Monthly Archives: March 2015

Innovation in iGaming Profiles: NU Entertainment

In 2007 James Findlay and his partner Carolyn Hammond conceived the NU card and gaming system.  Several years later the pair formed Lucky Games Australia to focus on the development of NU and Findlay took up a position as the Co-Founding Director. Since then, according to Findlay, Lucky Games has built a collection of new game content and an IP portfolio, all with granted patents, registered trademarks, domains and branded merchandise.

Findlay has a passion for math and design and his professional background is in the building industry and property development.  He’s an inventor and an entrepreneur at heart and his experience in several different fields eventually led him to developing an entirely new system of games for the gambling industry.

I had the pleasure of meeting Findlay at ICE Totally Gaming 2015 and he gave me my own pack of NU cards so I could test out the system myself.  More recently I had the opportunity to follow up with Findlay on his proprietary games and learn why iGaming operators would be interested in licensing his product.

Becky Liggero: James, its lovely to have you for our innovator series.  Can you describe the complex process of developing NU Entertainment? I know you have a number of patents as well.

James Findlay: Patent applications are extensive and at times exhaustive, that said, by receiving granted patents is evidence that your invention is truly novel and innovative.  NU is a gaming apparatus with granted patents in the U.S, Australia, Singapore, South Africa, Japan and pending in 42 other jurisdictions including UK/Europe, China and Macau.  The most innovative and disruptive card deck in 800 years; It’s akin to patenting the modern, metric expandable version of the 52.

We are now positioned to offer our proprietary exclusive NU Game content to leading social and cash game developers and operators. Licensing allows expert gaming companies, to exclusively exploit the NU IP while having a legal monopoly.

BL: That certainly is a lot of patents.  How is NU Poker different than traditional poker and why would a player choose NU over traditional?

On Deck: March Madness

Every year, a lot of people look forward to March for a variety of reasons. Whether it’s because they’re relieved of escaping the icy hell that is Winter, or they’re just looking forward to seeing flowers bloom again, March always seems like the first month of the year when those long frowns are replaced by hopeful exuberance.

In a lot of ways, the same can be said for fans of basketball, or in this particular instance, college basketball. We all know what March represents to fans of the college basketball, so much so that it can be described in just one word: madness.

As in, March Madness.

With respect to the Super Bowl and the upcoming “Sports-maggedon” on May 2, 2015, March Madness deserves a spot in the list of highly anticipated sporting events this year, or any year for that matter.

Unlike the much-maligned BCS system in college football, nobody, and I mean nobody, has any complaints with the way the men’s college basketball tournament is set-up. Sure, there will be a lot of heartbroken teams that are left out of the dance, relegated to the NIT tournament the same way those who can’t make it to the UEFA Champions League settle for the Europa League. There’s no shame in that, but let’s be clear: every college basketball team in America is shooting for a place in the NCAA tournament.

This season, the stakes are as high as they’ve ever been, even though there’s already growing sentiment that the NCAA men’s basketball tournament should just forego March Madness and just let Kentucky and Duke play in a best of 21 to determine who the national champion is. While I’m not completely opposed to the idea, it does fly against everything that’s awesome about March Madness.

Only in this kind of tournament will you see a relatively unknown, mid-major team take down the titans of the game, one stunning upset at a time. We’ve seen it happen every year, and rest assured, we’ll see it again this year and in the future. The unpredictability of March Madness is all too real for a lot of college teams. You win, you move on. You lose, you go home. There aren’t any second chances in the tournament. It’s a winner-take-all in every game so you’re not going to get any half-assed efforts from any of these teams.

Core gamers to drive PC growth past PS4, Xbox One and Wii U, says OGA

The gaming industry is in the midst of a fantastic time when not only are consoles thriving in a growing market, but so are PCs. The Open Gaming Alliance recently worked with the market research company DFC Intelligence to forecast important shifts in the PC gaming industry looking forward.

Ault group bets on Manila; Pagcor Net Income Up; religious groups still no fun

Groups of religious sector in Baguio and Benguet have expressed its opposition, again, on gambling, encouraging people to restrain in any form of gambling.

“In our concern for the common good, we exhort our people in Baguio and Benguet to abstain from all forms of gambling, be they legal or illegal, like jueteng, e-bingo, online gambling or casino,” the statement said.

The group includes the Baguio-Benguet Ecumenical Group, the Diocese of Baguio, the United Methodist Group, the United Church of Christ in the Philippines, the Episcopal Church in the Philippines, the Commission on Ecumenism of the Roman Catholic Church, the St. Stephen Lutheran Church, the Philippine Military Evangelical Church and the Assembly of God.

Last year, Baguio City Bishop Carlito Cenzon asked the local government to prevent the entrance of a casino or any gambling or gaming enterprise into the city and the province, saying that gambling “usually leads to an unhealthy lifestyle, later on financial problems, and social problems such as criminalities.”

Meanwhile in Manila, the government promotes casinos to boost tourism and the economy. Solaire, the first integrated resorts built in Manila, intensifies efforts to attract more high rollers; while the newly-opened Melco’s City of Dreams has welcomed 600,000 visitors and high occupancy rates since its December 15, 2014 soft opening. There are two more integrated resorts coming: Japan’s Universal Entertainment Corp’s $2 billion project expected to open in 2016 and Travellers International partners with Genting Hong Kong, which is expected to start operation in 2018.

On Monday, State-run Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp (PAGCOR) announced a 5.05% year-on-year increase to PHP3.25 billion (US$73.7 million) in net income for 2014.

PAGCOR saw its revenue fell by 1.32% year-on-year to PHP39.99 billion, reporting a loss of PHP12.17 million on foreign exchange. The company’s gaming revenue, however, increased by 8.51% to PHP29.93 compared to 2013, still below 2014′s annual target of PHP31.02 billion.

Morgan Stanley Analyst: Casino Operators Buoyed In Vegas, Still Sunk In Macau

Relatively strong revenue growth in Las Vegas might help casino stocks with big stakes there fend off weak performance in the far larger Macau market, an analyst said Monday. Morgan Stanley’s Thomas Allen, who maintains an “attractive” rating on the industry, said January’s 10 percent growth in gambling revenue constituted Las Vegas’ best month since 2007.

PokerStars Live Dealer Product Arrives on .Com, .EU and .UK Sites

PokerStars continue their journey into the world of online casino with the launch of a live dealer product, across .com, .eu, and .uk sites, in partnership with Evolution Gaming.

The PokerStars online experience just got that little bit richer with the introduction of online casino games featuring live dealers.

The world’s largest online poker room has partnered with Latvia’s, Evolution Gaming, to provide their customers with a live casino experience specifically catered to their individual needs.

The option to gamble in the presence of live dealers will be added to the current suite of online casino options, and available through the online poker client. Games include roulette, blackjack, baccarat and casino style Hold’em.

The dealers, and the live room, will be based in Evolution’s Riga studios, but the room itself has been specifically created for PokerStars customers, by PokerStars. The launch on the .com, .eu and .uk sites comes a month after live casino games were successfully launched on the PokerStars.es network in Spain.

Amaya Gaming first launched live casino games on Full Tilt. That was back in October 2014, and one assumes the use and feedback was positive enough to see a full roll out on their premier site.

It makes sense.

French Poker Players Hopeful Over Potential Shared Liquidity Regulation

The French Minister of the Economy, Finance and Industry, has got a few poker players in France excited, after he suggested that he might support ARJEL’s proposals to open up player liquidity to other European markets.

Is there light at the end of the tunnel for French poker?

Let’s hope so.

It’s getting pretty dark in there.

It’s been a terrible time. The final financial quarter of 2014 saw a decline of €17.3 million in French online poker revenue. Whilst there is a slight upturn in tournament interest (€6.5m increase in Q4), cash game numbers have been falling with the rapid rate of blind lemmings taking a summer stroll along a cliff (down €23.8m in Q4).

It’s not just online poker that’s taking a beating. Live poker is also getting its ass whipped pretty badly. The World Series of Poker (WSOP) decided that the Germans would create a better European series than the French by hauling their product from Paris to Berlin. The European Poker Tour (EPT) decided that Deauville would no longer be a part of their plans; and the World Poker Tour (WPT) also stopped visiting the Aviation Club de France (ACF) a year before the French authorities placed the card room into liquidation.

The net result is a lack of fish. The sharks have buggered off. The rest of the world have opened their arms and welcomed French online poker players with a peck on both cheeks.

Fraser Bellamy Wins £200k at the Sky UK Poker Championships

Fraser Bellamy has captured the £200,000 first prize in the £1,100 Sky Poker UK Poker Championships Main Event, after defeating Chris Vernon in heads-up action at Dusk till Dawn.

Rob Yong has done it again.

[Image Credit: PokerNews]

He placed his balls on the chopping block, and now they are firmly back in his y-fronts.

It was a bold play to slap a £1 million guarantee on the side of the £1,100 Sky UK Poker Championships. It was a sweat. No doubt about that. But 813 entrants made sure everyone went home happy, especially Fraser Bellamy.

Bellamy is no stranger to the Dusk till Dawn (DTD) card room. He’s a regular face. In 2010, he beat the talented Jack Ellwood, in heads-up action, to take the £78,488 first prize in the £1,090 Monte Carlo. I guess he’s no stranger to the big money either.

He had over $300,000 in live tournament earnings before this win. He can double that after his £200,000 first prize performance. It’s the second time in succession that this title has found it’s way back to Sheffield after Alex Spencer won the event in 2014.

Raphael Wimmer Wins The Eureka 5 Main Event in Rozvadov

Raphael Wimmer emerged from a plight that saw him holding 4 big blinds to eventually overcome Josef Pavelka, in heads-up action, to win the first prize in the Eureka 5 Main Event in Rozvadov.

Austria has their first Eureka Main Event champion in the shape of Raphael Wimmer.

[Image Credit: PokerArena & Tomas Stacha]

The Season 5 opener in Rozvadov, Czech Republic, attracted 664 players, and created a total prize pool of €644,080. The nine-day festival was held in the Kings Casino, for the third time, and it generated over €1m in prize money spread over 22 different events.

The final table of the €1,100 Main Event was fairly low key. It was littered with inexperienced live tournament players. This included Wimmer, who had never before cashed for more than $8,000, and had never registered any success outside of his native Austria.

Two names that you may be familiar with are Marek Blasko and Hossein Ensan. Blasko is the winner of two German Championship of Poker (GCOP) titles, and there was a time that I thought he was going to walk away with a World Poker Tour (WPT) title, in Bratislava, before Roberto Romanello got inside his head and started screwing around with the wiring. Ensan finished third in the Season 11 European Poker Tour (EPT) Main Event in Barcelona for $860, 091.

Ensan would be the first to leave the contest in eighth place. Branislav Ondrus and Josef Gulas were next. Then there were five and €323,470 to play for. With an average stack of 13 big blinds, and a situation where Wimmer held half of the chips in play, it was decided to do a five-way chop that left €10,000 in the middle.

Caesars Interactive revenue rises nearly two-thirds in Q4

Caesars Interactive Entertainment (CIE) reported revenue up nearly two-thirds in the fourth quarter, thanks to its social gaming acquisitions and a full-year of real-money online gambling in New Jersey.

CIE revenue rose 63.6% to $156.4m in the three months ending Dec. 31 and adjusted earnings more than doubled to $47.9m. Income from operations came to $300k, an improvement over the $5.7m loss in the same period in 2013, but the company’s net loss grew to $18.7m from $8.8m a year ago.

CIE’s social and mobile gaming operations rose 63% to $147.7m in Q4 thanks to the Q1 2014 acquisition of games developer Pacific Interactive. Revenue from the World Series of Poker and real-money online operations in New Jersey doubled to $8.7m.

CIE’s social and mobile gaming average daily active users rose 23% to 5.7m while monthly active users rose 12% to 17.8m. Average monthly unique payers doubled to 657k, representing 4% of monthly unique users, a year-on-year increase of 170 basis points. Average revenue per user rose 7¢ to 28¢.

For the year as a whole, CIE reported revenue of $586.8m, adjusted earnings of $177m and operating income of $21.3m, while recording a net loss of $20.9m. The company blamed the losses on the Q4 closure of a development studio in Minsk, Belarus, increased marketing costs in New Jersey and $5.4m in negative foreign currency transaction changes.

CIE is part of Caesars Growth Partners (CGP), which was spun off from casino operator Caesars Entertainment in 2013 to (allegedly) protect Caesars’ more profitable assets from creditors ahead of the company’s main unit declaring Chapter 11 bankruptcy. CGP is majority owned by Caesars Acquisition Company (CACQ), another entity that was created out of thin air during the parent company’s frantic game of asset three-card monte.

CGP also controls brick-and-mortar casino operations, including Bally’s Las Vegas, The Cromwell, The Linq Hotel & Casino, Harrah’s New Orleans and Horseshoe Baltimore. The casino division reported Q4 revenue of $370.5m and adjusted earnings of $59.8m while recording a net loss of $148.5m.

New Poker Headset Claims To Read Player’s Minds

Serious invention or a crazy marketing ploy? That’s the question poker players across the community are asking after reports of a new poker headset capable of reading brainwaves was revealed. Reviewed and reported on by British newspaper, The Daily Star, the mind reading device, known as Emotiv, could potentially help poker players refine their skills and […]

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Negreanu And Colman Top Inaugural GPI American Poker Awards

The first-ever American Poker Awards took place on Friday night following a glittering reception at the SLS Hotel in Beverly Hills. Hosted by Kara Scott, the awards were the culmination of a day of seminars and forums, as Global Poker Index CEO Alex Dreyfus, the awards’ brainchild, implemented his masterplan to unite and fortify the industry […]

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Twitch Bets On Online Poker, PokerStars Launches Channel

Twitch is buying into the online poker industry by expanding its live streaming broadcasts of Internet tournaments and events featuring many of the game’s top professionals. Following its acquisition by Amazon last fall for $970 million, Twitch, whose primary focus has been video games, added poker to its repertoire of content in November and has […]

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