‘The Winston’ cocktail, made out of 1858 classic cognac by a celebrity mixologist at the Crown Melbourne, was part of a bungled publicity stunt that cost the casino over a drink.
The Crown Casino in Melbourne might be stripped of the Guinness World Record as a result of strange tale of a cheating Kiwi millionaire, a $32 million casino scam, a narrowly averted PR tragedy, and the planet’s priciest 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 retired cricketer Shane Warne, and previous WSOP Main Event champ Joe Hachem.
Australian news and officials from the Guinness Book of reports had collected 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 produced by monks) and splash of Angostura Bitters, among other ridiculously expensive and significantly odd components. The drink is really called 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 cheap Date
The cost was AU$12,500, roughly US$9,500, hence most of the hullabaloo and also the guy from Guinness utilizing 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 off in to the night, leaving about $8000-worth of vintage booze unsipped. The question is the reason why.
Rewind to February of 2013. Crown announced via pr release that New Zealand millionaire James Manning will be the man to cough up five figures for the impossibly luxe cocktail that is new. Manning was indeed lured to Crown with a member of the VIP services staff, the department that is faced with attracting and keeping high-rolling whales.
The plan had been that Manning would come to Crown, gamble big and lose big, before obliging the casino by taking part in their publicity that is little stunt. Exactly What could possibly make a mistake?
What Crown didn’t understand was that Manning was a skilled cheat and card counter, and had employed somebody on the interior to signal information to him. Making use of a technique that the casino hasn’t fully elaborated upon, Manning took Crown for $32 million in just eight hands of blackjack.
‘We could not believe what he had won and a number of the bets he placed were very, very suspicious,’ a former crown executive told the Sydney Morning Herald. ‘Those eight hands, in particular … he bet against the odds and won, so one of our surveillance guys made a decision to take a better look.’
PR Tragedy
A closer look revealed that Manning and his accomplice, the guy from the VIP department who had invited him in the very first place, no less, had been in cahoots, running a complex scam to cheat the casino.
Manning was immediately turned away from his space in the middle of the evening and barred for eternity through the property. Due to the fact vast majority of this money had not yet been paid, Crown decided to go with not to press costs, but it left the PR department in a bit of the pickle.
‘Having James Manning done for a gambling heist just before the big event was playpokiesfree.com not within the script,’ said a former member of crown’s PR team. ‘the cognac was had by us, we had the event arranged, 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 final moment. The promotion stunt ended up being all for show as well as the Crown would reimburse him the full amount the morning that is next.
Essentially, Nguyen got a drink of the world’s most cocktail that is expensive clear of 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 indications of the recovery. (Image: Ed Jones/AFP/Getty Pictures)
Macau’s gaming profits are continuing their seemingly endless tumble, falling once again in June to create it 13 straight months of decline for the Chinese enclave.
However, not all of the news coming out of Macau ended up being bad for the gambling enterprises, suggesting that whilst the present trends are painful, there could be hope on the horizon that things could enhance in the future that is not-too-distant.
First, however, there is the news that is bad.
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 when compared with 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 compared to the first half a year of last year.
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 definately not healthier, we find it encouraging the theme of modest sequential comparison improvement remains on trend,’ said video 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 a step in the right way. There are also indications that revenues could start to tick back up this summer, too.
Gaming revenues were really up over the last nine days regarding the which could be related to the start of the summer tourism season month.
If those increases continue into July, the annual numbers could start looking definitely better for Macau, especially considering that the last couple of months of 2014 were especially brutal for the casinos there.
Relaxed Visitation Rules Could Encourage More Tourism
A bit in addition, the Chinese government finally seems to be stepping in to help Macau. As of Wednesday, visitation rules have been relaxed, and mainland residents that are chinese now check out Macau twice each month instead 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 casino that is many to surge this week. Four of five casino stocks listed in Hong Kong saw their biggest gains in the previous four years, including MGM China, Wynn Macau, and Sands China.
Whether or not the particular effect with this decision is fairly tiny, it would likely signal a change in policy from the mainland Chinese federal government, which hurt Macau’s gaming industry significantly with its anti-corruption policies that cut much of the money movement to the territory.
Analysts anticipate more supportive measures from China later on in 2015, and whether or not none of the changes are dramatic, they are able to have positive effect that is cumulative.
Yet not most of the news taken from Macau is positive. The Macau federal government is introducing a smoking that is full in its legislature this week. That bill is likely to be passed later this year, and could be implemented when 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 will 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 regarding the smoking prohibition.
Tennis Match Fixing Problems Consistently Make Headlines
Few would accuse anyone of match fixing at Wimbledon, but numerous say that the practice is widespread among lower-ranked players at smaller occasions. (Image: Wikipedia)
Tennis was 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 people to questions about the integrity of matches in certain smaller tournaments to suspensions levied against two players early in the day this year, there always seems to be something lurking beneath the activity’s surface.
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 research cited in that story estimated that one percent of all of the tournament that is first-round may be fixed, which will mean a lot more than 20 matches a year were influenced by gamblers; other quotes and guesses have suggested that multiple matches per week could be fixed, though that’s nevertheless a really tiny portion of most professional tennis matches.
Low Pay Leads to Temptation for Lower-Ranked Players
What makes tennis therefore vulnerable to fit repairing?
There are a mixture of facets, lots of which help explain why the situation seems most prominent at the low degrees of the professional ranks.
First, there’s the obvious fact that tennis ( at least in singles play) is a individual sport.
There is only anyone that needs to be bribed to be able to have them to throw a match (the exact same issue that leads numerous to fear extensive integrity dilemmas in boxing and other combat activities), and there are no teammates or substitutes to choose up the slack for the player who is struggling.
That stated, no body is accusing Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal of fixing matches at Wimbledon.
For one, there’s the fact these matches have an intense quantity of scrutiny on them; possibly even more importantly, though, star tennis players are extremely well paid, meaning it could cost anyone attempting to fix a match at that level an exorbitant amount of cash, if it could be done at all.
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 regarding the Challenger Tour or other low-ranked rivals aren’t making nearly that much cash, that can even lose cash in a provided competition after travel and coaching expenses are taken into account.
That means they are targets that are prime gamblers trying to fix a match.
Spot Betting Allows Fixing Without Impacting Match Outcome
Another problem is the fact gamblers don’t have even to repair a match that is entire find ways to profit.
Because many gambling sites and bookmakers offer betting on sets or even individual games, players can achieve agreements to permit certain events to take place at the best times to meet gamblers while nevertheless playing to win overall.
‘One particular fix that is common be to split the first two sets to a predetermined script, then play the third set fairly to determine which player progresses,’ sports modeler Ian Dorward told Slate earlier this year.
The Tennis Integrity Unit is the human anatomy tasked with rooting out such issues, and they’ve sometimes 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 change the culture that enables lower-ranked players become incentivized to aid gamblers who would like to make bets that are sure.
That would demand a change that is complete just how compensation works up and down the various degrees of expert tennis, something which probably won’t happen any time quickly.