Monthly Archives: April 2015

ONE: Valor of Champions Official Weigh-In Results

23 April 2015 – Manila, Philippines: ONE Championship™ (ONE) announced that the mixed martial artists competing at ONE: VALOR OF CHAMPIONS have completed the weigh-ins and are ready for the event, which takes place tomorrow evening at the state-of-the-art Mall of Asia Arena in Manila. Bashir Ahmad has stepped in on short-notice to replace Shannon Wiratchai, and will face Amir Khan in a catchweight bout. The bout between Geje Eustaquio and Anatpong Bunrad will now be a catchweight bout.

Visit the official ONE: VALOR OF CHAMPIONS weigh-in photo gallery by clicking here.

Tickets for ONE: VALOR OF CHAMPIONS are on sale at www.smtickets.com. Ticket categories begin with the full Red Carpet and cageside experience at PHP5380. Tickets priced at PHP3180, PHP1280, PHP640 and PHP220 are also available. Prices include ticketing fee.

ONE Welterweight World Champion, Ben Askren, stated, “Luis Santos is not going to take the ONE Welterweight World Championship from me. I’m going to walk across the cage, take him down and beat him up, and there’s nothing he can do to stop me.”

Las Vegas Sands misses 1Q forecasts, profit drops 34 percent

Las Vegas Sands Corp. CEO Sheldon Adelson said he knew what question was coming: when would the steady and steep decline in the world’s most lucrative gambling market hit bottom? A corruption crackdown that has shaken up the up-until-recently skyrocketing gambling business in Macau, China has sped swift drops in revenue and activity there. Las Vegas Sands, a giant in the casino, hotel and convention business – particularly overseas – reported a first-quarter profit of $511.9 million, a 34 percent drop compared to the same period a year ago, hurt by lower revenue.

FanDuel and 15 NFL Teams in Multi-year Sponsorship Deal

By @TheDailyPayoff

The battle between the two elite companies in the daily pay fantasy space escalated Wednesday.
Terry Lefton of the Sports Business Journal broke the story https://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Daily/Issues/2015/04/22/Marketing-and-Sponsorship/FanDuel.aspx that FanDuel, just weeks after rival Draft Kings announced an exclusive deal with MLB, had signed one-year exclusive deals with 15 FL teams.
The new deal gives the biggest player in terms of participants in the growing pay fantasy space at least a marketing edge in the largest pay fantasy sport – The NFL. The 15 NFL teams joining Fan Duel were the Bengals, Colts, Packers, Bills, Eagles, Rams, Browns, Jaguars, Ravens, Buccaneers Jets, Redskins, Chargers, Lions and Texans.

Since Yahoo has an exclusive deal with the 49ers and three NFL teams are in states where paid fantasy games are illegal (Arizona, Louisiana, and Washington), it gives the New York-based company a leg up as the NFL Draft comes into focus (New England and Denver have already signed Draft Kings deals, and Kraft Sports, like ESPN and MLB, have taken equity positions with Boston-based Draft Kings).

According to Lefton’s report, last Friday, the NFL released to its teams new marketing regulations governing their deals with paid fantasy sites. The new rules essentially make daily paid fantasy sites equivalent to gambling casinos in ways clubs could market with them.

WinView secures funds for real-time mobile sports app; Genesis Gaming launches Social Casino Games

WinView, a US-based company that focuses on synchronized two-screen television, has secured $1.2 million (€1.1 million) in second round venture investment.

The funds raised will be used to finance the development and launch of its real-time mobile sports application with live television, in time for the 2015 football season.

WinView games will allow fans to play skill-based, in-game competitions during live television sports events and win cash rewards and prizes.

The company said that its new app will offer a similar experience to live in-play betting and will targets sports fans across a range of interest levels.

SafeCharge launch of PokerStars Prepaid MasterCard

SafeCharge (AIM: SCH), a leader in advanced payment technologies, is pleased to announce that it has launched a PokerStars-branded prepaid MasterCard® that allows poker players in the UK to withdraw and deposit direct to their bank account.

SafeCharge, a leader in advanced payment technologies, will manage StarsCard, a prepaid MasterCard payment solution for customers of PokerStars, one of the world’s largest online gaming sites. StarsCard was initially made available to all players in the UK on 16 April 2015 and will roll out into further international markets in the future.

The StarsCard provides a free and well-protected web and mobile account for PokerStars players that can be funded by vouchers (available at retail stores), bank transfer or a debit card. StarsCard is integrated to PokerStars and can be used to deposit and cashout directly to and from a player’s PokerStars account.

StarsCard allows PokerStars customers to have a single point of deposit that combines all the convenience of existing options but with additional features for cashing out, spending and sending money to friends and family. StarsCard can be used anywhere MasterCard is accepted.

London Gaming Company Announces Partnership with Leander Games

London Gaming Company, a full-service gaming platform provider launched in early 2014, today announced it has signed a distribution agreement with Leander Games. The deal will see Leander Games content made available to all of LGC’s customers.

“For us, quality is much more important than quantity, when it comes to gaming content”, commented Max Speidel, Co-Founder at London Gaming Company. “Our emphasis is on giving operators the marketing tools to extract every penny of ROI from their games. Having excellent gaming content is a critical part of that, which is why we’re very happy to have signed this deal with Leander with their proven track-record in the industry.”

“We’re very excited to be working with London Gaming Company. They have the right focus on marketing systems that will benefit us all and I’m very confident we’ll have a great future together.” commented Steven Matsell, CEO at Leander Games.

About London Gaming Company

Top of the Shop by Trimark Brings Bingo Catchphrases to Life

Gibraltar, 22 April 2015 – Top of the ShopⓇ, exclusive to the Odobo Marketplace, is the first bingo variant to bring classic caller catchphrases to life as images on a deck of playing cards.

Top of the Shop is a variant of 90-ball bingo that plays on the phrases found throughout bingo halls in the UK. These are usually called out by the game’s host and include “snakes alive – 55” and “two fat ladies – 88”. They’re popular with players for injecting humour and personality into the game. As each beautifully illustrated and numbered card is drawn, players aim to match the represented number to those on their ticket.

Although Top of the Shop offers a new caller system, the underlying 90-ball bingo format still offers wins for matching one or two lines and hitting a full house (matching all four lines). This version also replicates the experience of land-based bingo clubs by incorporating extra ways to win, such as: Bulleyes, Double Bubbles and Big Wins. These bonus features are rarely incorporated in online bingo and offer players three additional chances to win significant bonus prizes. The game also features achievements that can be collected over multiple sessions to reward player loyalty.

David Dent from Trimark, commented, “This is the second variant of bingo we’ve produced in HTML5 for the Odobo Marketplace. It uses a mechanic similar to the popular Lotería but makes the most of the caller catchphrases that are synonymous with the game in the UK. It’s humorous and fun and we’re pleased that Top of the Shop will soon be available to players around the globe.”

Sportradar signs partnership with NFL; Betclic inks with French basketball

Sportradar US has secured a multi-year partnership with the National Football League, paving the way for the sports data and content provider to become the exclusive distributor of NFL statistics to digital outlets. The deal is set to begin in the 2015 NFL season.

Sportradar’s responsibilities will include supplying official real-time scores, player statistics and play-by-play data. Likewise, Sportradar will also distribute the NFL’s new Next Gen Stats tracking system. The advanced, real-time analytical data provided by Next Gen Stats includes measurements like speed, acceleration and distance travelled for all players.

“Next Gen Stats is an exciting initiative that adds tremendous breadth and depth to our sport, NFL Vice President of Media Strategy and Business Development Vishal Shah said in a statement. “ The ability to partner with Sportradar US, with its focus on technology and high quality data distribution, enables the NFL to bring these great experiences to the rapidly growing sports data market and our fans.”

The deal with the NFL also gives Sportradar US a tremendous platform to showcase its capabilities since the football league is widely considered as the most popular sports league in the US. “This deal is an important milestone for our company and in particular underlines our commitment to securing a leading position in the US sports data market,” Sportradar US president Ulrich Harmuth said. “We are thrilled to partner with the NFL in developing a completely new data category that will boost the fan experience as well as improve how the NFL and its partners interact with their fans.”

SNC consortium wins Crosslinx contract

A consortium that includes SNC-Lavalin has been selected by the Ontario government as the preferred bidder for Toronto’s multibillion-dollar Eglinton light rail transit contract, sources say. The Crosslinx Transit Solution group is a mix of Canadian and international partners, including SNC, Aecon , EllisDon, Stantec , ACS Infrastructure Canada, Dragrados and IBI Group.

MGM releases first compliance report in Springfield; NH House committee OKs expanded gambling

MGM Resorts International issued a 50-page report on Wednesday, detailing the specifics of its compliance with its host community agreement with the city of Springfield, Massachusetts.

In the report, MGM noted a series of initiatives it has begun, including information sessions with local vendors and suppliers and workforce training programs for prospective employees. The company also said that interest in the construction project has been on the rise as 206 businesses have signed up for a database and expressed interest in being part of the project, which is regarded as one of the biggest development programs the region has seen in many years. MGM also said that it has purchased $30 million in real estate and paid the city more than $1 million.

Despite the documented progress MGM has made, work on the actual casino has yet to begin. It’s been over a month since the ceremonial groundbreaking of the 14.5-acre site and to this day, little has been done that constitutes any kind of construction progress being made.

Turns out, MGM is holding off on the start of construction until it clears up an issue with the state historic commission pertaining to a historic school building the casino operator plans to tear down to make room for a parking garage. A spokesman for the commission told the Associated Press that discussions are underway on the steps needed to ensure that the casino could proceed with construction while also maintaining parts of the historical sites.

GiGse 2015 Day 3 Recap

The final day of GiGse 2015 has just finished up at the Hyatt in San Francisco.  As always, today was quieter than the other two days, but nonetheless provided value, especially for those interested in industry start-ups and venture capital.

Today’s main highlight was the Start-up LaunchPad, an annual event at GiGse during which five hand-picked start-up companies pitch their products to a panel of judges.  After the pitches, each judge reveals which start-up they would choose to invest a million dollars in and why while the audience votes on the winner.

This year the five start-ups were as follows:

Betzapp: A bet aggregation service offering “pay and play” in one click

William Hill becomes the first bookie to integrate app to Apple watch

Last week, Ladbrokes claimed to be the first bookie to receive Apple’s approval of a new Apple Watch betting app but rival William Hill becomes the first operator to integrate Apple Watch functionality into its UK-facing iOS app.

Hill announced the integration of its sports betting application the Apple App Store on Monday, enabling customers to bet on football and horseracing via the Apple Watch, which will debut on Friday.

William Hill PR spokesperson Jon Ivan-Duke told eGR Magazine that the operator saw great potential in the new wearable device with rival firms plotting similar launches in the coming months.

“It’s exciting to launch new products at any time, but particularly as there won’t be any other operator who will be in the marketplace before us,” Ivan-Duke said. “Wearable technology is developing all of the time and Apple Watch gives William Hill the chance to connect with our customers in a new and innovative way.”

Iao Kun Group signs up Crown Resorts, warns of junket agents’ growing power

Macau junket investor Iao Kun Group Holding Company (IKG) has struck a deal with Australian casino operator Crown Resorts.

The deal is being done via an intermediary; an IKG officer named Lou Kan Kuong. Earlier this week, IKG inked a memorandum of understanding in which officer Lou acts as a junket operator at Crown’s Perth and Melbourne properties while IKG gets 100% of his profits. IKG called the purchase price “nominal” and said it hopes to conclude the deal by mid-May.

The degree of separation seems silly, since IKG and Crown aren’t strangers. IKG funnels VIPs to City of Dreams, the Macau casino operated by Crown’s joint venture Melco Crown Entertainment. But Australia can be very picky about who does what with Crown, so…

IKG currently has stakes in five VIP gaming rooms spread across four different Macau casino operators but Macau’s VIP market is in the dumps, IKG chairman Man Pou Lam was therefore justifiably giddy over the firm’s “first step toward expanding our operations and presence internationally and beginning to diversify our sources of revenue.”