Monthly Archives: April 2017

Playtech BGT Sports finalises executive team

April 2017, London – Playtech BGT Sports (PBS), the leading supplier of omni-channel sports betting technology, has finalised its senior management team following the acquisition of BGT by Playtech last year.

As previously announced, heading up the team as chief executive will be Dr. Armin Sageder, who led BGT to a market-leading position in retail sports betting technology after founding the supplier in 2005.

John Pettit will act as the managing director for the UK, Ireland, Asia and Australia, covering retail and digital operations in these territories.

Dietmar Wiesinger will operate in a similar managing director role for the rest of the world.

NSoft chooses Beehive’s data-driven marketing platform

April 2017 (Tel Aviv) – NSoft, provider of top quality software solutions for the betting and gaming industry, has agreed a deal to integrate the omni-channel marketing platform from data-driven marketing experts Beehive.

The B2B agreement will see the Beehive engine sub-licensed to clients who use the NSoft platform.

NSoft has a number of clients across eastern Europe and Latin America, including Balkan Bet and SuperBet, further extending Beehive’s geographic reach.

All NSoft clients will now have access to the powerful Beehive engine, that helps operators to optimise their marketing campaigns utilising data-driven personalised messages.

May the Norse be with you!

Play’n GO invites players to enter world of Viking Runecraft

April 2017 – An epic journey among the Norse Gods awaits players taking on the challenge of award-winning slots specialist Play’n GO’s latest title, Viking Runecraft.

The HTML5-enabled, cascading slot immerses players in ancient mythology with impressive playability and social elements, as well as industry-leading visuals and sound.

Incorporating the latest in gameplay technology, it offers the chance to earn big prizes by forming winning rune symbol combinations across Play’n GO’s first ever 7×7 grid slot. Players will also seek out bonus rewards by filling the Charge of Destruction bar or initiating the Ragnarök feature, where they can benefit from up to 15 times multipliers.

NextGen Gaming’s senior management team strengthened with double appointment

David Johnson and Scott Dawson transition within NYX Gaming Group

April 2017 (LAS VEGAS, USA) NYX Gaming Group (TSX-V: NYX), the market-leading end-to-end supplier and technology provider, has strengthened its in-house content studio NextGen Gaming with the senior appointments of David Johnson as Chief Commercial Officer and Scott Dawson as Chief Operations Officer.

Johnson re-joins NextGen Gaming after 4 years with NYX Gaming Group where he was most recently VP Casino Sales; Dawson transitions from his former GM Content Delivery position. Completing the senior team, NextGen Gaming co-founder Scott Smith remains CEO.

Commenting on his new role, Johnson said: “I’m delighted to be back with NextGen Gaming having previously enjoyed a hugely rewarding time where we pioneered some of the industry’s most successful slots, prior to the inception of NYX Gaming Group. We have a number of compelling new game concepts under development, some attractive partner engagement plans and the advent of new technologies to enable partner suppliers optimal speed to market and ease of deployment.”

Videoslots.com goes live with Core Gaming

April 2017 – Innovative online casino Videoslots.com has agreed a deal to integrate a selection of titles from Core Gaming, a world leader in the development of HTML5 slots.

Videoslots has already introduced six of Core Gaming’s titles to its website – including Beehive Bedlam and Pharaoh’s Wild – with three more going live shortly.

The deal will also see Videoslots integrate Core Gaming’s full pipeline of slots – an average of 1.5 per month – in keeping with its mission to work with the industry’s most trusted providers and increase its portfolio in the UK.

Daniel Hansen, head of games at Videoslots.com, said:“This deal with Core Gaming is the latest in a long line as we bid to offer players the very best range of slots in the industry.

Totally Gaming Academy brings world class training to Juegos Miami

Delegates attending the forthcoming Juegos Miami (May 31st – June 2nd, The Biltmore, Miami)) will be able to benefit from the expertise and experience of two of the gaming industry’s most accomplished trainers. The acclaimed Totally Gaming Academy (TGA), will be holding its one-day, fast-track masterclasses covering the fundamentals of casino performance improvement and the key areas of operating a profitable sports book operation.  The Slot Academy module will be led by TGA founder Lucien Wijsman, a proven casino slot marketer with over 25 years of experience in operating casinos, developing TQM systems and advising the R&D departments of casino suppliers.  The Sportsbook Management Academy is being taken by Course Director Lee Richardson, founder and CEO of Gaming Economics, an international e-gaming consultancy and advisory business.  The cost of attending is $199 and is restricted to Juegos Miami attendees.

The Slot Academy course comprises: It’s All About the Marketing and the Marketing Mix – understanding the seven Ps of the Marketing Mix in relation to Slot and Electronic Gaming floors to improve floor ROI; Who Are Our Customers and What Do They Expect? – exploring the expectations of the different player profiles, considering product, price, promotions and placement of the slot product; Myth & Math: Volatility and Hit Frequency Explained – covering machine meters and how different volatility and hit rates affect gameplay, and Myth & Math: What Players Expect from the Math – learning how to utilize knowledge of volatility and hit rates to apply to player profiles.

Lee Richardson’s Sportsbook Management Academy will feature: Perspective – explaining the evolution of the sports betting industry, the different options available for operating platforms and understanding trading and liability management principles; Product & Profit – reviewing and analysing products by bet type, market and sport and focusing on betting patterns in relation to product categories, and Planning & People – analysing demand management, planning and KPIs alongside understanding new structure and people management issues.

All attendees who complete the masterclasses will receive certification from the Totally Gaming Academy.

Calling the Clock: MILLIONS, celebrity juice, and HashtagWTF?

In this week’s poker news round-up we remind you that the partypoker MILLIONS Dusk till Dawn should be an award winner, what a great week it was for female poker, and a not so great week for Salomon Ponte.

In March, PokerStars’s Eric Hollreiser penned a blog post welcoming renewed interest in live events from his company’s competition.

“We believe competition is good for players and good for poker,” Hollreiser wrote.“Competition makes everyone work harder, be better and it builds more energy and excitement around the game, which in turn creates a rising tide that lifts all boats.”

The tide is rising, Eric.

Dzmitry Urbanovich signs with an online poker room…guess who?

All time live tournament money earner in Poland, Dzmitry Urbanovich, has been rewarded for his success by signing a sponsorship deal with one of the largest online poker rooms in the world, but which one?

It was only one sleep ago that I was writing about the exodus of gambling companies from the Polish market. In the middle of those 600+ words, you may have noticed that I proposed the Polish Gaming regulators should have given the job of writing the live tournament regulatory guidelines to Dzmitry Urbanovich.

They are too late.

He has a new job.

NBA playoff betting: Three game 6 matchups on tap for Friday

Two of the three Game 6s scheduled for Friday will see the road teams attempting to close out their opponents while another will get that opportunity at home.

Odds courtesy of OddsShark.com

The fifth-seeded Utah Jazz have taken advantage of the absence of Blake Griffin for the fourth-seeded Los Angeles Clippers to seize a 3-2 series lead, and they are listed as six-point home favorites to advance. The top-seeded Golden State Warriors await the winner.

Utah is coming off a 96-92 win at Los Angeles in Game 5 on Tuesday, pulling off the upset as a three-point road underdog. Gordon Hayward led the Jazz with 27 points, as his team won the battle in the paint with Griffin out, outscoring them 34-28 there and out rebounding them by a 43-34 margin.

EPL week 35 odds analysis: Chelsea will slip up at Everton

EPL week 35 odds analysis: Chelsea will slip up at Everton

Lee Davy takes a look at the weekend’s English Premier League action as we reach the business end of the competition and believes Spurs will close the gap to one point after Chelsea slip up at Everton.

We are nearing the end.

Pretty soon we will have nothing to do on a Saturday afternoon except spend time with the kids.

Macau junkets insist they’ve hung up on proxy betting

Macau’s junket operators say they’re not to blame for the rise in gamblers flouting the ban on the use of phones at casino gaming tables.

In May 2016, Macau’s Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau (DICJ) banned gamblers from using phones at casino tables. The ban was intended to prohibit proxy betting, in which a trusted proxy relays real-time baccarat information to a gambler (usually) on the Chinese mainland, who then issues instructions on how to bet on each hand.

On Thursday, GGRAsia reported that, between May 9, 2016 and April 16, 2017, the DICJ had issued 71 verbal cautions to gamblers who were observed flouting the ban. Interestingly, the majority (49) of these warnings were issued since the new year began, suggesting that either the casinos are doing a worse job of educating gamblers about the rules, or gamblers are hoping the DICJ’s stance would loosen over time.

The DICJ stressed that the gamblers they had to caution “usually” stopped using their phones after being advised to hang it up and that “no irregularities were detected in their play afterwards.” The DICJ noted that none of the 71 cautions were deemed worthy of passing on to the Judiciary Police for “follow-up action.”

American Gaming Association lays out sports betting principles

The American Gaming Association (AGA) has unveiled four policy principles for legal sports betting, none of which (sadly) include adding Arnold Rothstein’s face to Mount Rushmore.

On Thursday, the AGA’s board ratified its view of how the US gaming industry should advocate for legal betting on sporting events. The AGA decided it liked legal sports betting back in 2015 and ever since the group has been ramping up its efforts to convince legislators to dismantle the federal PASPA sports betting prohibition.

Three of the AGA’s ten commandments, er, four principles, are pretty beige, including ensuring proper licensing and regulation of sports betting operators, making their business transparent to law enforcement agencies and ensuring that betting taxes aren’t so onerous that they drive bettors to seek out better priced options at internationally licensed online sportsbooks.

However, the other principle would leave it up to individual US states whether or not to permit sports betting within their borders. This mirrors the approach taken by New Jersey in its multi-year quest to overturn PASPA but appears to conflict with the stance taken by National Basketball Association commish Adam Silver, who wants to see the federal government dictate the nation’s sports betting rules.