This is The Mouthpiece, a guest contribution by Martin Owens. If you would like to submit a contribution please contact Bill Beatty for details. Thank you.

Point of consumption taxation versus the mobile market

“ It is always darkest under the lamp.”“

Rudyard Kipling, KIM

The governor of Connecticut, Dannel Malloy, has given lawmakers until the end of this week to determine whether or not they are behind a push for sports betting this year. Malloy apparently wants to fast track any sports gambling legislation, even if a special session is needed, before he leaves office next January.

In order to pass any laws on sports gambling, Malloy will first have to negotiate new agreements with the two tribal casino operators, the Mashantucket Pequots and the Mohegans, in the state. Coming as no surprise at all, the two tribes are interested in keeping the entire sports betting market to themselves. If he is successful in negotiating new agreements, they would still need to be approved by the federal Department of the Interior, which has ultimate jurisdiction over all tribal gaming in the country.

In an interview with the local media outlet Connecticut Mirror, Malloy said, “The bottom line is in the last few weeks real action has taken place. People have started to move in a direction where I think an agreement could ultimately be reached with respect to who could operate within our state, how they would operate within their state, what could be bet on, and the like.”

The outlet talked to several lawmakers, who were hesitant about commenting on whether or not sports gambling could see the light of day this year. Senate President Martin Looney, a Democrat who represents New Haven, said, “That depends on the end result of the [negotiation] process.” Senate Republican leader Len Fasano was just as evasive, only stating, “[Governor Malloy] was just bringing us up to speed. We’re still talking.”

Lee Moonves, current CEO at CBS, predicts that sports gambling will provide a huge boost in advertising revenue for the broadcaster. In a recent earning call with analysts, he was enthusiastic about second-quarter earnings and emphasized the company’s CBS Sports HQ and Sportline website offerings as being the recipients of huge gains from gambling ads. He added that the recent reversal of the sports betting ban in the US will “create a whole new ad category as well as drive demand across our sports-related content.”

Advertising currently brings in around 38% of the company’s revenue. However, Moonves points out that advertising is a growing market segment that cannot be ignored as a revenue stream. He points out, “We had another terrific upfront with healthy demand in daytime, news, primetime and late night. CPMs were up high single to low double digits across dayparts and volume grew as well.” An upfront is a gathering of network executives, media and advertisers at the beginning of important sales periods.

Moonves went on to say, “Our programming was well received and we sold a number of units for the Super Bowl and the Grammys which we have on back-to-back weekends in the first quarter of 2019. This is also the first time we went into the upfront marketplace with our integrated broadcast and digital sales teams, and the results were significant. Digital volume was up nearly 40% and we continue to leverage the power of targeted digital advertising with the huge reach of broadcast TV.”

When asked about sports betting, the executive indicated that he feels that it will start as a “local phenomenon.” He points to the newly established sports betting market in New Jersey, indicating that CBS will more than likely see an increase in revenue at its Philadelphia station before spreading to other locations, such as New York.

As it did in many areas around the world, the 2018 FIFA World Cup soccer championship series provided some financial assistance to Taiwan. The country’s sports lottery saw a serious boost in sales in June, increasing by 73% to reach total revenue of $170 million. Even better, for the first half of the year, sports lottery sales were quadruple that amount, increasing by 11% year-on-year to reach $667.9 million.

The improvement follows a trend that began in 2013. According to information from the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS), sports lottery sales revenue has increased every year since then. The sales in the first half of 2018 was 60% of the total sales for last year, $1.08 billion.

The majority of the lottery sales – 81% – came from physical gambling locations, while only 1% was generated online. All proceeds, according to the DGBAS, from the lottery sales go directly for sports development in the country.

Around the world, the World Cup helped boost revenue for a number of countries. For example, France reported that sportsbooks covered $336 million in World Cup-related bets, almost double what was seen in 2014. In the UK, over $3.2 billion was gambled, over twice the amount bet in the previous World Cup matches.

Kristen Bicknell continues to show her poker prowess. The Canadian player dug in deep during this year’s WSOP series of tournaments and hasn’t stopped bouncing around from tournament to tournament all year. Her efforts are paying off, however, as she is currently at the top of the list on the 2018 Global Poker Index (GPI) Canadian Player of the Year (CPOY) chart. Additionally, she is among the top three Canadian players according to the GPI ranking and the only female in the top ten.

Bicknell shares space on the lists with Daniel Negreanu and Sam Greenwood. While she may not have the bankroll that the other players do – she has won just over $2 million in live action during her career – she has made a name for herself as a strong player and one of the more solid live tournament players to come out of Canada.

The 31-year-old currently has 2,725.14 points in the CPOY race. On her heels is Greenwood with 2,717.55 followed by Mike Leah with 2,531.97. Negreanu is trying to catch up and currently has 2,524.54 points.

During this year’s WSOP series, the partypoker ambassador was seen at seven different events. She cashed in all seven, with her best performance being an eleventh-place finish at the $3,000 NLHE tournament where she picked up 29,284. That came just days after pulling off a second-place victory at the $5,000 NLHE event, part of the Mid-States Poker Tour (MSPT) DeepStack Championship Series. For that win, she added $200,000 to her bank.

It’s becoming an all-too-familiar topic. Imperial Pacific International’s (IPI) mammoth casino project on the US territory of Saipan has repeatedly seen construction delays that push the grand opening of its hotel operations back…and back. The company’s Imperial Palace had expected to see the hotel operations ready by last month, then indicated that it would probably be ready to go by August before requesting another extension as the hotel needs another six months to be finished – at a minimum. According to the latest information by IPI officials, the hotel is only 69% complete.

Eric Poon, VP for construction with IPI, confirmed that the project is getting there, but that it is still well behind schedule. He said that the completion percentage is based solely on the hotel portion of the resort, adding, “The work that we have done so far—the foundation and basic infrastructure, along with the calculations and schedule of our project—we don’t have a special tool to calculate, unless I actually talk to my team.”

Construction on the project is targeting three different areas – the front hotel tower, the resort hotel and the north courtyard. Poon asserted, “Everything is moving forward and on target to complete by the end of this year. We put in another 10 percent in the resort hotel’s building façade. But for us, this is not fast enough; hopefully, we can improve it in the near future.”

IPI has said to be “working diligently” to make up for lost time, but it hasn’t really succeeded. The completion of the hotel by this summer was a condition of the company being granted a casino license, and now that licensing process is being called into question. The Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) Lottery Commission is expected to meet this week to discuss the construction extension request and, possibly, the future of IPI’s casino license.