Germany’s gambling operators are reporting more potentially sketchy financial transactions, while a new report claims collapsed payments firm Wirecard lobbied to become a central processing hub for German-licensed gambling operators.

This week, Germany’s Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) issued its 2019 report on suspicious activity reports that showed the number of reported transactions in 2019 rose nearly 49% from the year before. Since 2009, the annual figure has increased by a factor of 12.

The financial sector still accounts for the overwhelming bulk of all dodgy transaction reports, but the non-financial sector reported a 150% spike from 2018 to 2019. The country’s gaming operators reported an even more dramatic surge, rising from 24 suspect transactions in 2018 to 116 last year.

The gaming transaction spike can partially be explained by the number of gaming entities registered with the FIU jumping from 45 in 2018 to over 300 last year. Despite the spike, FIU chief Christof Schulte said he didn’t consider the non-financial sector’s number of reports to be “sufficient,” while vowing to “further sensitize” operators in this sector regarding their obligations.

It’s hard to talk about poker on television without mentioning the European Poker Tour is some form of another. It wasn’t the first show ever broadcast on television, yet of all the shows on the schedules of countries around the world, it is perhaps the poker series that would be missed the most if it wasn’t there. What makes the EPT so special? Let’s delve a little deeper into its history and find out.

First coming to our screens in 2004 after its invention by John Duthie, the European Poker Tour’s first-ever Main Event featured a lot of players that right now you won’t have heard of. Set in Barcelona, the event was won by Alexander Stevic for just €80,000.

The first final table was given a great commentary makeover just this year when, during lockdown, Joe ‘Stapes’ Stapleton and James Hartigan put a whole new soundtrack on the action, with pretty hilarious results: 

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjRouHiQoTg?feature=oembed]

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.

Don’t miss out on all of the latest announcements. Our Press Release section is updated constantly.

IMG ARENA signs long term extension with Brazilian Liga Nacional de Basquete

IMG ARENA, a leading sports betting service and content hub, has secured a six-season extension to its global* live streaming partnership with the Brazilian Liga Nacional de Basquete (LNB).

An early-morning, leisurely stroll along a beach in Port Douglas in Queensland, Australia turned ugly for Peter Foster. He thought he would be able to take a peaceful walk with his dog, enjoying the sights and sounds of the ocean, but ended up planted in the sand with his hands locked in handcuffs behind his back. Foster isn’t a newbie to the sensation, though, having spent large parts of his adult life running scams and getting busted for them. This time, his arrest follows an alleged sports gambling scam that reportedly allowed the 57-year-old con artist to dupe investors out of millions of dollars. 

According to various news sources, Foster has been trying to avoid capture for several years and, in the past, has done time behind bars in several countries. Still, he never learned his lesson and continued to be a leech. His latest endeavor was Sport Predictions, which he ran using the alias Bill Dawson, that attracted a number of investors on the premise of being able to make wagers on different sports events across the globe. However, Foster simply took the money and ran, living up to the company’s motto of “We make money out of other people’s mistakes.”

The conman didn’t appear to be too concerned with trying to avoid public scrutiny. Foster even participated in a podcast, where he told would-be investors, “We’ve got a mathematician in Melbourne. I always say he wouldn’t know the difference between a cricket ball and a soccer ball if it hit him on the head. But he’s a numbers man and he’s a statistics man and he’s basically very good at crunching the numbers.”

One investor lost AUD$2 million ($1.43 million) and decided to get to the bottom of the issue. He reportedly hired a private investigator who was able to trace Foster to Port Douglas, uncovering extensive money laundering along the way. With evidence in hand, he went to New South Wales police, who moved in and took Foster into custody. 

Several college football conferences, as well as a handful of individual schools, have already decided that fall sports don’t need to be considered this year. The Middle Atlantic Conference and the Big 10, among others, are canceling their programs, while others, such as the ACC and the SEC, still plan on pushing forward. Because of all the changes and how they impact players and games, the NCAA has been scrambling to address issues as they come up for consideration. The organization is hoping to make a few more adjustments, hoping to avoid any long-term fallout the ongoing coronavirus pandemic might have on future activity. 

The council leading NCAA’s Division I got together yesterday and determined that teams not playing this year should still lead exercise and training programs. They approved a 12-hour schedule for football teams, which includes continued strength and conditioning training, as well as five hours of on-field training with helmets, according to ESPN. Those five hours would be spent with athletes wearing helmets. 

In addition, athletes are going to be able to freeze their eligibility this fall, which means they won’t lose their statuses, even if they don’t play in any games. Any eligibility won’t be a factor in school transfers, as the current transfer rules are going to remain intact. A final decision on the rules will come when the Division I board of directors meets tomorrow afternoon.

The 12-hour rule is already in place, having been implemented on August 24. It will run until October 4, and the NCAA’s Football Oversight Committee (FOC) will revisit the situation in the coming weeks, making additional adjustments as required before submitting new proposals to the council when they meet again next month. 

As Japan deals with the coronavirus, its attention is pulled away from other matters, such as the progress of introducing integrated resorts (IR) after legislation was approved two years ago. Before any real momentum is seen, the country has to introduce the IR Basic Policy, which will dictate, among other things, how host locations and casinos have to operate. The Basic Policy has been delayed time and again, and cities considered to be top contenders to be approved for one of the first three IRs have been forced to follow suit. Yokohama is on this shortlist and has already announced several delays to its local program due to the lack of progress on the national level. While it typically has offered a new deadline for its framework, Yokohama is now essentially calling it quits, saying it will restart its program once Japan figures out what it wants. 

This month should have been the month that Yokohama released its plans to the public after changing the deadline previously from June to July. The city, according to comments made by its mayor, Fumiko Hayashi, in a press conference yesterday, is now being forced to alter its schedule once again because of issues at the highest levels of Japan’s government, and will now have to wing it, waiting to see when the Basic Policy is introduced before it makes a move. This decision, and the delays, will make further alterations to Yokohama’s establishment of the request-for-proposal process, which will result in additional changes to the timeline down the road. 

Hayashi said in her remarks, according to GGRAsia, “The city cannot make public its IR implementation policy, under conditions where the [national] government does not announce the basic policy. The city decided to postpone the announcement timing of the implementation policy scheduled for August. The city will keep watching carefully the [national] government initiatives. At this moment, the city has no knowledge about when the [national] government will announce the basic policy.” The mayor made it clear, though, that Yokohama fully intends on pushing forward with its plans to host one of the first three IRs.

It’s logical that Yokohama, Osaka, Nagasaki and the rest of the IR targets would have to wait to introduce their own plans. Initially, the Japanese Diet had a good idea of how it envisioned the country’s gambling scene developing and what it would take to get involved. However, because of COVID-19 and the impact the virus has had on the gaming industry worldwide, it may no longer be feasible to ask a casino operator to consider making a $10-billion investment in a nascent local industry. 

Plans by different bodies overseeing Atlantic City’s gambling scene to improve local employment opportunities may not find their target. The Casino Association of New Jersey, the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority, and city and state government officials want to push away from using J-1 visas and concentrate more on local hiring, but this is only viable if there are jobs to be filled. According to data just released by the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement (DGE) seem to indicate that the need isn’t there. The DGE points out that casinos in Atlantic City have over 4,200 fewer employees than they had a year ago and that more cuts could be on their way.

The DGE states that the nine casinos in New Jersey’s gambling hub have 24,880 employees, 4,261 fewer than they did in July of last year. Many of these are still furloughed with no clear indication of when they might be able to get back to work. Bob McDevitt, the president of workers’ union Unite Here Local 54, told the Press of Atlantic City that under 50% of the union’s members are actively on the job, adding, “We may only be down about 5,000 [jobs], but there’s a lot more than 5,000 who aren’t working.”

There are 14,852 full-time positions, 1,446 part-time positions and 8,582 furloughed and seasonal employees, according to the DGE. With restrictions still in place, there’s not much happening in the gambling or restaurant scenes. Casinos are limited to 25% of their normal capacity, indoor dining is off the menu and there’s no food or beverage service on casino gaming floors. McDevitt explains, “Most of our restaurant workers are just sitting out there waiting.”

As 2020 starts to roll into the fall and winter, the situation could become more dire. As opposed to places like Las Vegas where the weather permits trips to casinos at almost any time, New Jersey is going to have to contend with snowfall and other weather-induced stalls that, even if casinos were at 100%, would keep gamblers away. Just as Atlantic City was starting to recover from years of revenue declines, COVID-19 stepped in to screw things up.

Genting Hong Kong (Genting HK) was well on its way to establishing a state-of-the-art fleet of gaming cruise ships when a huge storm appeared and rolled over the gaming operator’s plans. The storm, in this case, was the coronavirus, and Genting HK suddenly found itself facing an unprecedented situation. Its ships were forced to remain docked as travel restrictions began popping up across the globe and it was unable to launch the ships that were going to cover the huge financial investments that had been made over the past two years. With losses mounting, the tempest is swirling larger, and a whirlpool is starting to form that could suck the company in. Genting HK is already looking for ways to lighten its load, but faces huge challenges, punctuated by the fact that it has now announced that it won’t be able to make any payments on outstand debt for the time being. 

Genting HK reportedly had around $3.37 billion in outstanding debt as of the end of July. In the three weeks since then, things haven’t improved any, and two of the company’s divisions already missed payments they were supposed to make to creditors this week. Between the two, both of which focus on the company’s ship-building activity, they were short 3.7 million ($4.3 million), and this is certain to have a ripple effect as other financial obligations are forced down the list. 

In a filing (pdf) with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, the company asserts that it won’t be able to make good on any of its financial obligations right now, and that it is working to arrange for alternative payment plans to cover its debt. It explained, in part, “In addition to the events of default that have already occurred under Global Finance Documents, the Board anticipates that the temporary suspension of all payments to the Group’s financial creditors will also likely result in events of default occurring under other finance documents of the Group. Such events of default would give rise to a right for requisite creditors of the Group to declare that the financial indebtedness owed to them are immediately due and payable.” 

The company already tried to get in front of the storm when it took measures to reduce salaries and stop unnecessary spending this past March. However, as COVID-19 continues to circle overhead, losses continue to mount. The company said in its filing that it will “temporarily suspend all payments [its] financial creditors (including interest and charter payments)” in order to “preserve as much liquidity of the group as possible.”

Due to millions of Americans suddenly abandoning their normal spending habits, the U.S. is suddenly facing a shortage of coins. As the Federal Reserve looks to address the issue, all sorts of businesses, including casinos, are trying to find ways to cope.

On August 7, the Federal Reserve’s website addressed the issue:

“Business and bank closures associated with the COVID-19 pandemic have significantly disrupted the supply chain and normal circulation patterns for U.S. coins. While there is an adequate overall amount of coins in the economy, the slowed pace of circulation has reduced available inventories in some areas of the country.”

For most Americans, the effects of this shortage can be seen in businesses where payment can only be accepted either in exact change or by credit card. In fact, it’s a time to clear out that coin jar, as convenience stores like Wawa will give you a free sandwich in exchange for $50 worth of coins.

A little over two years ago I prepared a “top tips” piece on how to film the best Skype Video interviews because I thought the information could be handy. Never did I ever think this format of interviews would become so incredibly significant in our daily lives, I mean who ever would? Fortunately, when COVID hit, I was set up to make an instant switch from in-person to remote video interviews and for this I am forever grateful.

Ever since the pandemic forced our world to go online for nearly everything, I’ve had an endless flood of requests asking for advice on how to conduct remote video interviews from home. Up until now, I’ve been responding with my piece from 2018 and I wanted to update my tips for all to take advantage of.

Skype Call Recorder 

So yes, I’m still using the exact same Skype call recorder I was using from day number one. As I said in my previous piece, for a one-time payment of $40 USD, you can download the Call Recorder and after all these years and several computers (3?), it has never let me down. Below is a snapshot of the settings I (still) personally use.

Station Casinos is adding cashless payments to all its Las Vegas properties, while Everi Holdings is pledging to launch its new cashless gaming solution later this year.

This week, Red Rock Resorts subsidiary Station announced that it would roll out ACS PlayOn’s Cashless Table Game Solution across all its Vegas casinos. The move follows a successful field trial at Station’s Red Rock Casino Resort & Spa that began late last year.

The Reno-based ACS PlayOn’s system allows gamblers to use their debit cards to purchase chips without having to slide off their stools and schlep their butts down to the bank machine, withdraw germ-ridden banknotes and then return to the table to purchase chips. ACS PlayOn also makes similar systems for slots, sportsbooks and poker rooms.

Nevada regulators approved new rules in June to make it easier for gaming licensees to accept cashless payments. The changes followed lobbying by the American Gaming Association, which noted the desire of casino guests to avoid cash cooties during a global pandemic.