iGaming Asia Congress

Now in its 10th year, the iGaming Asia (iGA) Congress is the “longest running dedicated C-Level iGaming event in Asia”, according to organizers Beacon Events.  To honor their 10-year anniversary, iGaming industry veteran Sue Schneider will deliver the keynote speech alongside speakers from sports betting, casino, lottery, mobile, regulatory and more.

New this year, iGA Congress will feature the first Gaming Innovation Start-up Launchpad in Asia including companies from the Blockchain space.  Other highlights from the conference agenda include eSports and DFS opportunities in Asia.

What: iGaming Asia Congress

Hungary’s restrictive online gambling laws have once again been taken to the woodshed by the European Union’s top court.

On Wednesday, the Court of Justice for the European Union (CJEU) issued a preliminary ruling in the case of UK operator Sporting Odds Ltd, a subsidiary of Sportingbet, which was fined HUF3.5m (US$13,600) for offering services to Hungarian punters without a local license.

EU law allows member states to restrict access by gambling operators licensed in other member states, provided these protectionist impulses maintain a reasonable façade of emphasizing consumer protection – by limiting citizens’ capacity to gamble excessively online – over the state’s desire to fill its coffers with gambling revenue.

The CJEU ruled that Hungary’s refusal to grant online gambling licenses to any company that didn’t run a local land-based casino was at odds with the country’s argument that its gambling rules were primarily intended to minimize the potential harms of offering its citizens too many gambling options.

Austria is proposing new measures to block unauthorized online gambling operators and to allow their customers to reclaim all gambling losses suffered over the past three decades.

On Tuesday, Austria’s Ministry of Finance unveiled a draft amendment to the nation’s Gambling Act aimed at shielding the online gambling monopoly of Win2Day, the digital arm of Casinos Austria – in which the government holds a 30% stake – from internationally licensed competitors.

Finance Minister Hartwig Löger estimates there are around 2k internationally licensed online gambling sites currently accepting Austrian customers, which Löger believes are 2k too many. Löger wants to empower the Telekom Control Commission (TKK) to impose “immediate blocking” of any domain that refuses to cut ties with its Austrian customers.

What’s more, since Löger views all online gambling activity not blessed by the state as illegal, he wants to allow Austrian punters to reclaim any money lost to international gambling sites over the past 30 years.

Singapore’s authorization of online gambling at its two state-approved betting monopolies hasn’t led to a surge in wagering, according to a senior government minister.

On Wednesday, parliamentarians queried Second Minister for Home Affairs Josephine Teo on the effects on Singaporean society of the September 2016 approval for the Singapore Pools and Singapore Turf Club monopolies to launch new online betting sites.

The Straits Times quoted Teo responding that there has been no sudden surge in online wagering, and that a significant number of the two monopolies’ new online bettors “appear not to be first-time gamblers.”

Teo went on to say that 30% of Singapore Pools’ new online gamblers and 80% of Turf Club’s online registrants had previously held telephone betting accounts with the operators. Even among those online bettors who hadn’t opened telephone accounts, “over 95%” had made a wager with that same operator in the 12 months before signing up online.

Nevada casinos topped the $1b gaming revenue mark in the first month of 2018, thanks in part to a near-record January at the sportsbooks.

Figures released Wednesday by the Nevada Gaming Control Board show statewide gaming revenue hitting $1.015b in January, a 2.5% decrease from January 2017. The decline was almost entirely limited to the Las Vegas Strip, where revenue fell nearly 9% to $554.7m, while virtually all other regions of the state were in positive territory.

Statewide slots revenue was up 7.6% to $655.5m, while total games & tables revenue declined 10.5% to $359.5m. Nearly all the major table games were down double-digits, led by baccarat ($113.2m, -28.3%), blackjack ($97.5m, -11.8%), roulette ($27.7m, -11.5%) and three-card poker ($10.7m, -5.8%). Craps proved an outlier, rising 12% to $35.3m.

The casinos’ sportsbooks had a stellar month, with overall revenue shooting up nearly 216% to $25.1m. The state’s racebooks weren’t as fortune, with revenue down 3.1% to $3.1m.

Oklahoma has officially joined the mad dash to pass a sports betting bill in case the U.S. Supreme Court (SC) decides to strike down the 1992 Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act.

Tulsa World reported that the Oklahoma House of Representatives Appropriations and Budget Committee has approved House Bill 3375, which seeks to legalize sports betting at roughly 70 tribal casinos across the state.

Members of the committee voted 17-8 to send the bill before the full House.

Sponsored by Rep. Kevin Wallace, the bill would, in effect, change the tribal-state compact to allow these gambling facilities to offer sports pool wagering “on the outcome of sporting events or other events, other than horse or other animal races.”

Genting Malaysia BHD investors are in for a celebration despite seeing a drop in the casino operator’s 2017 profit.

In a disclosure to Bursa Malaysia on Tuesday, Genting Malaysia announced that its fourth quarter profit plunged 74.5 percent to MYR449.4 million (US$114.47 million) from MYR1.69 billion ($430.49 million) in 2016.

The company attributed the lower fourth quarter revenue to the casino operator’s higher impairment losses.

Adjusted earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) of its UK and Egypt operations climbed more than 100 percent to MYR63.8 million ($16.25 million) in the fourth quarter.