3D operator goes all-in with new management team

01 September 2015, London –   Online gaming operator PKR.com has unveiled a new-look management team to be led by Chris Welch, a 16-year veteran of the gaming industry who takes over as CEO.

Chris Welch has a background in marketing and general management having worked at Director level for Coral, Pokerstars and bwin.party. His most recent gaming role was as Group Director Poker for bwin.party launching its poker business into new regulated markets and leading the brand re-launch of its flagship partypoker brand.

Welch is joined by CTO Mike Ellis after 16 years at William Hill, Betfred and most recently youwin, while Tony Browne joins as CFO following lead finance roles at Ernst & Young, Lumata and Harris Interactive. PKR’s founding CTO Jeremy Longley remains with the business in a consulting role.

PASADENA, CALIFORNIA – September 1, 2015 – Betcade, the first dedicated Android app store for real money gaming, today announced its founding. Betcade will launch the first dedicated Android app store for real money gaming, providing casino operators with a unified, branded destination for gaming app distribution and management, and players with a trusted source for gaming app discovery and downloads.

Founded with the goal creating an ecosystem that benefits all stakeholders in the gaming industry, Betcade solves the issues of gaming app distribution, discovery, payment and management complexity, and security. The company will launch, market, and service its Android app store in beginning in 2016 in jurisdictions where it is legally permitted.

Betcade founder David Chang will serve as CEO. Previously David served as Chief Marketing Officer and Head of Industry Relations at Gamblit Gaming, a software development company focused on new technology for land-based and mobile gaming experiences.  Prior to Gamblit Gaming, David was founder and CEO of mobile game companies Gamiker Inc and OnNet Europe GmbH.

“People overwhelmingly prefer mobile apps over the browser experience: the time spent in apps now surpasses the time spent in browsers. However, there is currently no efficient mechanism in place for discovery or distribution for real money apps the way that there is for every other app category, “ said David Chang, founder and CEO of Betcade. “Betcade will also streamline the download, install, and updating of apps and remove payment friction resulting in an improved user experience.“

A study into the impact of adrenaline on the body has revealed that the thrill of gaming can match the rush provided by popular extreme sports.

The study, by Ladbrokes Games, invited four male volunteers with different jobs and backgrounds to take part in an online gaming session, indoor skydive and 125ft freefall jump.

While simply playing an online game showed the smallest change in heart rate and blood pressure, winning the game resulted in one of the biggest increases in heart rate out of all the activities. The winner’s blood pressure also jumped from a resting rate of 118/46 to 160/139 – classed as ‘high’.

Out of all activities carried out on the day, the freefall jump resulted in the highest total heart rates and three out of four volunteers hit a high blood pressure. .

MACAU, CHINA – August 31, 2015 – ‘PokerStars LIVE Macau’ kicked off Macau Poker Cup 23 this past weekend and completed three of the seventeen Official Asia Player of the Year events on the 17-day schedule.

Those three events drew totals of 854 players and awarded HK$2,808,441 in prize money — the biggest opening weekend since the MPC expanded to a 17-day schedule last season.

“It’s a fantastic start and hopefully a sign of things to come as we approach next week’s Red Dragon main event.” said APPT President Danny McDonagh. “Traditionally, the first MPC of the year has performed better than the summer edition.”

“You’d have to go as far back as 2009 to find the last time the summer installment was bigger but I’m optimistic we’re looking at exactly that.”

LeoVegas’ first National British Blackjack tournament came to a close last week after a London-based blackjack fan beat seven other finalists to walk away with the £10,000 grand prize and a luxury holiday to Malta.

Hosted in Malta at the luxurious Casino Portomaso, the event saw the eight finalists compete in rounds of high pressure Elimination Blackjack for a share of an £18,000 pot.

Shenaly Amin, UK country manager at LeoVegas: “We understand how competitive the online mobile casino market is and this is why events like this are important to us. They help us engage with our existing players, attract new ones and reward those who made it all the way to the final. This is why we whisked the eight finalists, and their guests, off to Malta to treat them like winners even before the first card was dealt. Finalists enjoyed an amazing Mediterranean dining experience as well as an ultrasonic speedboat ride.”

To qualify for the final, entrants across the length and breadth of the UK battled it out on their computers, phones and tablets, playing the 16 variants of blackjack available at LeoVegas.com.

26 August 2015 – Jakarta: Asia’s largest sports media property and the world’s most exciting mixed martial arts (MMA) organization, ONE Championship™ (ONE), has just intensified its highly-anticipated return to Jakarta, Indonesia with the announcement of eight exciting new bouts. ONE: ODYSSEY OF CHAMPIONS, which takes place at the Istora Senayan indoor arena on 27 September, will showcase a band of the organization’s top stars competing at the highest levels of the sport.

In the main event of the evening, ONE Featherweight World Champion Narantungalag Jadambaa of Mongolia will defend his world title against fast rising Russian star, Marat “Cobra” Gafurov. Tickets are available on www.kiosktix.com and all 7-11 stores, Sevelin kiosk.

In addition, ONE has agreed to a partnership with Indonesian media giant Media Nusantara Citra (MNC) Group who owns the largest Indonesian free-to-air (FTA) channel fleet on the market with four of Indonesia’s 11 FTA channels. With an outstanding commitment to the highest quality content and production, MNC Group will help ONE bring world class MMA action to fans in Indonesia. ONE: ODYSSEY OF CHAMPIONS will be broadcast live on RCTI starting at10:30P.M. WIB.

ONE is also excited to announce a partnership with AQUA, the home appliances brand from Japan.  AQUA will partner with ONE to bring fans in Jakarta an unparalleled and unique Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) experience. AQUA’s partnership with ONE Championship™ will ensure Asia’s biggest and most exciting MMA organization will continue to wow fans with its unique brand of sports entertainment. AQUA’s parent company has the distinction of being the No. 1 major appliances maker in the world, a position that it has held for six consecutive years.  It is the perfect time for AQUA to join forces with ONE Championship™ and its huge audience, as the home appliances brand launches in Indonesia.

26 August 2015 – Manila: ONE Championship™ (ONE) will return to Manila, Philippines for a grudge match between top-ranked heavyweight contenders Brandon “The Truth” Vera and Chi Lewis “Chopper” Parry at Mall of Asia (MOA) Arena on 11 December 2015, with the winner set to be crowned the inaugural ONE Championship™ Heavyweight World Champion. ONE: SPIRIT OF CHAMPIONS will play host to the titanic showdown, as world-renowned Muay Thai stylist and 8-time Grappler’s Quest Champion Vera looks to claim the gold against unbeaten British kickboxing convert Parry, who challenged the Filipino-American Vera after both fighters recorded recent first round knock out wins.

CEO of ONE Championship™, Victor Cui, stated, “We’re thrilled to be returning to Manila to bring our loyal fans one of the biggest fights of the year! Brandon Vera and Chi Lewis Parry are two of the most exciting heavyweight fighters in the world, and with the ONE Heavyweight title on the line we can expect a fantastic fight! These two have been on a collision course for some time, and it will all come to a head at ONE: SPIRIT OF CHAMPIONS!”

The owner of 8 KO victories, Brandon Vera is one of the most recognizable figures in the game, as well as one of the most feared Muay Thai practitioners in the world. Renowned for possessing outstanding striking technique, Vera devastated Ukrainian heavyweight Igor Subora with a straight left and a flurry of kicks in his ONE Championship™ debut to the delight of the fans in Manila. Now, he will look to utilize his outstanding ability and vast experience fighting some of the very best fighters in the world to his advantage as he accepts the challenge of prodigious prospect Chi Lewis Parry.

Brandon Vera declared, “I’m excited to have the honor of fighting for the ONE Heavyweight World Championship in the Philippines,” adding, “I am very much looking forward to fighting Mr. Parry, especially since he’s been asking for it!”

On 2-4 of September 2015, Romania will host the international Entertainment Arena Expo. Event will take place at Romexpo Fair Ground exhibition center in Bucharest.

CASEXE will be represented by the business development manager Denis Zheltovskiy, who will tell about the new innovations and solutions from CASEXE company, with regard to gambling.

Entertainment Arena Expo is a perfect opportunity to discover the Eastern European entertainment market, establish business contacts, share and acquire experience from other successful venues.

Exhibition will feature casino software distributors and manufacturers, developers of software for gambling operators, as well as lots of other Eastern European gambling market players.

Endorphina’s next destination is Bucharest, Romania. For the first time Endorphina will be exhibiting at EAE, booth #214.

Endorphina’s team has announced its attending Entertainment Arena Expo. It is an international exhibition that will gather producers and distributors of casino games, games of chance, bets, casino furniture and generally speaking everyone related to the gaming world. The event will be held from 2nd till 4th September 2015 at Romexpo Fair Ground in Bucharest.

During these three expo days, the attendees will get a chance to get information about products, technologies and opportunities offered by the exhibitors from Romania, Austria, Germany, Italy, UK, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Poland, including Endorphina’s best games.

This year edition of Arena Entertainment Awards will be held during the EAE show. The visitors get to decide the winners in 4 categories: Product of the year, Manufacturer of the year, The best stand, The best game graphics. Endorphina is nominated as well and will do its best not to let those down  who will vote for the company.

International trade conference backed by the government and leading experts is poised to review the possibility of reviving the gaming industry brought to an abrupt halt over five years ago

14 August 2015;  Kyiv, Ukraine.  The two-day ‘Game On’ Conference, which will take place in Kyiv on 13-14 of October, will bring together leading international experts, captains of the industry, and top decision-makers from the Ukrainian government to look at international best practices as a way forward to bring gambling back to Ukraine. The Conference, designed to break the five-year hiatus in the industry, aims to develop a roadmap for its comeback in an open and transparent way.

A complete overhaul of the gaming industry in Ukraine will involve the development of the new robust and comprehensive legislation regulating not just casino operation, but lottery activities, sports betting, and online gambling. Such all-encompassing approach will put interests of the nation at the forefront, and will include relevant checks and balances to ensure that international standards are established and maintained. This legislative initiative will also aim to provide an impetus for the development of related industries, particularly encouraging international tourism in Ukraine, and a whole range of other support businesses.

A reformatted, international-standard gaming industry has the potential of creating 300,000 new jobs over the next five years and generating an additional UAH 2.3 billion in tax revenue annually that can be spent on essential social services, the potential which is recognised and welcomed by the government.

mLabs seeks to showcase new start-ups and entrepreneurs

Cork, 24 August, 2015: Betting exchange Matchbook has launched a new collaborative incubator called mLabs which its hopes will foster the next generation of innovative start-ups in the online gambling sector.

The new accelerator programme has been launched with the aim of attracting new talent that Matchbook will handpick and mentor in the hope that it can develop and nurture ideas through to product launch.

David Mills, head of research for Matchbook and in charge of the mLabs project, said the hope was that through collaboration mLabs.io will help jump start new ventures and guide entrepreneurs through the process of getting a business up-and-running in the gambling sector.

Want some football tips? Well, the Wealdstone Raider will now give you some!  Wealdstone FC football fan and Internet celebrity Gordon Hill, a.k.a. “The Wealdstone Raider”, has teamed up with Freebets.co.uk, 888 Sport and Coral Sports to set himself up as a football tipster for the new Premier League season.

For those who have been living under a rock and are still unaware of him, Gordon became a YouTube sensation after a video of him having a rant at a non-league football match went viral.  “You’ve got no fans!”, he shouted, amongst other choice phrases, and then proceeded to turn on the guy filming him enquiring “You want some? I’ll give it ya!”.  These were soon to become his very own catchphrases as the hit video propelled him into the limelight.

That 33-second clip has now been viewed over 9 million times and has somehow made Gordon very famous. Indeed, it became a life changing event for him.  Standing at just 5 foot 2 inches tall, this wee bespectacled man with an unmistakable speech delivery has extraordinarily unique appeal.

A builder by trade, the 48-year-old’s life has been turned upside down and he now finds himself doing regular guest spots on TV and radio and making public appearances at nightclubs and events. Gordon now has over 100,000 Twitter followers and was also rated as the top Internet meme of December 2014 by BBC News.

Affiliate programme for Bulgaria and EU-facing online sportsbook & casino integrates with Income Access platform 

Montreal, QC. August 17th, 2015 – EFbet.com, the Sofia, Bulgaria-based and Malta-regulated online sportsbook and casino operated by Eurofootball Limited that focuses on players in Eastern Europe and the wider EU, has launched a new affiliate programme with Income Access, a technology and digital marketing company serving the global iGaming industry. The new EFbet.com affiliate programme will be powered by Income Access’ award-winning affiliate management software.

Launched in 2006, EFbet.com is regulated by the Malta Gaming Authority and Bulgaria’s State Commission on Gambling. The EFbet.com platform, which provides service in English as well as Bulgarian, allows players to wager on a wide range of sports, including soccer, tennis, basketball and volleyball among others. EFbet.com also features sophisticated in-play functionality for numerous sporting events.

The brand’s sportsbook is complemented by its recently-launched online casino, which boasts over 100 state-of-the-art slots, an array of table games such as roulette and multiple versions of video poker. EFbet.com also offers players online bingo.

Following on from the inaugural post-event BiG Lunch at MiGS 2014, The BiG Foundation has announced it is to host its Sports Dinner event in conjunction with the Welcome Drinks for MiGS in November 2015. The Microgaming’s BiG Sports Dinner will take place at The Caviar and Bull Restaurant in Malta’s St.Julians, on Tuesday 17th November 2015, the opening night for MiGS 2015.

The Microgaming’s BiG Sports Dinner, the only sports dinner in the Betting and Gambling industry, raises significant funds for a number of charities.

Headline sponsors, Microgaming, are on board supporting the event through its Microgaming PlayItForward initiative, which serves to change the game for place and people. The event has secured John Barnes for the evening.

The event has also secured attendance from some industry heavyweights, including BMIT, EveryMatrix, MayfairRow, NetEnt, Poker Listings, Ali-Quantum Gaming and Secure Trading. Tickets are selling fast for this opening night event.

Betting volumes jump 16 per cent following Saturday/Sunday split for opening game

London, 17th August 2015 – Britain’s bookies have kicked off this year’s Barclays Premier League with a bang. Following a quiet two months , the opening weekend of the new season provided a timely reminder of how much love the nation and punters have for the ‘best football league in the world’.

Exclusive data from global payments leader, Worldpay, reveals that splitting the opening weekend’s games over Saturday and Sunday, rather than holding them all on Saturday as was done traditionally, contributed to a significant jump in betting volumes and transactions. Year-on-Year (YoY) transaction volume for the weekend increased by 16 per cent, while the average value of individual transactions was 15 per cent higher.

The data also shows there was a huge spike in both the volume and value of transactions processed by Britain’s online bookies during this year’s Barclays Premier League opening weekend. Compared to an average Friday to Sunday in the offseason, the volume of transactions jumped 32 per cent*.

Visitors to next month’s Betting on Football Conference (#bofcon) at the Emirates Stadium can discover the top 5 ways to reduce the number of customer disputes on football betting, thanks to a new session featuring the Independent Betting Adjudication Service (IBAS).

The one-day event, being held on Thursday 10th September, IBAS Managing Director Richard Hayler will reveal the key sources of friction between bookmakers and their customers and, crucially, how to avoid them.

Hayler will also discuss the importance of detail in data to the consumer (such as the pinpoint timing of when goals are scored) and warn against complacency in meeting the Fair and Open requirements of gambling in Great Britain.

Andrew McCarron, of event organisers Sports Betting Community, commented: “The amount of money that operators are investing in commercial relationships with football clubs means it’s even more important that they can keep the customers attracted by those deals happy.

GVC Holdings and 888 Holdings, a Public company, are bidding back and forth to acquire Gibraltar based Bwin. On the surface, Bwin you probably know from seeing their name on soccer jerseys but in the digital world, they are much more known as the company that owns popular poker website Party Poker and the World Poker Tour.

GVC is known for their five main brands that include Sportingbet, CasinoClub, and Betboo. They currently have licenses in 5 countries, 700 employees, offices in Ireland, Israel, Malta, The Philipines, UK and Uruguay and are traded on the English Stock Exchange.

These two companies have entered into a bidding war. Just over a month ago, 888 Holdings had the winning bid for the Bwin.Party Digital Entertainment company. The winning bid came in at an astonishing $1.4 billion. The purchase was primarily an assets for cash and stock for 888 Holdings but Bwin Party’s team and shareholders expressed their happiness and satisfaction with the deal.

Shortly after this deal was closed, Bwin.Party received another bid that upped the price by $200 million dollars for a total of $1.6 billion from GVC. Although late to the game, Bwin.Party was forced to reconsider their already accepted offer. GVC came to the table with an offer made up of the same components as 888 Holdings, cash and stock, but with an extra $200 million dollars or 127,877,240 extra Pounds for those reading this in Britain. While 888 Holdings is under the impression that their contract is valid and binding, Bwin.Party had to rethink their options as far as selling.

Award-winning in-play innovator SBTech has announced that it will be rolling out fresh cashout features and industry leading live-streaming capabilities to its operators during the third quarter of the year.

The brand new cashout function, which gives players the option to sell their bets back to the operator, is the latest in a series of house-developed solutions to revolutionise the in-play product.

Itai Zak, SBTech’s CEO, said: “With live-streaming and cashout, players can follow the action as it unfolds, changing their betting strategy accordingly. Not only does this encourage a wider outreach and high lifetime value, but it also gives players a real confidence boost.”

As the popularity of in-play betting – with the accompanying thrill of watching the game and making real-time predictions – continues to gain momentum, the firm is also introducing high-quality live-streaming on a huge variety of games. This involves complete technical integration for operators with three of the industry’s leading video-streaming providers.

On September 29, 2015, we will hold a unique event on the global gambling market – Ukrainian Gaming Congress, a platform that will bring together representatives of the authorities and the gambling industry to discuss the possibility of its revival in Ukraine.

On July 24, 2015, Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine registered a draft law “On State Control and Legal Basis for the Organization of Gambling.” This law provides for comprehensive regulation of activities in the field of gambling in accordance with the rules and laws of the majority of European countries.

The idea of the bill, being authored by members of People’s Front Party of the Prime Minister of Ukraine Arseniy Yatsenyuk, is to introduce a unified law, which will regulate gambling. In addition, the point at issue is about the creation of an effective licensing system, set of rules and requirements for all segments of gambling (lotteries, bookmakers, and casinos) and a complete legalization of their activities, as well as their online work.

In the case of the adoption of the law and successful implementation of the project, the Ukrainian authorities expect that the legalization of gambling will be an additional source of income for the national budget, as well as contribute to the development of hotel and tourism business.