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One great thing about the UFC from a betting standpoint is that it rarely takes a weekend off. There’s another Fight Night card from the organization’s Apex facility in Las Vegas this Saturday that is headlined by a welterweight bout between Americans Colby Covington and Tyron Woodley. The main card will start at 8 p.m. ET and is available on ESPN+.

An argument can be made the welterweight division is the deepest in the UFC. Kamaru Usman is the champion with Covington ranked second and Woodley fifth. Perhaps Saturday’s winner would be closer to a potential title shot next year – but probably only if it’s Covington.

The 32-year-old Covington (15-2), who was an excellent collegiate wrestler at a few stops in the United States, won the UFC’s interim welterweight title with a unanimous decision victory over Rafael dos Anjos in June 2018. Covington was then linked to a bout with the then-overall champion Woodley in September of that year but Covington had to pull out for health reasons.

After moderating the “Understanding and Reaching LatAm Players” panel last week at SBC’s Barcelona Digital Summit and with SiGMA LatAm coming up next week, the exciting LatAm iGaming market is predictably on my mind.

The current COVID situation has nudged gambling companies around the world who have yet to jump on the digital bandwagon and jurisdictions that have yet to regulate and bring in much those needed tax dollars. While devastating in so many regards, perhaps 2020 will be recognized as the year when the Latin America gambling industry truly took off. 

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTh9QX8Gpj4?feature=oembed]

“Its not a miracle that Latin America is pushing hard during these times. Its because the Latin American region has been run a lot by the land based business, a lot of the evolution to the digital business has been unfortunately but also fortunately pushed by the COVID reality”, BetGames.TV LatAm Sales Director Eddie Morales shared with me.

Online gambling heavyweight Playtech saw its profit plunge 85% in the first half of 2020 due to Asian black market restrictions and Italian pandemic shutdowns.

Figures released Thursday by the UK-listed Playtech show revenue of €564m in the six months ending June 30, down 22% from the same period last year. Adjusted (heavily) earnings were down only 15% to €162.3m but profit (the real kind, not adjusted) fell to just €4.6m from €24.8m in H1 2019.

Playtech’s business-to-business (B2B) operations reported revenue falling 13% to €229.7m, largely due to pandemic-related retail shutdowns. The halt of major sports activity led to a ‘significant’ betting revenue decline, ruining a ‘strong’ showing by online casino, bingo and poker (the latter added 19 new brands to its iPoker network in H1 following the demise of the Microgaming network).

So-called ‘Core B2B’ operations – aka not counting Asian black market ops – reported revenue falling 6%. The UK drove this Core decline, falling 30%, while regulated markets outside the UK grew 8%.

Apple has just released the latest version of its operating system iOS14 and the CalvinAyre.com team decided to take it for a test drive. Normally, Apple fans wouldn’t be seeing a new operating system at this time of year. But the COVID-19 pandemic has seen the tech giant turn its focus from the iPhone 12 to releasing a new piece of software.

If you have an iPhone 6s or newer, then you’ll be seeing the option download iOS14. The latest version of the operating system has a raft of new changes and we looked under the hood and picked out some of our favourite new editions to the iPhone after installing the update.

Apps Clips – Say hello to my little friend

App Clips is a new feature on iOS 14 that allows you to download pieces of functionality without having to install a new app on your iPhone. If you are using your phone for a COVID-19 check-in at a restaurant, buying coffee or renting a scooter App Clips will take out the hassle of simple tasks on your phone.

Some video games involve poker to improve its credibility or earn a higher certificate and make gamers think that the ‘18’ rating adult content is going to be sassier that simply bad guys swearing at each other as they pull out their guns.

In the case of 2010’s Red Dead Redemption, widely acclaimed to be one of the best, if not the best video game of all time, there was no need. John Marston, the main protagonist who you enjoy the game as, was a foul-mouthed sharp-shooting gang member who was prepared to kill or be killed in pursuit of saving his wife and young son.

There was no need to add in poker to make his seem more hardcore.

Possibly due to the unnecessary addition of the game, the poker in Red Dead Redemption is great. Not only can you play the game pretty close to how you might if you really were out in the Old West toting around a revolver and riding to the poker table on horseback, but the games are good. There are several challenges in the game that require Marston to prove his poker chops at the table and while any experienced poker player won’t take long cracking them – you’ll have to bluff, make profit and get the better of an opponent heads-up – there is a lot of fun to be had in doing so.

Listening to music while playing poker can really benefit your game. It can balance your mood, act as a neat deterrent to tilt and provides a terrific soundtrack to some of your best moments at the felt.

Which poker songs should you add to your current playlist? We’ve compiled ten absolute essentials of the genre, and there’s not a Lady Gaga song in sight.

Kenny Rogers – The Gambler

It would be impossible to look at songs you should add to a poker playlist without kicking off with this bona fide classic. Kenny Rogers was quite a storyteller in this song all about meeting an old poker player on a train ‘bound for nowhere’ and getting bluffed out of his last shot of whiskey. 

Tropicana has a new executive running the show in Atlantic City, and the appointment makes four out of the city’s nine casinos now under the control of females. It has long been recognized that women make outstanding executives, since they’re used to having to juggle many different activities at once, and Atlantic City is setting a new bar for even more selections of females in high-ranking executive positions. This won’t just be seen in the casino industry, but for any industry. 

Caesars Entertainment announced yesterday that it has promoted Jacqueline Grace to be the senior VP and GM of Tropicana Atlantic City. Not only is this a strong case for more female leadership, but Grace is also now one of two Black women to be in charge of a casino in the city. Melonie Johnson is the other, serving as the President and Chief Operating Officer of the Borgata. 

Casino leadership has undergone a lot of changes lately, and Caesars is more than willing to force a shift in how its operations are led. This will not only help its properties to become more diverse and successful, but it is also a direct challenge to the standard of having mostly white males calling the shots. Already, companies like IBM, DuPont, General Motors, Oracle and more have women at the helm. 

Grace says of her new appointment, “I started my gaming career in Atlantic City and I’m thrilled to return and join one of the top destinations in the market. This is an exciting time for our company, and I’m looking forward to working with the team to further position Tropicana for continued growth and success.” 

U.S. customers that had been grown accustomed to using Costa Rica-based sportsbook 5Dimes for their gambling entertainment were surprised when the operator announced earlier this month that it wanted to break up with them. It gave everyone just a limited amount of time to make their withdrawals and find an alternative, and it didn’t take long for speculation to begin as to why it was suddenly calling off the relationship. The leading theory had been that 5Dimes was, perhaps, considering an attempt to become licensed in the U.S., and that theory has now been confirmed. 

5Dimes founder “Tony” Creighton was kidnapped for $1 million in ransom in Costa Rica in 2019. His body was subsequently found almost a year later. The platform has been active for more than 20 years, and Creighton’s death was a shock to many, but 5Dimes continued to push forward without missing a beat. Laura Varela, the widow of the late entrepreneur, confirmed in a statement this week that an attempted entry into the regulated U.S. market is forthcoming, saying in a statement, “I am the widow of Sean ‘Tony’ Creighton. Sean worked incredibly hard to provide the best online sports betting experience to the 5Dimes community.

“Many of you are asking about the brand’s future. I am limited in what I can disclose right now. But there are definitely some positive surprises in store for you. I am working with experts and consultants to make sure that the brand that you have come to love is well represented in the regulated U.S. market.”

Gamblers in the U.S. who have used the site have until September 25 to withdraw their funds, and many are already running into issues when they submit their requests. There has been no shortage of frustration voiced on social media, and users are starting to get impatient with long wait times and problematic processes. “Five days since I requested [a] payout. Money still in the account, but the cashier says I can’t request money since it is paid out. If you want us back in the future, you better pay out what we are owed,” said one. Another added, “Still waiting on my bitcoin payout over six days now.” A third chimed in, “I hope for your sake that you’re lying about wanting to come back to the U.S. market. You’ll have a wrath of your current customers waging a negative publicity campaign against you.”

Everyone in Sweden knew changes were coming, but they didn’t know when. The country’s gambling regulator, Spelinspektionen, announced at the beginning of the year that it would be cracking down on the market in order to further combat potential match-fixing, particularly in soccer, directing its efforts primarily on prop bets and marketing. The hammer has now fallen and Spelinspektionen has spoken. A list of new rules for the sports gambling market has been produced and will take effect as of January 1, 2021. Operators have been given enough time to ensure they change their programs. 

Going forward, wagers on things like how many yellow flags a game or player may see need to be stripped from the operators’ list of options. Expulsions and penalties are also going to be prohibited, as will any market that targets soccer outside the country’s leading four divisions – Allsvenskan, Division 1 Norra, Södra and Superettan – and the lower, six regional Division 2 leagues and under-21 international leagues. The outcome, according to the gambling regulator, is that there will no longer be any reason to try to “influence the outcome of gambling on the Swedish licensed market in the affected areas.”

It adds, “Football is a high-risk sport when it comes to match-fixing and there are special risks with low divisions. Surveillance is poorer and practitioners do not make money from their sport. The Swedish Gambling Authority [SGA] has therefore chosen to place special emphasis on football and has taken into account views received from the consultative bodies.”

It didn’t take long for the new rules to start to receive complaints from gambling operators, which was to be expected. The secretary general for Branschföreningen för Onlinespel , a group of online gaming operators, was one of the more vocal, asserting that the introduction of the rules was nothing more than a political move to make Sweden’s major sports groups happy. Gustaf Hoffstedt, the secretary general, asserted in a statement, “Spelinspektionen claims to have found a well-balanced point between different interests but there is no balanced point in this matter. Either you believe restrictions for licensed companies lead to reduced match-fixing [or not]. In that case, I wonder why Spelinspektionen can be content with these relatively peripheral restrictions.

France’s gaming regulator, L’Autorité Nationale des Jeux (ANJ), has been busy since it took over from ARJEL (the Autorité de régulation des jeux en ligne, or online gaming regulator). The handover took place a couple of months ago as the country looked to consolidate its gaming oversight, paving the way for a singular federal authority and tapping political leader Isabelle Falque-Pierrotin to become ANJ’s first president. Ticking off another item on its long checklist of tasks at hand, the regulator announced this week that it has given approval to ten online sportsbooks to keep their licenses. It also welcomed a new player into the space, as well.

Online gambling launched in France a decade ago, and the industry has enjoyed a modest amount of success since then. Licenses are issued for five years, and this program will continue until everyone decides that different licensing periods are warranted. There are now 14 sports gambling license holders in the country, including a newcomer to the space looking to grab some of the action controlled by the others. NJJ Project Thirteen targets sports gambling and horse racing, and will operate under the GényBet brand. 

In total, between sports gambling, horse racing and online gambling, France has issued 19 licenses, with some operators holding more than one license. The list includes B.E.S. SAS (operator of bwin.fr and partypoker.fr), Betclic Enterprises Ltd (betclic.fr), France Pari (France-pari.fr and feelingbet.fr), Project Thirteen, GM Gaming Ltd. (betway.fr), Joaonline (joaclub.fr, joa-club.fr, joa-online.fr and joaonline.fr), La Française des Jeux (parionsweb.fr, parionsweb.fdj.fr and enligne.parionssport.fdj.fr), Netbet FR SAS (netbet.fr and netbetsport.fr), Pari Mutuel Urbain (pmu.fr), Reel Malta Ltd. (pokerstars.fr, pokerstarsmobile.fr, betstars.fr and pokerstarssports.fr), SPS Betting France Ltd. (Unibet.fr), Vivaro Ltd., (vbet.fr, pasinobet.fr and barrierebet.fr), Winamax (Winamax.fr) and Zeturf France Ltd., (zeturf.fr and zebet.fr). 

Vivaro is a subsidiary of BetConstruct, managing its B2C operations. The barrierebet.fr website was an addition to its portfolio approved by ANJ, and comes through a partnership with Groupe Barriere, a French hotel and leisure company.

A small group of residents in the Japanese city of Yokohama really, really don’t want to have an integrated resort (IR) come to their backyard. The plans are already on unstable ground due to the coronavirus, and the city has had to put any IR discussion on the back burner several times.  However, if it were up to these individuals, the topic would die a quick, agonizingly painful death. Anti-gamblers have already tried to gather support for a petition requesting Yokohama withdraw from the running, which didn’t prove to be as successful as they thought, so they’re now going to take even more drastic measures. They plan on trying to find a way to oust Yokohama’s mayor, Fumiko Hayashi.

The anti-IR group circulated a petition called the “Withdrawal of Casino IR Bid Plan and Formulation of New Business Plan Independent of Casino” that it thought would garner a lot of interest because of its long, drawn-out title. The group wanted two things – to see Yokohama remove itself from any potential IR bidding wars and the introduction of a new economic business development plan that would not include anything that even hinted at a casino. There was a lot more whitespace than ink on the petition when it was handed over to city officials earlier this month. 

Yokohama’s leaders took a look at the petition on September 11 when the Urban Development and Road Committee got together. While it hasn’t specified how many signatures were gathered, a statement by the committee announcing its rejection made it clear why the petition would not move forward. The city said that it was going to forego the request due to the “small number of supporters” that were onboard.

Yokohama City Council member Masato Yamashita took a pragmatic approach in responding to the group’s concerns, stating, “I do understand the sentiment of the petitioners. I hate gambling and do not gamble. There are some in the [Liberal Democratic Party] as well who do not like it. This opposition campaign from residents when nothing has been decided is only based on liking or hating gambling. I do not want to have a conversation that will divide Yokohama city. Regarding an IR, I would like you to try and understand more [the concerns of the residents].”