Worldplay Gaming CEO Warren Tristram predicts that we will see a major shift towards digital wallets very soon Tristram took some time out to share his thoughts with our own Becky Liggero Fontana.

Tristram thinks that a shift in player demographics is forcing casinos to explore more options with digital wallets. Convenience will force a shift in payment preferences for the casino and gambling industry, he predicted:

“I think that firstly we’d all recognize that a younger customer demographic will more easily adapt to mobile and digital payments. I think they’re naturally more comfortable to do so and I think from a gaming perspective and we’re not necessarily looking to reinvent the wheel. We’re looking to incorporate proven solutions that consumers are already comfortable with today and interact as part of their normal daily lives.”

“I think the key thing that we’ve seen over the last nine months is that customers who might have previously rejected a new payment experience are more readily considering it spurred on by the push factor of COVID. I believe consumers are looking for convenience, security and expect a consistent payment experience underpinned by contactless technology and casino floors would be no different to cashless payments as they use in everyday retail environments,” he added.

Detroit’s three commercial casinos saw their 2020 gaming revenue more than halved due to the pandemic, while the state’s online gambling market is now mere days away from launching. 

Figures released Tuesday by the Michigan Gaming Control Board (MGCB) show the city’s three casinos – MGM Resorts’ MGM Grand Detroit, MotorCity Casino and Penn National Gaming’s Greektown – generated combined revenue of $639m last year, down 56% from 2019’s record $1.45b showing. 

MGM posted the biggest annual decline, with its table games and slots revenue falling 58.8% to $257.1m. MotorCity fared only slightly better, slipping 54.9% to $222.7b, while Greektown tumbled 58.3% to $140.6m. 

Legal sports betting had yet to launch in Michigan in 2019, and the three casinos’ retail betting operations added $18.3m to 2020’s total. It’s a pretty meager total, but with no online betting, and the casinos forced to shut for nearly five months mid-year and a second closure that started in November and ended in late-December, it’s as good as one has any right to expect. 

Greek player Alexandros Kolonias will go into tonight’s GGPoker Super MILLION$ final table with the chip lead after his 24th entry into the weekly $10,300 buy-in event saw him reach his first final table. 

Kolonias is an entertaining player and should be good value for a thrilling finale if his previous play at the felt is anything to go by. Don’t believe us? Check out this hand from the 2019 MILLIONS North America Main Event when he lost out to Kevin Rabichow to eventually bust in 4th place for a score of $275,770. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d16qBjIEVGIVideo can’t be loaded because JavaScript is disabled: Alexandros eliminated in 4th | Main Event | MILLIONS North America 2019 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d16qBjIEVGI)

Going into the Super MILLION$ final table with the chip lead hasn’t been a precursor to that much success in recent weeks, but that won’t put on Kolonias, who with 4,179,268 chips is just a little way clear of… yes, you’ve guessed it – Kevin Rabichow! The Run it Once coach has 3,987,317 chips and is followed in the chipcounts by Carlos Villamarin (3,861,580).

Philippine-licensed online gambling operators may have won a tax reprieve but their numbers continue to shrink due to uncertainty over the future. 

This week, the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (PAGCOR) updated its list of Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators (POGOs), which showed 51 operators licensed to offer online services to residents of other Asia-Pacific countries. That’s two fewer than the list showed in December, reflecting the absence of Easy Access Ltd and Pride Fortune Ltd. 

PAGCOR also updated its list of POGOs that had received the regulator’s blessing to resume operations following their forced pandemic shutdown in March 2020. This week’s update shows 34 names, one fewer than the list contained on December 8. 

Gone from the current list are the aforementioned Easy Access and Pride Fortune, while a new name – AG Interpacific Resources Ltd – has been added. AG Interpacific, which operates the W66.com site (among others), was previously listed as one of the recipients of the 61 original POGO licensees. 

Gambling operator/technology supplier Playtech says its full-year 2020 results will come in better than expected, as different divisions shone at different points during the pandemic-impacted year. 

On Tuesday, the London-listed Playtech alerted investors that its FY20 performance was “expected to be ahead of consensus,” with adjusted earnings projected to be “at least €300m.” That’s only about 78% of 2019’s total, but investors still pushed the stock up 4.3% by the end of the day. Official results will be released on March 11. 

Playtech noted that its various divisions took turns holding the fort during the pandemic’s uneven progression. The first half of the year saw Playtech’s TradeTech financials division shine as gamblers left high-and-dry by halted sports play chose to investigate financial betting options. But the financial product surge faded as sports returned, leaving TradeTech to endure a “challenging” H2.

Since the new year began, Playtech rebranded TradeTech as Finalto, an odd move considering Playtech said Tuesday that it “continues to be in discussions regarding the possible sale” of its B2B/B2C financial unit. You’d think they’d leave any remodelling up to the new owner, but whatever. 

The bitter feud that kicked off the heads-up high stakes match between Daniel Negreanu and Doug Polk was an entertaining one, with Polk claiming that odds of 4:1 against him were lucrative ones and at the same time he would soon be backing up a truck to fill with his rival Daniel Negreanu’s money.

After 10,000 hands, Polk was up by close to a million dollars and while the balance had levelled out a little by the 12,500-hand halfway stage, many thought it obvious that Daniel Negreanu’s best play at that stage would be to quite while he was behind by six figures.

Kid Poker decided to fight on.

Since then, fortune has certainly favoured the Canadian, with five straight wins in sessions amounting to 2,750 hands meaning that the six-time WSOP bracelet winner is now down by a much more manageable $484,073.

Online gambling operator Kindred Group reported record revenue in the final quarter of 2020 on stronger sports margins, higher customer engagement and aggressive cost-cutting.

In a trading update released Tuesday, the Stockholm-listed Kindred reported all-time high revenue of £365m in the three months ending December 31, 2020, up 55% from the same period last year and around 30% better than the company reported in Q3 2020. Final figures won’t be released until February 10 but eager investors sent the stock up 5% by Tuesday’s close.

Kindred credited the revenue surge to a variety of positive benchmarks, including a record 1.78m active customers during Q4, up 11% year-on-year. Another contributing factor was a 10% sports margin, up around 1.5 points from the long-term average. 

Kindred expects Q4 earnings to come in around £115m, a nearly four-fold rise from Q4 2019’s £30.7m and only £15m below the company’s full-year 2019 earnings. Possibly fearing a media and/or regulatory backlash from such a bottom-line surge, Kindred played down the gains, saying only that the result was “significantly higher than the current consensus.”