Месяц: Январь 2015

Legal sports gambling

State Rep. Alan Morrison, who has a master's degree in sports management, sees momentum building nationally toward legal sports betting. He sees the explosive growth in daily online fantasy sports games.

And he wants the state to get a cut.

Morrison, R-Terre Haute, has introduced two sports-related gaming bills. House Bill 1073 would allow sports betting at the state's casinos, "racinos" and off-track betting locations --- if the Indiana Gaming Commission says it's permissible under federal law.

The other, House Bill 1074, would permit the racinos --- Hoosier Park Racing & Casino in Anderson and Indiana Grand Racing and Casino in Shelbyville --- to offer fantasy sports games.

"Gaming is something that this state has become extremely reliant upon, that revenue," Morrison said. "As it's been trending down, it's incumbent upon us to figure out how to fix it or to improve on what we have."

Sports betting is illegal in most of the nation outside of Nevada. But it's hardly radical to suggest making it legal.

In November, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver advocated legalizing sports betting, writing in The New York Times, "There is an obvious appetite among sports fans for a safe and legal way to wager on professional sporting events."

Online sites such as FanDuel and DraftKings have exploded by allowing players to wager and win real money --- legally in most states, including Indiana --- on daily fantasy sports games.

ESPN discusses point spreads on everything from its college football preview show to a weekly podcast called Behind The Bets. The latter features a Las Vegas casino bookmaker talking candidly about his business and the week's games.

New Jersey has pushed for years to make sports betting legal in that state. But even with the effort stalled in the courts, Morrison sees a change only a court decision or two away.

And he wants Indiana ready to pounce immediately, even if it's years down the road, on what the state Legislative Services Agency determined would be $12 million to $70 million of tax money annually from sports betting.

"If it were to (become legal) in July, let's say, that would back us up another year before we could start the process," Morrison said. "So if we have it on the books, where it's up to our Gaming Commission, then we'd be ahead of the game on that."

Having sports books in Indiana, Morrison said, would make the state unique or "at least first to the table."

Not everyone is crazy about the idea. There are legislators who don't want to expand gaming. And there is the Indianapolis-based NCAA, a staunch opponent of gambling (although the television partners from which it makes hundreds of millions of dollars aren't shy about disseminating gambling information).

Morrison said he met with the NCAA, which has game-fixing scandals in its history and is particularly sensitive about young athletes gambling.

"I certainly understand and respect where they're coming from," Morrison said. "But, again, if this changes nationwide, I would imagine that most states (with gaming) would add sports wagering to their gaming activities."

The NCAA, he said, would "probably have to take a look at their stance and understand it's time to change."

Morrison said that of his two sports-related gaming bills, the one on fantasy sports has the better chance of passing.

"A fighter's chance," he said. "Start small and think big, right?"

How big? The NBA's Silver has estimated the illegal sports gambling in the U.S. at $400 billion annually.

"There's a lot of money that floats around out there," Morrison said, "where if it were captured in some form or fashion, and revenue is able to be realized for the state, it could mean a lot."

New online gambling website

Ontario’s new-government run online gaming site launched Thursday will be both a success and a failure, a Centre for Addiction and Mental Health spokesperson says.
Robert Murray, manager of education and community resources at the Problem Gambling Institute of Ontario, CAMH, said PlayOLG.ca will draw in new gamblers who don’t trust the so-called grey sites.
“This is another opportunity to expand their (government) revenue from gambling . . . certainly for a segment of the population the convenience of gambling remotely is going to be attractive especially since it is government sponsored,” Murray told the Star.

“However, that means there are going to be more people who are going to want to try this . . . and inevitably you are going to see a proportion of those people get into trouble with it,” he said, noting that suicide is an “unfortunate” aspect of problem gambling.
By launching its Internet gaming site, the OLG is hoping to tap into the estimated $400 million to $500 million that some 500,000 Ontario gamblers are spending annually on sites elsewhere.
The province is counting on $375 million in additional profits over five years.
Ontario joins British Columbia, Manitoba, Quebec and all of the Atlantic Provinces in offering online gaming, featuring interactive casino-style games including slots, and table games such as blackjack, baccarat, single-player poker and roulette, as well as the sale of lottery tickets.
On this site players set their own limits of up to $9,999 per week, which the OLG says is comparable with other sites. Players must be at least 18 years of age, must be an Ontario resident and must play within the province.

OLG spokesperson Ryan Bissonnette said there are built-in safety nets such as self-imposed money and time limits
“I’d say the key element here, it’s responsible, it’s safe, people are protected, they have their privacy and it’s regulated by the government of Ontario. And most of all we have those responsible gambling features embedded in the site,” he said.
NDP finance critic MPP Katherine Fife said it’s the Ontario government that’s addicted to gambling.
“Kathleen Wynne and the Liberal government’s casino-style gaming strategy isn’t progressive and will put vulnerable people at risk,” she said in an email statement.
“New Democrats are very concerned that the OLG’s new gambling site will encourage youth gambling, prey on the vulnerable and encourage gambling addiction,” she stated.
Murray emphasized the so-called safeguards are at the discretion of the gambler. “And we are concerned about the segment of the population that is going to get into trouble and likely they are not going to be using those features much,” he said.
Bissonnette said in a five-week trial, the OLG found that players on average were spending $95 a week, but Murray says, “We’re concerned about the small percentage of people who will be betting much more.”
Murray said the convenience will make gambling just a mouse click. “We all have to recognize there is a public health consequence to this” and stressed that people who are “shut-ins” may be “particularly at risk because they are isolated.”
$9,999 - Weekly deposit limit in your www.PlayOLG.ca account
$12.5 billion - Ontario’s deficit
$500 million a year - Amount Ontarians are spending every year on private online gambling sites
$375 million - Amount OLG hopes to make through online gambling over next five years.
$100 million a year - Amount OLG hopes to make on its site annually thereafter

Gambling in sport

A fearless and robust striker, John Hartson's forthright response to being diagnosed with cancer came as little surprise to anybody who knew him well.
But there was one challenge "Big John" repeatedly shirked, his life-threatening addiction to gambling.
"You never think you've got a problem," he explained. "You're a gambler, you enjoy it, you never realise the hurt you're causing.
"Your family know you're addicted, but I used to think they had the problem by questioning me."
Then the questions stopped. Hartson's wife Sarah had had enough of him coming in from trips away, ignoring her and the children, going straight to the TV and turning on a cricket match, golf tournament or horse race he had £5,000 on.

So she packed her bags and told him she was leaving.
"I broke down and said I'd do something about this," the former Arsenal, West Ham and Celtic star remembered, his voice buckling with emotion and regret.
"When I was fighting for my life [with cancer], she was my rock. She was pregnant, she looked after the children, she was incredibly strong, and this scumbag here came out of hospital and carried on with the gambling, after everything she had done.
"I hit rock bottom and it takes that for you to realise - the penny dropped. I will never gamble again as long as I live."
John Hartson celebrates scoring for West Ham against Liverpool in 1998
Hartson scored 206 goals in 505 club games in England and Scotland, and 14 in 51 games for Wales
'If I gamble again, I'll die'

Hartson's last bet was three years, three months and three days ago.
"Everybody is aware that cancer kills. It nearly took my life in 2009," the 39-year-old said, recalling the two emergency operations and more than 60 sessions of chemotherapy he needed when testicular cancer spread to his lungs and brain.

Sportsmen more likely to be gamblers
"Cancer takes good people away every day, but, for me, gambling also kills.
"There are four places you can end up as a compulsive gambler: out on the street, in jail, dead, or at Gamblers Anonymous (GA).
"I ended up at GA, thank the Lord, and it's not only saved my marriage and made me a better person, it's also saved my life. If I gamble again, I'll die. I'll lose everything.
"I'm ultra-determined. I don't think about gambling today. I don't buy raffle tickets, I don't buy lottery tickets, I don't go to race tracks - I go to GA twice a week.
"I'll be going until I'm 70. Why wouldn't I? It's my medicine."
Sportsmen are three times more likely to gamble

Hartson sees a lot of different people walk through the doors of those meetings - there are an estimated 400,000 people in the UK with a problem - but most of them do not come back. They have not reached their nadir yet.
"You're very selfish as a gambler, very deceitful. Compulsive gamblers are compulsive liars - they're very good at covering things up," said Hartson.
So good, in fact, many can appear, swan-like, to be gliding through life, holding down jobs, living in nice houses, with loving families. And a disproportionately large group can feed this destructive addiction whilst playing professional sport.

Include gambling revenue

Trade Minister Andrew Robb says the goods and services tax should be extended to products like fresh food and education, making him the first cabinet minister to echo three Liberal backbenchers who this week called for the big shift in taxation policy.

While emphasising the government did not have plans to make any changes to the tax this term, which ends next year, Mr Robb said the government wanted a “mature conversation” about a simpler and fairer tax system.

“I think there’s general agreement that the broader the base, the better, obviously,” he told The Australian Financial Review.

“And the lower the personal tax, the better. Whether it’s the GST or a combination of other broad-based taxes.”

GUERRILLA CAMPAIGN
The comments will boost the Labor opposition’s accusations the government is mounting a guerrilla campaign to build support for changing the tax.

Under the agreement nutted out by prime minister John Howard in 1999 to make the tax politically palatable, the tax isn’t applied to fresh food, education and health.

Liberal MP Dan Tehan and Coalition senators Dean Smith and Ian Macdonald went public in the last week with calls to remove those exclusions in a bid to raise more revenue.

Other cabinet ministers, including Education Minister Christopher Pyne and Finance Minister Mathias Cormann, were strident in their statements about the tax on Thursday.

“There will be no change to the rate or base of the GST. None. Just because someone floats an idea doesn’t make it Party policy,” Mr Pyne tweeted.

Speculation about the GST is becoming increasingly hard to contain for the government in the lead-up to the release of the first stage of the taxation white paper due in late January. It could become an issue in the Queensland state election campaign.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott has said that if the government were to act on the white paper’s recommendations, it would do so only with broad political consensus and the agreement of the states and territories.

Mr Robb criticised the singular focus on the GST, arguing the tax system had to be looked at holistically.

“I think to pick out one tax at this stage and suggest all the problems in the world will be solved is I think . . . highly inappropriate,” he said.

“We are going to have a mature full-ranging discussion and we will allow the white paper to canvass any changes that are put forward by organisations, states and territories.”

Discussion about the GST would be in the “melting pot”, Mr Robb said.

“That’s part of the white paper and the debate around it and what’s taken to the next election.”

Mr Robb leaves for a week-long trip to India on Friday, at the head of a 450-strong Australian business delegation.

After sealing the Korean and Japanese Free Trade Agreements in 2014, he hoped the trip would be the first step towards an Australia-India Free Trade Agreement.

Given the stage of India’s development, its demand for iron ore and coking coal could pick up the slack from a slowing China, Mr Robb said.

New Prime Minister Narendra Modi said during the G20 Leaders’ Meeting in November last year that he hoped to have the deal finalised within 12 months. “Our assessment is that India is on the cusp, especially under the leadership of Prime Minister Modi, of realising so much of their potential,” he said.

“It could be ... China all over again.”

West Australian MPs are conducting a sideline debate about distribution of GST revenue across states, arguing it should be a higher priority than discussion about the rate or coverage.

West Australian Labor MP Alannah MacTiernan said on Thursday that states earning big money from gambling taxes should have to chip in more to help the poorer states.

She said revenue from gambling taxes should be taken into account when it came to carving up the revenue among the states. The change would force NSW and Victoria to do more of the “heavy lifting”, she said.

In a bid to smooth the economic fortunes of each state and territory, GST is distributed according to states’ capacity to generate revenue.

With its lucrative mineral resources, Western Australia’s share of the carve-up has been diminishing. And even though the iron ore price has crashed, it will take time for the change to lead to an increase in payments.

Ms MacTiernan said it was nonsensical to use mining royalty revenue to calculate GST payments but ignore the money states make on gambling.

“The second casino coming on stream in NSW will be a new river of gold for the NSW government,” she said. “Last year NSW received $1.9 billion in gambling revenues. NSW and Victoria have got to do more to help WA with the heavy lifting on supporting the smaller states.”

FAIRER REVENUE DISTRIBUTION NEEDED
Ms MacTiernan said if gambling revenues were distributed like mining royalties, WA’s share would go up from $2.215 billion to $2.635 billion.

“It is totally contrary to the principle of fiscal equalisation that these gambling revenue streams are privileged. WA gets no competitive advantage from its principled restrictions on pokies.”

While other states have laws relaxed enough to allow poker machines in pubs and clubs,Unlike other states, WA only allows pokies in casinos.In a concession to the NSW government, James Packer’s Crown Sydney, due to open in 2019, will not contain any poker machines.

Liberal backbencher Dan Tehan sparked debate this week when he called for the GST to be applied to more items, including fresh food and education, health and financial services, in The Australian Financial Review.

Coalition politicians holding federal seats in WA have also been pushing Prime Minister Tony Abbott to change the way GST revenue is distributed.

The government is considering ­lowering the GST-free threshold on goods bought on overseas websites, to help local retailersbut has ruled out other changes before the election.

The GST will be considered as part of white papers on federation and tax.

Caesars owners seek way out of gambling debt

When Apollo Global Management and TPG Capital paid almost $30bn for the operator of Las Vegas casinos including Caesars Palace and the Flamingo in January 2008, it soon turned out to be one of private equity’s worst-timed bets.
The ensuing financial crisis and recession emptied blackjack tables along The Strip and left Caesars Entertainment with an unsustainable burden of more than $25bn in debt.

By the time the two buyout groups approached creditors in September to work out an agreement on an orderly bankruptcy protection filing, the deck was already stacked against an easy resolution.
And whatever the restructuring’s final outcome, the fate of Caesars is likely to shine a harsh light on the merits of the private equity business model.
Apollo’s first tentative proposal, drawn up with advice from the restructuring advisory arm of Blackstone, was code named Project Julii in a reference to the family of the Caesars in ancient Rome.
The initial plan envisioned that Caesars would emerge with an enterprise value of a little more than $11bn, almost $20bn less than its valuation six years earlier, reflecting how overpriced the original deal had been and how crippled Caesars had become. Largely because of the debt the buyout put on the company, Caesars had little cash to help it ride out lean times in its home market or to invest in initiatives in other markets such as Macau or Singapore.
Since September the two private equity owners have revised the proposal several times, but creditors remain bitterly divided on its merits. Already suits and countersuits have been flying between various classes of creditors and individual creditors and Caesars. All this means that when the company files for bankruptcy protection in the coming weeks, the process is likely to be a drawn-out and complicated one.
“It will be like playing three dimensional chess blindfolded,” says an adviser to one class of creditors.
As part of the process, however, junior holders of the debt are likely to press for a court-appointed examiner to look at a series of asset shuffles and refinancings Apollo and TPG orchestrated in an effort to keep Caesars going.
Creditors allege that the effect of many of these transfers and debt exchanges was to reduce the value of the operating entity at Caesars, in which more than $18bn of debt sits, and to reduce the ultimate recovery for creditors. As a result, junior creditors could conceivably recoup just pennies on the dollar, according to arguments made in the litigation.
A spokesman for Caesars disputed the claims.
Buyout executives say that the private equity model is all about long-term perspective in contrast to listed companies’ quarterly focus. Out of the eye of the public market, they can bring their operational skills to bear on the companies they acquire to produce more profitable businesses, they add.
Private equity

private equity
After market turmoil left the industry reeling, buyout groups are coming back to life and looking at some of the biggest deals since the collapse of Lehman Brothers
Further reading
The model is also about what they refer to, perhaps euphemistically, as the discipline of debt. But that debt can prove excessive, leaving owners with little choice when times are bad but to cut costs, since any cash goes to debt repayment leaving no resources to expand or transform the underlying business.
Today total leverage at Caesars’ operating company is almost 18 times its earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation. Gross gaming revenues in its core Las Vegas market would be 35 per cent below its peak in 2007 but for baccarat revenues, which attract the big spenders and are vital to the fortunes of all the big gaming companies a spokesman says. Consolidated casino revenues were down 3.2 per cent for the first nine months of 2014.
Caesars’ fate will also revive the debate about the merits of credit default swaps, a form of insurance that allows creditors to hedge the risk of the debt they hold but can also give purchasers a perverse incentive to hope that a company defaults or files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The total value of the insurance written on Caesars exceeds the amount of debt at the operating company by about $10bn.
The Caesars bankruptcy is likely to be unusually complicated because many creditors have positions in more than one part of Caesars’ complex capital structure. The fact that some creditors who have bought insurance wish Caesars to file for bankruptcy protection as soon as possible, while others, who have sold protection and will lose money if they have to pay out, further complicates the fight.
Elliott Management, for example, has bought protection, most of which expires in March. It has been one of the big supporters of Caesars’ plan to file for bankruptcy protection by mid-January, which would make it a tidy profit on its holdings.

Poker program Cepheus is unbeatable, claim scientists

It may not win every hand it is dealt, but over time, no one can beat Cepheus, a computer program that scientists claim plays a near-perfect game of poker.

Unveiled in Canada on Thursday, the researchers believe that Cepheus is so good that a seasoned poker star could spend their whole life playing against it and still not come out on top.

To learn the game, Cepheus spent two months playing the equivalent of more than a billion billion hands of Texas hold’em, which is more poker games than have been played in the entirety of human history.

The feat required the number-crunching power of four thousand computer processors, each handling six billion hands every second. With each game Cepheus played, the program built up a database of cards dealt, betting decisions and outcomes. At the end of the marathon training session, the database contained 11 terabytes of information on calls, raises and folds for every hand a player could have.

Cepheus learns from an algorithm that essentially minimises its regrets: the program reviews every decision made and then learns which moves paid off and which cost it the hand. “For every single possible situation you could get into, it has a description for how you should play,” said Neil Burch, a computer scientist who helped develop Cepheus at the University of Alberta Computer Poker Research Group.

The program plays a variant of poker called heads-up limit hold’em, made famous by Michael Craig’s 2005 book, The Professor, the Banker and the Suicide King. The game involves two players who bet fixed amounts with a limit on the number of raises allowed.

“Cepheus starts off with a strategy that’s quite terrible,” said Burch. “But every time it plays a hand it comes up with a better strategy.”

It is impossible to make a program that wins every hand, because an opponent can always be dealt a pair of aces or another lucky hand. Instead, Cepheus plays the hand it is dealt in the best way possible. Before every decision, it checks its cards against the database and uses probability to play the best possible game, whether that means calling, raising or folding its hand.

Advertisement

“Cepheus loses to no one over a long enough time. You just have to play enough hands so that luck goes away,” said Burch.

The scientists describe how they created Cepheus in the latest issue of the journal Science. The program can be played online at the University of Alberta’s website.

“I’m sure we’ll get plenty of emails from people who will play 20 or 30 hands against it, win a little bit, and then happily declare victory and say Cepheus must have a bug. But while a human or another program could get lucky and beat Cepheus in a short match, nobody could do it consistently over a long match,” said Michael Johanson, a researcher at the lab.

The program marks a milestone in artificial intelligence and game theory because it makes optimal decisions in a game where only limited information is available: a player’s own cards and those face up on the table (the flop, turn and river, in poker terminology).

Until now, all of the major games that have been “solved” by computers are “perfect-information games” such as chess and checkers where the full history of the game is known to each player.

Poker and other card games are known as imperfect-information games and are much harder for computers to master because each player has only a limited amount of information on which to base their decisions.

The parallels between poker and real-life decision-making mean that card-playing programs are far more than toys. John von Neumann, the father of modern computing, was inspired by bluffing in poker to develop game theory. Versions of game-playing programs can be used to find the most effective ways to patrol coastlines for drugs traffickers, or the best way to schedule sky marshals on commercial flights.

The Canadian researchers said they have been careful not to release information about Cepheus that could be used to win fortunes on online casinos. But other computer experts could potentially recreate the program and unleash it on the web. Even if that happened, Burch is not convinced it would make a fortune from hapless online human players. “It’s like being a really good poker player. If you start beating people all the time, nobody will want to play with you,” he said.