Monthly Archives: December 2017

Palace casino live dealer studio goes live with Ezugi

Romania, 19th December – Casino Palace SRL., a leading land-based casino operator in Bucharest, of the Palace Casino brand located at the historical monument of Casa Vernescu, today announced that in conjunction with Ezugi a leading technology provider specializing in live dealer solutions, certified by the Romanian National Gambling Office (ONJN) have launched a live casino studio.

The agreement, which is with Live Gaming Productions SRL., part of the Casino Palace Group, sees Ezugi utilizing its HD casino streaming technology and expertise to broadcast live and direct from a dedicated studio within the casino. The studio offers Blackjack and Roulette tables with additional table games to be added in the coming weeks, Romanian and English-speaking dealers and unique branding and marketing opportunities for private tables and dedicated online environments.

Kfir Kugler, CEO of Ezugi said: “Opening a studio in Romania is part of our on-going regulation strategy. Partnering with the local Casino Palace Group, a company known for its continuous quality, exceptional service and luxurious facilities is a bonus. We are committed to providing our regulated clients and their players with the best live dealer offering and experience across all channels. We are the only live dealer technology provider offering live streaming from studios across three continents – Europe, South America and Asia.

Gene M. Lerner, Chief Commercial Officer of Live Gaming Productions commented: “I am delighted to make this agreement with Ezugi. They are one of the most established and successful live casino platform and studio providers in the world. This fits extremely well with our brand strategy, to offer a superb live casino gaming experience within the Romanian regulated gaming market and I look forward to growing this exciting new partnership.”

GPL India: a new partner, a new name, and a new focus

We aren’t sportifying poker no more. Kwan Entertainment and Mediarex Sports & Entertainment ink a deal to bring Global Player League to India and as you can tell there is no poker in that name. 

The Global Poker League (GPL) brought Fedor Holz to tears. I watched him stand on stage on the night of the draft, choking back the saline, as he described his pride at being selected.

A lot has changed since then.

The Montreal Nationals won the thing. Fedor Holz won everything else, (grabbing the attention of podcast prince Lewis Howes no less), and the GPL lost the word Poker from the title.

Gary 2.0: Unikrn and MGM strike deal to attract new blood to adult’s playground

ESports betting platform Unikrn, and one of the world’s largest land-based gambling companies, MGM Resorts International, partner to offer competitive video gaming and esports competitions at the MGM Grand in a bid to attract new blood to the casino industry.

Facebook told me that my friend Gary was in a hospital recovering from spinal surgery. I had one of those internal conversations about whether to cry? I decided it was best to find out what the damage was first.

He’s been in my head all day.

I love the guy.

3 Barrels: SvZff could be world #1; Malakias triple win; Kenney the King

Three barrels of pure value including Steven ‘SvZff’ taking down another major online tournament; a triple winner on 888Poker, and Bryn Kenney to end the year as the main man. 

Poker rankings don’t typically mirror the success of our major tournament winners, but that could change if Steven ‘SvZff’ van Zadelhoff continues to shake up online poker rooms like Charlie Parker did to jazz clubs.

As frustrated and skint parents begin throwing themselves off the top of Christmas trees like a strange breed of lemming, the winner of the World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) Main Event, and $1.6m first prize, is looking likely to end the year as the world number one online multi-table tournament (MTT) player.

Over the weekend, the man with the fiercest beard in poker took down partypoker’s $250,000 Guaranteed Title Fight. The $215 buy-in attracted 1,050 entrants, and SvZff beat the lot to capture the $43,000 first prize after the hosts had to fork out a $40,000 overlay.

Denmark’s ‘do not resuscitate’ online poker market

Denmark’s regulated gambling market achieved record revenue in the third quarter of 2017, as mobile channels accounted for over half of all sports wagers.

On Friday, the Spillemyndigheden regulatory agency released its official tally of the regulated gambling market’s performance in the three months ending September 30. Overall revenue from both online and land-based sources came to DKK 1.497b (US $237m), up 9.3% from the same period last year and up 2.4% from Q2 2017.

Overall sports betting revenue drove the numbers, rising 9% year-on-year to DKK 577m despite stakes falling 4.6% to their lowest level since Q4 2015. Land-based wagering accounted for only 33.4% of betting revenue, more than desktop online revenue (16.1%) but significantly less than mobile channels (50.5%).

Mobile platforms did even better on the betting turnover chart, accounting for 54% of all stakes. Desktop wagering claimed a 21.5% share, with the remaining 23.7% placed with land-based bookmaker.

CardsChat Interview: Eric Baldwin on Winning Big in Vegas While Playing Poker as Family Man

Few players had better years than Wisconsin’s Eric Baldwin in 2009 and 2010, winning more than $1.51 million then nearly $1.53 million year after year traveling the poker circuit. Things […]

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CardsChat Interview: Eric Baldwin on Winning Big in Vegas While Playing Poker as Family Man

Few players had better years than Wisconsin’s Eric Baldwin in 2009 and 2010, winning more than $1.51 million then nearly $1.53 million year after year traveling the poker circuit. Things […]

The post CardsChat Interview: Eric Baldwin on Winning Big in Vegas While Playing Poker as Family Man appeared first on .

Mission complete as ORYX and Kalamba deal delivers strong results

December 19th 2017 – ORYX Gaming has expanded its content portfolio by agreeing a development and licensing deal with slots and casino content creator Kalamba Games.

The international games studio’s content has recently been made available on ORYX’s RGS platform and has been performing brilliantly. One of the major contributing factors to the positive results has been thanks to Kalamba’s unique in-game Mission features and revolutionary promotional tools.

These are designed to drive player engagement, retention, increase deposit frequencies and deliver reliable revenue streams. Operators now also have the opportunity to create the kinds of promotions that were never previously available.

With the Mission feature, players are completely immersed in the action as they must collect different symbols or hit a number of features for a chance to win massive payouts. There are three different Missions for players to explore and progress can be saved, so players will always be encouraged to come back for more fun!

UltraPlay boosts its eSports betting offering with GWENT: The Witcher Card Game

Advanced betting solutions provider UltraPlay has recently announced that GWENT is the brand-new game title to be added to the company’s rich eSports betting portfolio. UltraPlay is the first online gaming provider to offer betting on the popular card game GWENT.

The new game aboard reconfirms the company’s widest eSports betting portfolio consistent with 25 competitive games now. UltraPlay’s games coverage includes diversified options of games’ genres, modes, ways of betting and a wide variety of markets covered by the experienced team of the company’s in-house traders.

Peter Ivanov, Head of eSports trading at UltraPlay has commented on the new offering: “Gwent is a perfect choice for a card game that offers endless fun to the players. The eSports betting brands using UltraPlay’s products will be one step ahead of the competition providing another exciting option to their players.

We believe that the game holds a great potential to attract many eSports punters with passion and experience in card games.”

iGaming goes to war with video gaming industry

Oulala CEO warns that the sector is in danger of being colonised

Monaco/Malta – 19th December 2017 – Oulala CEO Valery Bollier made some surprising remarks regarding the future of the iGaming sector during his recent speech at the industry event in Monaco.

Bollier, CEO and Co-founder of an award-winning Daily Fantasy Football B2B provider, recently visited the principality on the French Riviera where he spoke at the World Gaming Expo.

He explained that there seems to be a significant dissonance between what the industry wants the customers to desire and what the customers and potential clients are actually looking for: ”Over the last 4 years, Oulala has directed its attention exclusively towards understanding the exact needs of these new generations, often referred to as millennials. We have learnt, first and foremost, that they want skill games.”

Magic game releases from Wazdan

December 19, 2017, Malta – Wazdan, the major casino games producer with products covering slots, table games and video poker has worked a bit of magic by releasing two games that extend their award-winning portfolio further to well over 100 casino-friendly titles. Both Magic Fruits 4 Deluxe and Magic Hot 4 Deluxe are built on Wazdan’s heritage with a pedigree for producing high-quality games that are attractive to players and casinos alike.

The highlight of Magic Hot 4 Deluxe is the exciting gamble-win feature, which allows players to increase their chance of a big win in this 4-reel, 10-payline magic game set in a gloomy gothic castle perched on a hill replete with magic symbols, suggesting elements of mystery, danger, and the supernatural. Players get rich by finding a wizard in the magic reels that feature an immersive soundscape. Land 4 witches on three horizontal lines for a spell-binding prize.

Wazdan’s energy as a game-maker continues unabated with the launch of Magic Fruits 4 Deluxe featuring 4 reels,10 paylines and various special features in this orchard filled with forbidden fruits. Additional features include special Joker symbols and a ‘Risk’ mode. Each symbol occurring on the reels of the game may have a unique small Joker symbol attached to it. If at least 3 or 4 symbols with this tiny additional emblem are caught on the winning horizontal line, players win the main prize, even if the main symbols are completely different and do not match one another.

As with the majority of Wazdan’s new releases, Magic Fruits 4 Deluxe features the extraordinary Gamble button which appears after each win. Players may double their prizes up to seven times if they decide to risk their winnings by guessing which one of two wooden fruit crates holds fresh fruit.

Mr Green add Redbet in €7m Evoke Gaming acquisition

Swedish online gambling operator Mr Green has acquired the operations of Evoke Gaming, which include the Redbet.com gambling site.

On Monday, Mr Green announced that it had reached an all-cash €7m deal to acquire the Malta-based Evoke Gaming from Bonnier Growth Media. Evoke’s online gambling brands include Redbet, Vinnarum casino, and the Bertil and MamaMia bingo sites, all of which are primarily focused on Sweden and other Nordic markets.

Mr Green says Evoke generated revenue of €15.5m in 2016, while reporting an earnings loss of €4.6m that year. Through the first nine months of 2017, revenue dipped to €7.4m while the earnings loss totaled €4.4m.

Mr Green claims that Evoke’s disappointing 2017 numbers were negatively impacted by the migration to a new technology platform and restructuring measures that Mr Green insists will be done by the time the acquisition is expected to close in Q1 2018.

Global Poker League Partners with Bollywood Talent Agency for Poker, Esports Push in India

The Global Poker League’s move into India will be boosted by the country’s largest talent management agency, Kwan Entertainment. A Dec. 18 press release outlined details of the partnership, which […]

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Lottoland unveils Bitcoin Lotto, world’s first Bitcoin lottery

Online lottery betting operator Lottoland is hopping on the cryptocurrency bandwagon by offering what it claims is the world’s first Bitcoin lottery.

Lottoland recently announced that “the world is going Bitcoin bonkers and so are we” via the launch of Bitcoin Lotto. The game is a standard 6/49 style numeric lottery draw – based on the official results of Spanish lottery Bonolotto – but any one player who manages to correctly match all six numbers will win a jackpot of 1k BTC, worth approximately €14.2m at the time of Lottoland’s announcement.

In the case of multiple winners, each winners’ share of the Bitcoin Lotto jackpot will depend on the number of Bonolotto jackpot winners. As explained on the Lottoland website, “if there are 2 Lottoland winners of the Bitcoin lotto and 2 winners of the Bonoloto jackpot, the 2 Lottoland winners would each win 250 BTC.”

Following Bitcoin Lotto draws, which start on December 18 and run every day except Sundays, Lottoland will lock in the current value of 1k BTC as listed on Coinbase charts. This value will be converted back into BTC when the winner officially requests payment via BTC.

Penn, Pinnacle and Boyd in US regional casino three-way deal

Monday was a big day in the US regional casino sector, with three-way deal-making involving Penn National Gaming (PNG), Pinnacle Entertainment and Boyd Gaming.

The day’s major announcement came as PNG confirmed it had reached a $2.8b cash-and-shares deal to acquire Pinnacle, cementing PNG’s status as the nation’s biggest regional gaming operator. Rumors of such a deal had been circulating since October.

Pinnacle owns and operates 16 gaming venues, but PNG will only be absorbing 12 of these properties. PNG reached a separate all-cash $575m deal that will see Boyd Gaming assume control over four Pinnacle venues: Ameristar St. Charles (Missouri); Ameristar Kansas City (Missouri); Belterra Casino Resort in Florence, Indiana; and Belterra Park in Cincinnati, Ohio.

The enlarged PNG will operate a total of 41 gaming venues in North America, which offer a combined 53k slot machines, 1,300 gaming tables, 8,300 hotel rooms and roughly 35k employees. The deal is expected to be complete sometime in H2 2018, subject to approval by regulators in the states in which the companies operate.