Analysts with Nomura continue to be optimistic about the recovery of Malaysia’s gambling industry. The country’s Resorts World Genting, operated by Genting Malaysia, has seen slight improvements after having been shut down for several months because of COVID-19 and, while the road to recovery is going to be long, the analysts believe that there could be positive movement throughout all of 2021. Their optimism isn’t necessarily shared by Genting Malaysia’s executives.

Malaysia’s fight against the coronavirus forced Resorts World Genting to close from March 18 to June 19. When it was allowed to reopen, the casino was forced to operate at a greatly reduced capacity, hindering its ability to generate revenue and make up for the lost three months. Genting Malaysia reported in November that it took a loss of $173.2 million in the third quarter, following a $221.2-million loss in the second quarter.

Toward the end of the year, though, more locals were visiting Resorts World Genting, which was giving it a little bit of a boost. Foreign gamblers still aren’t able to make the trek to the complex, but the end-of-year uptick was enough for Nomura analysts Tushar Mohata and Alpa Aggarwal to predict a “gradual recovery” spanning most of 2021 is possible. This reflects the analysts’ position from September of last year, when they asserted, “We expect Resorts World Genting to stage a gradual recovery over the coming quarters, with a sharp inflection come financial-year 2022, with the opening of the theme park.” That theme park is still on schedule to open later this year, providing COVID-19 doesn’t cause any more schedule changes.

Genting Malaysia’s third quarter saw EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) at Resorts World Genting that was 79% lower than a year earlier. Visitation at the venue slipped in the last quarter before rebounding during the holidays, leading Nomura’s analysts to assert, “This demonstrates local demand resilience as movement curbs were lifted in third quarter 2020 (70 percent of Malaysian revenue historically has come from locals), and the effect of cost rationalisation undertaken by the group. Casino wins in third quarter 2020 were at 74 percent of third-quarter 2019 levels with the VIP segment being more resilient. While visitation dipped after October movement curbs, it rebounded towards year-end holidays.”

For any business, and particularly for gambling sites, knowing where your marketing spend is working and where it isn’t is important. Google Analytics, which we’ve already covered separately, can help you understand this to some degree, but you can take it to the next level with Google Tag Manager.

What is Google Tag Manager?

In a nutshell, Google Tag Manager (GTG) is marketed as an easy-to-setup, easy to use way for marketing teams to track the performance of their campaigns. No longer does a dev team need to code tags into the site, once the GTG is coded into the header of your site, the marketing team can set up all of their tags from their dashboard, and use Google Analytics to track their results.

Why use Google Tag Manager?

According to legend, infamous career bank robber Willie Sutton was once asked by reporter Mitch Ohnstad why he robbed banks. Sutton replied, “Because that’s where the money is.” Whether he actually said it or not, people do what they do because that’s where the money is. Corporations, or more accurately the executives in charge of them rubber-stamped by their shareholders, merge or spin off because that’s where the money is at the time. Where is the money now? It’s in free debt and equity mania. All that matters is the name. The bigger you make it, the more money flows into it. Nothing else matters.

And so we turn to a new year, and the massive mergers in the casino and gaming industry continue. Debt is free, equity is money, and there seems to be no limit to how big these companies can get. The latest merger on the docket looks to be MGM and Entain, AKA the financial engineering artist formerly known as, which is already a massive umbrella company of disparate gaming assets cobbled together with still more debt and equity.

Nevermind that the United Kingdom, one of Entain’s core markets, is shut down again until March, and who knows how long after that. Nevermind that Las Vegas, MGM’s core market, is a ghost town for who knows how long. Nevermind that Entain has suspended dividends indefinitely, and MGM has pared them down to a penny a share. None of that matters because the only thing better than a humongous company, is an even more humongous company. After this, what’s even going to be left of the UK gaming industry besides 888 and a smattering of other small players?

If anyone can make speculators just a bit wary of what’s going on here, it’s Carl Icahn. The man hasn’t maintained his position as a top dog on Wall Street for decades by being a lucky trend chaser. He’s done it by creating the trends, timing them with money flows, and then selling into them. He was able to fold Caesars into Eldorado and then immediately dump his stake in July once the deal was completed. I’d warned him not to push the deal, but that seems silly now, given that he apparently never had any intention of owning the massive company he helped create, but rather let someone else try to tame the beast. Icahn knew what he was doing the whole time, as he almost always has throughout his sensational career. And now, after his big deals are done, he’s sounding the alarm. “In my day I’ve seen a lot of wild rallies and a lot of mispriced stocks, but there is one thing they all have in common,” he told CNBC yesterday. Eventually they hit a wall…It’s always said it’s different this time, but it never turns out to be the truth.”

Philippine Offshore Gambling Operators (POGOs) have won a victory in the courts against the 5% franchise tax. The Supreme Court of the Philippines have ruled against the Bayanihan 2 act’s 5% franchise tax, meant to help the country raise additional revenues to combat Covid-19.

By a vote of 13-1, the court ordered a temporary restraining order (TRO) on the 5% tax.

JUST IN: Supreme Court magistrates vote 13-1 to grant TRO on imposition of increased taxes on Philippine Offshore Gaming Operations (POGOs) under Bayanihan to Heal As One Act II. Only Justice Marvic Leonen dissenting.- SC source | via @mikenavallo

— ABS-CBN News Channel (@ANCALERTS) January 5, 2021https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

Max Meltzer, Chief Commercial Officer (CCO) of the Kambi Group, loves talking about player behavior. Meltzer took some time out to share what he and his team at the Kambi Group learned about player behavior with Calvinayre.com lead reporter Becky Liggero Fontana. 

Meltzer confesses that his team at the Kambi Group were surprised by the interest of U.S. players in niche sports during the COVID lockdown period. “Right at the beginning, the pandemic had such a huge impact with sports being cancelled all across the world and we were quite surprised to find out that table tennis was going to be the number one sport in America. It was fantastic to see esports naturally did well because of the lack of impact that it had but it was also weird to see Belarusian soccer and other sports do so well,” said Meltzer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58MQqh9GsI0&feature=youtu.beVideo can’t be loaded because JavaScript is disabled: Max Meltzer explains player behavior in the US sports betting market (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58MQqh9GsI0&feature=youtu.be)

“I’m glad to see now that everything’s come back and the way that American sports are running right now is immaculate. I thought the way that the NBA was handled was fantastic and it’s so good to see it all back and working properly now,” he added.

In the fast-moving world of gambling, sometimes you might miss news that could be important to you. To make sure you’re all caught up on gaming industry news, be it online or brick and mortar, we’re rounding up the some of the announcements and partnerships from the last week that you might have missed.

Don’t miss out on all of the latest announcements. Our Press Release section is updated constantly.

Swintt and Mobilt agree partnership agreement

Swintt, the Malta-based game provider, have announced a new partnership agreement with innovative operator Mobilt.

It’s that time of year that we talk about the top fitness tips for getting into shape. Learning how to make your fitness resolutions stick can be a dicey proposition; the mind is willing, but the body is a different story. While there’s no foolproof plan for losing the holiday love handles, the fitness tips below will put you on the right track.

Write your goals down

Writing down your goals is one of the first steps committing to a new you. Putting your goals on paper is almost like writing a contract with yourself, it’s there to remind you what the end game is. Writing down your goals gives you a sense of accountability and commitment

Make your goals realistic

Online gambling revenue in Canada’s largest province posted decent growth in its most recent fiscal year but just can’t seem to close the gap with its two main provincial rivals. 

The Ontario Lottery & Gaming Corporation (OLG) provincial gambling monopoly is now some three months’ overdue in releasing its 2019-20 annual report, which is surprising, considering most of the operations OLG oversees were shut down for a good portion of 2020 due to the pandemic. So you figure they’d have more time to spend on their paperwork. 

That said, OLG did quietly release its consolidated financial statement for the 12 months ending March 31, 2020. While this statement doesn’t provide a lot of specifics in terms of gaming verticals, it does reveal that digital revenue generated by the PlayOLG online gambling site totaled C$139m, although this was reduced to C$124m (US$97.1m) after deducting online lottery prizes. 

OLG reported digital revenue of C$92m in 2018-19, although accounting changes after that report was released – specifically, shifting online lottery sales from the ‘lottery’ column to ‘digital’ – mean that year’s digital revenue has been revised to C$102m in the 2019-20 financial statement. So, on an apples-to-apples basis, PlayOLG’s 2019-20 revenue represents a year-on-year improvement of 21.5%. 

Taiwan’s sports lottery suffered a sales decline in 2020 but mid-year product tweaks ensured an even greater decline didn’t come to past.  

The Taiwan Sports Lottery Corp (TSLC) reported sales of NT$40.5b (US$1.44b) in 2020, a decline of 11% from 2019’s NT$41.6b. However, given the pandemic disruptions to major league play, Taiwan is feeling pretty good about its result, particularly when similar products in other countries are on track to report annual declines twice as large. 

The Taipei Times reported that the Sports Administration that oversees TSLC activity took action in mid-March, when the National Basketball Association announced the suspension of its current season. When other major sports followed suit, the Sports Administration widened the variety of sports on which it traditionally allowed players to bet, including eSports (courtesy of TSLC’s technology partner Intralot and Sportradar). 

TSLC also began allowing players to bet on single games and live betting within those games, while introducing higher prize payout rates as the major leagues began to return to the field of play in the summer. The changes not only benefited the Administration’s bottom line but also that of the over 1,500 lottery retailers who otherwise would have endured a stark loss of commissions.

South Korea’s casinos have once again extended their latest pandemic shutdown, but this hasn’t deterred one operator from pursuing a new foreigner-only gambling permit on Jeju island. 

This weekend, South Korean authorities extended the social distancing measures currently in place for Seoul (Level 2.5, the second-highest tier) and the rest of the country (Level 2) through January 17. The greater Seoul region has hosted the bulk of new COVID cases, which topped 1,020 on Sunday, a worrisome rise from the 657 reported Saturday. 

Foreigner-only casino operator Grand Korea Leisure (GKL) subsequently announced that its three Seven Luck-branded casinos in Seoul and Busan – which were scheduled to reopen Monday morning – would now remain shut until January 18 at 9am. 

GKL rival Paradise Co Ltd, which unlike GKL is a purely private operator, is keeping its Paradise Walkerhill casino in Seoul shuttered, but its Paradise City integrated resort in Incheon remains open, as does its Casino Jeju Grand on Jeju island. 

Predictably, the heads-up for a million dollars went so shallow as to reduce the element of skill in the World Series of Poker Main Event. When Damian Salas took on Joseph Hebert, it was a clash between two players who had already won top prizes of over $1.5 million each in their respective legs of the WSOP Main Event.  

In Rozvadov, Argentinian Salas won $1.5 million as he took down the International leg. In Las Vegas, it was Hebert’s turn to win over $1.5 million as he won the American leg.  

With nothing on the cards for coming second and a cool million for winning the heads-up, no-one was going to step out of line and go all-in in the first hand. In the end, it took 173 hands to find a winner, by which point there were only 20 big blinds on the table between both men.  

The final itself was delayed almost as long as the crowning of Salas as winner, as reported on PokerNews, who have provided updates on the longest-lasting WSOP Main Event in history as well as their usual features and added extras to help poker fans join the fun and become players themselves, such as providing this list of US poker sites. With Salas initially finding himself unable to enter the United States, the final, which had been scheduled for 30th December, the day that Huck Seed was announced as the latest inductee into the Poker Hall of Fame, was moved into the first few days of 2021.  

Australian casino operator Crown Resorts saw its share price jump on rumors that Las Vegas Sands may be interested in buying out majority shareholder James Packer. 

Crown’s shares rose nearly 3% on Monday to close at AU$9.90, a peak the Aussie operator hasn’t hit since mid-2020, right around the time that its regulatory problems truly began in earnest. However, the company spent a good part of the weekend denying the media reports that contributed to this surge. 

On January 2, the Sydney Morning Herald reported that Packer’s $200m yacht – in which the mogul has spent the bulk of the year hiding from COVID-19 on the high seas – spent the final days of 2020 parked alongside another superyacht owned by none other than Sheldon Adelson, chairman and controlling shareholder of Las Vegas Sands. 

The paper noted that there’d been “tenders between both vessels going back and forth,” sparking speculation that Adelson was discussing the sale of Packer’s nearly 37% stake in Crown. However, a Packer flack dismissed talk that the two casino titans had any contact during their boats’ extended proximity.