LAS VEGAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan 7, 2026--
Pavilion Payments, the gaming industry's leading omnichannel payment solutions provider, today announced that Diallo Gordon is now serving as Chief Executive Officer, effective January 1, 2026. Gordon’s appointment follows a successful 2025, during which the company strengthened operational execution, advanced key initiatives, and expanded customer relationships. Pavilion Payments enters 2026 with strong momentum and an aligned leadership team supporting Gordon in his new role.
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Dan Connors, who has served as CEO since April 2024, has transitioned to the role of Executive Chairman. In this position, he will continue to support Pavilion Payments’ long-term strategy, customer relationships, and corporate development priorities while working closely with Gordon and the senior leadership team.
Gordon joined Pavilion Payments in January 2025 as President, bringing nearly 30 years of leadership experience across innovation, technology, defense, gaming, and payments. He has held roles at Passport Technology, Phi Gaming, Everi Holdings, Aristocrat Technologies, and the Mississippi Gaming Commission, and earlier served in the United States Air Force supporting space and weapons research for the Department of Defense, NASA, and NATO.
At Pavilion Payments, Gordon has overseen sales, marketing, product strategy, and innovation. In his first year with the company, he played a key role in accelerating development initiatives, enhancing operational performance, and strengthening organizational alignment. As CEO, he will continue to drive growth, deepen operator partnerships, and guide Pavilion Payments’ strategic direction across the gaming ecosystem.
“Diallo is an extraordinarily talented executive and one of the finest leaders I have worked with,” said Dan Connors, Executive Chairman of Pavilion Payments. “His deep industry knowledge, engineering background, customer-first mindset, and passion for innovation make him uniquely suited to lead Pavilion Payments forward. We accomplished a great deal in 2025, and I have complete confidence in Diallo and the strong leadership team supporting him as we enter 2026.”
“I am honored to serve as CEO of Pavilion Payments,” said Diallo Gordon. “We have a world-class team, a strong foundation, and a shared commitment to delivering exceptional experiences for our customers and their patrons. After a successful 2025, we are well-positioned for 2026, and I look forward to continuing our work together to advance Pavilion’s leadership in the gaming payments ecosystem.”
Connors remains a full-time member of Pavilion’s senior leadership team as Executive Chairman, focusing on strategic direction, long-range initiatives, customer engagement, and M&A activity while supporting Gordon through the transition and beyond.
About Pavilion Payments
Pavilion Payments enables the world’s gaming entertainment leaders to create exceptional consumer experiences and maximize spend across physical and digital properties. As the industry’s leading omnichannel payment solutions provider, Pavilion delivers integrated software and funding options that make it easy for players to fund play, access winnings, and manage transactions securely.
With a full suite of cashless, digital, and in-person payment technologies, Pavilion Payments helps operators enhance the guest experience, streamline operations, and drive growth across the gaming ecosystem.
For more information, visit pavilionpayments.com.
Diallo Gordon, Chief Executive Officer of Pavilion Payments
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran fired more missiles at Israel and Gulf Arab states Thursday, demonstrating Tehran’s continued ability to strike its neighbors even as U.S. President Donald Trump claimed the threat from the country was nearly eliminated.
Iran’s attacks on Gulf states along with its chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz have disrupted the world’s energy supplies with effects far beyond the Middle East. That has proved to be Iran’s greatest strategic advantage in the war. Britain held a call with nearly three dozen countries about how to reopen the strait once the fighting is over.
Trump has insisted the strait can be taken by force — but said it is not up to the U.S. to do that. In an address to the American people Wednesday night, he encouraged countries that depend on oil from Hormuz to “build some delayed courage” and go “take it.”
Before the U.S. and Israel started the war on Feb. 28 with strikes on Iran, the waterway was open to traffic and 20% of all traded oil passed through it.
Iran responded defiantly to Trump’s speech, in which the American president claimed U.S. military action had been so decisive that “one of the most powerful countries” is “really no longer a threat.”
A spokesman for Iran’s military, Lt. Col. Ebrahim Zolfaghari, insisted Thursday that Tehran maintains hidden stockpiles of arms, munitions and production facilities. He said facilities targeted so far by U.S. strikes are “insignificant.”
Just before Trump began his address — in which he said U.S. “core strategic objectives are nearing completion” — explosions were heard in Dubai as air defenses worked to intercept an Iranian missile barrage.
Less than a half-hour after the president was done, Israel said its military was also working to intercept incoming missiles. Sirens sounded in Bahrain, home to the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet, immediately after the speech.
Attacks continued across Iran on Thursday, with strikes reported in multiple cities.
Even amid the conflict, families went to a park in Tehran to play games and grill food to mark the last day of Iranian New Year, or Nowruz.
In Lebanon — home to Iran-backed Hezbollah militants who are fighting Israel, which has launched a ground invasion — an Israeli strike killed four people in the south, the Health Ministry said.
More than 1,900 people have been killed in Iran during the war, while 19 have been reported dead in Israel. More than two dozen people have died in Gulf states and the occupied West Bank, while 13 U.S. service members have been killed.
More than 1,300 people have been killed and more than 1 million displaced in Lebanon. Ten Israeli soldiers have also died there.
Iranian attacks on about two dozen commercial ships, and the threat of more, have halted nearly all traffic in the waterway that connects the Persian Gulf to the open ocean.
Since March 1, traffic through the strait has dropped 94% over the same period last year, according to the Lloyds List Intelligence shipping data firm. Two ships are confirmed to have paid a fee, the firm said, while others were allowed through based on agreements with their home governments.
Saudi Arabia piped about 1 billion barrels of oil away from the Strait of Hormuz in March, according to maritime data firm Kpler, while Iraq said Thursday that it had started to truck oil across Syria to avoid the strait.
The 35 countries that spoke Thursday, including all G7 industrialized democracies except the U.S., as well as the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, signed a declaration last month demanding Iran stop blocking the strait.
Thursday’s talks were focused on political and diplomatic measures, but British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said military planners from an unspecified number of countries will also plot ways to ensure security once fighting ends, including potential mine-clearing work and “reassurance” for commercial shipping.
No country appears willing to try to open the strait by force while the war is raging. French President Emmanuel Macron, while on a visit to South Korea, called a military operation to secure the waterway “unrealistic.”
But there is a concern that Iran might limit traffic through the waterway even after U.S. and Israeli attacks cease.
The idea of an international effort has echoes of the “coalition of the willing,” led by the U.K. and France, that was assembled to underpin Ukraine’s security in the event of a ceasefire in that war. The coalition is, in part, an attempt to demonstrate to Washington that Europe is doing more for its own security in the face of frequent criticism from Trump.
The conflict is driving up prices for oil and natural gas, roiling stock markets, pushing up the cost of gasoline and threatening to make a range of goods, including food, more expensive.
On Thursday, Brent crude, the international standard, rose again and was around $108, up about 50% from Feb. 28.
Though the oil and gas that typically transits the strait is primarily sold to Asian nations, Japan and South Korea were the only two countries from the region joining Thursday's call about the strait. The supply of jet fuel has also been interrupted, with consequences for travel worldwide.
Weissert reported from Washington and Rising from Bangkok. Associated Press writer David McHugh in Frankfurt, Germany, contributed to this story.
Mourners gather during a funeral procession for Alireza Tangsiri, head of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy, and others killed in Israeli strikes in late March, in Tehran, Iran, Wednesday, April 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
A firefighter extinguishes a car at the site of Israeli airstrikes, in Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, April 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
People take cover in a bomb shelter as air raid sirens warn of incoming Iranian missile strikes in Bnei Brak, Israel, Wednesday, April 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)
Members from the Popular Mobilization Forces attend a funeral of fighters who were killed in a U.S. airstrike, in Tal Afar, Nineveh province, north of Baghdad, Iraq, Thursday, April 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)
Members from the Popular Mobilization Forces attend a funeral of fighters who were killed in a U.S. airstrike, in Tal Afar, Nineveh province, north of Baghdad, Iraq, Thursday, April 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)
The Indian flagged LPG carrier Jag Vasant transporting liquefied petroleum gas, is seen at the Mumbai Port in Mumbai, India, after it arrived clearing the Strait of Hormuz, Wednesday, April 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool)
President Donald Trump speaks about the Iran war from the Cross Hall of the White House on Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Pool)
President Donald Trump walks from the Blue Room to speak about the Iran war from the Cross Hall of the White House on Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Pool)
President Donald Trump speaks about the Iran war from the Cross Hall of the White House on Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Pool)
President Donald Trump speaks about the Iran war from the Cross Hall of the White House on Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Pool)
