Monthly Archives: January 2015

Gaming Trends in 2015: What's happening in gaming tech this year?

Are Virtual Reality, time sinks and a move away from boxed product on the cards for gamers in 2015? With the first full year of the new generation now firmly in the rear-view mirror, the general consensus is that 2014 was something of a tepid year for video games. While the last 12 months saw their fair share of AAA franchise blockbusters mingling with indie smashes and new IPs, there wasn’t one moment in the year gamers could point to that truly electrified either the gaming industry or its massive audience.

NFL Divisional Round Betting Results

If you picked the Divisional Round of the NFL playoffs to bet big on Peyton Manning and the Denver Broncos, then I really have nothing more to say than “tough luck.” Really, I feel bad about it. I mean, even I thought the Broncos would win and cover the game. I didn’t bet on it, which in hindsight was a stroke of genius. But I was close to, that much I’ll admit.

Sportsbooks, though, aren’t as sympathetic, especially when you consider that just about everybody had the Broncos in some kind of singles action, teasers, parlays, and all three in some cases. That was the trend heading into the weekend’s games and a lot of books pretty much had their weekends tied to the game. A Broncos cover would be bad news and a Colts cover would be the best case scenario. No in-between.

As it turned out, sportsbooks walked away with huge smiles on their faces when the Colts turned the tables on the Broncos, winning on the road, 24-13, and sending Peyton Manning to a one-and-done playoff appearance. Some bettors walked out huge after betting on the Colts to win outright, but for the most part, the action was heavily on the side of Denver.

With the loss, books likely enjoyed the sight of one teaser bet after another drown in a public tears. If that wasn’t enough, the books also walked away on the winning side of the New England Patriots’ 35-31 victory over the Baltimore Ravens and the Green Bay Packers’ controversial 26-21 win over the Dallas Cowboys. Both favorites won the game but failed to cover, which was the best-case scenario for the sportsbooks. The Seattle Seahawks’ convincing 31-17 win over the Carolina Panthers was the only game that saw the underdog (barely) cover the spread, but even the action on that game wasn’t as big as the other three games.

All in all, it was a very positive week for the books and a disastrous one for the public. With the season down to its penultimate week, you can expect more action to come heading into the Championship round. If recent trends are any indication, you can expect the public to come out swinging this weekend because quite frankly, they probably wouldn’t have it any other way.

Online Poker Bill Proposed in Washington State

Online poker players in the State of Washington have reason to look on the bright side after a bill to regulate Internet poker was prefiled last Friday.

Those players, many of whom currently access offshore sites according to the proposal, are committing a crime when doing so. Washington State has a 2006 statute on the books that makes playing online poker a felony.

Apparently, that law has never been enforced, and it never will be if House Bill 1114 as introduced by Rep. Sherry Appleton finds enough ‘aye’ votes from state legislators. HB 1114 was filed in advance of the legislature’s 2015 regular session.

Player protections

How to Take Charge of Your Poker Game by Practicing Persistence

The poker world is like a jungle. It looks beautiful – safe even – but there’s a whole lot of pain lurking in places you can’t even see. Things want to eat you up. Chew on your flesh; swallow your money, spit out your bones with the expensive leather wallet.

How do you get through a jungle and keep your balls in your belly – and not in the belly of something else? Perhaps a man called Jungleman may know?

In 2014, nobody won more money playing online cash games than Daniel ‘Jungleman12’ Cates. He ended the year with $2,805,751 in winnings on Full Tilt, and $631,288 on PokerStars, giving him a net profit of $3,437,039 on the two biggest sites in the world.

His total profit on the two sites over his lifetime exceeds $11m, and he was also the biggest winner in 2010 when he won over $5m. The man is a conundrum; of that there is no doubt. He has one of the sharpest minds in the history of the game; but he has other strengths, and one in particular stands out amidst the rest.

Ronaldo Finishes 26th in PCA Main Event

Retired soccer superstar Ronaldo is considered by many to be one of the greatest strikers in the history of the game. The former World Cup winner has now turned his sights toward a new game and is already beginning to show promise. On Monday, Ronaldo surprised the poker world by running deep and finishing 26th at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure Main Event in the Bahamas.

Ronaldo is a member of Team PokerStars SportsStars and entered the Main Event over the weekend. While not the first time he’s played in a high profile poker tournament, this event would prove to be the first time that he would cash in a live tournament, and for a while it seemed he was destined for the final table.

Ronaldo Not Afraid to Battle

According to reports, Ronaldo was as fearless at the poker tables during this event as he was on the pitch. Late Sunday night, he put his tournament life at risk with pocket eights against the A-K of another opponent and was able to double to around 500,000. That stack propelled him into Day 4 action on Monday but he had to get lucky against Christopher Lockhart in order to continue his deep run.

Online Poker Bill Introduced in Washington

An online poker bill that would overturn the draconian laws that make the game a Class C felony in Washington State has been prefiled ahead of the 2015 legislature session scheduled to kick off at the start of this week.

Seven million more American souls could soon be playing a legal form of real money online poker as Washington House of Representatives member, Sherry Appleton, prefiled a new online poker bill (HB 1114) on Friday.

The new bill seeks to replace the draconian laws brought into practice, in 2006 that made participation in online poker games a Class C felony. Anyone caught breaking the law could face up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

It’s widely reported that the bill will be formally introduced when the 2015 legislative session begins on Mon 12th Jan, and OnlinePokerReport (OPR) scribe Chris Grove believes that the driving force behind the bill is the Washington Internet Poker Initiate founder Curtis Woodard.

Attn: WA poker players, We Have a Bill !! HB 1114 (2015-16) Now the real work begins, make yourself heard! http://t.co/AKUwjdeLe7

— Curtis Woodard (@curtinsea) January 12, 2015

The bill contains the same meat that we have seen in most other bills, with the glaring exception being the lack of the words: ‘bad actor.’ Good news if PokerStars ever want to invade the Evergreen state. The reasoning behind the submission is a simple one.

Amaya Gaming considering share repurchase, sale of all B2B assets

Canada’s Amaya Gaming has put its entire B2B asset portfolio under review, with the company potentially shifting to a completely B2C model. Amaya revealed the potential shift at the tail end of an announcement of a plan to repurchase and cancel up to 5% of the public float its common shares. Amaya intends to fund this buying spree “through proceeds of certain divestments and cash on hand.”

The company believes its share price – which has yet to recover from the plunge it took following the mid-December news of an investigation into potential insider trading activity – is currently undervalued. Amaya’s shares rose nearly 12% on Monday to $30.40, still well below its $38.74 peak in late November. Amaya’s shares underwent a rocket ride last year following its $4.9b acquisition of the Rational Group, the parent company of PokerStars and Full Tilt.

As for those aforementioned divestments, Amaya announced in October that it was looking to sell its Cadillac Jack (CJ) division, which supplies gaming devices to land-based casinos. Despite being a significant contributor to Amaya’s pre-Stars bottom line, the level of consolidation in the gaming device industry left CJ a minnow in a world of whales. On Monday, Amaya said it “has received and is evaluating non-binding proposals from certain persons.”

Amaya now says it “intends to explore various strategic opportunities to divest its other B2B assets.” These include the US-focused Diamond Game lottery services business and its Amaya Online platform. Should Amaya successfully shed these divisions, the company would essentially be reduced to little more than a rebranded Rational Group (not that there’s anything wrong with that).

Amaya’s online platform is currently operational in New Jersey’s regulated online gambling market via a deal with Caesars Interactive Entertainment. Amaya also supplies content to the online gambling sites of some of Canada’s provincial gambling monopolies. Amaya has been maneuvering to make PokerStars the first internationally licensed online gambling site to be granted a license to operate in Canada, although many hurdles remain before that goal can be achieved.

Amaya says it plans to use the proceeds of any asset sales to fund not only the share repurchase plan but for “the repayment of indebtedness.” Amaya funded its Rational Group acquisition largely through debt raised via private equity firms, who aren’t typically shy about pressing for repayment in a timely manner.

Amaya Gaming’s Oldford Group Acquisition Named Deal Maker of the Year

Fox Rothschild LLP have been honored at the Finance Monthly Deal Maker of the Year awards, thanks to their integral work on Amaya Gaming’s $4.9 billion acquisition of the privately held Oldford Group.

The online poker deal of the century, Amaya Gaming’s $4.9 billion acquisition of Oldford Group Limited, has been honored in Finance Monthly by taking down one of the Deal Maker of the Year awards.

However, the award winners are not David Baazov and the gang; instead the trophies were handed out to a team of Fox Rothschild LLP attorneys. Spearheaded by partner Marie J. Jones, and joined by associates Mariel J. Giletto, Harry S. Jackson and Christian J. Fisher.

The quartet served as special counsel for Amaya Gaming during the $4.9 billion all-cash transaction of the privately held Oldford Group – the parent company of Rational Group Ltd., the king of the online poker world and owner of PokerStars and Full Tilt.

Fox Rothschild LLP were brought in to handle the gaming regulatory review and due diligence, and tied everything up into a nice neat parcel in less than 60 days. The group are also heavily involved in the process to launch PokerStars and Full Tilt in New Jersey, as they act as Amaya Gaming’s representatives in the licensing process.

The deal made Amaya Gaming the largest publicly held online poker company in the world.

The Finance Monthly Deal Maker Awards are in their fourth year of existence , and they are quickly becoming the industry standard for recognizing excellence in corporate finance.

Macau prostitution sting snares Stanley Ho’s nephew

The nephew of Macau casino icon Stanley Ho has been arrested as part of what authorities are calling the largest illegal prostitution ring ever busted in the world’s top gambling hub. (Insert your own ‘ho’ jokes here.) On Saturday, Alan Ho (pictured center), an executive director at the Hotel Lisboa, was arrested along with five other hotel staff for running a ring whose illicit activities reportedly earned MOP 400m (US $50m) since setting up shop in 2013.

The 68-year-old Ho, the former president of the Macau Travel Association, is believed to be one of two ringleaders of the operation. Ho was at one time a member of the management committee of SJM Holdings, Macau’s largest casino operator, which counts the Lisboa among its properties. Ho’s current role with SJM is unknown and SJM has yet to comment on the arrest.

Macau Judiciary Police said the ring controlled up to 100 rooms in the hotel in which women from mainland China and Vietnam plied their oldest profession. One of the five arrested staffers was a mainland woman who acted as the hotel lobby’s senior manager to coordinate the activity while the other four were responsible for security and recruiting girls online.

Police arrested 96 suspected prostitutes in Saturday’s action and found a list of 2,400 women believed to have utilized the hotel’s services for similar purposes. The ring allowed independent operators to set up shop in the hotel, for which they paid the ringleaders MOP 150k ($18,800) up front and MOP 10k ($1,250) per month for ‘protection’ fees. The girls were allowed to keep all the money they earned via their clients, which typically range from MOP 1,500 to MOP 5k per session.

Prostitution is legal in Macau but soliciting and living off the avails of prostitution are against the law. The ring reportedly allowed its working girls to frequent the hotel’s ground-floor area provided they didn’t constantly stand in the same place. If they got tired, they were told to rest in the hotel’s restaurants or take a walk outside.

In 2012, Las Vegas Sands was accused of harboring prostitutes at its Macau properties. Sands vehemently denied the allegation, which was made by former Sands China CEO Steve Jacobs as part of his wrongful termination suit. However, in December 2010, Macau police arrested over 100 women on prostitution charges at Sands’ Venetian Macao property.

Ronaldo Outlasts All PokerStars Pros at the PCA

Brazilian football legend Ronaldo outlasts his PokerStars Team Pro teammates with his deep run at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure Main Event.

When Miroslav Klose hit the back of the net in Germany’s 7-1 massacre over Brazil, in the summer, he overcame the Brazilian legend Ronaldo as the record scorer in World Cup Finals history.

So what do you do when you are retired, and someone pinches one of your outstanding records?

Well, if you are Ronaldo you find something else that you can be competitive in. Something like poker. It was April 2013 when PokerStars announced it was adding the huge name of Ronaldo to its Team PokerStars SportStar roster. The legends of the sporting world, past and present, are not hired for their poker skills, but when a deep run in a major tournament, coincides with their popularity and fame, you have headlines that will hit the newsstands all over the world.

At the time of writing there are 40 players left in the $10,000 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (PCA) Main Event, and the only member of the PokerStars team still left in the competition is Ronaldo. Jason Mercier, Jonathan Duhamel, Naoya Kihara, Liv Boeree, Daniel Negreanu, George Lind, ElkY, and Andre Akkari have all cashed, but it’s the Brazilian who will be taking home the highest sum of all.

To illuminate those headlines even more, Ronaldo should be in Switzerland, handing over the Fifa Ballon d’Or to his namesake Cristiano. The young Portuguese wizard has just beaten Lionel Messi and Manuel Neuer to win the award for the second year in the row.

So just how far can Ronaldo go in this one?

Russian Poker Player Wins First-Ever $1m PokerStars Spin & Go

Russian poker player ‘sss66666’ has become the first-ever player to win a $1m jackpot playing in a $5 Spin & Go game on PokerStars.

One sure fire way to attract more players onto your Spin & Go format is to introduce a game where you can win $1m from a $5 investment that takes mere minutes to achieve. An ever-surer way of increasing volume is to actually report that someone has won the $1m.

That’s exactly what happened, just a few hours ago, as the Russian poker player ‘sss66666’ defeated ‘geldduvel’ in one of the sickest heads-up cash disparities in the history of the online game.

The winner must be thanking his lucky stars that the Russian authorities were not successful in their attempts to block Russian players from playing on the site, and the victory is bound to kick up a storm in his homeland.

The $1m jackpot is part of a PokerStars promotion of limited nature. You can only win the $1m top prize through the $5 buy-in structure, and you have a 0.00003% chance of hitting the big one – a whopping 240,000 times your initial investment.

It’s the first time that the $1m jackpot has been hit, and the two other players seated at the table went home with $100,000 each. According to the PokerStars blog, ‘sss66666’ had lost half of his stack after just four hands, but found a double up before eliminating ‘Nonko999’ with [As] [8h] versus pocket sevens.

That left Sss666666 facing geldduvel with a $900,000 pay jump between first and second, with no deals being available to either party. Once again, ace-eight was the winning hand, as Sss666666 flopped two pair on [As] [9s] [8s] [Jd] [3d], against [Ad] [5h], and the jackpot was breached when the money went in on the turn.

Interview with Gian Perroni on Break Out Gaming

Rebecca Liggero talks to Gian Perroni of CanAffco.com and he discussed about the concept of Break Out Gaming.

 

The success of Bitcoins has spawned hundreds of imitators, which like the original BTC are “mined,” which means to created by using computers’ computational power to solve mathematical algorithms. Nakamoto chose to make his crypto-creating code open-source software, which means that other developers can — and have — created their own virtual currencies, many with marketing, engineering and programming twists that are designed to distinguish them from Bitcoins, which remain by far the most valuable of the lot.

Breakout Gaming plans to offer a complete suite of gaming opportunities, from poker to blackjack to slots and other casino games. They’ve also announced plans to offer fantasy sports (NFL, NBA, World Cup, MLB, etc.), and have even teased about the development of a new “fantasy crypto” concept: A game and a betting opportunity based on the relative success and failure of all those other hundreds of virtual currencies that exist … Bitcoins and all the rest.

“It’s doing two thing that that are really unique. One is the unique mix of games that does not exist right now. It combines traditional poker, casino but also fantasy. Fantasy sports, fantasy e-sports, crypto-fantasy games. So it allows us to be legal in different market and the second thing that we are doing differently is as you mentioned, we are coming up with our own break up coin. and the coin is what’s going to be used by players to play the different games but it also allows us take unique both the bitcoin type of cryptocurrency transactions for real currency.”

Watch the video and hear more from Gian Perroni.

Retired principal wins $326 million Mega Millions jackpot

A retired school principal is the sole winner of the $326 million Mega Millions jackpot drawn on Nov. 4, the biggest prize in New York Lottery history, officials announced Monday. Harold Diamond, 80, of the Sullivan County town of Wurtsboro, said he bought the ticket at a highway service center where he had stopped at his wife’s insistence to wait out a storm on Election Day.