Australian online sports betting operator Sportsbet has drawn first blood in its trademark fight with down under betting rival Sportingbet.

Last month, Sportsbet, the Australian division of UK-listed gambling operator Paddy Power Betfair, filed a trademark infringement lawsuit against CrownBet, a brand owned by Canadian gaming operator The Stars Group (TSG), which planned to rebrand its Australian operations under the Sportingbet moniker.

On Wednesday, the Sydney Morning Herald reported that the Federal Court had granted Sportsbet’s request for a temporary injunction against Crownbet’s rebranding plans. The court evidently found sufficient merit in Sportsbet’s claims that the two brands were substantially similar and that the planned Sportingbet reboot was likely to create confusion among Aussie punters.

A Sportsbet spokesperson claimed the injunction reflected the court’s agreement with Sportsbet’s argument that “consumers will be misled into thinking services offered under a Sportingbet brand are connected or associated with Sportsbet.” The spokesperson vowed that Sportsbet would continue to “take all necessary action to protect its brand.”

Yet another online gambling platform has made the switch to Bitcoin Cash (BCH), the only true Bitcoin and the world’s functional cryptocurrency.

On Tuesday, Blockchain Poker announced that its app’s currency now defaults to Bitcoin BCH as the cryptocurrency allows the platform to “ensure that people are continually blown away by just how amazing cryptocurrencies can be.”

When it started out in 2015, Blockchain Poker originally supported BTC due to its low fees, reliable transactions and growing ecosystem. But that growth came to a stop in 2017, when the SegWit BTC chain moved away from the original Satoshi Nakamoto white paper’s vision of a “peer-to-peer electronic cash system.” BTC blocks remained capped at only 1MB in size, resulting in massive backlogs due to its inability to scale.

“Now in 2018, high network fees and limited block space have priced out most of Bitcoin’s original use cases and driven away both businesses and users (yes, users, not hodlers) and industry growth continues to take place using other platforms; mainly Ethereum tokens, Bitcoin Cash, or other ‘crypto-like’ proprietary closed-source platforms,” the Blockchain Poker said.

UK-based sports spread betting specialist Sporting Index will have to cough up more than £30,000 ($39,735) after making a novelty World Cup offer blunder.

The Guardian reported that Sporting Index miscalculated the number of times the ball would cross the line during the World Cup without a goal ultimately being given when it offered a novelty bet called “Shocking Decision, Ref!”

Sporting Index initially thought that the magic number 22.5 was a safe estimate for the novelty bet, which was derived with the help of the tournament’s Video Assistant Referee (VAR) review system.

Things were going well in Sporting Bet until high-stakes gambler Simon Cawkwell came in like a man on a mission. The former city trader reportedly made a bet that was lower than Sporting Index numbers, thanks to the advice of Andrew Woolfson, co-founder of gambling software firm Be The House.

The parent company of online poker giant PokerStars has successfully taken over UK online gambling operator Sky Betting & Gaming (Sky Bet).

In a regulatory filing, The Stars Group (TSG) announced that it has completed the $4.7 billion acquisition of Sky Bet and its various brands from CVC Capital Partners and media giant Sky PLC. This makes TSG the world’s largest publicly-listed online gaming company.

The Stars Group CEO Rafi Ashkenazi described the acquisition of Sky Bet as “a pivotal moment” in the company’s evolution since it will now be able to develop sports betting “as a second customer acquisition channel.”

Acquiring Sky Bet will also improve the company’s revenue diversity, creating a balanced spread across poker, casino and sportsbook with a broad geographic reach, according to Ashkenazi. He added that taking over Sky Bet will help increase The Stars Group’s presence in locally regulated markets.

Australian-listed casino operator Crown Resorts Ltd. may have dodged a fatal bullet during the review of its operating license after the Victorian Commission for Gambling and Liquor Regulation (VCGLR) brushed aside allegations that the casino tampered its poker machines.

An infuriated Australian MP Andrew Wilkie has accused the VCGLR of selling out to Crown after it failed to consider the testimonies of two whistleblowers on the poker tampering issue due to small technicalities, according to the Sydney Morning Herald report.

Wilkie claimed that the state regulator threw out the statement of his first whistleblower because the man wished to remain anonymous, while the other whistleblower felt her testimony wouldn’t matter after she was told that the VCGLR investigator wasn’t interested in the tampering issue.

The Australian MP reminded VCGLR chair Ross Kennedy that the state regulator has protocols that allowed anonymous complaints.

This is The Mouthpiece, a guest contribution by Martin Owens. If you would like to submit a contribution please contact Bill Beatty for submission details. Thank you.

“Often  judgement and justice are worlds apart”

― Emmeline Pankhurst

As American state governments gear up to license sports betting, there are various approaches on such things as taxation, who should be allowed to participate, and so forth. There is just one thing all parties are agreed on: this will be under U.S. state gambling laws. Unlicensed parties should not be allowed to participate.

An estimate for Macau gross gaming revenue (GGR) from VIP gaming just took a substantial hit. According to the Japanese brokerage Nomura, the VIP GGR estimate for next year was slashed in half, falling from 14% to 7%. The brokerage is concerned over the “recent flattening of volume growth from junkets,” which resulted in the estimate update.

Nomura also dropped the Macau GGR forecast from 14% to 9% through the end of 2020. This was done to “reflect a more sustainable mid-single digit increase in VIP demand and low-double digit mass growth.” According to Nomura analysts Daniel Adam, Brian Dobson and Harry Curtis, they based their analysis on conversations held with executives from different Macau casinos. If there is any consolation, it is that this year’s VIP revenue forecast by the brokerage comes in at $21.20 billion, an increase of 13% year-on-year.

There has been a slight decrease in revenue during June and July this year, brought about in part by the FIFA World Cup playoffs taking place in Russia. Tak Chun Group, a major junket company operating in Macau, said that the soccer tournament has had a “slight impact” on its business, but the impact was in line with what has seen during previous World Cup competitions.

The analysts based their results, in part, on the current political tension between the US and China and the accompanying trade war. They said, “Geopolitical uncertainty in China is high due not just to the brewing trade war, but also because of Beijing’s efforts to rein in excessive company leverage. On the downside, if last week’s imposition of a US$34-billion bilateral tariff [between China and US] increases toward US$100 billion, then we’d expect economic (and junket) activity to contract further.”

A bill making its way through the Philippine Congress could have an everlasting impact on the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (PAGCOR). The bill would reportedly eliminate a tax incentive called the “in lieu of all taxes,” which is extended to an array of businesses and industries, including the country’s gaming regulator. If approved, it’s a sure bet that the gaming environment in the Philippines will change significantly.

PAGCOR now pays a flat 30% corporate income tax, as well as a 5% franchise tax on gross gaming revenue. This incentive was offered to a number of entities and makes it simpler for them to calculate taxes each year. Instead of paying all taxes based on income, the program participants know at all times what their tax liability is.

Under the bill currently being considered, House Bill 7214, the incentive could be removed. This would result in the entities being forced to pay taxes on any and all revenue in accordance with the Philippine’s Tax Code, including taxes on income from gaming operations.

The bill still has a long way to go before it is passed. According to Rolan L. Bentulan of KPMG, an international auditing and advisory firm, “We may not know how this House bill will turn out — it can emerge to be a completely different law in the end. However, we all hope that our legislators prudently consider the pros and cons of their proposed amendments.”