Monthly Archives: August 2020

NagaCorp eyes Cambodia casino expansion in Siem Reap, Sihanoukville

Cambodian casino operator NagaCorp managed to turn a tidy profit in the first half of 2020 despite being forced to close for the entire second quarter.

Figures released Thursday show the Hong Kong-listed NagaCorp generated revenue of US$377.5m in the six months ending June 30, a 57.6% decline from the same period last year. Operating profit tumbled nearly 86% to $39.3m while after-tax profits plunged 91.6% to $20.6m.

Cambodia’s government ordered all casinos to shut as of April 1 due to the spread of COVID-19. The shutdown lasted until early July, when NagaCorp began welcoming VIP gamblers back to its NagaWorld casino in Cambodia’s capital Phnom Penh, and mass market gambling resumed later that month.

The lengthy shutdown resulted in VIP gambling turnover falling by more than 58% while the VIP win rate was unchanged at 2.8%, resulting in VIP revenue also falling 58% to $270.9m.

Flutter rejigs structure, works on PokerStars’ compliance issues

UK-listed gambling giant Flutter Entertainment saw revenue rise but profits plunge in the first half of 2020, as online casino and poker options did their best to offset sports betting slowdowns and retail closures.

Figures released Thursday show Flutter generated revenue of £1.52b in the six months ending June 30, up 49% from the same period last year. Adjusted earnings were up 59% to £342m but pre-tax profits tumbled 70% to just £24m.

The revenue and earnings figure were more modest on a pro forma basis, which pretends that all the brands Flutter added during its recent acquisition frenzy were part of the fold in H1 2019. Under those conditions, revenue rose 21% to £2.39b while earnings gained 35% to £684m.

At the group level, pro forma sports betting revenue gained 8% to £1.2b, while gaming revenue shot up 40% to £1.19b as punters looked for ways to alleviate their boredom following the pandemic-related suspension of major sports.

Andrey Kotelnikov wins World Poker Tour Mix-Max title for $488,508

Andrey Kotelnikov has won the World Poker Tour World Online Championships Mix-Max Championship, earning himself the $488,508 top prize, as well as a ticket into the $15,000 WPT Tournament of Champions, a Hublot Classic Fusion Titanium watch and, of course, his name on the newly re-christened Mike Sexton WPT Champions Cup. 

In the latest hugely popular online version of the WPT’s events hosted on partypoker, there were 989 players in with a chance, and a huge number of those players qualified for the event via satellites which have proved very popular. By the time the field was trimmed to a seven-handed final table, it wasn’t the Russian Kotelnikov who was chip leader, that honour instead falling to Ukrainian player Oleg Vasylchenko, who sat behind 23.5 million chips to Kotelnikov’s 12.5 million.

Those chipcounts would change, obviously, but they weren’t the only ones. British player Stuart Guite came into play as the shortest stack with just 5.7 million to his name, but he would eventually finish runner-up for over $350,000 with a very strong performance.

WPT Champions Club member Oleg Vasylchenko didn’t hold onto his lead, but Guite doubled-up to put himself back into contention, while Canada’s Jerry Wong busted in 7th place for $69,300 when his ace-ten couldn’t overtake Stuart Guite’s pocket queens.

UFC Fight Night: Smith vs. Rakic Odds

Odds courtesy of OddsShark.com

It’s another Saturday of Fight Night action from the UFC’s Apex facility in Las Vegas this week with the card headlined by a light heavyweight bout between American Anthony Smith and Austria’s Aleksandar Rakic. The main card is scheduled to start at 9 p.m. ET.

The light heavyweight division is a bit in flux right now as champion and UFC pound-for-pound king Jon Jones last week relinquished his title over a salary dispute with the organization. The UFC quickly announced that Dominick Reyes and Jan Blachowicz would meet September 26 at UFC 253 to crown the new light heavyweight king.

The 32-year-old Smith (33-15) is currently ranked No. 5 in the division – he spent most of his career as a middleweight but did fight Jones for the light heavyweight title at UFC 235 in March 2019 and showed very well in a unanimous decision loss. Smith followed that up with a fourth-round submission of Alexander Gustafsson and was most recently in the Octagon in May and lost to Glover Teixeira by fifth-round TKO (punches).

NY Sports and Concert Attendees Likely to Return To Venues, New Riptide Partners Survey Unveils

Riptide Partners, a New York based consulting business offering full-service Customer Experience (CX) solutions for sports teams and venue operators, today unveiled their recent survey of actual New York area event attendees, which revealed a much faster return to event timeline for consumers than has been widely discussed. It is the first, and most comprehensive, study of actual event attendees in the New York area since the Pandemic shutdown began.

“There are literally hundreds of theaters, arenas and venues of all sizes that have been affected by the shutdown, and it was our desire to get a better handle on the thoughts of those venue patrons who had attended events prior to the shutdown. We think this survey tells a slightly different story than what was originally thought,” Rob Comstock, Riptide Partners co-founder said. “The variable of when people can return to venues in larger groups will be decided by health and government officials, but when that date is set, we believe that people will feel safer, and come back sooner, than anticipated based on the survey responses we have received.”

Riptide Partners received over 4,000 completed surveys from consumers who regularly attended sporting and entertainment events in the New York tri-state area. Of those 4,000, an overwhelming 89% said they will return to events depending on the actions taken by venue operators to ensure safety; 75% most frequently attended concerts / live events and 25% most frequently attended sporting events.

The average time to return across all levels of concern is 3.5 months, with extremely concerned respondents saying they will wait an average 5.2 months, while those who are not at all concerned will return immediately. A majority of the concert/event goers were female, a majority of the sporting event goers were male. We also saw a direct correlation between fan avidity and likelihood to return. The most avid fans are ready to return immediately and least concerned about the health risks.

The two biggest factors the group were weighing were touch points of areas like seating and bathrooms, while most indicated the food and beverage safety would be handled at an acceptable level. Anxiety over being in a crowd is the most frequently cited concern at 44% of respondents.

As far as areas of concern that would need to be addressed in the time before a safe return to venues, screening attendees and thorough disinfection of venue were the two most common changes requested.

This pertains to indoor venues only, as the information on those willing to attend outdoor events has been made available by officials and is already occurring in some areas.

Riptide Partners, which works actively with venues across the United States, is planning on doing similar hyperlocal surveys in the coming weeks in other regions, with the feeling that the local focus and feelings of avid attendees can tell a clearer story for all involved and help businesses better gauge the coming months. This information, if leveraged by teams and venue operators, can help understand guest sentiment and their preferred safety precautions by market and region as the country begins to reopen. We know likelihood to return and preferred safety precautions will vary by market and we’re prepared to help our clients build an operational playbook specific for their fanbase.

Founded in 2018 by former Madison Square Garden Company Chief Operating Officer Rob Comstock and MSG SVP of Customer Experience Paul Klass, Riptide Partners are the only Medallia partner offering a fully supported and customized solution tailored to the Sports & Entertainment space. Riptide and Medallia will enable bottom-line improvement and a customer-centric culture driven from real-time guest feedback across all touchpoints, both physical and digital.

Finding a work life balance when working from home

Achieving the perfect work-life balance when working from home has become a quest for many, judging by the amount of posts on Linkedin. From dealing with Japanese murder hornets to the subjecting yourself to watching early morning rugby league games, finding that work-life home balance has become the punchline for 2020. The new normal of work and play all under one roof has seen the line between work and home become increasingly blurred.

The lack of a travel routine and time with work colleagues has seen many struggle to separate work commitments from home life. While many of use to joke about the idea of working in our pyjamas, many have been questioning is this really a good thing?

While the reality is that most of us will be stuck in some type of work from home arrangement for some time yet, developing a healthy work-life balance is essential in helping you avoid burning out.

With some practice developing some healthy habits can take the stress out of working from home and give you back that much needed family time.

Cryptocurrencies are making the online gaming industry safer, better

For the past two decades or so, iGaming has slowly been gathering steam across the globe. There are still plenty of countries that frown upon the activity, and even lawmakers in countries where it’s legal who still try to turn back the clock. The introduction of cryptocurrency, which was catapulted to the front lines only in the past couple of years, has allowed gaming operators to expand into areas where they would have never been able to set up shop before. This has been great for digital currencies and the gaming industry, but it has also been a huge step forward for gamblers, as well, who are now better protected and safer than ever before. 

The marriage of gaming with digital currency has brought with it an entire segment of blockchain-based gaming solutions. Now, thanks to the use of ledgers that can never be altered, gamblers can be 100% confident that “what you see is what you get” has an entirely new meaning. Blockchain-based games make the activity completely transparent and provable, eliminating any possible opportunity to manipulate data to ensure the house always wins, even if it meant cheating. 

In many ways, this is precisely what led to the creation of gaming regulators in different jurisdictions throughout the world – the necessity of ensuring gaming operators weren’t trying to game the gamers and were held to levels of accountability and transparency that were previously missing. Through its inherent nature, blockchain offers both, without the need of a third party to regulate the activity. The blockchain, in its natural form, is designed to provide both traits by default.

The creation of blockchain-based gaming solutions and crypto payment channels does what financial regulators overseeing fiat have never been able to do – ensure a safe and secure environment. Consumers, even after thousands of years, are still ripped off by unscrupulous financial entities and individuals, and money-laundering and fraudulent investments are still running rampant. However, registered blockchain-based gaming solutions and registered crypto wallet addresses makes it virtually impossible for there to be any dubious activity. Gaming regulators, at this point, would only have to work to establish limits and offer consumer protections, but the gambling activity itself is completely visible and transparent at all times.

Gambling Industry Announcement and Partnership Roundup – August 27, 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.

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

BonusFinder expands U.S. reach with Tennessee licence

BonusFinder.com has been granted an affiliate licence to operate in Tennessee, further expanding its reach in the burgeoning U.S. market.

Chile’s casino operators find COVID-19 relief from creditors, investors

Almost no country has been immune from the effects of the coronavirus, and Chile’s no exception. Its economy has taken a direct hit from the global pandemic, and its casinos are struggling to rebound, just like those elsewhere across the globe. While the next 12 months will bring a lot of changes in the gaming industry through acquisitions and fire sales, Chile’s two largest casino operators, Enjoy and Sun Dreams, have been caught up, as well. Each has made arrangements that will allow their casinos to continue to operate, at least until a more structured plan can be created. 

Enjoy, based in Santiago, Chile, has announced through a securities filing that its creditors are ready to give $73.3 million through a debt restructuring plan. The money will be provided through international bondholders, who will cover roughly $11.97 million, and through local investors, ready to provide the remaining $61.4 million. The goal of the plan is to give it time to draft and approve a debt restructuring agreement, with $63.7 million to go to a bridge loan to ease the strain. Enjoy filed for bankruptcy protection this past April after COVID-19 forced its operations in Chile, Argentina and Uruguay to close a month earlier. 

Sun International, which is based in South Africa, is behind Sun Dreams, the largest gaming operator in Chile. It owns 65% of the company, and has agreed to sell its stake to Nueva Inversiones Pacifico Sur for $160 million. That arrangement makes Pacifico Sur the sole owner, with the investment fund now controlling 100% of the company. 

Sun International has been trying to find a buyer for its stake for several months and, prior to its agreement with Pacifico Sur, had almost locked in a similar deal with Marina del Sol, a Chilean casino operator that is owned through a joint venture between Canada-based private equity firm Clairvest Group and Chile-based real estate company Empresas Valmar. With properties in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Panama and Peru, Sun International had a lot at stake before COVID-19 hit, and has a lot to lose as a result. Pacifico Sur has a rather large footprint, as well, serving as a major investor in everything from agriculture to real estate development. 

Chile’s casino operators find COVID-19 relief from creditors, investors

Almost no country has been immune from the effects of the coronavirus, and Chile’s no exception. Its economy has taken a direct hit from the global pandemic, and its casinos are struggling to rebound, just like those elsewhere across the globe. While the next 12 months will bring a lot of changes in the gaming industry through acquisitions and fire sales, Chile’s two largest casino operators, Enjoy and Sun Dreams, have been caught up, as well. Each has made arrangements that will allow their casinos to continue to operate, at least until a more structured plan can be created. 

Enjoy, based in Santiago, Chile, has announced through a securities filing that its creditors are ready to give $73.3 million through a debt restructuring plan. The money will be provided through international bondholders, who will cover roughly $11.97 million, and through local investors, ready to provide the remaining $61.4 million. The goal of the plan is to give it time to draft and approve a debt restructuring agreement, with $63.7 million to go to a bridge loan to ease the strain. Enjoy filed for bankruptcy protection this past April after COVID-19 forced its operations in Chile, Argentina and Uruguay to close a month earlier. 

Sun International, which is based in South Africa, is behind Sun Dreams, the largest gaming operator in Chile. It owns 65% of the company, and has agreed to sell its stake to Nueva Inversiones Pacifico Sur for $160 million. That arrangement makes Pacifico Sur the sole owner, with the investment fund now controlling 100% of the company. 

Sun International has been trying to find a buyer for its stake for several months and, prior to its agreement with Pacifico Sur, had almost locked in a similar deal with Marina del Sol, a Chilean casino operator that is owned through a joint venture between Canada-based private equity firm Clairvest Group and Chile-based real estate company Empresas Valmar. With properties in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Panama and Peru, Sun International had a lot at stake before COVID-19 hit, and has a lot to lose as a result. Pacifico Sur has a rather large footprint, as well, serving as a major investor in everything from agriculture to real estate development.