journal]

Inaugural ‘No Tax On Tips’ Deduction Positive For Casino Workers, But Stakeholders Push For Permanency [iGaming Business]

Las Vegas NBA Arena Project Pitched For South Strip [Las Vegas Review-Journal]

Tom Pohlman Stepping Down From Golden Nugget Atlantic City Job After 15 Years [Press of Atlantic City]

Kirkland Casino Company Closes Seatac Location, Lays Off 65 Employees [My Northwest]

Monarch Has Best First Quarter Ever, Management Says [CDC Gaming]

The Bonus Round

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