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.

Yorkshire payments companies join forces to combat risk and compliance.

Card payment solution specialist, Yorkshire Payments, have announced that they have partnered with Gala Technology, the innovative Rotherham based company, behind the multi-award winning SOTpay payment solution, to provide its clients with additional tools to protect themselves against the ever-growing risk of fraud, when processing ‘Card Not Present’ transactions.

SoftGamings becomes new Spinmatic distribution channel

It shouldn’t come as a shock to anyone that casino operators are experiencing some of the roughest times most have ever had to deal with. The coronavirus pandemic has flipped the gaming industry, and plenty of others, upside down and left companies scrambling to figure out how to cover their bills. Wynn Resorts, which has already had to spend the past couple of years righting the wrongs committed by its founder and former CEO Steve Wynn, is facing new challenges because of COVID-19, and the road to recovery just got a lot longer. Its Wynn Macau subsidiary has reportedly substantial losses for the first quarter of the year, and the leak still hasn’t been plugged.

In a financial update submitted today, Wynn Macau announced that it saw a loss of $154.2 million for the first quarter. A year ago, it was able to happily report a profit of $190.6 million, so the difference is quite substantial. Adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interested, taxes, depreciation and amortization) stayed on the right side, though, and was right at $29.4 million. Still, despite being positive, it was a drop of 92.4% from the $386.5 million from the first quarter of last year.

Wynn Palace suffered the biggest decline in operating revenue, falling from $726.6 million to $259.5 million from Q1 2019 to Q1 2020. This marked a 64.3% decrease, which was slightly worse than what the Wynn Macau property reported. Its operating revenue went from $523.9 million to $229.5 million for a year-on-year decline of 56.2%.

The good news is that Wynn Macau has liquidity at its disposal to help offset the prolonged absence of casino traffic. According to JP Morgan Securities (Asia Pacific) Ltd. analysts, “Wynn Macau had US$1.8 billion of available liquidity as of end-April. As discussed previously, daily operating expenses’ burn is US$2.4 million to US$2.6 million per day.” As a result, Wynn Macau’s liquidity “is enough to weather through 1.5-plus years of zero revenue.”

The AGEM Index has presented its numbers for April and the results show a significant rebound in certain gaming stocks. While the gaming world suffers at the hands of the coronavirus, the index actually saw a substantial increase in performance compared to March. There is still a lot of work to be done, but the gains indicate that investors are starting to feel good once again with gaming stocks, and are willing to direct more of their funds to companies operating in the space. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that stocks took a nosedive in February and March, so investing more now will lead to greater returns.

The AGEM Index, which tracks 13 manufacturer that work in the gaming sector, improved by 20.3% from March to April, gaining a total of 63.52 points as it made its way to the month-end close of 376.04 points. This followed a 33.4% drop that had been seen from February to March, indicating “significant stock price increases as global markets began to rebound from the shocks due to the Covid-19 pandemic,” per the index’s creator, the Association of Gaming Equipment Manufacturers (AGEM).

Compared to a year earlier, though, the April performance was 21.1% lower. This means that the gaming industry still has a ways to go before it can say that it has recovered, but at least things are moving in the right direction. AGEM added that “all three major U.S. stock indices increased as the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 experienced monthly gains of 11.1 percent and 12.7 percent, respectively. The Nasdaq also experienced a gain of 15.5 percent.”

Looking at individual performances of a few companies in the Index, Aristocrat Leisure saw an increase of 19.4% from March to April, but its year-on-year result was a drop of 2.3%. International Game Technology watched as its stock moved up 26.7% from one month to the next, but has to be disappointed in the overall 48.5% drop it has seen from April 2019 to last month. TransAct Technologies, which specializes in player and food safety management software, reports a month-over-month increase of 36.7%, offset by a year-on-year decrease of 54.9%.

West Virginia saw approval of online gaming in the state in March of last year, paving the way for the West Virginia Lottery Commission (WVLC) to begin working on the protocols and procedures for the activity. Initially, the plan was for the framework to be in place by the end of this year or sometime early next year; however, the coronavirus has proven to benefit the state’s online gaming industry. As a result of the global health pandemic, the WVLC has created a set of emergency rules for the sector that, if approved, could bring virtual gambling to the state as early as June or July.

The rules were approved by the WVLC when the group got together on April 29, and are now headed to the state’s Secretary of State for approval. They are expected to be presented within the next week, and the Secretary of State would then be given 42 days to either approve or reject the emergency protocols. If approved, the Commission will be able to issue interim online gaming licenses that would allow companies to conduct their activity for 270 days. During that time, the WVLC would review the applications submitted by each company to make a permanent decision on the status of their license.

The director of the WVLC, John Myers, explained to iGM North America, “Once approved, West Virginia casinos can begin offering [iGaming] under the emergency rules and minimum internal controls. Those rules will be good for 15 months until the permanent legislative rule is adopted by the legislature.” The rules further stipulate that each land-based property would be entitled to control as many as three skins with its license, which will cost $100,000, and each tech company serving the industry would have to pay a fee of $10,000.

The permanent rules may or may not be different from the interim, emergency rules; however, the odds are that they will be more detailed and restrictive. The emergency rules touch upon issues such as customer data, cybersecurity, geofencing and game integrity, but don’t have the administrative controls expected to be found in the permanent rules.

The concept of “provably-fair gaming” has been around for a while and if memory serves me, Charlie Shrem was one of the first people to start using the term during iGaming panels as far back as 2012.

For those of you who don’t know, games built on the blockchain can be verified for fairness by the player, as opposed to having to rely on third parties to vouch for the fairness of a non-blockchain RNG game.

In a time where land based casinos are a “no-fly” zone and the majority of the Earth’s population is stuck at home, internet gaming is likely to attract new customers looking for entertainment and these people will need reassurance that they games they are playing are fair.

nChain, the leader in enterprise-grade public blockchain solutions, has developed a unique provably-fair random number generator (RNG) on the Bitcoin SV blockchain and wants to educate iGaming companies on the technology.

Casino operator Grand Korea Leisure (GKL) ended its pandemic-related shutdown on Wednesday, while rival Kangwon Land let investors know the shocking cost of its ongoing shutdown.

On Wednesday, GKL threw open the doors of its three Seven Luck-branded casinos, which have been shut since March 23 to minimize further spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus. The casinos, which cater exclusively to foreign passport holders, are requiring guests to observe social distancing, submit to temperature checks and wear face-masks.

GKL President Yoo Tae-Yeol said the company was doing its best to adapt to the “difficult situation that we have never experienced before.” Yoo also noted that GKL was publicly traded, suggesting that it had an obligation not only to the general public but also to investors.

GKL rival Paradise Co Ltd, which operates four foreigner-only casinos, reopened its venues last month, while Kangwon Land, South Korea’s largest casino operator and the only one in which local residents are allowed to gamble, recently extended its shutdown through May 11.

Sports betting operators — well, most of them, anyway — are rejoicing as Germany’s top-flight football leagues have announced plans to resume play by the second half of this month.

On Wednesday, Christian Seifert, managing director of the German Football League (DFL), announced that the Bundesliga and Bundesliga 2 seasons would resume “from mid-May.” The announcement was made following a meeting with Chancellor Angela Merkel and the heads of Germany’s 16 states.

The matches will take place in empty stadiums, a scenario that Seifert called “not an ideal solution for anyone,” but given the risk of further transmission of the COVID-19 coronavirus among large bodies of people, “it is the only option to preserve the leagues in their present form.”

The exact date for kickoff will be decided on Thursday during a video link-up of Bundesliga teams, but the league is under a ticking clock, as player contracts will expire at the end of June. There were nine match days left on the schedule when the Bundesliga was forced to call a halt to the proceedings on March 13.

Bitcoin, the world’s most popular cryptocurrency, is set to “halve” in less than a week (Tuesday, May 12). In short, “halving” means that, as of May 12, Bitcoin (BTC) miners will receive half as much for each coin mined than they did on May 11. Currently, miners are compensated 12.5 BTC for every coin they mine. Next Tuesday, they will receive just 6.25 BTC.

Bitcoins are halved every four years and this will be the third such event in the currency’s relatively short history. Originally, miners earned 50 BTC back in 2009.

What will happen to the price of Bitcoin in the wake of the halving has been the topic of much discussion.

Odds courtesy of SportsBettingDime.com

Spain has appointed a new gambling regulatory boss amid a shakeup at the government ministry responsible for overseeing the sector.

On Tuesday, Spain’s Dirección General de Ordenación del Juego (DGOJ) gambling regulator confirmed that Mikel Arana, a lawyer, academic and former legislator from the Basque region, would take over as head of the DGOJ from Juan Espinosa, who has been in control of the DGOJ since 2016.

The switch follows a restructuring at the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, and a Royal Decree issued on May 1 that said the government “considers it necessary to exempt from the reserve for public officials the appointment of the head” of the DGOJ.

The government stated that it’s important for whoever heads up the Ministry’s various sub-branches to have “previously demonstrated a professional career, in the public or private sector, that accredits the qualification and experience necessary for the management of a sector and specific economic agents.” It’s unclear from his background precisely what specific skills Arana (pictured) may be bringing to the table, other than his role as an economic auditor.

Casino operator NagaCorp is offering the world an updated view of the proposed mega-expansion of its flagship Cambodian property, while furloughed staff angle for pay rises once play resumes.

This week, the Chicago-based architecture firm of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) unveiled new images of Naga 3, NagaCorp’s proposed $3.5b expansion of its flagship NagaWorld casino in Phnom Penh. The plans, first announced one year ago last month, have undergone significant revision since then, including a reduction from five hotel towers to three.

However, SOM emphasized that one of the three remaining towers will be “a commanding emblem in the skyline, and the highest point” in the city. As a result, Naga3 “will be the most important landmark for the city in the years to come,” especially given NagaCorp recently extended its Phnom Penh casino monopoly until 2046.

NagaWorld is currently closed, along with most other Phnom Penh businesses, on the order of Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Sen to minimize further transmission of the COVID-19 coronavirus. While between 20-30% of staff — mostly hotel and security — have been deemed essential and continue to show up for work, thousands of other Naga employees stand idle and worrying about their ability to survive depending on how long the casino remains shuttered.

Michigan’s only horseracing track is now approved to offer online race wagering, although it will have to wait until racing resumes post-pandemic.

On Tuesday, Richard Kalm, executive director of the Michigan Gaming Control Board (MGCB), issued an executive order laying out the rules for the Northville Downs racetrack to launch advance deposit wagering (ADW) through a third-party facilitator (TPF).

Last December, Michigan amended its 1995 racing laws to permit ADW on both live and simulcast pari-mutuel wagering. At present, racing wagers can only be placed at Northville, the state’s only racetrack following the closure of Hazel Park, whether one wishes to wager on a local race or the Kentucky Derby.

As a result, any kind of race wagering is currently impossible in Michigan because Northville has yet to open for its 2020 racing season. The track, like all of Michigan’s non-essential businesses, was ordered closed by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in March. That order was extended last week through May 28 after a surge in the state’s number of new coronavirus infections.