About this app
What is Jewel Strike?
At one point, the IGB ordered a temporary work stoppage at Bally’s permanent casino following reports of alleged ties between an unapproved dumpster service with organised crime.
Bally’s has been granted two years’ worth of extensions for the permanent project. State law allows for two-year temporary licences, but the Illinois Gaming Board approved an extension to three years in 2023. That pushed the deadline to this September, but Bally’s ultimately received another year’s worth of extensions through language included in the state’s omnibus revenue bill that was passed in June.
If the latest extension had not been granted, Bally’s would have had to close its temporary casino at Medinah Temple until the permanent venue was completed. That would have resulted in multiple months with no revenue in the market, but Kim told iGB at the East Coast Gaming Congress in April that a closure of the temporary site was “not the end of the world”.
What is Jewel Strike?
Anyone residing in Cyprus, with income not high enough to support their basic needs, is eligible for the benefit.
Cyprus is not the first market to consider whether to block its welfare recipients from using their benefits to gamble, Brazil introduced a similar ban in 2025.
During a session of the House Audit Committee last Thursday, members of parliament (MPs), the Data Protection Commissioner and representatives from the Welfare Benefits Administration Service (WBAS), the Gaming & Casino Supervision Commission and the National Betting Authority (NBA) convened to discuss ways to identify and restrict gambling activity among GMI beneficiaries, as reported by Cyprus Mail.
What is Jewel Strike?
“Why not use the dataset I already have on gambling sites to map the most problematic ones, identify how they are connected and build a deeper picture of the networks behind them?” That thought process eventually gave birth to Trace2Trace.
Trace2Trace is relatively new, but Madsen says its underlying dataset has already grown to around 620,000. And it continues to grow, highlighting the scale of illegal operations in the gambling industry.
“We receive around 7,000 domains a day on average through the lists we monitor, including new and cloned sites,” he explains.
