This week’s casino news include a lucky birthday win and an update on Caesars Entertainment’s bankruptcy case, but we’ll start off in Macau where the casino and esports worlds have finally opened up to a partnership.
Macau’s Casinos Show Support For Esports Event
Macau hosted its first ever esports event but the headline in the gambling world was that it was sponsored by the Grand Lisboa Hotel. The event, which was called the MDL Macau Dota2 International Elite, was held over three days and it featured nine teams of players battling for a prize pool of around $300,000. SJM Holdings, which owns the Grand Lisboa Hotel, is one of the first ever to sponsor an esports event in Macau, which shows just how much the gambling world is warming up to esports. The 2016 event had over 43 million viewers, so it was a no-brainer for them to partner in hopes of trying to convert some of those players into casino players. Expect more partnerships like this to be announced as casinos, who at first shunned esports, now try to piggyback off the audience.
Caesars Entertainment Owes Bankruptcy Fees
Caesars Entertainment has certainly had its share of legal troubles as it has been working through bankruptcy over the last few years. Now it’s time to pay up the legal bill from all of those trips to court. The total tally is $160 million that Caesars Entertainment has to pay out to six different firms that have helped them sort out their mess, with $77 million going to lead counsel Kirkland & Ellis and $30.6 million to Winston & Strawn, whose job it was to go through Caesars Entertainment’s dealing and see if there was anything missing. The nearly three-year process was lengthened in part because Caesars did a lot of restructuring to try to buy two casinos from Centaur Gaming in Indiana.
Oklahoma Man Gets $900,000 Birthday Payday
They call it the Lucky Star Casino for a reason. A blessed player from Oklahoma visited the casino in Clinton and ended having a birthday he’ll never forget. It turned out to be his lucky day as James Watkins won a slots jackpot that came out to $916,408.16. His wife was in disbelief at first but Watkins made it clear to her that the payday was in fact real. After losing $16 on the slots, he put $100 into the machine and ended up connecting on his lucky spin.
Even with the massive win, Watkins has stated that he is still planning to go to work. He has the option of getting a lump-sum payment or a payout every year for the next 20 years. He still hasn’t made up his mind. Regardless of which way he decides to go, Watkins had a very happy birthday.