Lee Davy continues his birds eye view of the panel activity at the recent eSports Betting Summit held at The Royal Garden Hotel in London, this time, covering eSports wagering & underage gambling.

Why does your teenager want a lock on his door?

Why do dishes go in but never come out?

What is that smell?

Lee Davy continues his birds eye view of the panel activity at the recent eSports Betting Summit held at The Royal Garden Hotel in London, this time, covering eSports wagering & underage gambling.

Why does your teenager want a lock on his door?

Why do dishes go in but never come out?

What is that smell?

Credit rating agency Moody’s Investor Service has painted a bleak picture over Macau’s faltering economy horizon as it downgraded the city state’s sovereign debt status amid slumping gaming revenue.

From Aa3, Macau’s long-term sovereign debt rating now stands at Aa2 with a “negative” outlook due to the uncertainty surrounding Chinese special autonomous region’s growth, which has been stymied by low revenues from its casinos. Moody’s also lowered Macau’s long-term foreign currency bond ceiling to Aa2 from Aaa and its long-term foreign currency deposit ceiling to Aa3 from Aa2.

Sovereign credit ratings, which are indications on the government’s ability to repay obligations, are used by investors as proxies for the strength and stability of the local economy.

“The rating downgrade reflects Moody’s view that the sharp weakening in the economy, with growth remaining highly volatile, coupled with the limited policy response to the fall in gaming revenues, leave Macao’s credit profile weaker than those of Aa2 peers,” the debt watcher said in a statement.

What do you get when you make it harder to win the jackpot? Lose ticket sales, of course.

That was the results that the UK National Lottery got a year after it made some controversial changes to the Lotto—namely, reducing the odds of winning the jackpot from one in 14 million to one in 45 million.

Camelot Group, which operates the National Lottery, revealed this week that total ticket sales for UK National Lottery’s draw-based games—chiefly Lotto and Euromillions—dropped by £6.2 million to £4.6 billion last year.

Camelot bosses chalked up the ticket sale loss to stiff competition from The Health Lottery and the People’s Postcode Lottery, which, according to Daily Mail, has been spending millions of pounds in promotion. Camelot said it runs the most cost-efficient major lottery in Europe, spending only about 4 percent of total revenue on operating costs.

Digital currency exchanges are now regulated in Japan.

This was after the Japanese Diet enacted a bill on Wednesday that mandates the government’s Financial Services Agency (FSA) to regulate virtual currency exchanges and their operators in the country, a Japan Times report revealed.

Under the revised law, operators of exchanges dealing in digital currency such as bitcoin are required to register with the FSA. The agency is also given the mandate to conduct on-site inspections and require operators to follow know-your-customer (KYC) practices.

The new law now defines virtual currencies like bitcoin as “asset-like values,” allowing digital money to be used not only to buy goods and services but also as an alternative for legal tender through purchases and trades.

Digital currency exchanges are now regulated in Japan.

This was after the Japanese Diet enacted a bill on Wednesday that mandates the government’s Financial Services Agency (FSA) to regulate virtual currency exchanges and their operators in the country, a Japan Times report revealed.

Under the revised law, operators of exchanges dealing in digital currency such as bitcoin are required to register with the FSA. The agency is also given the mandate to conduct on-site inspections and require operators to follow know-your-customer (KYC) practices.

The new law now defines virtual currencies like bitcoin as “asset-like values,” allowing digital money to be used not only to buy goods and services but also as an alternative for legal tender through purchases and trades.

One of the most exciting topics surrounding iGaming are emerging markets and the opportunities that lie within them.  At present, we’re hearing a lot about the African and Latin American markets, two regions of the world that have been on the radar for several years but have not been ripe for entering until just recently.  Both markets have actually earned the right to dedicated iGaming conferences in 2016 such as the Africa Briefing, Sports Betting East and West Africa, the Brazilian Gaming Congress and Juegos Miami.

BtoBet is a sportsbook and gaming platform provider using artificial intelligence (AI) to deliver the best results possible to their customers. Alessandro Fried, BtoBet’s CEO, recently spoke at the Sports Betting East Africa event on multichannel retail solutions and announced his company’s entry into the regulated Columbian market in April.  I spoke with Fried about the massive opportunities available and the potential for gaming companies in Africa and also touched on his experience in Latin America so far.

Becky Liggero: Thank you for joining me today, Alessandro.  What are some of the signs highlighting the potential of mobile and internet gambling in Africa?  

Alessandro Fried: In growing markets such as the African demographic, the government has steadily invested in undersea fiber-optic cables and infrastructures, and data related to the mobile and smartphones users – particularly in Nigeria, Egypt and East Africa – Kenya and Tanzania – are overwhelmingly positive.  Kenya is home to about 36 million mobile users and Tanzania counts about 33 million mobile users. Mobile penetration in Africa is 79%, + 28% compared with the 51% world’s trend.

One of the most exciting topics surrounding iGaming are emerging markets and the opportunities that lie within them.  At present, we’re hearing a lot about the African and Latin American markets, two regions of the world that have been on the radar for several years but have not been ripe for entering until just recently.  Both markets have actually earned the right to dedicated iGaming conferences in 2016 such as the Africa Briefing, Sports Betting East and West Africa, the Brazilian Gaming Congress and Juegos Miami.

BtoBet is a sportsbook and gaming platform provider using artificial intelligence (AI) to deliver the best results possible to their customers. Alessandro Fried, BtoBet’s CEO, recently spoke at the Sports Betting East Africa event on multichannel retail solutions and announced his company’s entry into the regulated Columbian market in April.  I spoke with Fried about the massive opportunities available and the potential for gaming companies in Africa and also touched on his experience in Latin America so far.

Becky Liggero: Thank you for joining me today, Alessandro.  What are some of the signs highlighting the potential of mobile and internet gambling in Africa?  

Alessandro Fried: In growing markets such as the African demographic, the government has steadily invested in undersea fiber-optic cables and infrastructures, and data related to the mobile and smartphones users – particularly in Nigeria, Egypt and East Africa – Kenya and Tanzania – are overwhelmingly positive.  Kenya is home to about 36 million mobile users and Tanzania counts about 33 million mobile users. Mobile penetration in Africa is 79%, + 28% compared with the 51% world’s trend.

New taxes and lower spending from high-rollers in Malaysia have sent Genting BHD’s 2016 first quarter profit crashing by 79 percent year-on-year.

Despite achieving an overall high volume of business, Genting BHD said in a disclosure to the Bursa Malaysia on Tuesday that its profit dropped from RM620.1million ($152 million) to RM 130.8 million ($31.9 million). Its earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) also dropped by 27 percent year-to-year to RM444.3 million ($108.9 million).

Genting attributed the revenue slump to foreign exchange losses of RM 138.8 million ($34.02 million) on the company’s U.S. dollar denominated assets as a result of the strengthening Malaysian ringgit against the greenback in the first quarter of 2016.

Company earnings, according to Genting, were also hit by a goods and services tax introduced in Malaysia in April 2015, as well as the lack of one-off gains that had boosted last year’s performance.

New taxes and lower spending from high-rollers in Malaysia have sent Genting BHD’s 2016 first quarter profit crashing by 79 percent year-on-year.

Despite achieving an overall high volume of business, Genting BHD said in a disclosure to the Bursa Malaysia on Tuesday that its profit dropped from RM620.1million ($152 million) to RM 130.8 million ($31.9 million). Its earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) also dropped by 27 percent year-to-year to RM444.3 million ($108.9 million).

Genting attributed the revenue slump to foreign exchange losses of RM 138.8 million ($34.02 million) on the company’s U.S. dollar denominated assets as a result of the strengthening Malaysian ringgit against the greenback in the first quarter of 2016.

Company earnings, according to Genting, were also hit by a goods and services tax introduced in Malaysia in April 2015, as well as the lack of one-off gains that had boosted last year’s performance.

New research is shining an unfavorable light on the fixed-odds betting terminals (FOBT) in UK bookmakers’ betting shops.

On Wednesday, the betting industry-funded Responsible Gambling Trust (RGT) released a series of reports on FOBT use – viewable in full here, here and here – which showed that problem gamblers, ethnic minorities and the unemployed were more likely to play for the machines’ infamous maximum £100 stake.

The research, which was conducted by NatCen Social Research, Geofutures and Featurespace, relied on a dataset of 4k FOBT users, drawn from a sample of gamblers who held bookmaker loyalty cards.

The researchers acknowledge that this sample is not representative of all FOBT players, but of “highly engaged players only” and thus the findings need to be taken with a grain of salt.

New research is shining an unfavorable light on the fixed-odds betting terminals (FOBT) in UK bookmakers’ betting shops.

On Wednesday, the betting industry-funded Responsible Gambling Trust (RGT) released a series of reports on FOBT use – viewable in full here, here and here – which showed that problem gamblers, ethnic minorities and the unemployed were more likely to play for the machines’ infamous maximum £100 stake.

The research, which was conducted by NatCen Social Research, Geofutures and Featurespace, relied on a dataset of 4k FOBT users, drawn from a sample of gamblers who held bookmaker loyalty cards.

The researchers acknowledge that this sample is not representative of all FOBT players, but of “highly engaged players only” and thus the findings need to be taken with a grain of salt.