Oregon Lottery Director Barry Pack will present some unwelcome news at the Lottery Commission’s monthly meeting on Feb. 28. Scoreboard, the agency’s new mobile sports betting app, will lose money for the fiscal year that ends June 30.Financials, Oregon, Sports Betting
A Los Angeles man pleaded guilty Monday to a federal charge for targeting Latina grandmothers in Long Beach and throughout Southern California in a scam involving a fake winning lottery ticket.Legal, California, Scam, Law Enforcement, Fraud, Crime, Court
It’s been almost two years since Paddy Power Betfair (PPB) purchased U.S.-based sports gambling and daily fantasy sports operator FanDuel, and the deal was wrought with conflict from the start – conflict that still persists to today. Arguments abounded then, and now, that something was amiss with the deal as FanDuel’s founders and certain shareholders didn’t receive anything from the deal. As a result, FanDuel founder Nigel Eccles sued just months after the sale was consummated, looking to receive $120 million as a payout. Now, a second suit is in the works, bringing together Eccles and over 100 employees, all looking for a piece of the action.
Legal Sports Report explains that this new lawsuit was filed in the Supreme Court of New York and asserts that Shamrock Capital Advisors and KKR & Co, two private equity firms that were among the first to back FanDuel when it was created, schemed together in order to artificially lower FanDuel’s value ahead of the sale to PPB. The first lawsuit never stood a chance, since it tried to stop the merger from moving forward. However, at the time, Eccles was not a shareholder and, as such, didn’t have grounds to sue, per legal statutes.
This new lawsuit tries a different approach, bringing in the employees as preferred shareholders. According to FanDuel’s Articles of Association, the sale should have resulted in all preferred shareholders of being able to claim a portion of the first $559 million expected price of the sale. A stock purchase clause should have guaranteed the sale at a minimum of that amount, but the company ultimately went for $465 million based on the alleged artificial valuation.
In addition, the common shareholders were supposed to receive 40% of the new FanDuel Group that was born from the sale, another stipulation that was based on the higher sales price. Since the company was sold for much less, the 40% clause was nullified.
Georgia, as most states in the U.S. will assert, needs novel ways to boost its domestic economy as reliance on federal assistance slowly dwindles. To that end, and based on the growing attention given to sports gambling in the country, a push has begun to bring legalized sports wagers to the Peach State. It’s a contentious, divisive subject, due to Georgia’s deep roots in religion; however, some surveys have already shown that many state residents would welcome the activity. Partially based on that support, a new bill has surfaced that would allow the Georgia State Lottery to oversee mobile sports gambling. This, according to the bill’s sponsor, would preclude the necessity of sending voters to the polls to change the state’s constitution.
Senator Burt Jones believes that existing state statutes can be rewritten to allow for “the lottery game of sports wagering.” According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, his Senate Bill 403 (SB 403) would allow Georgia to ramp up its sports gambling operations quicker, providing a mechanism to capture some of what Jones asserts to be a $1.5-billion illegal sports gambling market in the state.
Jones adds, “It’s going on currently. And so we feel like — much like the internet sales tax — that it’s just an opportunity for us to capitalize on an entity that’s already operating.”
Should SB 403 be approved as is, sportsbooks would be on the hook for a tax of 20% on their income. 15% of this would go to the state’s HOPE (Helping Outstanding Pupils Educationally) scholarship program, and the remainder would be used to treat gambling addiction through Georgia’s Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities. Anyone wanting to place a bet would have to be at least 21 years old.
On February 25, a bill that would allow tribal casinos in Washington State to offer sports betting was approved by the Senate Labor and Commerce Committee. With that succesful vote, House Bill 2638 will now head to the Senate Ways and Means Committee for one more approval before a potential vote in the State Senate.
This bill would allow Washingtonians to place bets on both professional and college sporting events at the state’s 29 tribal casinos. But not all betting would be permitted: wagering on Washington State college sporting action, both public and private, would be prohibited.
A 60% majority is required to pass the bill in the Senate. The bill previously passed the State House by a decisive 83-14 vote.
“This is a really important small step into this new world of sports gaming,” explained State Rep. Strom Peterson, who was one of the original sponsors of the bill.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo hasn’t changed his opinion very much on gambling. In a statement on February 25, Cuomo made it clear that he does not support a “knee-jerk reaction” to allowing additional casinos to open in the state.
This comes as gambling interests have been lobbying for expansions of casinos within the New York City area. Operators have pledged more than $500 million to the state to acquire the new licenses. The MGM-owned Empire City and the Genting-owned Resorts World have been lobbying to receive two of the three remaining casino licenses authorized by the state. Las Vegas Sands Corporation is the other.
Despite the possibility of large revenues from license fees and taxes, the Governor did not include new casinos in his most recent budget proposal. At the press briefing, Cuomo explained, “These are complicated issues, and I am skeptical about quick, knee-jerk reactions to doing something like that, especially if it’s conditioned on money.”
There is a ban on new casino licenses being issued until 2023. The purpose of the ban is to allow the four upstate casinos to have the opportunity to develop and grow before allowing additional operations to begin. However, operators have been pushing to try to get this ban lifted, suggesting that it would give the state enough money to help with the $6 billion deficit New York faces.
Agreement Provides William Hill Online Sports Betting and Online Casino Gaming Access in Michigan
William Hill to Provide Retail Sports Betting Services to Turtle Creek Casino & Hotel and Leelanau Sands Casino in Northern Michigan
LAS VEGAS (February 24, 2020) – William Hill, America’s leading sports betting company, and the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians (“GTB”), a federally recognized Indian tribe, announced today a long-term partnership. William Hill will be GTB’s exclusive provider of online sports betting and online casino gaming throughout Michigan, with plans to open a retail William Hill Sports Book at Turtle Creek Casino & Hotel this year, pending regulatory approvals. The agreement follows the signing of legislation in December 2019 legalizing both sports betting and online gaming in the state.
The William Hill Sports Book will be located in the current Onyx Sports Bar at Turtle Creek Casino & Hotel, with a satellite location at Leelanau Sands Casino. Both are expected to open prior to the 2020 football season, pending regulatory approvals. William Hill plans to launch Online Casino Gaming and Online Sports Betting when permitted under Michigan regulations.
25th February 2020 – Creative development studio BF Games has extensively expanded its footprint across several markets after taking its entire slots portfolio live with iGamingPlatform (iGP).
BF Games’ 53 titles are now available on iGP’s GameHub and accessible to its network of nearly 100 operator partners in 85 different countries.
Titles include classic hits such as Book of Gods, Stunning Hot, Crystal Mania and Hot Classic, as well as new titles Cosmic Dream, Bonnie & Clyde, Aztec Adventures and Road Cash.
iGP’s aggregation engine, GameHub, offers a variety of content from leading game providers and the supplier holds a licence in Malta and Curacao.
A recent study ordered by Cherokee Nation Businesses (CNB) has concluded that if a resort and casino was built in Russellville, Arkansas, it would produce over $3 billion in economic activity for the state in the first decade alone. The Economic Impact Group was commissioned to conduct the study and the CNB released it as part of a proposal in mid-February.
“In forming our plans for Legends Resort and Casino, we turned to a network of experts to help us understand how this project would impact the region’s economy,” CNB CEO Chuck Garrett said. “It was fitting for us to engage this research through Dr. Russell Evans and EIG who are already very familiar with current CNB operations.”
This study compared data from six Oklahoma counties of similar size to Pope County, where the casino would be built. They explained in the study that these “micropolitan areas” are near large metropolitan sectors, but not adjacent to them.
They found that in the first year of casino operationsm 1750 jobs would be created with a total employee income of $43.3 million. They extrapolated this to suggest that over a 10-year period, over 21,000 jobs would be created with an employee income total of $530 million.
I-gaming, Privacy, and Big Tech
Part one of four parts
“Your face is a book, where people may read strange matters.”
Shakespeare, Macbeth
Tribal gaming has an important part in the U.S. gambling industry, and they want to keep their role as leaders in the industry as regulation sweeps across the country. Jason Giles, executive direction of the National Indian Gaming Association (NIGA), plays an important part in advocating for that role, and he spoke with our Becky Liggero Fontana about the challenges in their way at Sports Betting U.S.A.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2PgiYstNjA?feature=oembed&w=500&h=281]
The gambling industry might not be where it is today without tribal gaming, and Giles is proud of it. “Indian Gaming really did spur the gambling revolution in this country,” he said. “The commercial industry fought with the tribal nations for a long time, tooth and nail, to prevent the expansion. It turned out it was the greatest thing for everybody involved. Nevada took off, Atlantic City’s coming back, more and more people were just frankly exposed to gambling.”
The repeal of PASPA in 2018 opened the flood gates to sports betting, but unfortunately for tribal groups, the new opportunity has been met with additional challenges. “So when the Supreme Court throws out a law as unconstitutional, you know, tribes, that means a lot to tribes, because we’re enshrined in the Constitution, and when laws change like that, it’s generally not for the better for tribes, but in this case it opened up new avenues of economic development, lots of questions, tribes wanted to know, can we immediately start doing it,” Giles said. “Now the ironic thing is, for the commercial side, they could start doing it the next day. I think Governor Christie said we’ll have it up and running in two weeks after the decision. Tribes, it’s not so easy, because we have these agreements with the states, these compacts that may or may not have to be renegotiated. Each state, each region of the country feels differently about gambling. We had to take our time, still taking our time digesting this, that’s why after the pass were ruling you only have four tribes that are actually doing sports betting right now.
25th February, 2020: NetGaming, the creative casino games studio, has partnered with EveryMatrix in a deal that boosts the supplier’s access to important markets around the globe.
NetGaming’s engaging slot collection, including the immersive hit Infinity Battle, is set to be integrated across EveryMatrix’s entire white-label portfolio via the aggregator’s CasinoEngine iGaming Integration Platform.
NetGaming’s premium game content is available in 26 languages and can be operated with 41 currencies.
Pallavi Deshmukh, CEO at NetGaming, said: “We are delighted to sign with EveryMatrix, as the company’s strong distribution capability enables us to expand across a range of key territories.
Cyprus-licensed online sports betting operators handled more wagers but collected less revenue than their land-based counterparts in the country’s fiscal Q3.
Figures released by the National Betting Authority (NBA) of the Republic of Cyprus show Class A (retail) and Class B (online) licensed bookmakers generated combined betting handle of €190.7m in the three months ending September 30, 2019, a 12% improvement from Q3 2018, but their combined revenue fell 8% year-on-year to just under €22.1m.
The nine licensed online bookies saw their betting handle spike by 35% to €118.5m while the six land-based betting operators saw their handle slip 13% to €72.2m. However, online betting revenue fell 11% to €7.4m while retail revenue fell a more modest 6% to €14.7m.
The government claims a 10% share of betting revenue, so it has a vested interest in keeping online operators not holding a local license from catering to Cypriot gamblers. The NBA added another 968 domains to its online gambling blacklist in Q3, bringing the total up to 10,592.
Scientific Games reported earnings last week. They were not good, but they were still important. One thing all should know about Scientific Games is that the price action of the stock over the last 5 years makes no sense at all. It jerks every which way incoherently, almost like a penny stock being manipulated by pump and dump scammers. I am not saying that this has actually happened and I am not making any accusations of impropriety. I’m just saying recent movements seem to resemble this. It’s totally bonkers.
To wit, shares rose 1,240% from February 2016 to May 2018, despite the company consistently losing money during that time and drowing in debt service, refinance costs, and other unproductive dead weight. We caught that weird nutty malignant bubble-tumor thing here and I recommended shorting it at $52 on January 23 that year. The position took about 6 months to mature but those who hung on did well. The stock eventually bottomed at $15 by the end of 2018, right around where it bottomed in March 2009. The shares have had a couple of dead cat bounces since then and are now floating atround $23. I don’t see any potential for another rally here and I can’t understand why anyone would buy this company, finances being a disaster train wreck. If it jumps back up to $50 or so for whatever reason, I guess we can short it again. That would be fun.
Scientific Games is levered 4:1 and I see no way out of the hole without a bankruptcy restructuring, if that will even be possible by the time it becomes necessary. I wouldn’t be surprised if the whole company is just liquidated in pieces in the end for lack of a buyer.
Back to last week’s earnings, they were pretty bad. EPS missed “consensus” by 71 cents and revenue missed by $32M. The “consensus” was at a positive 25 cents, and the quarter ended with a loss of 46 cents a share. Side note: The fact that anyone on Wall Street even takes consensus estimates on anything, seriously, is testament to the diseased culture of herded mob groupthink follow-the-leader investing where everyone chases everyone else around in circles like a bunch of poodles chasing one another’s tails and yapping high pitched barks about bull markets or whatever. They keep chasing faster and faster until they all get so dizzy and sick trading money around in the same bank circuits that they all fall over and throw up on themselves. Maybe that’s what happened when Scientific Games shot up to $63 for no apparent reason. The poodles got a bit too excited there I guess.
In Ukraine’s effort to move towards regulated, online gambling, they’ve clued in that the best way to beat the competition is to shut off access to them. On February 21, the National Commission for State Regulation of Communications and Informatization (NKRZI), telecom regulator for Ukraine, asked internet service providers (ISPs) to block 32 online gambling websites.
This stems from a ruling by Judge Oksana Hardina of the Shevchenkovskiy District Court of Kyiv. The ruling gave telecom regulators the power to block websites offering content considered illegal locally. Following that ruling, the Chief Investigative Directorate of the Security Service of Ukraine ordered this new tactic on February 13, and the NKRZI got around to letting ISPs know publically with this announcement.
The 32 websites ISPs are now expected to block include some very well known sites. PartyPoker and Pinnacle made the list, as well as CloudBet, FastPay Casino, Yukon Gold, Golden Tiger Casino and BetChain.
Although perhaps unlikely to happen, the notice made clear that there is room to appeal the decision. “Within five days from the date of its announcement, an appeal may be filed against the decision of the investigating judge directly to the Kyiv Court of Appeal,” it notes. Otherwise, the ISPs were expected to shutter access to these sites immediately.
Indiana’s sports betting market got another mobile wagering option on Tuesday as Roar Digital’s BetMGM app was cleared for takeoff.
Roar Digital, the joint venture of casino operator MGM Resorts and UK-listed gambling operator GVC Holdings, was granted a temporary vendor license for sports betting last month by the Indiana Gaming Commission (IGC). On Monday, the IGC formally approved the launch of the BetMGM app in conjunction with Roar’s local partner, Boyd Gaming’s Belterra Resort casino.
BetMGM joins Churchill Downs Inc’s BetAmerica, DraftKings, Flutter Entertainment’s FanDuel, Rush Street Interactive’s BetRivers and William Hill on the list of approved IGC betting operators, with PointsBet and USA Sports Gaming’s BetIndiana still waiting for their official IGC approval.
The BetMGM brand made its sports betting debut in New Jersey last year and this new year has seen app launches in Nevada and West Virginia. Counting retail-only wagering operations in Mississippi, Roar has set a target of taking wagers in eight US states before year’s end.
Lebanon’s only casino is pushing back against apparently malicious rumors that one of its customers tested positive for the coronavirus.
On Tuesday, Casino du Liban, located about 22km north of Beirut in Maameltein, issued a statement denying online rumors that local television news channel Al Mayadeen had reported a coronavirus case at the casino. The channel confirmed that none of its websites had reported any such case.
Local media reported that the rumor started from a lone individual who used a social media platform to declare that “a new Corona case has been registered at the Casino du Liban and the Lebanese Red Cross is working on transmitting the critical condition to Rafic el Hariri’s hospital.”
Casino du Liban responded with a statement saying the individual was “spreading malicious rumors by broadcasting false news impersonating Al Mayadeen.” The statement said this action was “neither patriotic nor moral, and seeks to exploit the coronavirus to harm businesses.”
Canada’s sports bettors may be thrilled by the debut of yet another single-game wagering bill, although this one is likely doomed to suffer the fate of its two predecessors.
On Tuesday, Windsor-West MP Brian Masse announced that he was transferring control of C-218, his latest bill to legalize single-event sports betting (SESB), to Saskatoon-Grasswood MP Kevin Waugh, in the hopes that the third time’s the charm for Canada’s sports bettors.
Masse (pictured, at podium) is a member of the New Democratic Party (NDP) while Waugh is a Conservative, while the parliamentary agenda is controlled by the ruling Liberals. However, each session of parliament features a lottery to allow a certain number of opposition MPs to submit private members’ bills (PMB) for debate in the House of Commons, and Waugh drew a low number this year.
Masse himself won that lottery in January 2016, which allowed him to introduce his C-221 bill, which ultimately went down to defeat later that year when most of the Liberals voted against its passage. Prior to that, Masse introduced C-290, which somehow made it successfully through the House in 2012 before the unelected Senate showed a rare bit of backbone and refused to give the bill their rubber stamp of approval.
Oregon’s state-run sports betting operation is currently generating a larger amount of revenue for its technology partner than it is for the state government.
On Monday, Wilamette Week reported that the Oregon Lottery was preparing to admit publicly what many had suspected for some time; its Scoreboard digital betting product is on pace to lose $5.3m in the the state’s current fiscal year, a far cry from the $6.3m profit that Lottery officials had projected the betting app would bring when it launched the product last October.
Lottery Director Barry Pack revealed figures that show Scoreboard now expects to generate revenue of just $10.8m while expenses will total $16.1m. In January, Pack said the Lottery had “revised downward” its original revenue projections due in part to Scoreboard’s inability to convince bettors who were already wagering with unapproved options to check out the Lottery’s product (which some critics have consistently derided as buggy as hell).
Another problem is the state’s blanket prohibition of wagering on college sports, which differs from many other states that approved betting legislation that only barred wagering on college sports involving a local team. Efforts to convince Oregon legislators to relax this prohibition have so far gone nowhere.
With 594 players, the WPT Fallsview Main Event saw Eric Afriat make it a third WPT title in his poker career as the Canadian poker player won the title and claimed a $379,000 windfall as he won big in his home country.
[Image credit: WPT Live Updates via twitter]
Afriat, who previously won the WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker showdown in 2014 for just over a million dollars and the WPT Borgata Winter Poker Open in 2018 for over $650,000, claimed around $379,000 after currency conversion as the Canadian tournament fulfilled a huge dream for the popular player. Incredibly, Afriat also came second at last year’s 2019 WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown, but he went one better in Canada to the delight of him and his many fans.
The final table started with six players, as is the tradition on the World Poker Tour and it was Zuhair Al-Pachachi who was first to leave. His re-raise from the small blind with ace-ten prompted a four-bet from Trung Hien Nguyen, and Al-Pachachi called for his tournament life, distraught to see the news that he was dominated by Nguyen’s ace-king.