The World Poker Tour (WPT) has agreed a deal with the Japan Poker Union Corporation which will see the tour’s first ever Japanese event take place this November. With the […]
The post WPT Finds a Clever Way to Offer Its First Ever Event in Japan appeared first on .
The Massachusetts state lottery plans to keep a tighter eye on frequent winners despite posting record profits in its most recent fiscal year.
The Massachusetts Lottery reported a profit of $1.035b in the 12 months ending June 30, 4.6% higher than the previous fiscal year. The sum marks the third straight year of record returns and the first time in the Lottery’s 45-year history that net income has topped the $1b threshold.
State Treasurer Deborah Goldberg credited tighter cost controls for boosting the annual profit, as lottery sales actually dipped by $140m to $5.09b last year, the first year-on-year sales decline since 2010. The pain was primarily felt in the instant ticket category, which saw sales slide 2.7% year-on-year. Powerball sales also suffered a year-on-year decline.
Instant tickets account for 70% of all Lottery revenue, and Lottery Commission executive director Michael Sweeney warned that it was dangerous for the lottery to have the bulk of its revenue “in the hands of one product.” Sweeney claimed the Lottery was “looking for appropriate places to expand where we can,” and while online sales would seem an obvious expansion channel, both legislators and state residents have been cool to the concept.
The Massachusetts state lottery plans to keep a tighter eye on frequent winners despite posting record profits in its most recent fiscal year.
The Massachusetts Lottery reported a profit of $1.035b in the 12 months ending June 30, 4.6% higher than the previous fiscal year. The sum marks the third straight year of record returns and the first time in the Lottery’s 45-year history that net income has topped the $1b threshold.
State Treasurer Deborah Goldberg credited tighter cost controls for boosting the annual profit, as lottery sales actually dipped by $140m to $5.09b last year, the first year-on-year sales decline since 2010. The pain was primarily felt in the instant ticket category, which saw sales slide 2.7% year-on-year. Powerball sales also suffered a year-on-year decline.
Instant tickets account for 70% of all Lottery revenue, and Lottery Commission executive director Michael Sweeney warned that it was dangerous for the lottery to have the bulk of its revenue “in the hands of one product.” Sweeney claimed the Lottery was “looking for appropriate places to expand where we can,” and while online sales would seem an obvious expansion channel, both legislators and state residents have been cool to the concept.
Freshened after competing in two legs of the Triple Crown, Gunnevera is scheduled to return to action Aug. 6 at Gulfstream Park in the $100,000 Tangelo Stakes.
Social gaming operators Zynga posted a rare profit in the second quarter of 2017 although it’s already warning that business will grow softer in Q3.
Figures released Wednesday show Zynga’s revenue rising 15% year-on-year to $209.2m in the three months ending June 30. Adjusted earnings were up 61% to $30m while the company posted net income of $5.1m versus a $4.4m loss in the same period last year. The pre-tax profit is Zynga’s first since Q4 2012, thanks in part to a 40% reduction in stock-based compensation expenses.
Bookings, the in-game sale of virtual items to players, were up 20% year-on-year, hitting a sum not seen in four years. The gains were driven by a record performance in mobile bookings, which rose more than one-third year-on-year to $179.9m, representing 86% of total revenue, up 10 points from Q2 2016. Average mobile daily average users (DAU) were up 28% to 19m, representing 90% of total DAU.
The venerable Zynga Poker franchise had another good quarter to celebrate its 10th birthday, accounting for 21% of overall revenue, two points higher year-on-year. While the numbers were broadly flat from Q1 2017, the poker product’s year-on-year mobile revenue was up 61% as mobile audience grew 73%.
Thoroughbred Charities of America has been named the title sponsor for the Thoroughbred Makeover which will be held Oct. 5-8 at the Kentucky Horse Park.
Ring Weekend will return to the site of his track record-setting effort when he headlines the $100,000 Fasig-Tipton Lure Stakes Aug. 5 at Saratoga Race Course, while On Leave heads the $100,000 Fasig-Tipton De La Rose.
The recent restrictions on automated teller machine (ATM) withdrawals in Macau have yet to negatively affect the special administrative region’s casino industry, according to Union Gaming Securities Asia Ltd.
Figures released by Macau’s Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau (DICJ) showed July’s gaming revenue hitting MOP23 billion (US$2.86 billion), a growth of 29 percent over the same month last year, nearly 15% higher than June’s result and the biggest year-on-year monthly gain since February 2014.
“With July’s above-consensus GGR in the rearview it appears, as we had expected, that there has been no measurable impact from the installation of KYC [know your customer] measures across Macau’s ATMs,” Union Gaming analyst Grant Govertsen said in a note.
Holders of mainland China-issued UnionPay bank cards were told in July that they would only be able to withdraw cash in the city state at ATMs that allow face recognition verification. The order came several weeks after the Macau government said it will require more intrusive security checks at ATMs. Holders of UnionPay bank card, particularly those from China, will have to scan their identity cards at ATMs and also pass facial recognition scans before they will be able to withdraw cash.
Fifteen states down, thirty-five states to go.
Maine has officially joined fourteen other states in regulating daily fantasy sports (DFS) after its governor sat on the bill for a month.
Legal Sports Report reported that the bill named “An Act To Regulate and Tax Sports Fantasy League Activities in Maine” automatically took effect after Maine Gov. Paul LePage failed to act on the legislation after it was submitted to his office.
This makes Maine the fifteenth state to legalize and regulate DFS and the sixth state to enact such a law this year.
In a bid to stop the sale of Mizoram lottery tickets, the government of Kerala has written to the Union Home Ministry to ban Mizoram Lotteries in the state.
In its letter, Kerala officials accused Mizoram of violating the Central Lotteries Regulation Act because it has an existing agreement with Teesta Distributors, reported The New Indian Express. A circular released by the Union Home Ministry in August 2011 requires states seeking to sell its lotteries in another state to submit all details of its marketing to the destination state.
Kerala Finance Minister T.M. Thomas Isaac revealed last week that the state only learned about the move to promote the Mizoram lottery “through a newspaper advertisement.”
Isaac also accused the government of Mizoram of adopting the “unambiguously illegal” Minimum Guaranteed Revenue model, which he said violated the Lotteries Regulation. The Lotteries Rules require the entire proceeds of lottery ticket sales to be deposited in the state exchequer, but the recent Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) report revealed that the state government never collected the sales proceeds, and that the distributors deposited a “minimum guaranteed revenue” to the state and kept the money, which eventually resulted in the state losing close to $2 billion in revenue.
On the first day of his return to Crown Resorts, James Packer got his hands full looking after his business.
Packer’s return to Crown Resorts comes on the eve of the company’s annual results. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, Crown informed the stock exchange that Packer has officially rejoined the board of the Australian-listed casino operator.
The Australian billionaire, who remains the largest shareholder of Crown, brought along his trusted legal adviser Guy Jalland as one of the new directors of the company.
Packer described Jalland in an interview with The Australian as “smart and loyal” and “an asset to any business.”
On the first day of his return to Crown Resorts, James Packer got his hands full looking after his business.
Packer’s return to Crown Resorts comes on the eve of the company’s annual results. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, Crown informed the stock exchange that Packer has officially rejoined the board of the Australian-listed casino operator.
The Australian billionaire, who remains the largest shareholder of Crown, brought along his trusted legal adviser Guy Jalland as one of the new directors of the company.
Packer described Jalland in an interview with The Australian as “smart and loyal” and “an asset to any business.”
Digital asset exchange company Coinbase has incurred the wrath of its customers with its decision not to support Bitcoin Cash.
If you’re just joining us, a group of miners split off from the main blockchain on Tuesday, creating a new cryptocurrency called Bitcoin Cash. The blockchain split is the culmination of the years-long scaling debate within the bitcoin community as they search for a way to increase the network’s capacity from the original 1MB.
Aside from increasing the block size to 8MB and removing SegWit, Bitcoin Cash also awards people who own coins on the main bitcoin blockchain the same number of coins on the new Bitcoin Cash blockchain, effectively receiving a free dividend.
The new cryptocurrency has received support from members of the community who want a block size increase, including developers of proposals like Bitcoin Unlimited, as well as sectors such as digital currency exchanges and retailers in Japan and even online gambling operators, who are already on process of adding Bitcoin Cash to their payment options.
Clarion Gaming has made an important enhancement to the customer experience for both ICE visitors and exhibitors following a comprehensive review and subsequent creation of a new show hub. The new site has been developed to reflect the pivotal role ICE plays in the gaming industry calendar and provides exhibitors with the facility to showcase their brands more effectively and develop a dialogue with visitors a full six months ahead of ICE opening its doors to the international community of gaming professionals who travel to London each year.
Kate Chambers, Managing Director of Clarion Gaming said: “Our post-ICE research flagged some dissatisfaction with the ICE website, so I instructed the team to take a clean sheet of paper and start again. Alongside the latest enhancements in terms of ease of navigation, news and content related to each sector and a zone which enables visitors to favourite products and content, we have invested in the development of a Meeting Planner tool, which was at the top of the wish list for our exhibitors and will be available later in the year.”
She added: “It’s very important that we deliver on behalf of our customers and that we live up to our stated commitment of continuous improvement across every aspect of the ICE experience.”The 2017 edition of ICE was officially the best on record, with an independently audited attendance of 30,213 making the journey to ExCeL from 151 jurisdictions. The attendance represented a 6% year-on-year increase and the sixth consecutive year of growth. The success of ICE was recognised by the Association of Exhibition Organisers which shortlisted the world’s biggest gaming expo in the ‘Best UK Tradeshow Over 2,000sqm’ category and named Clarion Events as the industry’s ‘Most Respected Company of the Year’.
Media Enquiries:
If there’s a word synonymous to Emmy, that word would probably be “shocker.”
Through the years, the Emmy Awards pulled quite lots of unexpected winners like the way former reality show host Donald Trump shocked everyone when he snatched the White House seat from media darling Hillary Rodham Clinton.
To guide them through this unpredictable awards show, Bovada offers odds for those who want to gamble on the Emmys.
Outstanding Variety Talk Series
In the latest twist in the Phil Ivey v Borgata legal case, the casino wants the card manufacturer Gemaco to repay the $10.1m Ivey won as a result of using flaws in their cards to gain an edge over the casino.
The tools that made the Toyota Production System (TPS) so successful, spread from the bland world of car manufacturing to business sectors the world over thanks to the popularity of The Machine That Changed The World by Daniel Roos, James Womack, and Daniel Jones.
One of these tools was The Five Whys, more commonly known as Root Cause Analysis. Using the metaphor of gardening, root cause analysis is the theory that to prevent a weed from reappearing you had to remove the roots. If you were to remove the ugly head of the plant, eventually it would grow back.
Users of this model called the removal of a defect Poke Yoke.
The traditional lottery industry has been flourishing for hundreds, even thousands of years, yet online lottery is still largely untapped and some even refer to it as a “sleeping giant”. As we attend iGaming conferences around the world, how to “gamify” and engage the younger generation in lottery are topics of constant discussion and now blockchain platforms have begun disrupting in the online lottery space.
Loading the player…
jwplayer(‘camediasplayer-341489-2’).setup({
file: “http://30.cdn.bit2host.eu/videos/beckys-affiliated-blockchain-can-disrupt-online-lottery-frank-pira-video.m4v”,
New affiliate programme for Italy-facing lottomatica.it brand to be powered by Income Access platform
Montreal, QC. August 2017 – Lottomatica, the Rome-based gaming, lottery, iLottery and iGaming operator and a subsidiary of International Game Technology PLC (NYSE:IGT), has launched an affiliate programme for its Italian online gambling web portal lottomatica.it in partnership with Income Access, Paysafe Group’s marketing software provider. The new affiliate programme for the multi-vertical brand will be managed using the Income Access platform.
Licensed by Italian gambling regulator Agenzia delle Dogane e dei Monopoli (ADM), Lottomatica’s lottomatica.it web portal offers Italian players online sports-betting on local and international football matches as well as tennis, baseball, volleyball, hockey and other sporting events. The web portal also features live betting functionality.
In addition, lottomatica.it boasts an online casino with over 100 state-of-the-art branded and original slots from leading software providers, including The Big Easy, Treasures of the Pyramids, Guns N’ Roses, and Cowboys Go West. A wide range of table games, including live-dealer blackjack and roulette, diversify a casino that is also complemented by an array of online poker tournaments.
The Balkan Entertainment & Gaming Expo (BEGE Expo) and the Eastern European Gaming Summit (EEGS) celebrate their 10th anniversary this year. Due to the big interest for both events the organizers made two major announcements – BEGE will outspread in one more hall and EEGS will start one day earlier than the announced date.
Over 50 leading companies from the industry have already confirmed their presence for BEGE Expo 2017. Well-known leading manufacturers, amongst them being Novomatic, Casino Technology, EGT, Suzohapp, BetConstruct, Interblock, Merkur Gaming, APEX, Alfastreet Trade, Nsoft, JPL and CPI, as well as new participants, such as the leading sports betting company Bet3000 (IBA-Entertainment Ltd.), EXEFEED, Quixant, Zitro, Change Italia s.r.l., Gamebridge Casino Equipment, JCM Europe GmbH, nano Vo sp. Z o.o., Berkotech Kft. and others will exhibit their latest solutions at this year’s BEGE. The great interest for the event forced the opening of new hall, thus making the 10th edition of BEGE Expo the biggest so far.
The registration is already open so you wouldn’t want to miss the chance to register.
Another newness that BEGE Expo 2017 will present is the special Affiliate zone. Following the expansion of the online business in the region, this year the exhibiton will create space for online operators and affiliates from the region to interact and create business partnerships. Affiliate program providers will be able to book their own space in the zone and all affiliates will be admitted for free.
With two-time Davy O’Brien Award winner Deshaun Watson finally off to the NFL, the Clemson Tigers will need to replace one of their best players of all time. The defending national champion Tigers are expected to tab junior Kelly Bryant as Watson’s successor at quarterback, as they look to defend their conference title as the +300 second choice to take their third straight behind the Florida State Seminoles (+110).
Odds courtesy of OddsShark.com
Bryant is battling a pair of freshmen in Zerrick Cooper and Hunter Johnson but figures to have the upper hand for the starting job due to his experience heading into his third season in the system. Clemson finished 14-1 last year, capped by an upset of the defending national champion Alabama Crimson Tide in an NCAA title rematch. The Tigers host the Seminoles on November 11 in a key ACC Atlantic Division matchup.
Florida State returns its quarterback in sophomore Deondre Francois and was third in the ACC Atlantic a year ago behind Clemson and the Louisville Cardinals. Francois is one of the top Heisman Trophy candidates from the ACC at +1800 in addition to 2016 winner Lamar Jackson (+800), the Louisville quarterback who took the country by storm early last season before tailing off at the end. The Seminoles do have to replace running back Dalvin Cook, who was drafted by the Minnesota Vikings in the second round.