In a comprehensive vote of refusal, Premier League clubs have rejected some calls to play the remainder of the 2019/2020 EPL season behind closed doors at neutral grounds.

With the initial idea thought to have prompted the bottom six clubs, all of whom are still fighting relegation from the Premier League, to refuse on the grounds that their home stadiums would give them an advantage, it now emerges that 12 of the 20 clubs refused the idea.

Clubs such as Norwich City, Brighton and Hove Albion and Aston Villa are all battling to stay in the Premier League and while there was a general consensus that Premier League clubs might refuse to accept relegation with matches played behind closed doors, but as long as those games aren’t at neutral grounds, that no longer seems to be the case.

Talks during the Project Restart meeting on Monday suggest that the discussion of the return of the Premier League is centered around relegation, contracts being extended beyond June 30th – something that clubs seem keen on being able to do – and the current and projected health risks to players.

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.

MGA Licenses BetConstruct’s Talisman Game

BetConstruct’s game Talisman, also known by the animal game title, got certified under the Type 1 Licence granted by the Malta Gaming Authority.

The Maltese regulator gave its official approval to BetConstruct’s in-house developed Talisman enabling the vertical under its MGA/B2C/292/2015 B2C – Gaming Service and MGA/B2B/286/2014 B2B – Critical Gaming Supply licences. The granted approval allows BetConstruct to provide Talisman under its own licence and to other MGA licensed operators.

A couple of weeks ago, I was the moderator for a panel at the SBC Digital Summit. The topic was ”Poker to the Rescue?” referring to whether online poker revenue can replace sports betting revenue now that there are no major sports events to bet on.

Because of the pandemic and the lockdowns, people are spending a lot more time at home, and there is a much bigger demand for different forms of home entertainment. Who has not watched Tiger King on Netflix by now, for example? Video games and online bridge sites attract new customers and experience a lot more traffic.

In the online gambling industry, different products have been affected very differently. With all major sports leagues paused and significant sports events cancelled or postponed, sports betting has taken a big hit. In some countries and areas, horse racing has helped fill the void. In others, racetracks have shut down too.

They say that all roads lead to the casino, and online casinos have certainly seen a significant increase in revenue over the past couple of months.

A physical ICE North America may not be happening this year, but a digital event can be just as good, and necessary. So in its place, Clarion launched ICE North America Digital on May 11, and with a couple of panels, and a keynote speech from Simon Holliday, Founder of H2 Gambling Capital.

Holliday began by noting how rare the current COVID-19 pandemic is. We’ve only seen this before in MERS and SARS, but they had only a fraction of the impact we’re now seeing. Even with SARS, which affected gambling in the Asian region, the impact was mitigated by the industry’s growth in other regions.

He noted that H2 Gambling Capital gave its first downgrade to the industry when Macau shut down earlier this year. The forecast for the industry as a whole is now at $376 billion in Gross Gambling Win for 2020, down 20.6% from $474 billion, and back down to 2011 levels. “We are assuming a returning to normality in most markets by Q4 2020 at the moment, which in reality might seem a little ambitious,” he said. In reality, it could be years before most things return to a sense of normalcy, particularly leisure businesses like the gambling sector.

He expects the effects will be hard for many, with more consolidation, acceleration to the move online, and operations trying to insulate by offering alternative products and innovation.

Scientific Games (SGMS) released its latest earnings yesterday, and they were not as bad as feared. The stock jumped and maintains its climb off lows of $3.76 in the aftermath of the corona crash. Shares are now up about 250% since bottoming. The company also remains a clear market leader, so has a new long term uptrend been established here? No. Back in January 2018 the company was a clear short at $56 a share for 2020. If shares keep climbing past the $15-$16 range, which is around technical resistance, then consider reloading your shorts for a 2022 expiry. Scientific may be a market leader, but that’s not enough to keep a company in business.

It takes more than just selling great products to be a great company. You have to be able to sell your products for more than it costs you to produce and maintain them. Otherwise you may have 100% market share and maybe your products are even really popular and beloved in an industry. Still, if the revenues you can command from selling them do not exceed whatever it took you to make or develop them, then it doesn’t matter. You’re going to go bankrupt regardless of the quality of the product or how many customers you may have.

Consider the housing bubble. Were the houses that were built, bad houses? Were they built haphazardly by homebuilders that built inferior real estate? Maybe in some cases, but that wasn’t what caused a systemic housing collapse and homebuilder bankruptcies. Those houses are by and large still standing today, and so will Scientific’s products if and when it goes bankrupt. In the housing crash, it wasn’t the product that was bad, but the financing for it that caused the crash. It’s the same with Uber or Tesla or any of the other company with good products that just can’t be supported by the revenues that can be commanded on the market for them.

Look at Scientific’s latest earnings presentation released yesterday and there are all kinds of impressive numbers in it. 41% market share in North America in the gaming systems market. The deepest portfolio of table games in the world. Some of its games are in the top of their respective categories, which I’m not denying is an accomplishment. Its partnerships are extensive and solid. It has 19 of the top 20 instant game lotteries worldwide. 75% of U.S. instant game retail revenues and 70% global. It is making a big deal about a 10% jump in digital revenues, which is nice and is a result of people stuck in lockdown. But all told it’s only an increase of $7 million in quarterly revenues. That’s nowhere near enough to plug a leaking hull.

The gaming industry has looked to esports as its potential next big gambling product for some time now, waiting for an audience to emerge, or for innovation to take it to the next level. That innovation is coming, as the Bitcoin Association have now explored with their latest exploration of Bitcoin SV use cases, “eSports on the blockchain,” with the help of Kronoverse, the parent company of CryptoFights.

We already know that the esports industry has grown a tremendous audience, with millions of concurrent viewers on Twitch, and a prediction of multi-billions in annual revenue in the near future. The association’s investigation looks prominently at what Kronoverse sees in the future of the industry, and how Bitcoin SV will add impressive functionality each step of the way, and notably, in ways that benefit the gambling industry.

CryptoFights is being built on the BSV blockchain, and is currently in its beta stage of development. They plan to implement verifiable results on chain, making wagering on matches easy, and attractive to regulators.

“In eSports at the moment, a lot of the money is being generated from advertising and sponsorship,” said Kronoverse CEO Adam Kling. “Big publishers with massive followings create huge events, where they put millions of dollars into a prize purse and fill stadiums with thousands of fans.”

Codere SA, the massive international gaming operator based in Spain, may become a casualty of the coronavirus pandemic. Analysts with Spain’s Bolsa Madrid stock exchange are watching the company closely after a Spanish newspaper, El Confidencial, reported that it is on the verge of bankruptcy. Codere has reportedly solicited the help of global banking giant Credit Suisse to secure financing prior to May 31, or it will be in a disastrous situation.

May 31 marks the very last day Codere has to make a payment on an outstanding loan. The deadline was already extended a month because of the current global economic situation, but additional extensions are apparently not going to be permitted. According to the news outlet, Codere is looking to secure €100 million (about $108 million) to cover its debt after it was forced to temporarily shutter its operations in all of the markets where it’s active, including Spain, Italy, Mexico, Colombia, Uruguay, Panama and Argentina.

Codere announced toward the beginning of last month that it had already brought in Bank of America (BoA) to try to help it find the necessary money. There were reports that it could only survive on its own for four months with no relaunch of gaming operations, but the continued shutdown is making things more difficult as each day passes. With apparently no substantial relief found with the assistance of BoA, another heavy-hitter was forced to be brought in.

Codere says the delay of the payment is just part of its “contingency plan” as the company continues to “deploy to ensure business continuity and preserve its liquidity position in the face of the current crisis caused by the coronavirus.” However, that may be a smokescreen, and Standard & Poor’s explains that it is really the first sign of a risk of a company going into default. Codere will have to pay an abnormally high interest rate – more than 10% – on the money it receives, and this is going to be difficult for investors to swallow. The company is currently losing about $25 million each month its operations stay closed.

In January of last year, iGaming operator Carousel Group was rapidly expanding in Europe and Latin America with its newly-acquired Malta Gaming License, but it always had bigger ambitions. It wanted to acquire licenses that would allow it to continue to wade deeper into the sports gambling pond in the U.K., Sweden and U.S., and has now achieved part of that goal. The company has been given approval by the Colorado Division of Gaming to hold a license in the state, which just launched its legal sports gambling market at the beginning of this month.

According to a company press release, Carousel’s approval means that it can now offer sports gambling through its sportsbetting.com domain, which will be offered on desktops, mobile platforms and through a dedicated app. The offerings are made possible after the company inked a deal with Johnny Nolon’s Casino in Cripple Creek. The partnership allows Carousel to capitalize on the domain name to offer a “unique and powerful product to the market, which is in contrast to the approach many gambling companies have taken over the last two years since sports betting became legal in the U.S.”

The launch comes despite a lack of any substantial sports activity that could be used to attract gamblers in the state. However, leagues such as the NBA and MLB are starting to slowly recover from the coronavirus and have announced that they could soon offer, on a limited basis, some games while they look toward a full restart. The NFL, mostly unfazed by the global pandemic, is confident it can start its regular season this September.

Carousel Group CEO Daniel Graetzer says of the new Colorado operations, “Despite the ongoing and tragic global crisis, we couldn’t be more confident and optimistic about the sports industry and we’re very excited to be bringing our flagship brand to the American market. While other entities have closed their doors and laid off employees, we’re hiring staff and expanding our operations into the United States.”

Macau’s gambling regulator, the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau (DICJ, for its Portuguese acronym) has had its hands full trying to help the city’s casino market tread water during the coronavirus-caused gaming suspension. It, along with local lawmakers and health officials, has been trying to figure out the best way to move forward after the pandemic and create an ecosystem that will be highly attractive to tourists of all sorts, not just gamblers. In the midst of all the changes, the current director of the organization, Paulo Martins Chan, is apparently ready to hand over the keys and will step down, effective next month. Chan has led the body since December 1, 2015.

Macau Business News (MBN) reports, citing sources at Macau’s Office of the Secretary for Economy (OSE), that Chan, whose term would have expired at the beginning of December 2020, is ready to go back to the Public Prosecutions Office, his former employer. He previously served as Assistant Prosecutor-General with the department, but it isn’t clear if he is looking to get his old job back, or if he’s ready for a new challenge. His transition back to his old way of life reportedly comes through his own volition and isn’t due to any issues at the DICJ.

When the changeover takes place, Adriano Marques Ho will reportedly step in as the new head of the DICJ. Ho has been an advisor to the Secretary for Security, Wong Sio Chak, since 2014, and has served as the head of the gaming-related and economic crimes investigation unit of Macau’s Judiciary Police (JP). At that time, Chak was the director of the JP. In addition, he was in charge of the Macao Sub-Bureau of the China National Central Bureau of INTERPOL from 2004 to 2010.

Ho has also been a member of Macau’s Tourism Crisis Management Office, as well as the Coordinating Committee for Management and Development of Maritime Jurisdiction Areas. He is fluent in the two official languages of Macau – Chinese and Portuguese – and has a bachelor’s degree in law.

Landing International Development Ltd., like all casino operators across the globe, has found itself in a precarious financial situation due to the outbreak of the coronavirus. While casinos are finally starting to come back online following an extended shutdown, the road to recovery is not going to be an easy one, and many companies are scrambling to plug the leaks in the revenue dam. Landing is no different, but it has figured out a couple of ways to grab some much-needed cash, including the latest endeavor – selling off assets. The company has dumped its BVI-registered Stepwide Developments Ltd. for about $15.5 million.

Stepwide is a wholly-owned entity under Landing’s umbrella that includes Jumbo Step, incorporated in Hong Kong, and Landing Korea, which is incorporated in South Korea. Landing Korea is listed as the owner of land and facilities in Jeju that had been destined to be used as a training center for Landing, but those plans will most likely now have to be scrapped. The new owner, BVI-registered China Yueda Group Holdings Limited, could conceivably lease back the buildings, but there hasn’t been any announcement over the company’s plans.

The idea of the sale was to gain access to more funds to help operate the business during the COVID-19 shutdown. The move follows on the heels of an investment of about $17.7 million it received late last month when it successfully placed over 585 million shares. In that offering, six different buyers were able to purchase the shares for $0.003 each, with the money being used for “general working capital” of Landing’s Jeju Island operations.

Regarding the latest money-gathering exercise, Landing said in its filing (in pdf), “Following the inception of the integrated leisure and entertainment resorts of the Group in 2017, a new training center developed by the Group in closer proximity to its core businesses and facilities has been in place to carry out training activities of the Group. Hence, the training activities of the Group have been conducted in a more efficient and cost-effective manner in another location thereafter and the utilization of the lands and buildings owned by Landing Korea had decreased substantially in 2019.

Gonzo. The hardest working marketer in iGaming. It feels like that guy is on every banner, email header, ad image and campaign landing page across the industry. Yet, even with that luxurious beard, when every advert looks the same, people will eventually stop paying attention. But what are you supposed to do when every other creative marketing idea you’ve suggested results in the compliance manager looking at you like you’re clinically insane?

The system doesn’t work anymore, and perhaps it’s not so surprising. In the heady gold-rush days of iGaming, there were a more than a few lazy ads with vague small print and eye-watering wagering requirements that have ruined it for the rest of us. Now public trust is wavering, and as a result, the rule book is getting thicker, making it impossible to apply any sort of individuality to our branding.

As the industry is changing, so must our approach to marketing it. Perhaps it’s time to revisit the oldest and most successful form of marketing that, until now, has been largely overlooked by gaming companies.

Word-of-mouth is by far the most effective form of advertising. 83% of people trust recommendations from friends and family, with referred customers having a 37% higher retention rate. The type of player you attract from referrals is absolute gold standard, and they don’t even have to be referred by friends, 70% of people will trust a recommendation from someone they don’t even know.