Sweden’s gambling regulator has further reduced the scope of its online betting licensees’ offering in what it claims is an effort to prevent match-fixing.

On Tuesday, the Spelinspektionen regulatory body announced that its board of directors had reached agreement the day before on new “regulations and general advice in order to counteract match-fixing.” The regulator claims the changes (viewable here, in Swedish) mean there will henceforth be “no reason to influence the outcome” of Swedish-based sport.

The changes include a prohibition on Swedish-licensed bookmakers taking bets on “violations of rules during matches, competitions and tournaments (for example, expulsions, penalties and yellow cards).” Operators will be required to file annual reports on “suspected manipulations of results in sports.”

The rules only apply to “sports that are practiced in Sweden,” so Spelinspektionen is apparently okay with its bookmakers providing opportunities to negatively influence international sports to their hearts’ content.

With a full programme of English Football League Cup action and intriguing Ligue 1 clashes, the midweek betting markets needn’t be dominated by futures markets such as the Premier League manager ‘Sack Race’. You can make money in each of our five sportsbetting tips for soccer matches on Tuesday and Wednesday right here.

The English Football League Cup

Tuesday sees the EFL Cup return in earnest, with some Premier League involvement blending in with a lot of Championship sides. What’s crucial in predicting who will win through these games is how important they are to the players and team involved and what the respective sides should look like.

Tuesday September 15th

Back in May, thousands of poker players were supposed to be arriving in Las Vegas to play in dozens of events at the world-famous World Series of Poker. Due to the Coronavirus outbreak, it was a work-from-home experience that was on offer rather than a trip to the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino.

The final bracelet event that took place this summer, during a series that began with 31 events across each day of July on WSOP.com and concluded in mid-September on the same site although the other 54 events took place on GGPoker, the online site that has seen its success mushroom in recent months.

Part of that appeal to players has been the acquisition of some major talent by the poker brand, with Felipe Ramos, Boris Becker and Fedor Holz all proud to be GGPoker ambassadors. There are no players who compare, however, to the one-man marketing brand that is Daniel Negreanu, and Kid Poker took part in the final WSOP bracelet at the end of the weekend.

In doing so, Negreanu was attempting to win a side bet for possibly a six-figure sum that he put on the line against other major professionals, that he would outscore them in WSOP bracelets. Having got close but not actually won any so far, ‘DNegs’ had to run deep.

We now have 30 days until markets understand that a No Deal Brexit is inevitable. Last night, the Internal Market Bill that the Johnson Administration introduced last week to override the Brexit agreement with the European Union, passed an initial vote in Parliament by a 76-strong majority of 340 to 263. Even though there was some Tory opposition to the bill, it is nowhere near enough to stop it.

What the Internal Market Bill does is eliminate EU oversight from Northern Ireland completely, allowing a leak of goods into the EU via the border with Ireland. Despite the full frontal mainstream media assault on the bill emphasizing all the former prime ministers and others who have come out against it for breaking international law, it appears that in a practical sense, the existing oppoisition is insignificant in a practical sense.

If the bill passes – and there is little reason right now to think it won’t – then it may be the end of the United Kingdom as we know it. Scotland is likely to vote on independence again now with a solid majority supporting independence in the latest polls. Wales may follow with an independence referrendum of its own. I’m not saying independence and the breakup of political unions is a bad thing. Most of the greatest nations in the world over the last two centuries have declared independence from the U.K. in one way or another.

I am saying rather that you may not want to be invested in U.K. gaming assets as this political dissolution reaches its climax. Any existing market order is built on the assumption of background stability, which no longer exists in either fundamental or political form.

Renee Bell was ecstatic in May 2018 when she found out she had won $1.05 million through the BetEasy sportsbook. However, her excitement turned to surprise when the sports gambling operator only gave her about $183,125 (AU$250,000). The surprise wasn’t because of the low payout; it was because she didn’t even know she had an account with the operator. As the mystery began to unravel, she took BetEasy to court to try to recover the difference of the payout, and the ongoing lawsuit finds her asserting that the account must have come from someone at Crown Resorts. 

Bell bases her theory on the fact that she received the email about her sports gambling parlay winnings three days after becoming a member of Crown Resorts’ Signature Club. BetEasy was previously known as CrownBet, the sports gambling brand owned by Crown Resorts, and Bell asserts that the only way the bet could have been placed on the platform is if someone at Crown used her identity. She believes she’s entitled to the full payout, however, even if she apparently never placed the bet. 

Court documents for the case reveal that Bell “did not agree to CrownBet’s terms and conditions and such terms and conditions were not brought to her attention” when she signed on with the Crown Signature Club. In addition, “she did not agree to CrownBet’s terms and conditions and such terms and conditions were not brought to her attention.” This also, according to the lawsuit, signifies that she could not have agreed to the platform’s terms and conditions, which include a caveat that it will only pay out a maximum of AU$250,000. 

This is just the latest addition to the number of problems Crown has had to deal with over the past several years. While it may not have been directly involved in this drama, it has still been pulled in because of its history with BetEasy. CrownBet became BetEasy in 2018 when The Stars Group bought 80% of the sports gambling operator and then, last year, bought the remaining 20%. However, because of the alleged link between Bell’s BetEasy account and the Crown Signature Club account, Crown will, once again, find itself having to answer for any potentially illegal actions. 

Ronald Perelman is now known as the former chairman of Scientific Games. The casino equipment manufacturer has made a few changes at the top after he extricated himself from the company through a planned sale of his stake. Having controlled about 39% of the company, Perelman has sold 34.9% of that to a group that includes a global investment firm, Caledonia, with a history in the gaming industry, paving the way for several new appointments to be made at the top. 

Going forward, former Aristocrat Leisure Ltd. CEO Jamie Odell will be the new executive chair of Sci Games. Joining him is Toni Korsanos, a former Aristocrat chief financial officer and non-executive director of Crown Resorts, who has been tapped to be the company’s executive vice chair. The tie-up between Sci Games and Aristocrat was most likely due to the stake purchase by Caledonia, which was previously an investor in the latter. 

In arranging the sale of the stake, the incoming investors split the amount they took. A press release announcing the purchase indicates that the stakes will be distributed through “multiple tranches,” with no investor “expected to beneficially own more than 9.9 percent of the outstanding shares of Scientific Games.” One tranche was reportedly already reassigned, while the others are expected to be turned over in the following weeks. Details on the other investors involved weren’t provided. 

The deal was made using Perelman’s shares held by his investment vehicle, MacAndrews & Forbes, Inc., and was reportedly worth $28 per share. Caledonia, which has a stake in fantasy sports operator and sportsbook DraftKings, and its Sci Games investment partners hope to give the company a huge boost, implementing business strategies designed to accelerate “debt-reduction efforts and increasing focus on digital gaming and sports betting growth opportunities,” according to the press release. Odell added, “We will be highly focused on rapidly deleveraging the balance sheet and creating a flexible, agile company that is poised to capitalise on evolving industry and macroeconomic trends to deliver outsized returns to investors.”