Bitcoin was designed to not only be a fast and cheap digital currency, but also to be very safe to use. The blockchain technology it relies on is increasingly becoming the solution for enterprises as they look to secure themselves from digital attacks.

The Nikkei Asian Review reports the global blockchain market continues to grow despite the pandemic, fueled by industries looking for safety from hackers. The market as a whole to $15.88 billion by 2023, representing annual growth of over 91%.

“More companies should adopt blockchain after the pandemic,” said Tomohiro Maruyama, senior manager of PwC Consulting. As more people go online for all of their every day needs, organizations know they need the safety of blockchain technology to guard against scams and attacks.

“Internet piracy has posed a major challenge for companies as they look to digitize operations,” Maruyama said, pointing to how easy it is for hackers to cover their tracks if a blockchain isn’t present. “Blockchain emerged as a solution for fighting digital counterfeits, pushing businesses to adopt the technology.”

A night of virtual drinks has become the best solution to staying in touch with friends and colleagues. Friday night happy hours are a common ritual in most offices around the globe, and the work from home movement forced us to ditch that weekly ritual of meeting at bars or boardrooms, to switch to the virtual environment.

Technology has meant that we haven’t had to completely throw the chance of mixing with working colleagues completely out the window. Thanks to any number of video chatting apps you can still enjoy a night of virtual drinks and trade gossip and chat with friends to solve some of life’s greater mysteries.

It’s time to raise a glass as the Calvin Ayre team give you the 411 on putting together a memorable digital happy hour in 2020.

Pick a platform

Online gambling technology outfit GAN saw its shares tumble after announcing the loss of a significant sports betting revenue stream.  

On Thursday, GAN announced that its revenue in the three months ending June 30 had nearly doubled from the same period last year to $8.3m. Adjusted earnings totaled $1.9m, up from a negative $200k in Q2 2019, but the company still booked a net loss of nearly $8.8m for the quarter thanks in part to expenses related to the company’s initial public offering in May.  

The gains came via GAN’s Real Money iGaming (RMiG) revenue, which more than doubled year-on-year to $4.15m. GAN also booked $1.53m in ‘Service Revenue’ aka the licensing of its online gambling patent for linking customers’ rewards accounts to their RMiG accounts. 

Q2’s RMiG gains were credited to a strong performance by the Parx Casino in Pennsylvania and FanDuel’s launch in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. But GAN announced Thursday that FanDuel “deployed their proprietary digital wallet for its sports gaming business, and therefore GAN does not anticipate sports gaming revenues from FanDuel after August 31.”

With two flights taking place over the last couple of days, Day 1c and Day 1d of the WSOP Main Event on GGPoker produced 26 players who will come back for the Day 2 action on August 30th.

Day 1c closed registration with 110 players in the lobby, but by then, plenty of big names had hit the rail, forced to re-enter on one of the other 21 Day flights if they want a share of the $25 million prizepool.

Players such as GPI legend Alex Foxen, Pokercode co-founder and Austrian Super High Roller Matthias Eibinger, Christopher Kruk, Seth Davies and Mikita Badziakouski will all have to try again if they want to make the next stage of this exclusive GGPoker event.

With just 19 players making the cut from Day 1c, those were led at the end of the day’s 15 half-hour levels by Karim Khayat, who had 656,260 in chips. Others such as Alan Schein (455,015), former Poker Masters winner Ali Imsirovic (444,538), Stefan Schillhabel (220,985) and Norwegian tournament specialist Preben Stokkan (357,743) all made it through with decent stacks too.

The Champions League semi-finals are two of the cruelest games in world football. This year, however, with only one leg and no away goals, surely the heartbreak would be halved. Wouldn’t it? Don’t you believe it.

Both losers will look back on two pulsating games in Portugal with massive regret, but for the winners, they are just 90 minutes away from winning the greatest prize in club football. Who’ll get their hands on the trophy? Let’s look back at the semi-finals and predict how the final might work out. 

Paris St. Germain 3-0 RB Leipzig

The first semi-final was over before half-time in Portugal as Paris St. Germain ended their European Cup final hoodoo to reach their first showpiece occasion and follow Reims, Marseille, Monaco and Saint Etienne in becoming the fifth French side to make the final.

Chinese authorities have busted a cargo boat converted into a casino cruise liner, while the government has released a series of videos to kick off its new anti-gambling propaganda campaign. 

Genting Hong Kong recently announced that it was halting payments to its creditors because its casino cruise liners were stuck in port. While gamblers may view Genting’s ships as potential COVID petri dishes, mainland gamblers appear far more concerned with catching a lucky card.  

On Wednesday, Chinese media reported that the Public Security Bureau of Wuxi City in Jiangsu province had arrested over 100 individuals following the bust of a ‘gambling boat’ operating on a local canal. Most of the arrested individuals were apparently gamblers while 18 individuals have been charged with operating an illegal casino.

Police reportedly received a tip-off in June regarding individuals who claimed to have boarded a nondescript cargo ship, the interior of which had been modified to include a gaming floor, a commissary and upgraded toilet facilities. (Touch of class, there.)

Casino operator Melco Resorts & Entertainment (MRE) lost over $368m in the second quarter of 2020 as COVID-19 choked its casinos in Macau, Manila and Cyprus.

Figures released Thursday show MRE generated revenue of just under $178m in the three months ending June 30, a nearly 80% decline from Q2 2019. The company booked negative earnings of $156.3m versus last year’s $448m earnings gain and a net loss of $368.1m versus a $101.8m profit.

MRE’s performance was slightly worse than the $364m loss in Q1, during which the company was forced to shut its Macau casinos for 15 days due to COVID. All Macau casinos have since struggled mightily due to travel restrictions on the Chinese mainland, which still haven’t been completely lifted.  

MRE’s Macau casinos suffered the same dramatic VIP turnover declines as the overall market, while the individual MRE casinos experienced wildly different luck in dealing with the few VIPs that did show up. City of Dreams and Altira Macau reported VIP win rates of 6.13% and 6.19%, respectively, around twice the upper end of the expected range. But Studio City’s win slumped to just 0.17%.

Australian casino operator The Star Entertainment Group lost over AU$94m (US$67.6m) in its most recent fiscal year as COVID-19 spoiled what was shaping up to be a record performance for the company.

Figures released Thursday show The Star’s revenue coming in just under AU$1.5b in the 12 months ending June 30, a 31% decline from fiscal 2018-19. Earnings fell by nearly half to AU$282m while the company booked a net loss of AU$94.6m versus a net profit of AU$148m the previous year.

Australian casino companies also report ‘normalized’ results that pretend the inherent volatility in the VIP gambling sector doesn’t exist. On that fantasy island, revenue was down only 21% to AU$1.8b, earnings dipped only 22.8% to AU$421m and the company actually booked a profit of AU$176m. (Jump in, the water’s warm… Ignore those penguins swimming by.)  

The Star’s chairman John O’Neill said the company had delivered record earnings from July 2019 through February 2020, after which Australia’s land-based gaming operators were shut down by COVID. The company’s flagship eponymous casino in Sydney reopened on a partial basis in June before opening up the floodgates in July (after the 2019-20 fiscal year had ended) only to impose new restrictions a few weeks later.