Monthly Archives: March 2020

International Gaming Standards Association (IGSA) announces new Board of Directors

LAS VEGAS (March 9, 2020) – The International Gaming Standards Association (IGSA) has announced its new Board of Directors.

Leading IGSA is Roman Czubak, NOVOMATIC AG, who was re-elected Chair. Earle G. Hall, CEO of Axes.ai, was elected as Vice Chair and Paul Burns, Senior Manager Strategic Gaming Development at the Atlantic Lottery Corporation was elected as Treasurer.

Returning as Board Members are Adrian Marcu, Vice President of Architecture for International Game Technology; Nimish Purohit, Sr., Director of Technical Compliance at Aristocrat Technologies; Simon McKeown, Technical Compliance Manager, Microgaming; and Syed Hussain, Chief Information Officer, State of Oregon Lottery

Joining IGSA’s board are Bala Kuthyar, VP of Engineering, Scientific Games, and Martin Pedak, Director of Technical Compliance Playtech.

Parimatch: Consumers want stories, not spreadsheets

Parimatch’s Chief Product Officer Sergey Berezhnoy spoke to iGaming Times at ICE London 2020 about how the operator plans to evolve the traditional sports betting experience with a focus not just on technology, but on storytelling. With a history in the video gaming industry, Sergey can see many narrative-building concepts that would translate nicely to the betting sector, although he believes the main overlap – esports – still has a few mountains to climb.

Sergey Berezhnoy, Parimatch’s Chief Product Officer

Following a strong 12 months in its home markets, Parimatch attended ICE London 2020 with a clear vision in mind for the future of its sports betting offer.

The international operator has grown its market share with bold marketing campaigns and a strong product backed by great tech, but the main focus for Parimatch’s Chief Product Officer Sergey Berezhnoy over the next year is to research, develop and evolve sports betting’s current customer journey. Many of the innovations at ICE provide the backbone of that journey, providing several payment methods, hundreds of ways to bet, and thousands of events and markets to bet on, with other exciting developments such as VR and AI further bolstering to the industry’s toolbox in recent years. For players, the customer journey is smoother than ever before, but for Sergey, that’s not enough. His background is in the video gaming industry, and he believes that to tap into the widest possible market, the sports betting sector has to develop a story around the act of betting that is as engaging and rewarding as current popular mobile games.

Reflex Games’ Mat Ingram talks British slots and age verification

Providing top of the line slot machines in the U.K. market, with an ever growing fear about underage gaming taking hold, can be a tricky proposition. Reflex Gaming specializes in this market, and they’re doing so with the most responsible approach. Chief Product Officer Mat Ingram joined our Becky Liggero Fontana to discuss the details of how they accomplish that.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5j3STLeGauI?feature=oembed&w=500&h=281]

A key piece of how Reflex Games approaches responsible gaming comes from a deal they made not too long ago. “So we’re just teaming up with various companies that are experts in their field,” Ingram said. “So payment technology companies, but also age verification companies like Yoti. And they’re working together, we’re bringing together a full solution that allows anybody to play a machine, whatever age they are, however technologically savvy they are, to be able to play a machine as long as they’re over 18.”

Liggero Fontana asked why Yoti was the perfect partner for age verification technology. “First, the individual professional backgrounds in the gaming industry mean that they can provide solutions in the context that we need them,” Ingram replied. “So they’re not purely an age verification company, they are an age verification company with gaming industry experience, which is important for me. They’re also small and very agile, as are we, and we like working with businesses like that, rather than massive multinational corporations where we might get lost in their melee. And you know we’ve become good friends as well. So, I think, we’re working extremely collaboratively, it’s commercially viable, and it kind of ticks all the boxes, really.”

“The dumber you are on court, the better you’re going to play.” – How Jim Courier ambushed Sampras and Agassi in the 1990s

[Image credit: Wikimedia Commons]

Tennis greats are never born, only made. While modern greats Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic have set new records in terms of Grand Slam victories, other legends came before them. We have already featured Bjorn Borg, John McEnroe and Jimmy Connors in this series, three men who redefined the sporting focus tennis enjoyed.

Between those greats retiring and the current ‘Holy Trinity’ taking over the mantle as greats who would sweep all before them, however, there was a fantastic yet often overlooked period of tennis, dominated by three Americans – Pete Sampras, Andre Agassi and Jim Courier. Between then, the trio won an incredible 18 Grand Slam titles. We’ve already written on the power and majesty of ‘Pistol’ Pete Sampras as well as the unpredictable love story that Andre Agassi’s career became. It’s time to cover the world number one who flew under the radar but won four Grand Slam titles – Jim Courier.

In an era often dominated by big personalities such as the prodigious Boris Becker, the almost robotically efficient Pete Sampras and the wild-haired ebullience of Andre Agassi, Jim Courier’s simple yet effective tennis career might look like a footnote. Only a professional player for 12 years between 1988 and the year 2000, Courier would win neither Wimbledon or the U.S. Open final.

Europa League Round of 16 preview

The Europa League returns to action this week as all eight Round of 16 ties see their first legs take place. With sides such as Roma, Manchester United, Inter Milan, Wolves and Sevilla all hoping to end the season with the trophy and a clear route to the UEFA Champions League group stage, who will prevail?

The favourites

There’s no doubt that the big teams had mixed results when it came to the Round of 16 draw. While Inter Milan and Getafe drew each other, with Sevilla and Roma doing the same, Manchester United got the plum tie on paper – Austrian side LASK.

It’s thanks to the draw that United are 7/2 favourites to win the competition, but in contrast to The Red Devils, Inter Milan may have some trouble against Getafe, though the first leg may have to be played behind closed doors if it goes ahead at all. Should it take place, Getafe will try to take advantage of the fact that Inter are in poor form, having lost their way in the Serie A title race, losing their last two league games including Saturday’s 2-0 reverse against Juventus.

Sam Trickett wins MILLIONS Sochi Super High Roller for $435,000

After toppling 57 opponents, Sam Trickett took down the second event of the partypoker LIVE MILLIONS Super High Roller Series which is taking place all this week in Sochi, Russia. Trickett, Britain’s second-most successful tournament player in history behind Stephen Chidwick put in a great display to beat a final table full of wizards and bank an impressive $435,000 to boot.

[Image credit: World Poker Tour via flickr]

It was the second-biggest biggest win so far on this weeks’ worth of huge Super High Roller events, with Trickett’s win for $435,000 coming on the back of Jiang Xia He’s win in the opening Short Deck event for $378,000 saw He beat WSOP Main Event champion John Cynn heads-up. In the third event of the series, Wai Leong Chan won against recent Global Poker Award winner Paul Phua to take home the $457,500 top prize.

Event #2 got headlines, though. Packed with top poker professionals, the bubble burst at the end of Day 1, with Aleksey Gortikov’s elimination setting the final nine in place to battle for the win.

CBB conference tournaments betting preview

March Madness officially arrives this week in college basketball as all the major conference tournaments are scheduled and then it’s Selection Sunday.

Odds courtesy of OddsShark.com

The ACC is considered a bit “down” this season after having three teams earn No. 1 seeds in the 2019 NCAA Tournament and Virginia winning it all for the first time in school history. The ACC has had at least one top seed in the Big Dance every year since 2014 but probably will not this year no matter what happens in the conference tournament.

That begins Tuesday in Greensboro, N.C., with first-time regular-season champion Florida State as the +245 second-favorite. The Seminoles have won the ACC Tournament once, in 2012. They did reach the final a year ago but lost to Duke (+240 favorite this year). Louisville (+290) and Virginia (+550) are the other schools with a double-bye to the quarterfinals.

Macau encourages operators and junkets to avoid layoffs

Macau concessionaire employees have one less thing to worry about as their industry is crushed by the ongoing effects of the COVID-19 coronavirus. Although many were worried they’d lose their jobs as a result of the economic downturn the territory is currently facing, they’ve discovered a friend in their industry’s regulator.

Several outlets are reporting Macau’s Gaming Inspection & Coordination Bureau (DICJ) has sent letters to the six casino concessionaires, encouraging them to avoid layoffs. It emphasized that “maintaining social responsibility is one of the priorities of the Macau SAR Government.” It also emphasized the concessionaires’ responsibility. “In this difficult period, companies should make every effort to ensure the employment of employees and maintain a stable labor market.”

This emphasis had an impact on atleast one company that planned to cut costs. A major junket operator had informed employees that 200 of them would be losing their jobs. It reversed this decision after receiving pressure from the DICJ.

In February, the Macau Gaming Labor Group published a survey taken during Macau’s mandated 15 day casino shutdown. In that survey, 53% of employees noted a fear of losing their job due to COVID-19, with 75.5% showing a more general fear that their take home pay would be reduced.

Industry announcement and partnership roundup – March 2-8, 2020

In the fast moving world of gambling, sometimes you might miss news that could be important to you. To make sure you’re all caught up on gaming industry news, be it online or brick and mortar, we’re rounding up the some of the announcements and partnerships from the last week that you might have missed.

XPRESS Gaming delivers Salsa Technology games onto its platform

Salsa Technology has signed an agreement with XPRESS Gaming to integrate its award-winning Video Bingos onto the platform.

XPRESS Gaming’s Project Manager Ali Kasko commented on the deal: “XPRESS Gaming is pleased to add Salsa Technology’s great content, amazing slots and bingo games to expand worldwide presence. It’s a pleasure to work with the professional Salsa team and we are looking forward to making these great games available via our ever-growing portfolio.”