
‘The Winston’ cocktail, created using 1858 vintage cognac by a celebrity mixologist at the Crown Melbourne, had been part of a bungled publicity stunt that cost the casino over a drink.
The Crown Casino in Melbourne can be stripped of the Guinness World Record because of bizarre 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 club co-owned by Crown owner James Packer, popular retired cricketer Shane Warne, and previous WSOP Main Event champ Joe Hachem.
Australian media and officials from the Guinness Book of Records had gathered to witness high-roller businessman Giang Nguyen imbibe the world’s most expensive cocktail.
‘The Churchill,’ was made with 1858-vintage Croizet Cuvee Leonie cognac, a measure of Chartreuse VEP Vert (a French herbal-infused liqueur created by monks) and splash of Angostura Bitters, among other ridiculously expensive and somewhat odd ingredients. The drink is so known as as they planned the D-Day landings during WWII because it was purportedly the beverage of choice for PM Winston Churchill and President Dwight Eisenhower.
Maybe Not A inexpensive Date
The cost was AU$12,500, roughly US$9,500, hence all of the hullabaloo therefore the guy from Guinness because of the clipboard watch that is keeping.
But oddly, as current media made note, Nguyen looked uncomfortable, took one sip, declared that it is ‘good’ and hurried down to the night, leaving about $8000-worth of vintage booze unsipped. The question is why.
Rewind to of 2013 february. Crown announced via press release that New Zealand millionaire James Manning would be the guy to cough up five figures for the impossibly luxe new cocktail. Manning was in fact lured to Crown with a member of the VIP services staff, the department that is charged 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 firmly taking part in their little publicity stunt. Just What could possibly go wrong?
What Crown didn’t understand was that Manning had been a cheat that is skilled card counter, and had employed some body on the interior to signal information to him. Making use of a technique that the casino has 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 made a decision to have a better look.’
PR Catastrophe
A closer look revealed that Manning and his accomplice, the guy from the VIP department who had invited him in the place that is first no less, were in cahoots, running a complex scam to cheat the casino.
Manning was immediately turned away from his room in the center of the evening and banned for eternity from the property. As the vast majority associated with cash had not yet been paid, Crown selected not to press fees, but it left the PR department in a bit of a pickle.
‘Having James Manning done for a gambling heist right before the big event had not been into the script,’ said a former member of crown’s PR team. ‘the cognac was had by us, we had the big event organized, we just didn’t have a customer. We had been within an awful bind.’
The the fact is, then, that Nguyen had been a shill, a buddy of the management, bussed in at the final moment. The publicity stunt had been all for show plus the Crown would reimburse him the full sum the morning that is next.
Essentially, Nguyen got a drink of the world’s most expensive cocktail for free from Crown, and he wasn’t even 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 Images)
Macau’s gaming revenues are continuing their seemingly endless tumble, falling once more in June to produce it 13 straight months of decrease for the Chinese enclave.
However, not all of the news coming out of Macau was bad for the casinos, suggesting that while the current trends are painful, there are hope on the horizon that things could enhance in the future that is not-too-distant.
First, though, there is the bad news.
Macau’s Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau reported that gambling enterprises into the territory took within just $2.2 billion in gaming revenue in June, down 36 percent in comparison to the period that is same year earlier.
That is the lowest figure for Macau since November 2010.
Overall, annual gaming revenues are down about 37 percent in 2015 set alongside the first 6 months of final year.
Incremental Improvement Provides Some Hope
Nevertheless, the June figures were somewhat much better than the projections of some analysts.
‘Although a 36 percent year-over-year decline is not even close to healthier, we find it encouraging the theme of modest comparison that is sequential remains on trend,’ said gaming analyst Steven Wieczynski of Stifel Nicolaus Capital Markets.
In other terms, the very fact that things have been slightly less terrible for Macau recently is one step into the right direction. There are other indications that profits could start to tick back up this summer, too.
Gaming revenues were actually up over the last nine days of the month, that could be associated with the beginning of the summer tourism season.
If those increases carry on into July, the yearly numbers could start to look much better for Macau, especially because the last few months of 2014 were specially brutal for the casinos there.
Relaxed Visitation Rules Could Encourage More Tourism
In addition, the Chinese government finally seems to be stepping in to simply help Macau a bit. As of Wednesday, visitation rules have been relaxed, and mainland Chinese residents can now see Macau twice per month instead than twice per every 60 day period. The maximum length of any one stay in addition has increased from five times to seven.
That choice caused casino that is many to surge this week. Four of five casino stocks placed in Hong Kong saw their biggest gains into the previous four years, including MGM Asia, Wynn Macau, and Sands China.
Even though the actual effect with this choice is fairly little, it could signal a change in policy from the mainland government that is chinese which hurt Macau’s gaming industry significantly with its anti-corruption policies that cut much for the money movement to your territory.
Analysts anticipate more supportive measures from China later on in 2015, and even in the event none of these changes are dramatic, they could have a positive effect that is cumulative.
Although not playpokiesfree.com all of the news appearing out of Macau is good. The Macau federal government is presenting a full smoking ban in its legislature this week. That bill is probably be passed later on this year, and may be implemented when very early year that is next.
In line with the impact that a ban on smoking in mass market casino areas had, analysts believe that this ban that is new which would expand to more private gaming areas, could similarly damage spending by high rollers, with some predicting a 10 to 15 percent reduction in revenues because of the smoking prohibition.
Tennis Match Fixing Issues Continue Steadily To Make Headlines
Few would accuse anyone of match fixing at Wimbledon, but numerous state that the practice is widespread among lower-ranked players at smaller activities. (Image: Wikipedia)
Tennis has been faced with accusations of match fixing for years: from the match that is infamous Nikolay Davydenko and Martin Vassallo Arguello in 2007 that first introduced much of the general public to questions about the integrity of matches in some smaller tournaments to suspensions levied against two players previously this year, there always seems to be something lurking beneath the game’s surface.
Those concerns were aired again this week in a story by The Daily Beast, which once again attempted to delve through the information available to you about tennis and determine just how much of a issue match fixing is for the sport.
One 2014 research cited in that story estimated that one percent of all of the first-round tournament matches could be fixed, which may mean a lot more than 20 matches a year were influenced by gamblers; other quotes and guesses have recommended that multiple matches each week could be fixed, though that’s still an extremely tiny percentage of most professional tennis matches.
Low Pay Leads to Temptation for Lower-Ranked Players
What makes tennis so vulnerable to fit fixing?
There are a variety of facets, a lot of which help explain why the issue seems most prominent at the lower degrees of the expert ranks.
First, there’s the obvious fact that tennis ( at least in singles play) is a individual sport.
There is only anyone that has to be bribed in order to obtain them to throw a match (similar issue that leads many to fear widespread integrity dilemmas in boxing as well as other combat sports), and there are no teammates or substitutes to select up the slack for a player who is struggling.
That stated, no body is accusing Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal of repairing matches at Wimbledon.
For one, there’s the truth that these matches have an intense level 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 maybe not to say that nobody tries. Even Novak Djokovic has told a tale of being provided $100,000 to repair a match back in 2006.
But players in the Challenger Tour or other low-ranked competitors aren’t making nearly that much cash, that can also lose cash in a given tournament after travel and coaching expenses are considered.
That makes them targets that are prime gamblers seeking to fix a match.
Spot Betting Allows Fixing Without Impacting Match Outcome
Another issue is the truth that gamblers do not have to repair an entire match to find ways to profit.
Because many gambling sites and bookmakers offer betting on sets or games that are even individual players can reach agreements to permit certain events to happen at the right times to fulfill gamblers while still playing to win overall.
‘One particular fix that is common be to divide the first couple of sets to a predetermined script, then play 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 will have 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 matter what the Integrity Unit does, it is not likely to change the culture that enables lower-ranked players become incentivized to aid gamblers who would like to make sure bets.
That would demand a complete change in how compensation works down and up the different degrees of professional tennis, something that most likely won’t happen any time soon.