Spain’s online gambling market suffered a slowdown in the final quarter of 2019, as casino games were the only vertical to post year-on-year growth.

Figures released Friday by Spain’s Dirección General de Ordenación del Juego (DGOJ) regulatory body show Spanish-licensed online gambling operators generated revenue of €188.5m in Q4, a 2% decline from the final quarter of 2018 and a 3.2% decline from Q3 2019.

Sports betting revenue fell 10.2% year-on-year to €90m in Q4, while declines were also evident in poker (€20m, -4%) and bingo (€2.7m, -24%). Online casino revenue broke the downward trend, rising 11.7% to €72.3m while the minuscule but highly volatile ‘contests’ segment nearly quadrupled to €610k.

The sports vertical suffered mainly from a lack of interest, as betting turnover slipped 9% year-on-year to €1.85b, of which €1.13b was in-play wagering. In-play turnover was down nearly 22% year-on-year, while pre-match betting rose 23.6% to €663.3m.

Greece-facing online gambling operators won’t have to halt their business at the end of March, even if the country’s new licensing system won’t be ready by then.

On Wednesday, the Hellenic Gaming Commission (HGC) offered some assurance to the 24 holders of ‘temporary’ online gambling licenses that they won’t face any repercussions when those transitional licenses expire on March 31, provided they hand their paperwork in on time.

For years now, Greece has been trying to enact a new online gambling licensing regime to replace the botched system that issued those temp licenses nine years ago. Those approvals were almost immediately revoked in favor of a online betting monopoly for domestic operator OPAP, which meant a higher price when the government went looking to sell its one-third stake in OPAP.

Following a change in government, the new online licensing system was finally sent to the European Commission (EC) for approval. The standstill period is scheduled to end in April.

Nevada’s casinos started 2020 off with a billion-dollar month, while finally revealing how big a role mobile apps play in the state’s sports betting action.

Figures released Friday by the Nevada Gaming Control Board show statewide casino gaming revenue of $1.04b in January, a 5.5% gain on the same month last year but a modest decline from December 2019’s $1.06b.

The gains came largely due to a strong rebound in baccarat revenue, which had fallen more than one-quarter in December. January’s baccarat revenue hit $112.2m, up 17% year-on-year and over 47% higher than December, which helped push January’s overall ‘table, counter and card games’ segment up 12.1% to $365.7m.

Blackjack also had a solid month, rising 6.8% to $96.4m, while roulette was up 17.6% to $34.6m. Craps crapped out in January, falling 2.8% to $33.7m while the state’s poker rooms shot up 20.1% to $11.6m. Slots revenue enjoyed a modest 2.2% rise to $675.5m.

Just as quickly as the Democratic primary process started (thanks for nothing, Iowa), the next few days may help put an end to it all. U.S. Presidential candidates are anxiously looking forward to South Carolina’s results on February 29, and March 3’s Super Tuesday, when 14 states will cast their ballots. By the end of everything, over one third of delegates will have been cast, and based on current polls, we may have an overwhelming favorite. We’re taking a look at all the election odds Bodog has to offer.

South Carolina

After failing to win the first three contests, former Vice President Joe Biden is the heavy favorite to win South Carolina. An acceptable debate performance, combined with a torrent of attacks on Bernie Sanders, has seen him surge in the polls. Bodog has him at -1200, Sanders at +600, with all other candidates listed as long shots at +10000.

Democratic Drop outs

EPL Gameweek #28 Preview – Will United Come Unstuck Against the Toffees?

With just ten weeks of the English Premier League season after this weekend, some clubs are seeing the home straight in sight. That means a race for the Champions League places, or alternatively, a battle against the drop.

Who makes their football dreams come true and who suffers a bitter reality check is going to come down to fine margins, so we’ve looked at this weekend’s fixtures and picked three games which could have a big effect on the final few weeks of the season.

Norwich City vs. Leicester City (Friday, 8pm GMT kick-off)

Bitcoin, now reborn as Bitcoin SV (BSV), isn’t just the best payment option for gambling operators, it’s also proving to be the best blockchain to handle data. Bitboss CEO Matt Dickson recently took the stage at CoinGeek London to demonstrate all the ways his company is already making blockchain integration a profitable endeavor for anyone offering gambling.

The Bitboss wallet is a great start. As Dickson demonstrated, a tightly integrated BSV wallet, that records transactions to the blockchain and talks to the backend, provides immediate benefits for all parties involved with a player’s action. And APIs are coming, so operators can start reaping the benefits soon.

Dickson used an example of a customer playing slots to show how the whole system works. A Bitboss slot smart contract watches the BSV Mempool in real time, and sees transactions broadcast to pick them up. It generates a transparent random number, which is then sent to the content provider. Once the end result is generated, a smart contract divvies out the payout to the affiliate, the player, the content creator, and Bitboss.

By using the BSV blockchain for the majority of data handling, content creators save a tremendous amount by not needing to run their own gaming servers, and the transparency of the BSV proves that everything is on the up and up.