Monthly Archives: March 2015

888poker To Inject Whale With $500,000 In Cash

A change of pace will take place at 888poker this month thanks to a new commitment to providing more value for online tournament players. A recent announcement by the operator has signaled that the monthly “Whale” event, which commonly offers a prize pool of $200,000, will be increased to $500,000 on March 29. More Money, […]

The post 888poker To Inject Whale With $500,000 In Cash appeared first on .

Gaming Industry News Weekly Recap – Stories You Might Have Missed

THE AMERICAS

Lotteries pushed for an exemption from the Restoration of America’s Wire Act but Rep. Jason Chaffetz told lotteries to get stuffed; a California tribal coalition warned legislators about PokerStars’ treachery; New Jersey’s online poker market continued to slide; Atlantic City casino revenue caught a cold; GameAccount inked a free-play online deal with Maryland Live; Louisiana proposed using unclaimed casino cash to fund medical exams for rape victims; WPT player of the year Mukul Pahuja went on an epic Twitter rant; Sheldon Adelson topped the Forbes’ list of gaming billionaires; a judge told Caesars Entertainment to bend over and spread ‘em wide; Scientific Games revenue spiked following its Bally acquisition; High 5 Games sued International Game Technology for contract violations; Gaming and Leisure Properties made a $4.1b offer for Pinnacle Entertainment’s real estate and Sue Schneider explained what distinguishes iGaming North America from all other conferences.

EUROPE

Bwin.party’s earnings fell for the third straight year; Italian financial cops accused PokerStars of a €300m tax fraud; Novomatic subsidiary Greentube acquired social and mobile gamers AbZorba Games; Denmark’s online gambling market grew 20% last year; Russian online bookmaker traffic fell 11%; Intertain’s revenue rose almost as much as its debt; the European Commission approved Poland’s gambling amendments; Paddy Power hired new mischief makers; GamCrowd and Innvotec brought crowd-funding to the online gaming industry; Rob Painter talked up SkyBet’s new Football League sponsorship and Casino Saga’s Georg Westin discussed his company’s trademark beef with King.com.

Singapore floating casino makes a comeback thanks to no entry levy

Singapore’s lone remaining floating casino is making a comeback, spurred by gamblers seeking to avoid the S$100 daily entry levy at the city-state’s land-based casinos.

Business at the Lido casino on the Leisure World cruise ship nose-dived in 2010 after Las Vegas Sands’ Marina Bay Sands and Genting Singapore’s Resorts World Sentosa opened their doors. A spokesman for New Century Tours, the Singapore-based operator funneling gamblers to the Queenston Maritime-owned Leisure World, told the Straits Times that the ship had “fewer than 500 passengers on some days.”

Two other casino cruise ships that used to ply their trade in international waters off Singapore went belly up after the integrated resorts opened. But the passage of time means the novelty of the land-based casinos has worn off while interest in more cost-effective gaming options has increased. The New Century spokesman said Leisure World’s daily passenger rates are back up between 600 and 700, four of five of whom are Singaporeans (the rest Malaysians).

Leisure World has proven particularly popular among older Singaporeans, who pay just $23 on weekdays for a day trip that includes free buffet meals. Those under 55 years old pay $43. Another appeal is the low minimum bets at the Lido’s 40 gaming tables, with bets starting at $2 rather than the $25 minimums at Singapore’s resorts. (The Lido also offers 200 electronic gaming machines, but these are less popular.) And unlike its land-based competition, the Lido doesn’t require Singaporeans to pony up S$100 to cross the threshold.

GTECH enjoys ‘robust’ Q4 as IGT gets sued by High 5 Games

Italian lottery and gaming technology supplier GTECH enjoyed a “robust” Q4 thanks to strong product sales in its Americas and International markets.

Revenue in the three months ending Dec. 31 hit €809.5m, up 4.7% year-on-year. Earnings were up 6.7% to €281m but the company reported a net loss of €92.8m due to one-off costs, including those associated with GTECH’s $6.4b acquisition of US gaming device maker and social gaming operator International Game Technology (IGT). Excluding those one-offs, net income rose 83% to €53m.

The Americas segment reported revenue up 10% to €252m largely on strong VLT sales in Oregon. Healthy instant ticket sales also helped to offset a decline in multistate jackpot lottery sales. Since the quarter ended, GTECH expanded the Georgia Lottery’s online options and inked a deal with casino operator MGM Resorts to build GTECH’s first Nevada sportsbook and on-premise mobile gaming deployment.

The International division saw revenue rise 34% to €113m, thanks to product sales in Belgium, higher machine sales to casino customers in EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) and higher systems sales in Europe. The quarter saw GTECH awarded up to 5,550 of Greek betting operator OPAP’s initial 16,500 new video lottery terminals.

Scientific Games revenue spikes following Bally acquisition

Gaming and lottery technology supplier Scientific Games Corp (SGMS) revenue jumped 29% in Q4 thanks to contributions from the recently acquired Bally Technologies.

Revenue in the three months ending Dec. 31 hit $565.8m, counting 40 days of Bally contributions since the $5.1b acquisition officially closed in November. Despite the windfall, $75.8m in costs related to that acquisition created a net loss of $47.1m for the quarter. SGMS finished the year with $8.5b in debt, up from $3.2b in 2013.

SGMS’ gaming division, which includes not only Bally’s slot machine operations but 2013’s big acquisition WMS Industries, saw revenue nearly double to $301.7m. This sum is broken down into gaming operations ($134.8m), gaming machine sales ($119.2m), gaming systems ($27.7m) and table products ($20m).

SGMS’ interactive division reported revenue up 43.3% to $43m thanks to a full quarter of contributions from WMS’ Williams Interactive operations. Social gaming, particularly the Jackpot Party Social Casino and the new Gold Fish Slots app, was credited with driving most of the interactive gains. The ranks of daily and monthly average users posted good gains but average revenue per daily average user fell 15% to $0.22.