
‘The Winston’ cocktail, made with 1858 vintage cognac by a celebrity mixologist at the Crown Melbourne, had been section of a bungled publicity stunt that cost the casino over a drink.
The Crown Casino in Melbourne are stripped of a Guinness World Record because of strange tale of a cheating Kiwi millionaire, a $32 million casino scam, a narrowly averted PR tragedy, and the world’s most expensive free cocktail.
The saga begins in September 2013, at the Crown Casino’s Club 23, a bar co-owned by Crown owner James Packer, famous cricketer that is retired Warne, and previous WSOP Main Event champ Joe Hachem.
Australian media and officials from the Guinness Book of Records had collected to witness high-roller businessman Giang Nguyen imbibe the globe’s most cocktail that is expensive.
‘The Churchill,’ was made with 1858-vintage Croizet Cuvee Leonie cognac, a way of measuring Chartreuse VEP Vert (a French herbal-infused liqueur developed by monks) and splash of Angostura Bitters, among other ridiculously expensive and somewhat odd components. The drink can be so known as since it was purportedly the drink of choice for PM Winston Churchill and President Dwight Eisenhower while they planned the D-Day landings during WWII.
Not A cheap Date
The cost was AU$12,500, approximately US$9,500, hence most of the hullabaloo and also the guy from Guinness utilizing the clipboard keeping watch.
But oddly, as current media made note, Nguyen looked uncomfortable, took one sip, declared it to be ‘good’ and hurried down to the night, leaving about $8000-worth of vintage booze unsipped. The question is excatly why.
Rewind to of 2013 february. Crown announced via pr release that New Zealand millionaire James Manning will be the guy to cough up five figures for its impossibly luxe cocktail that is new. Manning had been lured to Crown by a member of the VIP services staff, the department that is faced with attracting and retaining whales that are high-rolling.
The plan had been that Manning would come to Crown, gamble big and lose big, before obliging the casino by taking component in their publicity that is little stunt. What could possibly make a mistake?
What Crown don’t know was that Manning was a cheat that is skilled card counter, and had employed somebody on the inside to signal information to him. Using a technique that the casino have not fully elaborated upon, Manning took Crown for $32 million in just eight hands of blackjack.
‘We could not believe what he had won and some of the bets he placed were very, very suspicious,’ A crown that is former executive the Sydney Morning Herald. ‘Those eight hands, in specific … he bet contrary to the chances and won, so one of our surveillance guys decided to have a better look.’
PR Tragedy
A better look revealed that Manning and their accomplice, the guy from the VIP department who had invited him in the place that is first no less, were in cahoots, operating a complex scam to cheat the casino.
Manning was immediately turned away from his space in the center of the night and barred for eternity through the property. While the vast majority associated with cash had not yet been paid out, Crown selected not to press charges, but it left the PR department in a bit of the pickle.
‘Having James Manning done for a gambling heist prior to the event was not into the script,’ said a previous member of crown’s PR team. ‘We had the cognac, we’d the big event organized, we just didn’t have a customer. We were in a awful bind.’
The the fact is, then, that Nguyen had been a shill, a buddy of the management, bussed in at the minute that is last. The publicity stunt was all for show while the Crown would reimburse him the full sum the next morning.
Essentially, Nguyen got a drink of the world’s many expensive cocktail for free indian dreaming slot machine game download of Crown, in which he wasn’t also a top model or Mariah Carey.
Macau Revenues Down Again, But Some See Signs Of Hope
Macau’s gaming industry continues to struggle, though analysts see some signs of the recovery. (Image: Ed Jones/AFP/Getty Graphics)
Macau’s gaming profits are continuing their apparently endless tumble, falling once more in June to help make it 13 straight months of decline for the Chinese enclave.
However, not all of the news being released of Macau was detrimental to the casinos, suggesting that although the present trends are painful, there could be hope on the horizon that things could improve in the not-too-distant future.
First, however, there is the bad news.
Macau’s Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau reported that gambling enterprises in the territory took in less than $2.2 billion in gaming income in June, down 36 percent in comparison to the period that is same year earlier.
This is the figure that is lowest for Macau since November 2010.
Overall, annual gaming revenues are down about 37 percent in 2015 set alongside the first six months of last 12 months.
Incremental Improvement Provides Some Hope
Nevertheless, the June figures were somewhat better than the projections of some analysts.
‘Although a 36 per cent year-over-year decline is not even close to healthier, we find it encouraging the theme of modest sequential comparison improvement remains on trend,’ said gaming analyst Steven Wieczynski of Stifel Nicolaus Capital Markets.
The fact that things have been slightly less terrible for Macau recently is a step in the right direction in other words. There are other indications that revenues could start to tick backup this summer, too.
Gaming revenues were actually up over the last nine days of the month, that could be linked to the start of the summer tourism season.
The annual numbers could begin looking much better for Macau, especially since the last few months of 2014 were particularly brutal for the casinos there if those increases continue into July.
Relaxed Visitation Rules Could Encourage More Tourism
In addition, the Chinese government finally is apparently stepping in to aid Macau a little. As of Wednesday, visitation rules have been relaxed, and mainland Chinese residents can now see Macau twice each month rather than twice per every 60 day period. The maximum amount of any one stay has additionally increased from five times to seven.
That decision caused many casino stocks to surge this week. Four of five casino stocks placed in Hong Kong saw their biggest gains into the past four years, including MGM China, Wynn Macau, and Sands China.
Even when the actual effect of this choice is fairly small, it would likely signal an improvement in policy from the mainland Chinese government, which hurt Macau’s gaming industry significantly with its anti-corruption policies that cut much for the cash flow to the territory.
Analysts expect more supportive measures from China later on in 2015, and whether or not none of the changes are dramatic, they are able to have good cumulative effect.
However all of the news appearing out of Macau is positive. The Macau government is launching a smoking that is full in its legislature this week. That bill is likely to be passed later on this year, and could be implemented when very early year that is next.
Based on the impact that a ban on smoking in mass market casino areas had, analysts believe that this ban that is new which may expand to more private gaming areas, could similarly harm spending by high rollers, with a few predicting a 10 to 15 percent reduction in revenues because for the smoking cigarettes prohibition.
Tennis Match Fixing Problems Continue Steadily To Make Headlines
Few would accuse anyone of match fixing at Wimbledon, but many say that the training is widespread among lower-ranked players at smaller activities. (Image: Wikipedia)
Tennis was faced with accusations of match fixing for years: from the infamous match between Nikolay Davydenko and Martin Vassallo Arguello in 2007 that first introduced much of the public to questions about the integrity of matches in some smaller tournaments to suspensions levied against two players previously this year, there always is apparently something lurking beneath the game’s area.
Those concerns were aired again this in a story by The Daily Beast, which once again attempted to delve through the information out there about tennis and figure out just how much of a problem match fixing is for the sport week.
One 2014 study cited in that story estimated that one percent of all of the tournament that is first-round might be fixed, which would suggest a lot more than 20 matches a year were influenced by gamblers; other quotes and guesses have suggested that multiple matches each week could possibly be fixed, though that’s nevertheless a very tiny portion of all professional tennis matches.
Low Pay Leads to Temptation for Lower-Ranked Players
What makes tennis therefore vulnerable to complement fixing?
There are a combination of facets, lots of which help explain why the issue seems most prominent at the reduced quantities of the professional ranks.
First, there’s the most obvious fact that tennis ( at the very least in singles play) is a specific sport.
There is one person that needs to be bribed so as to obtain them to throw a match (similar issue that leads numerous to worry widespread integrity dilemmas in boxing as well as other combat activities), and there are no teammates or substitutes to pick the slack up for the player who is struggling.
That said, no one is accusing Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal of repairing matches at Wimbledon.
For one, there is the truth that these matches have an intense number of scrutiny if it could be done at all on them; perhaps even more importantly, though, star tennis players are extremely well compensated, meaning it would cost anyone attempting to fix a match at that level an exorbitant amount of money.
That’s not to say that nobody tries. Even Novak Djokovic has told a tale to be offered $100,000 to fix a match back in 2006.
But players in the Challenger Tour or other low-ranked rivals aren’t making nearly that much money, and may also also lose cash in an offered tournament after travel and coaching expenses are taken into consideration.
That means they are targets that are prime gamblers seeking to fix a match.
Spot Betting Allows Fixing Without Impacting Match Result
Another problem is the truth that gamblers do not even have to correct an entire match to find ways to profit.
Because numerous gambling sites and bookmakers offer betting on sets or also individual games, players can achieve agreements allowing certain events to happen at the proper times to meet gamblers while still playing to win overall.
‘One particular typical fix would be to separate the first two sets to a predetermined script, then have fun with the third set fairly to ascertain which player progresses,’ sports modeler Ian Dorward told Slate earlier this year.
The Tennis Integrity Unit is the physical body tasked with rooting out such issues, and they’ve often made examples of players. Each received six-month suspensions and fines for violations of anti-corruption rules, though not for match-fixing in March, Elie Rousset and Walkter Trusendi.
But no real matter what the Integrity Unit does, it is unlikely to alter the tradition that allows lower-ranked players become incentivized to aid gamblers who want to make bets that are sure.
That would demand a change that is complete exactly how compensation works up and down the different degrees of expert tennis, something that most likely won’t happen any time soon.