Monthly Archives: January 2018

Bodog: master sponsor of the Copa do Brasil in multi-million dollar deal

International online gaming brand, Bodog, is hugely proud to announce that they will be a master sponsor of the Copa do Brasil in a seven figure dollar deal. The competition is the most significant club competition in the region – similar to FA Cup in the UK. Bodog already has a long history of major sponsorships in Europe with English Premier League clubs like Arsenal FC and West Bromwich Albion but this is their first Brazilian soccer-based marketing venture.

Sergio Campos,Partner& Director,Klefer: “Becoming a Master Sponsor of Copa Continental do Brazil, opens up Bodog to a huge and relevant audience in the region. We are thrilled to have the opportunity to work with such a creative and daring brand like Bodog.

Spokesman for the Bodog brand, Ed Pownall, added: “There’s no doubt that the Brazilian market is the ‘next big thing’ in our industry and we wanted to launch our brand into the region with a really big splash and quickly identified the Copa do Brasil as the perfect vehicle.”

For more information please contact: [email protected] or +44 7825 064776.

Relax Gaming incorporates PG Soft content

Mobile-first games will be available on Silver Bullet platform

Malta, 23rd January 2018 – Innovative casino games and platform supplier Relax Gaming has agreed a B2B partnership with games developer PG Soft TM.

The deal will see PG Soft’s titles made available to operators via Relax’s Silver Bullet platform, as well as offering commercial and regulatory assistance to partners.

The fully-serviced Silver Bullet platform currently aggregates more than 100 titles from several leading suppliers, available across all channels but primed for mobile use.

‘If the US market opens, the video gaming industry is in the perfect position to emerge as the sole winner

Oulala’s team to spend three days at ICE (6-8 February)

The B2B provider will present its multiple-award-winning DFS platform

Malta – 23rd January 2018 – ”The iGaming industry might not come out as the winner of the potential online gambling liberalisation in the USA,” thinks Valery Bollier, CEO of Daily Fantasy Sports (DFS) platform provider Oulala, ahead of the most anticipated industry event this year.

Last year, while speaking at various industry events, Bollier predicted that the video gaming industry would colonise the iGaming market. It appears that his vision is becoming a reality.

Verizon mulls investing on US sports betting venture

American conglomerate Verizon Communications Inc. is not closing its doors when it comes to betting big in the multibillion-dollar sports betting market.

Citing people familiar with the matter, Bloomberg reported that Verizon is considering the possibility of investing on a sports-focused online gambling venture in case the U.S. Supreme Court decides to declare the federal sports betting ban unconstitutional.

News insiders told the news outlet that the telecoms juggernaut held consultations with financial and gaming experts to weigh on sports betting as it tries to transform itself into a more diversified media business.

Verizon is already one step closer to the gambling industry after it acquired web services provider Yahoo, including its fantasy sports unit, for $4.5 billion last year. Data showed Yahoo is a clear No. 3 in the DFS market, trailing behind DraftKings and FanDuel by a large margin. It boasts some 1.3 billion users who spend an average of 30 billion minutes a year in its offerings.

Game manufacturers: One to avoid, one to short

Picking the right defensive stocks will be paramount to investment success this year. Manufacturers are not in this group. International Game Technology (IGT) continues to perform reasonably well for the resources it has, but it is not a stock to hold. It’s not a great short play either, being range bound for 10 years and on the verge of a technical breakout. On a long term chart it looks like it may be set up for a breakthrough, nearing its highest levels since 2008. If the breakthrough happens it would be short-lived and technically driven, but it’s reason enough to hold off from shorting it for now.

Scientific Games (SGMS), on the other hand, has been busy going parabolic for over a year now, exploding by nearly a factor of 10, rivaling bitcoin. Well, not really rivaling it, but this is not stable price action. It won’t last. If you have some spare change hanging around some 2020 puts on SGMS are a good gamble. See if you can hit the jackpot. The $25 strike is going for $2.85 a contract now, and none have been traded since December 4th. Nobody’s in this trade, surprisingly. Puts closer to the current price of $56 are much more expensive. Could Scientific Games fall below $25 by 2020? Sure it can. Look what happened to IGT in 2008. It lost 80% of its value from top to bottom. If that happens to Scientific Games, gains on those contracts would be close to 5x.

Manufacturers are higher up on the production chain than retail casinos who serve consumers directly. Generally, the higher up on the structure of production you are, the harder you are hit when a boom turns to bust. That’s reason enough to avoid both of them.

Both IGT and Scientific Games have subpar balance sheets with heavy leverage. Scientific Games holds $8.2B in debt with a market cap of $5B. And that’s taking into account its monster rally of close to 1000% since January 2016. At basement levels, SGMS would have a leverage of about 1,450%. Bankruptcy in that case would not be out of the question. $4.2B of that debt is unprotected, and interest rates are already rising quickly now. If you want to risk shorting a manufacturer, SGMS is the one to short. Not heavily, but with spare change for decent gains.

Usain Bolt on PokerStars, retirement and a possible career in football

Lee Davy sends the fastest man in the world eight questions about life including what attracted him to PokerStars, how life feels in retirement and the potential of a football career in the Bundesliga.

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EPL review week 24: The Swans stall Formula 1 side, Liverpool

Week 24 of the English Premier League ends with an unlikely win in South Wales for bottom of the table Swansea against Man City slayers Liverpool.

Swansea 1 v 0 Liverpool 

A friend of mine once had a fight with a Swan. He was trying to steal an egg. A criminal offence carrying the penalty of death, or something like that. He never got the egg. The Swan kicked his arse.

Imagine what 11 of them can do if they are organised, well-drilled and have 22 eyes firmly set on the enemy?

Another bit of magic from Wazdan ahead of ICE

January 23, 2018, Malta – Malta-based Wazdan, the major casino games producer with products covering slots, table games and video poker have released another two smash hit slots games, Magic of the Ring Deluxe and Magic Stars 3, bringing its bulging portfolio to over 100 casino-friendly games in an HTML 5.0 format for desktop, tablets and mobile backed by Wazdan’s Unique Features; a set of tools proving to be attractive to major operators and casinos, such as EveryMatrix, amongst other new signings.

Spells, witchcraft, enchantments and dark magic are central to the player experience in Magic of the Ring Deluxe, with the online slot’s state-of-the-art design, high-quality sound effects and rewarding special features. The 5-reel, 10-payline takes players on a thrilling adventure full of wonders and big cash prizes. The power of the magic ring is the most valuable symbol because it gives access to some very rewarding wins.

Once at least three rings land anywhere on the reels, 10 Free Spins are activated during which a randomly pre-selected Bonus Symbol may expand to cover an entire reel and pay at any position on the reels. Free Spins may be re-triggered and during this special feature the ring symbol also acts as a Wild, so winning big is quite easy. Magic of the Ring Deluxe delivers thrills as players have the chance to double each win received thanks to its unique Wazdan Gamble Feature which when activated allows players to pick one of the two chests. One of them hides riches and the second

one is filled with dark magic ending the feature.

French casino market a case of the rich getting richer

France’s land-based casino industry reported modest revenue growth in fiscal 2017, although the gains were concentrated among a shrinking number of casinos.

Overall gaming revenue at France’s 200 brick-and-mortar casinos totaled €2.29b in fiscal 2017, a modest 2.4% improvement over fiscal 2016’s result. However, only 117 casinos posted individual year-on-year gains in 2017 compared to 137 who enjoyed forward momentum the year before.

Casino operator Lucien Barrière claimed the lion’s share of last year’s revenue pie, with its fiscal 2017 total rising 3.6% to €695m. Groupe Partouche ranked second with €540m (+0.35%) while Joa ranked third with €211m (+3.2%).

Luciene Barrière claimed four of the top-five performing casino venues, and six of the top-10. The company’s (and the nation’s) top earner, Enghien-les-Bains (pictured), the closest major gaming venue to the casino-free capital Paris, saw revenue rise 4% to €169.6m.

Mexican operator Logrand Entertainment Group chose technological partner BtoBet to launch its new interactive division Strendus

Mexican leading Gaming and Entertainment operator, Logrand Entertainment Group, currently operating 14 casinos in Mexico, focused on customer orientation, state-of-the-art technology, a strict adherence to laws and a world-class executive team, considers the online market a key in its vertical integration strategy and has chosen BtoBet as technological partner to launch its new interactive division “Strendus”, which is an essential complement to its growth.

Commenting on the partnership with BtoBet, Logrand Entertainment Group’s Chief Operating Online Officer Lenin Castillo stated: 

“Logrand Entertainment Group, as a reputable Mexican company, has high expectations in terms of service providers and has always required the highest standards to be able to compete with international operations in the region and create long-term partnerships with all its business associates. Our group and BtoBet share the same vision to anticipate future needs of global audiences listening to their customers instead of seeing what competitors are doing. For these reasons, to launch our new interactive division, we opted for a very complete and detailed RFP process that scrutinizes all bidders profoundly.”

Castillo added: “BtoBet is a technology leader in the online gambling industry, with multiple nominations and awards and counting on a very professional and skilled team. All these factors allow companies, like ours, to develop a trustworthy relationship with them, in a very short time. If you add all this with their top of the line products and services, the decision to choose them, becomes easy. Our high expectation will continue in the years to come and we are sure with our new partner we will continue being the successful company we have shown to be for all this years.”

SoftGamings adds Endorphina to its product portfolio

Casino games aggregator and platform developer SoftGamings has completed the integration of the Endorphina gaming content into the SoftGamings Platform.

The full suite of Endorphina products available at SoftGamings includes all 40+ slots, developed by the Endrophina. The games fall into 8 categories: fruit, horror, 3D, unique, oriental, cute, ethnic and the classic slots. All of them are available for integration into the operators’ casino environments – all interested casino operators can book a demo or discuss the commercials by accessing Softgamings.

Svetlana Gasel, Head of Partnerships of SoftGamings, states that ‘Endorphina is among the top gaming providers. Its creative slots attract attention of players, since every detail is thought out. In addition, Endorphina suits perfectly our concept of bundles, where we offer slots from the best providers through a single integration. I’m sure our existing and future clients will enjoy Endorphina’s gaming content.’

About Endorphina

Crown’s Aussie Millions poker championship celebrates a new generation of poker players

World champion female poker player, Samantha Abernathy named an Aussie Millions 2018 ambassador

Tuesday 23 January 2018. Hosted by Crown Melbourne, Asia-Pacific’s largest poker event, Aussie Millions is welcoming back 25-year-old American professional poker player Samantha Abernathy for the second time – only this year as an ambassador for the highly acclaimed Main Event.

It was the Aussie Millions Main Event in 2016 that gave the former graphic designer and illustrator an opportunity for her breakout performance. Abernathy made it to the final table; and played one of the most iconic hands in Aussie Millions history where she got a slow roll from local Mike Habb then managed to spike a two-outer on the river to eliminate him. Habb had been saying, “Ship it to Papa” for much of the tournament so Jason Somerville decided to adopt it for Abernathy after she took all Habb’s chips and the phrase ‘Ship it to Mama’ was adopted. Abernathy then finished the Main Event in third place against some of the world’s top poker players and taking home an impressive $625,000.

With her profile growing at a rapid rate, Abernathy is a new generation of poker player and a force to be reckoned with at this year’s tournament, having finished in the top ten of her last

Little noticed bill would tilt playing field in tribes’ favor

The post originally appears on http://www.gamblingandthelaw.com/ and we republished with permission.

Tribes and the unions that represent casino workers have been at loggerheads for years over the right of union organizers to even enter onto Indian land. The few federal courts that have looked at the issue have decided in favor of the unions. Here’s my write-up of the first major case.

The House of Representatives passed a bill a few days ago that would take away the unions’ right to easily organize workers at tribal casinos. H.R. 986, the “Tribal Labor Sovereignty Act of 2017,” introduced by Republican Congressman Todd Rokita, would take away the power of the National Labor Relations Board to regulate labor issues on Indian land. The bill passed 239-173, with only 14 Democrats voting in favor. The government shutdown has momentarily stalled the bill in the Senate.

Tribes argue that they are the only governments that are subject to NLRB oversight. The bill would add “Any Indian tribe, or any enterprise or institution owned and operated by an Indian tribe and located on its Indian lands” to the list of federal, state and local governments that are not subject to NLRB jurisdiction. Unions counter that making it difficult for casino workers to unionize would open workers to “harassment and other forms of discrimination.”