Monthly Archives: October 2017

Pennsylvania guv officially approves online gambling bill

Pennsylvania’s governor has officially approved his state becoming the fourth in the land to permit legal online gambling.

On Monday, Gov. Tom Wolf added his signature to the comprehensive gambling expansion bill approved by both branches of the state legislature last week. The bill allows for intrastate online casino and poker products, as well as daily fantasy sports, online lottery sales, new satellite casinos and video gaming terminals (VGT) at select truck stops.

The bill will take effect 60 days from now, after which state regulators can begin the process of crafting regulations and processing online gambling applications. There are 12 licenses available for each online vertical – slots, casino table games and poker – with the state’s brick-and-mortar casino operators given first dibs.

Once the application window opens, the casinos will have 120 days to submit their bids. Assuming any licenses remain unclaimed at the end of this period, other qualified entities will be permitted to apply. And given the state’s plan to impose a punitive 54% tax on online slots – mirroring the state’s nation-high land-based slots tax – there may actually be some licenses left over.

Winfil casino starts real-money gambling after Brazil court ruling

Confusion reigns in Brazil over whether the Winfil brick-and-mortar casino can or cannot conduct real-money gambling.

On October 19, Spanish casino operator Grupo Pefaco opened its Winfil venue in the city of Porto Alegre. The venue, which features 460 slot machines, claimed that a recent court ruling in the state of Rio Grande do Sul had lifted the longstanding ban on casino gambling.

But the state Public Prosecutor’s office disagreed and obtained a court order blocking Winfil’s real-money gambling efforts. As a result, Winfil reconfigured its slots to work in ‘demonstration’ mode, accepting no cash deposits and using only free-play credits that couldn’t be redeemed for cash.

That situation changed abruptly on Friday, when Judge Viviane de Faria Miranda issued a preliminary injunction barring the authorities from seizing Winfil’s slots. By Saturday afternoon, Winfil announced that it would immediately begin offering real-money gambling “with the fullness of legality.”

Stan James Online penalized £80k for regulatory shortcomings

UK online gambling operator Stan James Online has been slapped with a £80k penalty for social responsibility and anti-money laundering (AML) failures.

On Monday, the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) published the terms of a settlement it reached with SJU Limited, which trades as Stan James Online, for its failure to respond to a customer’s problem gambling behavior and for failing to comply with financial requirements aimed at preventing money laundering.

The activity relating to the UKGC penalty took place between November 2014 and October 2016. Stan James Online is now part of the Stockholm-listed Kindred Group, which acquired the online brand from the Stan James Group in July 2015. Earlier this month, Kindred announced that it was phasing out the Stan James Online brand.

The UKGC launched its investigation in March 2017 after police alerted the regulator to a case involving an individual convicted of stealing from his employer. Some of these purloined funds were deposited with SJU, and the punter/thief wagered a total of £137k over a two-year period, from which SJU ultimately collected £40k.

Robust sports betting lifts Chinese lottery figures in September

The popularity of sports betting in China is driving Chinese lottery sales upward, according to the latest official data from the country’s Ministry of Finance.

Data showed that sales of official lottery products in mainland China grew 15.1 percent to an estimated CNY36.93 billion (US$5.56 billion) in September.

The positive numbers were driven by the 24.4 percent rise in sales of sports lottery tickets. According to the Ministry, sports lottery tickets for September was at CNY19.32 billion.

This brings total sports lottery ticket sales for January to September period to CNY151.67 billion (US$22.82 billion), an increase of 9.9 percent.

Bitcoin ABC statement on the Nov 2017 hard fork upgrade

On or before November 1st, Bitcoin ABC will publish a new software version that contains an updated Difficulty Adjustment Algorithm (DAA).

This is a change to the Bitcoin Cash consensus rules, but the change does not activate until November 13th.  This is a hard fork, so exchanges, wallets, and other software need to upgrade before November 13th.

We have been in communication with Bitcoin Cash miners and they are expecting this upgrade.

The original Bitcoin Cash “EDA” allowed Bitcoin Cash to survive as a minority chain but produces wild fluctuations of hashrate. This is problematic because it prevents consistently fast confirmations for users, and radically shifts the coin issuance schedule.

Online gambling firms play messiah to save Philippine property sector from cooling

Philippine property developers are now looking at online gambling firms to play messiah and save the cooling office space sector as investments in the business process outsourcing (BPO) dwindles.

For years, the BPO sector has accounted for 60 to 70 percent of total office space demand while the online gambling sector comes as second fiddle.

Property consultancy firm Colliers International, however, noted that the story will be different for the Philippine office space this year as the BPO investments cools down.

Analysts are expressing concern over the impact of the BPO slowdown to the property sector, especially when office space taken up by the so-called sunshine industry declined 21 percent in the first quarter of 2017 before a modest rebound to 31 percent as of the first half of the year.

LiveLotto launches managed affiliate programme with Income Access

Programme for UK-facing iLottery brand will be managed by Income Access in-house using company software and affiliate network

Montreal, QC. 30th October 2017 – LiveLotto®, the UK-based iLottery operator and subsidiary of Beda Leisure, has launched a new affiliate programme with Income Access, Paysafe’s marketing technology and services provider. The programme will be managed by Income Access’ affiliate management team, which will grow the programme using the company’s affiliate platform and its Income Access Network, iGaming’s longest-serving independent affiliate network.

LiveLotto®, launched in 2015 and licensed by the UK Gambling Commission, offers players a unique low-stakes, quick-win lotto. An iLottery appealing to the digital generation and millennials among other player demographics, the brand’s main online lottery game runs live draws 24 hours-a-day, seven days-a-week, and provides players with the opportunity to win up to £25,000 from wagering only 10p. Additional features include in-play chat, social gaming and community jackpot games.

The site also offers a suite of leading instant-win games. These include Pariplay-powered titles such as Cops and Robbers, Atari Asteroids®, Mega Love, Cash Cuisine, and Royal Charms. All instant-win titles and the main LiveLotto® game are optimised for play on desktop, iOS and Android devices.

Ronald Sanders: US to lose face if it won’t follow WTO ruling

In this interview with CalvinAyre.com, Antiguan Ambassador to the U.S. Ronald Sanders talks about the repercussions of U.S.’ continued disregard of the World Trade Organization ruling on Antigua’s case.

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Yggdrasil’s Joker Millions pays out € 3.5m jackpot

30th October, 2017 – A lucky Yggdrasil player is celebrating after winning SEK 33,748,248 (c. €3.48m) on its flagship progressive jackpot slot, Joker Millions.

The player was gaming on Vera&John’s Swedish mobile site when the jackpot fell out on Thursday morning from just a SEK 7.5 bet, the equivalent of just 70 cents.

This pay-out follows the recent €5.1m, the current pool record, won in July, and matches a similar jackpot won over Christmas last year.

Fredrik Elmqvist, CEO at Yggdrasil Gaming, said: “We love to hear of players hitting the big wins on our slots.

Record number of judges selected for 2018 iGB Affiliate Awards

30th October, 2017 (London) – iGB Affiliate, the most respected information provider for the igaming affiliate market, has revealed its independent judges’ line-up for the 2018 iGB Affiliate Awards.

The ceremony, which takes place in London in February, welcomes the industry’s leading minds to celebrate the best of the best in the igaming world.

Over 100 independent judges, from all over the industry, have been selected to help whittle down the winners across 24 different awards.

The theme for the 2018 iGB Affiliate Awards is ‘tenacity’. iGB Affiliate has been looking for those who have succeeded against the odds, embraced hard work, been tenacious and determined day-to-day, and who have continually made a positive impact on the igaming industry.

BOSS Gaming Studio announced its attendance at EiG

Founded in 2015, a relatively young team, Boss Gaming Studio has already managed to visit all World known exhibitions as visitors in 2 years and 2 time as exhibitors, which undoubtedly brought great results, which allowed us to grow rapidly in terms of new opportunities. This time we planned to please Berlin with our presence, given the fact that there is already something we have to present to the public in various variations.

“We are ready for healthy competition! Our solutions are staffed with the best products and solutions from TOP game providers, and our technical capabilities make it possible to begin working as to a newcomer, to an already experienced user or a sagacious businessman “, noted Business Development Director, Catalina Lukianenko.

For today, company Boss Gaming Studio is actively engaged in the search for a reliable partner for Sports Betting. Strictly speaking, the main reason and purpose of visiting EiG, we are considering the conclusion of a contract with a new partner, whose solutions will fully satisfy our requirements.

Also, we have something to please the exhibitors. Together with the perfectly packaged platform, we offer 3 options for creating the White Label Casino. Our technical team, possessing great experience and potential, is ready to provide a ready-made solution for each client in a short time! We use advanced technologies and resources that allow us to produce ready-made solutions within 1.5 months after agreeing all the details and starting the assembly.