This week’s casino news starts off with the World Series of Poker. It’s one of the first major events in a casino that will remove the mask mandate.
World Series of Poker Removes Their Mask Requirement
The World Series of Poker will finally be removing their mask mandate throughout the rest of 2021. The organization just stated that this change will be made strictly because they are requiring all participants to require proof of vaccination now. Players will no longer have to wear their masks even while playing at the table games.
At first, people believed that the mask mandate was going to stick around due to the vaccine not being mandatory for employees and staff. However, Caesars Entertainment made it clear that all of their employees are going to be strongly encouraged to get vaccinated.
The WSOP website also mentions that any religious and medical exemptions from the vaccine will not be tolerated under the current regulation. Employees and participants of the event have to show proof of vaccination, no exceptions for anybody.
Yokohama Not Interested In Hosting Casino
The second largest city in Japan doesn’t seem to want to have a casino resort in their area anymore. Despite being a favorite to be selected, Yokohama has opted against putting their name in consideration. This is likely because the population just elected a new mayor, Dr. Takeharu Yamanaka, who has long opposed casinos coming to Japan.
His main priority at the moment will be to improve vaccination efficiency and halt the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. Casinos and resorts are likely far down his to do list right now.
Yokohama never really seemed to be on board with casinos anyways. Back in September of 2018, a poll was given out to residents in the city about how they felt about allowing a new resort to be built in Yokohama. An unbelievable 94 percent of people said that they were against a casino being brought in.
Store Owner Accused Of Stealing Winning Lottery Ticket Has Been Arrested
Gaetano Scutellaro, 57, an Italian store owner that was accused of stealing a winning lottery ticket, has been arrested. The person that accused him was the customer that had purchased the ticket and Scutellaro was eventually caught when he was attempting to get onto a plane to leave the country.
It was reported that an elderly woman had walked into the store and eagerly handed her winning ticket to the clerk to cash out her winnings. The clerk showed it to Scutellaro to confirm the win but he just took the ticket and sprinted out of the store, fleeing the scene. However, Scutellaro has a completely different story. He claims that he had no idea about any of these accusations and that he has full intentions to sue her now.
Scutellaro continued by saying he wanted to just take the winning ticket to a bank a couple of hours down the road in order to keep it safe. He also says that there is camera footage to back up his statement but none of that has been collected just yet. Considering he was arrested, the police seem to have at least probably cause that there are some holes in his defense.