Monthly Archives: May 2018

BetInvest scores big at G2E Asia

A record 17,000 guests. 37,000m2 of floor space. 220 exhibitions. The 12th Annual Global Gaming Expo in Macao – G2E Asia 2018 – would be an easy place to get lost in all the noise. But equipped with one of the hottest innovations in gaming this year, BetInvest made an impressive debut at this mecca of the global gaming industry elite.

BetInvest’s sports betting solutions generated a lot of interest. Making its mark was BetInvest’s proprietary omni-channel architecture CRM Octopus. A certified G2E Asia “HOT HIT”, Octopus was a top performer on the G2E Asia Mobile App, generating thousands of “likes” from the G2E crowd, hundreds of enquiries from gaming providers, and hovering at the top of the floor show “heat index” during the entire expo.

Taking part in G2E Asia was a big win for BetInvest – the results speak for themselves:

• 300 serious client enquiries about our brand

Super High Roller Bowl day 2: Bonomo leads an in-form crowd

Day 2 of the Super High Roller Bowl comes to a close with Justin Bonomo leading 14 players, most of which are in the form of their lives.

The Super High Roller Bowl (SHRB) is in town.

Yesterday, I interrupted your day to tell you that Daniel Negreanu ended Day 1 with a Godzilla like chip lead, and today, I am about to tell you if Kid Poker maintained his chokehold as Day 2 wilted away.

But first.

Head still reeling from three days of G2E Asia? Ours is!

First of all, a huge thanks to everyone who visited the show and joined our party (more on that later, we’re still piecing bits of memories together). You’ll be hearing from our team shortly as we are getting our new initiatives rolling fast.

While there were over 100 suppliers showing slots, slots and slots, RTG Asia was the only supplier delivering “More Than Just ‘More Slots.’” With our focus on improving player lifetime value, visitors to the stand got to try our games and win prizes celebrating Real Time Gaming’s 20th anniversary while experiencing one of our new RTG Engage mechanics, a pop-up Lucky Wheel Jackpot. This is just one of RTG Engage’s mechanics that are triggered by player behaviour.

Definitely a highlight for many of the attendees was the arrival of our brand ambassador, the beautiful and popular Taiwanese “web J” Sprite The paparazzi were all over her and our unveiling of her new mermaid persona to be released in her game next quarter. Did she steal the show? Certainly felt like it while she was at our stand.

We also unveiled two great new “generation 2.0” games, San Guo Zhang Tsa (Three Kingdoms) and Tian Di Yuan Su (Five Elements). Both represent the influence of RTG Asia in our continued push for game development specifically for the Asian market. Great themes, great music, great maths and more animations in the background, on the reels, on and across the symbols.

From Crypto to Weed: Scotty Nguyen signs a one-year deal with Canna Hemp

Scotty Nguyen, the Prince of Poker, is back in the news after securing a one-year licensing deal with a leading cannabis, hemp and CBD producer in Nevada to promote two Nguyen focused products. 

When Cryptonia Poker announced Scotty Nguyen as their brand ambassador, two things struck me like a blind paperboy on an off day – the World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event champ has hired a publicist, and he or she isn’t very good.

I tried.

I really tried.

Huge success for Yobetit at Malta’s iGaming Excellence Awards

Yobetit has been recognised by the Malta iGaming Excellence Awards (MIGEA) for its excellence on many counts. The Maltese betting company was announced not once, but four times as the winner of an award during the lavish 2018 event hosted by MBR Publications Limited in Malta. As the sun dipped under the horizon, laughter and celebration echoed in the night. Darkness blanketed the sky and Yobetit sparkled exceptionally bright.

From the outset, Yobetit has been a leading company in the betting industry in Malta, and this year has proven to be exceptionally so. The MIGEA night proved to be truly wonderful for Yobetit as the company got the recognition it deserved. The online betting company stood out from its competitors, and for that reason the panel of judges at the MIGEA 2018 named Yobetit;

1. Best Gaming Online Betting Platform of the Year

2. Malta’s Best iGaming Ambassador of the Year

Rivalry.gg launch in-play esports betting; Asian Games to include esports

The dedicated esports betting platform, Rivalry.gg launches a live, in-play betting option, and players will compete in six esports titles at the 2018 Asian Games with Olympic approval the ultimate goal.

Many moons ago I visited the track for my cousin’s birthday. I always had a knife inside of me back then when it came to betting. I had to be careful not to stick myself with it.

My wife at the time, who would, for a good reason, worry about my increasing capacity to lose my shit whenever I could gamble, came up with the brilliant idea of placing our bets on the Internet before we left for the track, preventing the knife from twisting and turning.

It was a brilliant idea until it wasn’t.

Study: Neighbors of lottery winners are more likely to go bankrupt

As if you needed proof that trying to keep up with the Joneses isn’t a good idea, here it is: Close neighbors of lottery winners in Canada tended to spend more on conspicuous goods, put more money into speculative investments such as stocks, borrow more money — and eventually declare bankruptcy.After the Big Win, Canada, Study, General Interest

US military war games imagine pro-online gambling hackers

The future leaders of the US military apparently believe that hacker collectives will target state governments’ critical infrastructure unless these government legalize online gambling.

According to a new Common Dreams report, a 2016 war game conducted by students and faculty from the US military’s war colleges envisioned a scenario in which the hacker collective known as Anonymous targeted state governments it deemed insufficiently receptive to the concept of legal online gambling.

Specifically, the 33rd annual Joint Land, Air, and Sea Strategic Special Program crafted a revisionist history in which Anonymous was declared a terrorist organization following a make-believe 2015 attack on Louisiana’s power grid using software tools similar to the Stuxnet worm that the Israeli and US governments (allegedly) used to destroy Iran’s nuclear centrifuges in 2010.

In this alternative history, Anonymous singled out Louisiana for cyber-terror after the state government failed to lift restrictions on online gambling. The pretend cyber-attack resulted in a lack of electricity to retirement homes, rendering air conditioning inoperable, leading to the deaths of 15 senior citizens.

Macau gaming-related illegal detentions drop significantly

Macau reported a significant reduction in gaming-related unlawful detentions in the first quarter of 2018, even as the overall crime rate rose.

On Monday, Macau’s Secretary for Security Wong Sio Chak released the official crime statistics for the special administrative region of China over the first three months of 2018. The Macau Judiciary Police (PJ) handled 3,547 cases in Q1, a modest 1.7% increase from the same period last year.

The number of gaming-related cases decreased 9.4% to 384. There was a 20% rise in the number of cases related to loan sharking (107), of which 102 were gaming-related. The increase came despite Wong saying that the PJ had broken up several loan-sharking rings during the quarter.

However, the number of gaming-related detentions – in which gamblers are held until relatives or friends on the mainland can make good the debt – was down nearly 44% to 59. Wong didn’t offer specifics on how the drastic decrease was achieved.

Social gaming revenue up 18% due to even higher mobile gains

Free-play social gaming operators started 2018 off on the right foot by posting double-digit revenue growth in the first quarter.

CDC Gaming Reports recently summarized a new social gaming market recap by Eilers & Krecjik Gaming which claimed the overall social gaming market enjoyed revenue of $1.27b in the first three months of 2018, an 18% improvement over the same period last year and an undeniably staggering sum considering players can’t actually win anything beyond the ability to keep playing.

As with most online gambling metrics these days, social gaming’s Q1 gains were driven largely by mobile devices, which enjoyed revenue growth of more than one-quarter. Eilers & Krecjjik said the overall social gaming market was worth $4.72b over the past 12 months, up one-fifth year-on-year.

Playtika, the former Caesars Interactive Entertainment property that was acquired by a Chinese consortium for $4.4b in 2016, claimed top honors with revenue of $348m. Playtika represents more than one-quarter of the overall social gaming market, thanks in part to the enduring popularity of its Slotomania social casino app.

Baha Mar driving Bahamas tourism, not cannibalizing Atlantis

The Baha Mar casino resort is being credited for driving a nearly one-fifth rise in tourist traffic to the Bahamas.

On Monday, the Bahamas Tribune quoted Minister of Tourism Dionisio D’Aguilar saying that the island nation had welcomed 18% more air arrivals in the first quarter of 2018 than in the same period last year. And the new $4.2b Baha Mar integrated resort, which opened its doors to the public last April, is being credited with helping to drive the growth.

D’Aguilar said the additional 63k air arrivals have been ramping up since the year began, with growth of 7% in January, 16.7% in February and 26.1% in March. D’Aguilar projected the double-digit growth trend to continue through the current quarter.

D’Aguilar noted that the Ministry had decided to focus its marketing efforts online, following research that showed two-thirds of Bahamas-bound tourists booked their vacations online.

Ardent Group buys 44% of Swiss casino for online gambling

Swiss casino operator Stadtcasino Baden AG has sold a major chunk of its Davos gaming venue to Belgium’s Ardent Group to prep for the expected launch of legal online gambling in Switzerland.

On Tuesday, Stadtcasino announced that it had sold 44% of its Casino Davos property to Ardent (the former Circus Groupe). Stadtcasino will retain a 46% stake in the venue, while the Davos Tourism Organization will hold the remaining 10% stake.

Stadtcasino Baden called the deal a “strategic decision” intended to lean on Ardent’s “many years of online casino experience.” In addition to land-based operations, Ardent operates online via six different platforms in multiple jurisdictions, including Belgium, Portugal, Spain and Colombia.

In preparation for Switzerland’s expected transition to legal online casino play, Grand Casino Baden spent around CHF500k to launch a free-play online casino site (JackPots.ch) last year that is powered by Ardent’s B2B division Gaming1.