Monthly Archives: February 2017

Founder of Skype and LHV payment solutions to speak at blockchain conference in Tallinn

On March 9, 2017, Tallinn will host the biggest Estonian blockchain conference, bringing together banking sector representatives. They will share their experience of implementing the blockchain technology and will discuss benefits of decentralized services.

A key speaker on this topic will be Jüri Laur, a chief specialist in payment services of Estonian LHV bank. He became well-known in the industry while working for Skype, where he focused on optimizing payment solutions.

LHV is known far beyond Estonia as one of world’s first banks to turn attention to blockchain. Partnering with the range of startups in summer 2015, the bank has launched its own blockchain application called Cuber Wallet, a wallet for currency storage and safe money transfers. Everyone having accounts in LHV can download the application.

According to Jüri Laur, the development of your own blockchain-based products is an opportunity to understand better the potential of technology.

Future thinking tops the agenda as GiGse LaunchPad is announced

GiGse, which is being held for the first time at San Diego’s Marriott Marquis Marina (26 – 28 April) has confirmed details of the LaunchPad competition which provides start-ups with a once in a life time opportunity to pitch in front of investor judges and  an audience of senior executives from the US land-based and interactive gaming sectors.  Organised in partnership with Gamcrowd, the GiGse LaunchPad has provided a platform for a range of hugely successful gaming innovators , most notably NumberFire, BlueBat and Imperus (rebranded to Tangelo Games).

Clarion Gaming’s Head of Content, Ewa Bakun, who is responsible for what has become a key feature of GiGse said: “GiGse is all about the future and has a proud reputation for tracking the latest gaming innovations whether they are from established companies or proposed by start-ups and new entrants.

“With so much focus now being paid by casinos to ways of acquiring and retaining younger generations of players, North American gambling executives are on the hunt for approaches and technologies that help to achieve that in an optimal way.  The GiGse LaunchPad offers a path for new entrants into the gambling space and an opportunity for casinos to seize upon disruptive trends and preserve their foothold in a wider entertainment consumer offering.”

She added: “Getting exposure and obtaining funding is hard, even more so for start-ups in the gambling space and the LaunchPad is  a great way for new companies to promote their innovations and to get some traction. It is an ideal place to get noticed by both investors and business partners alike.”

ICE 2017 breaks through 30,000 figure to set new record attendance

The 2017 edition of ICE Totally Gaming will be declared the biggest on record, pending verification by independent auditors.  The outline statistics, which have been calculated and de-duped by the company responsible for the 2017 ticket and registration data, show that, for the first time, ICE has broken through the 30,000 barrier, recording an attendance of 30,213.  The figure represents the sixth consecutive year of growth and is 5.7% up on the previous best which was set last year.

Commenting on the figures, Kate Chambers, Managing Director of the Gaming Division at Clarion Events, said: “Whilst these are outline figures and are subject to independent audit, we are confident that they represent an accurate snap shot of the three days of intense business, networking and learning which took place at the ExCeL Exhibition Centre earlier this month. The upward trend has coincided with our 2013 relocation to London Docklands: in fact the ICE attendance is now 42% higher than that recorded for the last edition held at Earls Court.”

She added: “Not only are more gaming professionals attending ICE than ever before, encouragingly, they are also spending more time within the show.  Our figures demonstrate the average time spent within the exhibition is 1.96 days, an increase of 0.5% on 2016.  When this figure is extrapolated out, the number of visitor days at ICE 2017 totalled 59,217.

“Although the attendance figures are extremely important, my attention is now on the data we obtain from the post-show independent research that we commission each year and, in particular, the results of the Net Promoter Score (NPS) metric which gauges the willingness of participants to recommend the event to a friend or colleague.  The NPS, which is used by serious consumer brands including Amazon, Apple and eBay, is a measure of customer satisfaction which in turn reflects the ‘mood music’ of the industry and the relationship they enjoy with the ICE brand.”

PokerStars launch the Live London Series

Six months after PokerStars ended all of their live tours and replaced them with PokerStars Championships and Festivals, they have created a new low buy-in tour in London.

PokerStars has taken the rather unusual step of partnering with the Hippodrome Casino in London to present the new PokerStars Live London Series.

I use the word ‘unusual’ because in August 2016 the largest online poker room in the solar system decided to make complicated things simple by starting their live events with a fresh slate creating the PokerStars Championships and Festivals brands.

The axe came down on the European Poker Tour (EPT).

Crown’s VIP turnover tumbles 45% following China arrests

Australian casino operator Crown Resorts saw its VIP gambling turnover fall by nearly half in the first half of its fiscal year following the arrest in China of its VIP marketing team.

Figures released Thursday show normalized revenue – which smooths out the occasionally wild variations in VIP win rate – at Crown’s domestic resorts falling 12.5% to A$1.48b (US $1.14b) in the six months ending December 31, 2016.

While Crown’s main floor gaming revenue was down less than 1% to A$854m, VIP revenue was down 45.3%. Crown Melbourne bore the brunt of the VIP decline, falling 47.4% to A$191m, while Crown Perth was off a comparatively mild 38.6% to A$72.5m. In fact, the only casino to post a revenue gain was the Crown Aspinalls in London, which was up 26% to A$62.2m.

Crown’s VIP woes mirror that of Aussie rival The Star, which reported double-digit turnover declines last week. Australian casinos are on China’s shitlist ever since 18 Crown staffers were arrested last year on charges of promoting illegal gambling activity to mainland high rollers.

BetStars joins ESSA and launches Leicester City #Callit promo

Amaya Gaming’s sports betting arm, BetStars, has joined the fisticuffs against match-fixers by becoming a part of ESSA, and roll out another video in their #Callit campaign featuring Premier League Champions Leicester City.

Amaya Gaming’s baby, BetStars, has joined the growing band of goody two shoes over at the sports betting integrity outfit ESSA.

The move follows 888Holding’s decision to join forces with 23 like-minded gambling entities last month. Amaya has over 108 million registered users across its brand, so it’s a coup for the integrity of ESSA. Other high-profile members include BetVictor, Bwin, Betway, Ladbrokes Coral Group, Paddy Power Betfair, and Sky Bet.

ESSA is a non-profit organisation designed to deter betting-related match fixing in sports. It achieves this goal through the use of their Internal Control System (ICS) and Early Warning System (EWS).

Unibet in talks with Viktor Blom; Simpson, O’Kearney and Lappin sign

Unibet sign Ian Simpson, Dara O’Kearney and Dave Lappin as brand ambassadors. Is Viktor Blom next in line?

So Wayne Rooney might be off to China to become the highest paid footballer in the world.

Who cares?

The biggest transfer story in world sport has to be the potential marriage between the Kindred Group’s Unibet Poker and online cash game legend Viktor ‘Isildur1’ Blom.

Warning to poker streamers after man dies during War of Tanks marathon

A 35-year old father of three has dropped dead while playing World of Tanks for 22 hours straight during a charity marathon for the Make a Wish Foundation.

From the moment I saw my son watching PewDiePie live streaming some God awful game on YouTube, I knew the world of video gaming was about to take a drastic switch. But I didn’t think it would be a deadly one.

On February 19, World of Tanks streamer, Brian “PoShYbRiD” Vigneault, died during a planned 24-hour live stream to raise money for the Make-A-Wish Foundation. News report speculates Vigneault died due to heart complications brought on by sleep deprivation.

PVPLive indicated that Vigneault, left the stream to have a cigarette somewhere within the 22-hour mark and never returned. Viewers assumed he had fallen to sleep. It later transpired that he had died. Virginia Beach Police Department are investigating. The father of three was just 35-years young.

Russia hikes fines for ISPs that fail to block gambling domains

Russian President Vladimir Putin has approved new penalties for internet service providers (ISPs) who fail to block unauthorized online gambling domains.

On February 10, Russia’s Duma adopted Bill 1102471-6, which amends the Russian Federation Code of Administrative Offences. The amendments hike fines for ISPs who fail to block domains that have been flagged by the country’s telecommunications watchdog Roskomnadzor. On Wednesday, Putin signed the bill into law.

While the new fines are generally twice the size of the original penalties, they remain relatively miniscule. Individual ISP officials face fines of RUB 5k (US $86), while companies can be dinged for up to RUB 100k ($1,722).

However, keep in mind that Roskomnadzor is one ban-happy agency, having identified nearly 87k offending domains in 2016, a 75% increase from 2015’s total. Many of these sites offered porn or undesirable political opinions, but gambling sites accounted for 15,900 of the banned domains. The agency’s ban-hammer has been even busier so far this year, including over 1,400 gambling domains in just the span of February 15-21.

Mike Leah Talks About Winning Same WPT Fallsview Title for Third Time in Four Years: CardsChat Exclusive Interview

For the third time in four years, Mike Leah has won the 2017 Fallsview Poker Classic World Poker Tour $1,100 No-Limit Hold’em Event, which was held in Canada just across […]

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