All eyes are on Sweden’s re-regulated iGaming market since the updated gambling laws came into effect on January 1st of this year. With licenses flying out the door, obtaining a fruitful piece of the Swedish market pie requires a good deal of differentiation as the competition continues to build. Smaller operators in particular have to get real creative in order to compete with the big Swedish-facing brands and remain compliant with the updated laws.

Dreamz Casino is a smaller operator currently focused on the regulated Swedish iGaming market, founded by Simon Furustig (CEO) and Leon Storm (CTO). The brand’s primary focus is regulated markets such as Sweden and the UK, with the potential of “making a true difference in the gaming industry,” according to Oliver Fagerdahl, Customer Engagement Director for Dreamz.

The Dreamz team prides itself in following a long term technical road map while at the same time keeping on top of the unique business it’s operating today. To learn more about the innovation behind Dreamz, the bespoke software that powers its CRM and player management platform and overcoming challenges with Swedish re-regulation, I sat down with Fagerdahl who has been passionate about the Dreamz vision since the Founders approached him with the idea.

Becky Liggero: Thank you so much for joining me today, Oliver. As we all know, there are literally thousands of online casinos out there today and plenty of options for the popular Swedish market. How does the Dreamz brand differentiate itself from the rest?

Three live tournament stories to share including Patrik Antonius hosting a live tournament series and news from the World Poker Tour in Johannesburg and the World Series of Poker in Atlantic City.

Patrik Antonius is many things.

Father.

Husband.

888 Holdings has reacted to declining revenues by launching a new poker client, and including a new Rake or Break Sunday promotion designed to give more money back to the players.

Sitting with Rob Yong in an empty restaurant deep in the bowels of the Landing Casino in South Korea, I ask him about partypoker’s competition.

“PokerStars and 888?”

I nod like a broken flipper on a pinball machine.

Three stanzas from a PokerStars poem including news of a Stars Rewards revamp in Italy, dates for the Spring Championship of Online Poker, and a grudge heads-up encounter between Ben “Spraggy” Spragg and Parker “TonkaaaaP” Talbot.

In early February, to everyone except his family, Severin Rasset, Director of Poker Innovation and Operations, turned into a fire breathing dragon with sulfurous yellow eyes, and sloppy stalactite-slime hanging from the corners of his flesh enmeshed mouth after penning a blog post entitled  ‘Stars Rewards: MTT Points Updates.’

Rasset was the PokerStars higher-up given the noxious task of notifying his impoverished customers that the award-winning Stars Rewards system was about to change. The first step in that change would be to slash multi-table tournament (MTT) Rewards by 55% in a move that saw Rewards Points for scheduled tournaments reduce from 100 reward points for every $/€1 in tournament fees paid to 45.

Now for some slightly better news.

New Jersey gambling regulators have brought the hammer down on GVC Holdings and its Borgata casino partner for allowing excluded individuals to gamble online.

In a civil action order dated March 9 but only just released, the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement imposed an $81k financial penalty on bwin.party entertainment (NJ) and its land-based partner, MGM Resorts’ Borgata Casino Hotel, for permitting individuals who’d self-excluded from the companies’ online gambling sites to (you guessed it) gamble online.

The complaint filed by the DGE indicates that 12 individuals managed to slip past the online safeguards, and they lost a combined $41,759 during their unauthorized play. The DGE has ordered bwin.party and Borgata to forfeit these ill-gotten gains in addition to the $81k fine.

(In case you kids were wondering who the heck bwin.party is, the company was issued a license to operate in New Jersey way back when the state’s regulated online market launched in 2013. The bwin.party name was publicly retired a few years later after the struggling firm was acquired by UK-listed GVC Holdings.)

Norway-facing online gambling operators could face further curbs on their ability to advertise via local media if the country’s increasingly paternalistic government gets its way.

Late last week, Norway’s Ministry of Culture proposed amending the nation’s Broadcasting Act to explicitly block local residents’ capacity to view advertising from international gambling sites that continue to serve local punters without the benefit of a local license (mainly because the government won’t issue any).

Minister Trine Skei Grande said the goal is to authorize the state media authority Medietilsysnet to “prevent or obstruct access to marketing of gambling” via television channels or broadband providers. The orders submitted to these providers would be mandatory, with appropriate punishments for recalcitrant media types.

The Ministry acknowledges that the proposed changes will have a direct financial impact on media outlets and thus it has begun a consultation to consider the media viewpoint before dismissing it altogether. Interested parties have been invited to make their futile submissions by June 17.

Kenya’s government is once again proposing a significant hike in gambling taxes but the nation’s leading sports betting operator says the sector is already one of the country’s highest taxed industries.

Last week, Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) commissioner-general John Njiraini tabled a raft of proposed new tax hikes, including an additional 10% excise duty on the country’s licensed betting operators. Njiraini claimed the hike was necessary because sports betting has “negative effects” and the taxes currently imposed on the sector “are inadequate.”

Claims of gambling’s negative effects on society were also what prompted Kenya’s government to hike taxes on the industry to 35% effective January 1, 2018. However, the government climbed down off its moral high horse last September, reducing betting operators’ tax rate to 15% while imposing a new 20% tax on bettors’ winnings.

Kenya’s Treasury is still mulling Njiraini’s proposals, but it’s hard to see how the government will sell the betting tax hike, given the embarrassment it has already suffered via its repeated flip-flopping on this issue. Then again, the KRA says its current fiscal year’s revenue collection is on pace to come in Sh110b (US$1.1b) below its target, and desperate times call for desperate measures.

With the proposed sale of Canberra Casino about to go through, it is clear that some dramatic changes will be occurring in the operations of the casino. With the final vote set for March 21, Blue Whale has already taken steps in setting how the casino operations will be run, as they have hired IProsperity Group to take control once the final sale is approved.

Blue Whale had acquired Canberra Casino in December, but was waiting on final approval from their shareholders before moving forward. However, with the sale close at hand and with there no reason to believe that there are any obstacles to stand in the way of the sale, Blue Whale has decided to move forward with getting the operations of the casino in order.

A number of senior management will likely remain in place even after the approval, despite a memo that seemed to contradict that idea. In a note to shareholders, Blue Whale executives explained that “the employment of the senior management of the company would transfer to the management company.”

The arrangement has already garnered support among the shareholders. Tony Fung, one of the leading representatives among the shareholder group, has already informed the company of his support for the hiring of the management group. However, he explained that key management personnel would remain in place even under the management group.