Monthly Archives: September 2020

Becky’s Affiliated: How to engage millennials with betting on esports

Learning how to harness betting on esports has been an enormous topic within the gambling industry in 2020, especially when we suffered from a lack of traditional sports due to COVID-19. 

Marek Suchar, Head of Sales for Oddin.gg, a B2B esports odds feed and risk management provider, is certain the key to betting on esports is engagement. 

Coming from a financial industry background, Suchar has been following esports for a decade and because one of the fastest ways to monetize esports is betting, he jumped on the opportunity to join Oddin and change the industry for the better.

“We are fully focused on engagement”, Suchar said. 

Super Rugby AU Finals Preview: Reds look to vanquish Rebels

The Queensland Reds will be chasing a spot in the Super Rugby AU final when they take on the Melbourne Rebels this weekend at Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane. The jury is still out on revamped Super Rugby competition, and Rugby Australia officials will be hoping for a high-quality contest in the face of the direction the season will take in 2021.

The international Rugby Championship is yet to lock in a location for the 2020 tournament, with both New Zealand and Australia under consideration for a COVID hub. Beyond 2020 the rugby landscape in the southern hemisphere is set to shift, with New Zealand and Australia likely to run separate domestic rugby competitions and South Africa to shift their clubs to the English rugby competition.

The Super Rugby AU finals are set to serve as a potential trial over the long-term viability of a streamlined domestic rugby competition in Australia.

The Queensland Reds will be aiming to progress to the final for the first time since their 2011 triumph over the Crusaders. While it has been a seven-year wait for the Reds to return to the knockout stages, the Rebels will be making their first finals appearance in their history.

LaLiga signs 4-year partnership with M88 in Asia

Online games and betting platform to provide exclusive content to fans across the continent

Madrid, September 9, 2020.- LaLiga has signed a new commercial agreement with M88, which sees the brand become the league’s Official Regional Betting Partner through to 2024. A leading online betting platform, M88 will be promoting exclusive content from the Spanish football competition to audiences across Asia.

For the next four seasons, M88 will work alongside LaLiga to produce exclusive content and competitions that will further engage football fans and maintain the growing profile of the competition in Asia.

Among the planned content is a weekly video series that will explore and analyse LaLiga in greater detail. Featuring LaLiga Ambassadors, the programme will provide insights and storylines to increase traction across the market.

Danske Spil leans on lottery jackpots to offset sports betting decline

Denmark’s state-run gambling operator Danske Spil took a pandemic beating in the first half of 2020 but says it’s “back on track” to realize its earlier projections for its full-year performance.  

Figures released Wednesday show Danske Spil generated revenue of DKK2.3b (US$365.3m) in the six months ending June 30, down 7.8% from H1 2019. But operating profit was flat at DKK1.67b and profit slipped only 2.9% to DKK794.4m (although that decline rises to 9.4% once the 2019 divestment of its stake in games developer CEGO is factored into the mix).

The company managed to keep its ship afloat through reduced expenses, particularly on the marketing front, while gaming taxes and commissions were also lower due to COVID-19 reducing the scope of Danske Spil’s operations.

The mainstay lottery division Danske Lotteri Spil reported revenue of DKK1.3b, up 5.2% year-on-year, thanks in part to a series of extra-large prizes on offer, particularly via the Eurojackpot lottery.

Venetian poker is back but how many will play?

Live poker may take many years to bounce back from the Coronavirus crisis of 2020, although by the tail-end of this year, we might be saying ‘of this decade’. Let’s face it; no-one know when the pandemic will end, and poker players running models or batting back political rhetoric know only as much or as little as anyone.

We may, however, find out a little more about the state of live poker by monitoring live poker tournaments. Cash games are a guide to how well casinos have prepared their poker rooms, sterilised chips, or bought up on plexiglass screens.

Tournaments are quite a different operation, often involving players from out of state, and one such event takes place in September at The Venetian resort in Las Vegas.

The Venetian re-opened for business almost exactly three months ago, and since then has made sure to let its players know that certain safety measures have been put in place and need to be followed.

Kangwon Land out-earned all other Korean casinos in 2019

South Korea’s Paradise City casino has bounced back from its recent COVID closure, but Kangwon Land remains the market’s 800-pound gorilla.

To almost everyone’s surprise, Paradise Co Ltd’s flagship Paradise City integrated resort in Incheon reopened as promised on Wednesday. The property shut down last week after a single staffer tested positive for COVID-19, but this closure was extended after more staff – including two gaming floor employees – also tested positive.

Paradise said Wednesday that all staff – including outsourced workers – had undergone COVID-19 testing and only those who tested negative were allowed to return to work. The foreigner-only casino reopened at 2pm, one hour after the hotel, safari park, kids zone, certain dining areas and the outdoor pool.

Kangwon Land, the only South Korean casino at which local residents can gamble, remains shut until at least September 21, nearly one month after it was forced to close for the second time this year. The lengthy closures have already cost the casino hundreds of millions of dollars in lost revenue and there’s no guarantee that this latest reopening won’t be equally short-lived.

Lakers favorites for Thursday Game 4 vs Rockets

Odds courtesy of OddsShark.com

The Eastern Conference semifinal series between the Miami Heat and Milwaukee Bucks and the Western Conference semifinal matchup between the Houston Rockets and Los Angeles Lakers had been tied together from the Orlando bubble in terms of both games playing on the same night.

That’s over, however, as the fifth-seeded Heat shocked the top-seeded Bucks in five games Tuesday, closing things out with a 103-94 victory. It clearly helped Miami’s chances that Milwaukee superstar and lock repeat NBA MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo didn’t play Game 5 due to an ankle injury. The only game the Bucks won in the series was Game 4 when the Greek Freak injured the ankle early in the second quarter and didn’t return.

Miami was clearly the better team and has reached its first conference final since 2014, which was the last season of the LeBron James/Dwyane Wade/Chris Bosh dynasty. The Heat are the first No. 5 seed to reach the NBA’s final four since the Memphis Grizzlies in 2013.