As the sports betting industry gets more competitive, every little advantage is important to help an operator onboard and keep new customers. The first sports panel at the SBC Summit Barcelona Digital looked at what’s been working, and what they expect to be the next big edge in the market.

Player props have been huge, and new innovations like RequestABet from Sky have pushed the market towards more granular offerings, Joe Lee, Head of Great Britain & Ireland – Sportsbook Trading, Paddy Power said. “The key aspect is data, and people to interpret that data,” Lee said.

But the markets have yet to spread to all sports, and Philippe Joos, Head of Product & Innovation at Napoleon Sports & Casino, as well as moderator Andrew Dagnall, CEO of Bettorlogic, noted that ground could still be gained by expanding into cycling, in the case of Belgium, and golf, both of which could offer great live betting opportunities. Lee noted though that when they’ve expanded markets, they’ve seen a lack of consistent interest.

The danger of expanding the number of markets offered is that players may get confused, and not find the bet they most want to make. That’s where a great UX becomes mandatory. “We have to present to the audience the 5, 6, 7 most popular markets and then an easy navigation to get to the rest,” said Dimos Stranomitis, COO Altenar. The other panelists agreed. “It’s indeed crucial for the player to not lose the oversight,” said Joos, while Lee provided U.S. sportsbooks as an exemplary option.

The marriage between sports and sports gambling – two sectors that many thought could never successfully connect – continues. There have been a number of important partnerships announced this year between gaming operators and sports organizations and the latest comes via AC Milan out of Italy. The soccer club has inked a deal with Yabo Sports, a casino and sportsbook operator, to allow the latter to become its official regional partner in Asia. The initial agreement will remain in place for three years, with a possible renewal coming at the end.

Thanks to the new partnership, Yabo will gain exposure through Milan’s fan village and Digital Summer Tour, which has been created as a campaign to increase the exposure of the organization to Asian soccer fans. Together, the two entities will launch a number of initiatives and “interactive fan experiences” to raise brand presence in the region and to capture the important Asian soccer fan market. Yabo already has extensive exposure in the region, which will give Milan an established springboard for its initiatives. 

Yabo CMO David Lee says of the new partnership, “We are very excited to join hands with AC Milan, a club with the second largest fan base in China. For the next three years, we very much look forward to working closely with AC Milan to deliver incredibly creative sports entertainment experiences for our fans in Asia and beyond.”

The agreement is a win for Yabo, as well, as it will also be able to capitalize on soccer’s popularity in Asia to expand its footprint in the region. The financial details of the deal haven’t been provided, but Milan has been on a shopping spree this year, already spending millions to renew a long-standing partnership with Emirates, the United Arab Emirates-based airline. It also signed a “unique, industry-first” partnership with Roc Nation, a sports and entertainment agency, this past July.

A wolf in sheep’s clothing is still a wolf and, at some point, it will have to ditch the costume. This usually doesn’t happen, though, before a couple of the sheep have been devoured, which is why it’s always a good idea to be vigilant. Macau seems to have become an easy target for wolves lately, with some unsavory characters masking themselves in lottery costumes without having any affiliation to the city. Galaxy Entertainment has now apparently become a target, as well, as the company released a statement decrying any connection to any online gambling or betting site. 

In the statement, published on Galaxy’s website, the casino operator asserted that the Galaxy Macau, Broadway Macau and StarWorld Hotel “have no affiliations with any online gambling and betting sites, nor have we directly or indirectly authorised any websites and/or related companies to carry out any form of online gambling and betting activities for and on behalf” of the company. It didn’t specify any particular entity or site as being the culprit behind misrepresentation, but added that anyone who believes they come across a fake gambling site should contact police. The statement added that individuals should also contact police if they are “approached by any suspicious persons claiming to be in any way connected with Galaxy Entertainment” and “fake illegal gambling and betting websites.”

In setting the record straight, Galaxy hopes to fend off any attackers who believe it should be held accountable when they get ripped off. It asserted in the statement that Galaxy “should not be responsible for any losses or damages that may result from any individual or entity’s access to and/or use of fake websites.” The Internet is too old and scams too prevalent for Netizens not to be aware of how to better protect themselves on the web. 

The almost back-to-back scams involving Macau-based gambling activity might be a developing pattern as scammers look for new ways to trick people in the wake of a push by the Chinese government to curb illegal gambling. The country doesn’t allow the activity anywhere, except in Macau, and has recently launched several programs designed to keep it that way. As a result, the crackdown is forcing illegal operators to get creative and could possibly be using ties to legitimate casino operators to boost their possibilities of success. 

Canada’s land-based casino sector is slowly creaking back to life after its long pandemic shutdown this spring.

Last Friday, casino operator Great Canadian Gaming Corp (GCG) announced plans to reopen 11 casinos in Ontario that were ordered shut in mid-March as local COVID-19 infection rates spiraled out of control. The venues are scheduled to reopen on Monday, September 28.

The Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation (OLG) announced a “phased approach” to reopening the province’s casinos back in July, but left the ultimate decision on when to reopen to the third-party service providers who manage day-to-day operations at the facilities.

Few of these service providers saw then or see now much point in reopening given OLG’s restrictions, which include a maximum of 50 customers inside a venue at any given time, ensuring a minimum of two-meters physical distancing between guests and no live-dealer table games whatsoever.

Sports betting operator PointsBet has struck the first ever partnership between a US college sports team and a bookmaker, demolishing yet another former taboo in US sports history.

Tuesday brought word – initially reported by Sportico, subsequently confirmed by the University of Colorado – that PointsBet had signed an exclusive ‘corporate partnership’ with the school’s Colorado Buffaloes, marking the first such deal between a National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division-I athletics program and a betting operator.

Technically, the five-year deal is between PointsBet and Learfield IMG College, the media rights holder of the University of Colorado Athletics program. PointsBet will provide an unspecified “financial boost” for CU Athletics in return for marketing opportunities at the school’s sports venues and via radio broadcasts of CU games and other media channels.

PointsBet will be allowed to promote “the entire gaming category, including free-to-play sports games, daily fantasy sports, casino, online casino, and retail and online sports betting.” That may seem odd given the majority of CU students aren’t old enough to wager, but PointsBet’s new partnership will reportedly “emphasize and create awareness around responsible gaming and sports betting education.”

China’s lottery sales finally rebounded from their long decline in July, posting their first annual sales rise in 18 months.  

Figures released Tuesday by China’s Ministry of Finance show total lottery sales of RMB36.15b (US$5.28b) in the month of July, up 10.4% from the same month last year and 7.5% higher than June 2020’s total.  

July 2020’s gains were largely due to the resumption of major sports activity following the pandemic-related suspension of play this spring. Sports lottery sales rose 17.1% year-on-year to RMB20.7b while welfare lottery sales were up a more modest 2.6% to RMB15.4b.

That said, sales over the first seven months of 2020 hit RMB160b, down nearly 35% from this point last year. Sports lottery sales are down 35.6% to RMB85.3b while welfare lotteries fell 33.8% to RMB74.4b.

Casino operator Penn National Gaming’s long-awaited Barstool Sportsbook app will make its debut in Pennsylvania this month, while PNG offers rival Kindred Group market access in two more US states.

On Tuesday, PNG announced that the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board had approved a “live, real-money test period” for PNG’s new Barstool Sportsbook betting app from September 15-17, pending final iOS app approval.

The soft-launch will be limited to a finite number of pre-registered participants who will put the app through its paces to ensure no hidden glitches emerge. Assuming the test goes well, the app will be opened up for real-money wagering to all Pennsylvania bettors on September 18, again, pending regulatory approval.

PNG has been developing its Barstool app ever since it acquired a 36% stake in Barstool Sports in January. In May, PNG CEO Jay Snowden said the process had been hampered by COVID-19, which forced its developers to collaborate remotely.

It’s hard to argue with the fact that Adrian Mateos is one of the world’s best tournament poker players. With over $21 million in live tournament winnings and an online career to be just as awe-struck by, Mateos added to his impressive poker resume with his latest victory, the 4th WCOOP title of his career.

Winning $543,686 for finishing top of the payouts list, Mateos had some incredibly good players to battle through to claim the victory.

The guaranteed prizepool of $2.5 million was exceeded by an extra $99,650 as 71 players (plus 35 re-entries) made up the money on offer to those who finished in the money. Mateos was one of those who re-entered, paying $50,000 to take part rather than $25,000 but after turning that into half a million dollars, he’ll be delighted with his performance.

Just 13 players took to their seats as the final day begun, but it didn’t take long for the bust-outs to begin. Laszlo Bujtas was taken out by Australian player Kahle Burns after his pocket aces were easily enough to bust Bujtas with nines. Just a couple of hands later, the field was reduced to 11 players when Daris Pedes was taken out by Russian Wiktor Malinowski.

The Premier League is back this weekend, and we’ll have a full preview of the action later this week as we give you the inside scoop on where your sportsbetting picks should be. With a full nine months of drama to come, however, we thought we’d take the moment to look back at seven highly controversial incidents from years gone by which will never be topped… or will they?  

Cesc Fabregas

Controversies certainly come larger than the 12-inches across that was launched by Spanish midfielder Cesc Fabregas, but at the time, ‘Pizzagate’ was a massive story.  

It was back in October 2004 that Arsène Wenger’s Arsenal side visited Old Trafford as defending champions, on the back of a 49-game unbeaten run that would be ended in controversial fashion in Manchester.  

In a week where the whole of poker, let alone the World Tour is in mourning for the passing of Mike Sexton, it is perhaps befitting the man that the game of poker, and in particular in the WPT World Online Championships, piushes ever forward.

As recently as July this year, the WPT Champions Cup was renamed in honour of the late, great Mike Sexton, and Day 1a of the World Poker Tour World Online Championships Main Event kicked off yesterday in fine style.

Taking place on partypoker, for whom Sexton was the Chairman until his passing, the first flight of the Main Event attracted 521 entries in total, with each player’s buy-in of $10,000 ensuring a prize-pool of $5.2 million was already reached.  

Just 80 players remained at the close of play, and those six dozen and spare players will advance to a Day 2 which already looks like it will be packed with superstars from the game we all love.

The SBC Summit Barcelona Digital kicked off on September 8 with a hard look at the Future of Sports Betting. In the Keynote, Sue Schneider VP Growth & Strategy for SBC Americas led a conversation with Carsten Koerl, Founder and CEO of Sportradar, and Jason Robins, Founder, CEO and Chairman of DraftKings, on the Future of Sports Betting.

The conversation began with the elephant in the room, how Covid-19 affected their respective businesses. “There are three main phases. The first one, was for me, fear,” Koerl shared. He noted that he was the last person allowed to return to Switzerland, and had to immediately go into damage control mode as the world of traditional sports shut down.

Phase two was figuring out cash flow planning, protecting employees and figuring out how to increase the content Sportradar could provide. The company managed to triple their offering by July, which lead to what Koerl deemed the last and current phase, hitting the gas. “You can only achieve it with learning and being humble,” he said.

Robins has the unique spot in early 2020 of taking DraftKings public, which he thought was going very smoothly until the pandemic hit. But thankfully, the market started to throw out the current situation for the next quarter, he said, betting on companies that could come out strong from the pandemic.

The SBC Summit Barcelona Digital kicked off on September 8 with a hard look at the Future of Sports Betting. In the Keynote, Sue Schneider VP Growth & Strategy for SBC Americas led a conversation with Carsten Koerl, Founder and CEO of Sportradar, and Jason Robins, Founder, CEO and Chairman of DraftKings, on the Future of Sports Betting.

The conversation began with the elephant in the room, how Covid-19 affected their respective businesses. “There are three main phases. The first one, was for me, fear,” Koerl shared. He noted that he was the last person allowed to return to Switzerland, and had to immediately go into damage control mode as the world of traditional sports shut down.

Phase two was figuring out cash flow planning, protecting employees and figuring out how to increase the content Sportradar could provide. The company managed to triple their offering by July, which lead to what Koerl deemed the last and current phase, hitting the gas. “You can only achieve it with learning and being humble,” he said.

Robins has the unique spot in early 2020 of taking DraftKings public, which he thought was going very smoothly until the pandemic hit. But thankfully, the market started to throw out the current situation for the next quarter, he said, betting on companies that could come out strong from the pandemic.

While the NBA and MLB have ruled much of the sports gambling scene on Bodog recently, this past weekend saw a spectacular mashup of sports. Ping pong didn’t make it to the top-ten list this time, but there was no shortage of almost everything else that could be imagined. With the NFL season ready to get going in just two days, barring any last-minute glitches, there’s a lot more excitement to come, too. 

As the NBA Bubble continues to advance toward a season championship, the league has once again come out on top on Bodog. It captured 34.03% of the action this past weekend, with MLB taking its number-two spot again, this time with 25.14% of the bets. The NBA betting segment will most likely become even hotter as the semifinals picture becomes clearer, and it will be interesting to see what happens between the league and the NFL once the latter’s season is underway. 

While the college football scene is nowhere near as robust as fans would have liked, there’s still plenty of games available. This is part of the reason college football was able to capture 6.81% of the wagers on Bodog this past weekend, beating out the NHL by 0.31%. The US Open Women’s Singles competitions grabbed 4.81% of the bets and horse racing, thanks to the Kentucky Derby and a win by Authentic, ranked even better, getting 6.26% of the action. Authentic was an underdog against Tiz the Law, and sports gamblers who took a chance scored a nice win, as well. Tiz the Law had 3-5 odds going into the race – the largest favorite in 31 years – and Authentic’s 8-1 odds will produce a number of awesome payouts. 

Also making it to the list, although without much support, were the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Fight Night, which garnered 2.87% of the action, and MLS, with 2.06%. Alistair Overeem and Augusto Sakai duked it out at Fight Night, with Overeem taking the win in the fifth round. He dominated the match almost from the start, and could be on his way to a UFC heavyweight title, as long as he can work fast. At 40 years old, he’s going to find it increasingly difficult to compete against younger fighters. 

While the NBA and MLB have ruled much of the sports gambling scene on Bodog recently, this past weekend saw a spectacular mashup of sports. Ping pong didn’t make it to the top-ten list this time, but there was no shortage of almost everything else that could be imagined. With the NFL season ready to get going in just two days, barring any last-minute glitches, there’s a lot more excitement to come, too. 

As the NBA Bubble continues to advance toward a season championship, the league has once again come out on top on Bodog. It captured 34.03% of the action this past weekend, with MLB taking its number-two spot again, this time with 25.14% of the bets. The NBA betting segment will most likely become even hotter as the semifinals picture becomes clearer, and it will be interesting to see what happens between the league and the NFL once the latter’s season is underway. 

While the college football scene is nowhere near as robust as fans would have liked, there’s still plenty of games available. This is part of the reason college football was able to capture 6.81% of the wagers on Bodog this past weekend, beating out the NHL by 0.31%. The US Open Women’s Singles competitions grabbed 4.81% of the bets and horse racing, thanks to the Kentucky Derby and a win by Authentic, ranked even better, getting 6.26% of the action. Authentic was an underdog against Tiz the Law, and sports gamblers who took a chance scored a nice win, as well. Tiz the Law had 3-5 odds going into the race – the largest favorite in 31 years – and Authentic’s 8-1 odds will produce a number of awesome payouts. 

Also making it to the list, although without much support, were the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Fight Night, which garnered 2.87% of the action, and MLS, with 2.06%. Alistair Overeem and Augusto Sakai duked it out at Fight Night, with Overeem taking the win in the fifth round. He dominated the match almost from the start, and could be on his way to a UFC heavyweight title, as long as he can work fast. At 40 years old, he’s going to find it increasingly difficult to compete against younger fighters. 

Across much of Latin America, the general opinion of conventional banking is not favorable. Not only have the multitudes of people living in the region become disenchanted with their countries’ financial stability, businesses are becoming more concerned about the prospects of a future that relies on established financial systems. As a result, citizens and businesses are rapidly turning to the use of cryptocurrency as an alternative to fiat, and its growth, combined with similar activity seen elsewhere around the world, is fueling digital currency adoption that will ultimately force the global financial system to evolve, as well. It is no longer a matter of “if,” but simply of “when” the digital transformation will be complete. 

Chainalysis recently took a look at the Latin American consumerism and banking is changing. Part of the crypto industry analysis firm’s 2020 Geography of Cryptocurrency Report, which is being released this month, the level of crypto transactions in Latin America is going to explode. From July 2019 to June 2020, $25 billion in crypto was sent and $24 billion was received. These figures are considered “small,” just a little ahead of what is seen in Africa and the Middle East. However, a shift is occurring that is being driven by a large segment of unbanked citizens in the region, as well as the ability to send money remittances faster and cheaper with crypto than with any other type of currency, and with much less hassle. 

Explains Luis Pomata, co-founder of the Cripex crypto exchange out of Paraguay, “Lots of goods are imported into Paraguay from China, and then make their way to other countries like Brazil. Lots of the businesses buying these goods use Bitcoin because it’s faster and easier. Banks in Paraguay are worried about money laundering and picky with who they’ll work with, so the banking application process is long and difficult — many businesses are rejected. And even if you have a bank, it is still very hard and costly to make a wire transfer due to the amount of supporting documentation you need to provide. That is the main reason people switch to crypto.”

Many people in Latin America don’t have bank accounts because they can’t meet the requirements established by the financial institutions. Instead of fighting the established system, citizens – especially among the younger generations – can simply download and configure a crypto wallet and, with very little else, suddenly have access to a means with which they can conduct financial transactions. They can now send and receive money to and from anywhere in the world, receiving it in a matter of minutes without having to stand in line at a money remittance desk – an added benefit with the coronavirus still a threat.