Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, so many news stories from the past year that we’ve reported on have been negative for casinos. This week’s news starts off with what could be a silver lining from all of this – at least in the casino industry.
Read on for our weekly casino news round-up, where we take a look at the latest news stories you’ve got to read.
Centers For Disease Control Official Believes Smoke Free Casinos Are Positive Of Pandemic
There really hasn’t been too many good headlines to come out of the COVID-19 pandemic, but one person from the Centers for Disease Control believes there’s a small silver lining: smoke-less casinos. Dr. Brian King noted the fact that over 200 commercial and tribal casinos have been smoke free since their reopening and that’s fantastic news for the health of the gaming society in general.
State officials had required both Pennsylvania and New Jersey to reopen their casinos as smoke-free properties, so that’s a big reason why the update. This was a big change for each of those states as 50% of Pennsylvania casino floors and roughly 25% of an Atlantic City casinos were allocated for smoking.
David Schwartz, gaming historian, and former UNLV professor, believes that casinos will go back to their ways and allow smoking once again. Many smokers in the world happen to be heavy gamblers with there being a very positive correlation between smoking and gambling dating a while back.
What’s interesting to note is that non-smoking advocates have had a really tough time convincing places like Las Vegas to cut down on cigarette smoke. Years of legal battles and lobbying couldn’t do it but COVID-19 did. We’ll see if it lasts, though, as they might simply revert back to the norm very soon.
Steve Wynn Donates $50 million To New York Hospital
Steve Wynn has a lot of work to do to get in the good books of many people but at least he’s started. He recently donated $50 million to a nonprofit healthcare system in Central New York. The Mohawk Valley Health System was so grateful for the donation that they are renaming the facility The Wynn Hospital. There has been no protest of the gift so far either, which might mean that Wynn is shaking his bad reputation.
Wynn was forced to resign from his position at Wynn Resorts back in 2018 after being accused of sexual misconduct, though, he denies all of these accusations. Wynn hasn’t been sighted much since resigning either, showing up at a few public meetings but not much outside of that.
Sports Bettor Sues FanDuel Over Understated Live Data
This wasn’t the news that FanDuel was hoping to get this week, as customer Andrew Melnick has recently filed a lawsuit in the US District Court against the sportsbook. Melnick mentioned that he was new to the site and focused most of his strategy along in-game totals throughout college basketball games. However, Melnick quickly realized that FanDuel’s real-time information was consistently incorrect, and that the sportsbook made the under bets look more attractive.
The suit includes multiple screenshots of FanDuel’s platform from the New Orleans vs. Incarnate Word basketball game. It showed proof of what Melnick was talking about, with him saying that the information provided impacted his wager, causing him to be incorrect.
Typically, online sportsbooks have long dodged these problems but now that they are in a regulated market, gaming commissions will put them under severe scrutiny. We’ll see if the player can win here but usually, these are tough lawsuits to win as the terms and conditions on the site usually cover the company from every angle.
