Two Internet powerhouses achieved the first accords for offering sports betting in Michigan. Beating The Stars Group to the punch by a day, PointsBet inked a pact with the Lac Vieux Desert Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians. Stars Group followed the next morning by announcing a deal with the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians. PointsBet hopes to open a retail sports book on the Lac Vieux Desert reservation in Watersmeet. (Tell them S&G sent you.) “PointsBet is pleased to have reached an agreement for both online sportsbook and online casino operations with such a forward-thinking tribe, and we look forward to many years of great success working together in Michigan,” said CEO Sam Swannell.
Stars Group will penetrate the Michigan market through partner Fox Bet. There are 15 more Internet “skins” to be had, three private-sector and 12 tribal. FanDuel and DraftKings are expected to breach the market eventually, while MGM Resorts International can deploy its Roar Digital brand, developed in tandem with GVC. DraftKings unrolled some bad news yesterday, announcing increasing losses 1Q-3Q19, the cost of buying market share. DraftKings lost $114 million despite revenue of $192 million, putting a bit of damper on its impending public offering. In the year-prior period DraftKings had lost $75 million on $133 million in revenue.
Fourth-quarter results, which include the peak of football season, are expected to improve the picture. According to the Boston Globe, “DraftKings must contend with huge expenses to compete for a share of the new markets, including regulatory costs, technology spending, 
lobbying, and marketing.” DraftKings is counting on $500 million from the stock offering to help cover those expenses. Or, as the company put it, “Our path to profitability is based on the acceleration of positive contribution profit growth driven by marketing efficiencies as we transition from local to regional to national advertising, and scale benefits on the platform development component of our cost of revenue.” Don’t expect newly added SBTech to be a big contributor: Its profit last year was $7 million (at least it’s making money).
* We don’t know how you feel about having your body temperature scanned as you enter a casino but it’s about to become mandatory in Macao, as China struggles to contain an outbreak of viral pneumonia. (You’ll definitely want to avoid the fish markets.) The timing couldn’t be worse, as it coincides with a high-tourism period in Macao, with visitors finding more-direct routes to the enclave to avoid tense Hong Kong. In addition to focusing on visitors from Wuhan province, Macanese officials are conducting health checks at the city’s airport. There was one bit of good news: A reemergence of SARS has been ruled out. Whew.
* Whoops. In a serious malfunction, Google algorithms are sending disordered gamblers who are seeking help to betting sites. According to The Independent, Google “is serving up ads promoting thousands of pounds of bonuses offered by betting websites, with many even boasting 
of being able to circumvent software designed to protect problem gamblers … Clicking through leads to lists of dozens of offers presenting new customers with hundreds free spins on online slot machines, roulette and other potentially addictive games at virtual casinos based in Cyprus and the Caribbean island of Curacao, among other locations.” Intended search result “Gamestop” (a problem-gambling service) was down at number five.
Labour MP Carolyn Harris was not amused. “I don’t necessarily blame Google,” she said. “In a way they are victims of the ingenuity of companies who are capable of bypassing any measures that are put in place.” Her doubts lay with the concept of self-exclusion and the gaming industry’s willingness to enforce it. The Gamestop snafu will be visited when Parliament convenes next week. As for Gamestop, CEO Fiona Palmer said, “we are working with Google and other search engines to ensure that when people search for information about self-excluding from online gambling our website is prominently displayed and these websites are not included within the search results.”
The timing of the issue is unfortunate for online casinos, to say the least. A similar dysfunction manifested itself in October. Also, the Guardian found that Internet casinos were getting as much as 83% of their revenue 
from 2% of their players. According to the Guardian, membership programs “reward gamblers who habitually lose large sums of money with perks such as free bets, cashback on losing wagers or [soccer] tickets.” Were VIP programs to be banned “the decision could deal a huge blow to the industry’s revenues.” Incidence of disordered gambling among the U.K.’s 47,000 VIP gamblers is estimated at 8%—11X greater than normal. It would appear that the British online-gambling industry is the proverbial house built on sand.
* Sign of the Apocalypse: Gordon Ramsay is trademarking Hell’s Kitchen for Internet-casino games. Do the virtual croupiers yell profanities at you?
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