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.

Caleta Gaming releases their 3rd game this month!

Princess of the Ocean is the title of the new game Caleta Gaming has just released. It features a beautiful pirate princess and her adventures in her ship looking for treasure, it has generous multipliers and varios free spins to keep players on their toes in this exciting new game with excellent performance cross platform.

SiGMA Europe, the Virtual Expo, has begun, and it’s already started warning the continent that things are getting rough. The first panel of the day, “2020 in a Nutshell”, warned legislators that Europe may fall behind the competition if new regulations continue to clamp down on the industry.

The Covid-19 pandemic has a lot to do with why operators and regulators are concerned about the new status-quo, as it has sometimes led to legislator overreach. “The truth is that the situation has changed,” said Yanica Sant, Head of International Affairs and Policy, Malta Gaming Authority (MGA). “The attitude has changed, the world has changed, it’s become more regulated.”

From her perspective, operators would be wise to not test limits at this time. “The truth is there is a higher price to pay, not just financially, but as the public perception becomes worse, so do the legislative initiatives become stricter,” she said.

Maarten Haijer, Secretary General for the European Gaming and Betting Association (EGBA), said that there is a balance to strike for regulators and legislators as well. If operators can’t advertise and becomes less attractive betting options than their international counterparts, customers will vote with their wallet. “Clearly, the position of Europe will be relatively weakened compared to especially the US jurisdictions,” he said.

As Americans get ready for the long Thanksgiving weekend, many are trying to figure out what they will do as the Covid-19 pandemic continues to run wild through the country. Lots of Tribal casinos have announced what they’ll be offering, and we’ve got a run down for you of each.

Casinos that are open for Thanksgiving

The Four Winds Casino in New Buffalo, Michigan will be open, but it has closed its arcade and kids play area. If your kids are aged six weeks to 12 years old, they’ll need to find something else to do if you hope to dine and play.

Offerings from the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe will remain open, despite a new pandemic order from the state of Michigan. “Our gaming operations are part of an economic development that pretty much funds 95 percent of the essential services that we provide to our tribal membership,” said Frank Cloutier, Public Information Officer. The tribe operates the Soaring Eagle Casino in Mount Pleasant, Michigan, Saganing Eagles Landing Casino in Standish, Michigan, as well as the Soaring Eagle Waterpark and Hotel, Soaring Eagle Hideaway RV Park, Waaboose Run Golf Course, Eagle Bay Marina, and Retreat at Soaring Eagle.

A report recently released by financial website MarketWatch regarding sports gambling in the U.S. slipped under most radars. The media outlet reported (paywall) about ten days ago that having Joe Biden in the White House as the next President of the U.S. might have a positive impact on nationwide sports gambling. Stopping short of saying that he would legalize federal sports gambling legislation, MarketWatch points out that Biden is interested in supporting the activity on the federal level, while still allowing states to control their own fate. 

MarketWatch points out that Biden could “support the federal government getting more involved in setting federal guidelines for sports betting,” adding that the President-elect “believes states and federal authorities should cooperate to ensure that gaming is safe, fair, and corruption-free.” This would seem to indicate that Biden might help ensure a nationwide rollout of sports gambling in some capacity, while maintaining a hands-off approach to establishing and regulating a single, nationwide plan. 

This would potentially be good news for the country, as having a federal regulatory framework could make it easier to establish parameters for expanded sports gambling options. For example, it might be possible to see interstate gambling collaboration, something that has been virtually impossible because of the still uncertain definition of the federal government’s Wire Act. It also might make it possible for online sports gambling to become more prominent, even within individual states. 

MarketWatch and the Wall Street Journal are both owned by Dow Jones and Co., and both have their fingers on the pulse of financial and legislative activity across the country. Should Biden decide to address sports gambling, MarketWatch asserts that this would lead to the creation of a single regulatory framework, which would also make it easier on gaming operators. Instead of having to conform to separate regulations that are created at the state level, operators could, perhaps, only need to adhere to one set of guidelines implemented at the federal level. 

Concern over sports integrity is one of the main reasons it took so long for sports gambling to come to the U.S. However, there are integrity issues seen in every aspect of everyday life. This is why regulatory bodies exist to try to reduce potential fraud, scams and thievery. There are methods that can be utilized to cut down on illegal activity, or at least to punish those found to have broken the rules, and anti-match-fixing operations are becoming SOP for sports. Colombia and Malta are doing their part to help control sports integrity with new initiatives that they hope will have a major impact. 

Colombia, through the Colombian National Committee for the Prevention of Manipulation of Sports Competitions, is determined to be a leader in sports integrity. It is dedicated much of its efforts through the end of next year to campaign for better integrity measures and to increase transparency in sports. Members of the committee are required to promote awareness and to develop training programs that will help prevent match-fixing, and will also have to launch public awareness campaigns that will educate the general public on the problems associated with the illegal activity. 

Gaming operators in the country, and even the government, are leading the way to ensure integrity. Companies like BetCris and Dimayor have been proactive in fighting match-fixing in Colombia, as well as across Latin America, and their efforts are likely to increase going forward. It’s in their best interest, as match-fixing not only derails respect for sports, but can cost companies, and governments, millions in lost revenue. 

Last month, the Malta Gaming Authority (MGA) introduced new regulations that require entities to report suspicious gambling activity. The regulatory body is now turning up the heat and has launched the beta version of a new website that will allow B2C licensed sports gambling operators to report that activity more easily to the country’s newly-created sports integrity monitoring unit. 

In order to protect its citizens during the COVID-19 pandemic, Sweden decided it would be a good idea to limit iGaming activity, implementing restrictions on how much money could be deposited and what type of bonuses could be provided by licensed operators. Billed as “temporary” restrictions, the limits are not going anywhere anytime soon, as they were just extended again, this time until the end of next June. However, these restrictions could be viewed as almost irrelevant, as Swedes are apparently clueless when it comes to separating licensed from non-licensed gambling platforms. As a result, it’s easy to deduce that more than a handful of gamblers are still sending their money to non-licensed operators. 

A survey (pdf) just conducted by the Swedish Gambling Authority (SGA) revealed something interesting about Swedes and gambling. The gaming regulator interviewed 1,737 people and learned that 95% don’t know whether or not a site is licensed, or how to tell the difference. Four out of five indicated that they “probably” played at a licensed site, but couldn’t positively confirm that they had – or that they had not. 

Sweden updated its gambling laws last year, and the results of the survey reflect the same numbers that were seen last year. Only 3% could definitively say that they had not gambled through an unlicensed operator, which means 97% could have, even if they didn’t realize it. This led Mattias Folkesson, a manager for online casino comparison site casinodealen.se, to assert, “The re-regulation took place largely to increase players’ security, which is why it is worrying to learn that so few Swedes know how to see if a brand has a license from the Swedish Gambling Authority. It is important information that those responsible do not seem to have communicated clearly.”

The survey showed that gambling continues to gain popularity in Sweden, as well. In 2020, 66% of those surveyed acknowledged having gambled, while only 60% responded positively last year. However, with responsible gaming now being more of an issue than ever, Sweden has apparently missed the mark in educating the public on where to go if they think they have a problem, with 81% indicating that they didn’t know where to go if they have a problem. 

Actions by certain individuals with ties to Spectacle Entertainment aren’t only hurting the casino operator’s reputation, but that of Hard Rock International (HRI), as well. Spectacle became the target of the Indiana Gaming Commission (IGC) this past January due to its ties with another gaming company, Centaur Gaming, that ultimately led to former Spectacle VP John Keeler being indicted on campaign fraud charges. If those close to the company thought this might be the end of the drama, they were wrong, and the IGC’s investigation is growing. This could ultimately lead to Spectacle losing its gaming license, which would threaten the $300-million casino it has been building with HRI in Gary. 

The IGC is reportedly investigating over ten people whose names have surfaced as being linked to Spectacle. They either currently have, or have previously held, licenses with the company, or with its Centaur predecessor. In a meeting held by the regulator yesterday, IGC Executive Director Sara Gonso Tait told the commissioners that all of these individuals are now being considered for possible revocation of gaming licenses, which could put Spectacle out of the picture. 

Tait added, “The scope of our review covers financial transactions, ownership transfers, contracts, failures to disclose, improper utilization of funds, improper accounting practices, failure to act within the occupational licensure parameters, ex parte communications and other actions and situations falling outside of those good moral character and integrity standards detailed throughout Indiana statutes and regulations.”

The next step could be the nail in the proverbial coffin for anyone with ties to Spectacle and/or Centaur. The company is already being led by a trustee-in-waiting, an individual appointed to oversee the company’s operations until a new entity buys them. Tom Dingman, a former executive with Harrah’s, is Spectacle’s trustee-in-waiting, and the IGC is almost ready to determine if the company needs to be dissolved or if there’s any reason to give it another chance. Susan Williams, another IGC commissioner, asserted during the meeting, “I would say maybe within the next two weeks to 30 days, we need to have something in our hands that gives us some level of comfort that this operator is either going to be with us or going to be gone.”

As we heard repeatedly at SiGMA LATAM in September, the LATAM region is not a monolith. Each country has its own culture, and catering to those different requirements requires some planning. We learned from an expert as our Becky Liggero Fontana sat down with Florencia Brancato, Marketing Consultant for LATAM, to understand what works.

Liggero Fontana began by asking where companies should consider placing their call centers. “For some companies, something is working, and for others its different,” Brancato responded. “For example, one of the companies that I used to work, they have a call center here in Uruguay, but they focus only in Portuguese and Spanish speaking people. When you want to do it more globally, you need someone to speak English as well or other language.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83NSEAHHGd4&feature=youtu.beVideo can’t be loaded because JavaScript is disabled: Florencia Brancato says to be on the ground if you want to know LATAM (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83NSEAHHGd4&feature=youtu.be)

Brancato gave her tips on how to offer the right languages, but also with the right dialects. “My recommendation is to have it locally in any country of LATAM because they speak Spanish and also you have people who can speak Portuguese,” she said. “The main thing is the Portuguese need to be from Brazil, not from Portugal, and the Spanish need to be from LATAM, not from Spain, otherwise its going to be difficult.”

Summit Ascent, still the main investment choice in the budding Primorye region of Russia, is breaking out. The casino continues to be one of my favored long term holds in the gambling industry, and I see no reason why that should change any time soon. Russia continues to be one of the more stable regions in the world right now, politically, monetarily, and socially.

Politically, there is no danger of a major breakup as there is in Europe or the United Kingdom, both of which may see their unions disintegrate in the near future. Monetarily, Russia has remained conservative and responsible throughout the pandemic, not increasing government spending that much as other western countries have been spending in ways that would embarrass a particularly profligate drunken sailor. Socially, Russia is gradually opening up its borders, and Vladimir Putin has indicated that the country plans no future lockdowns for any second wave.

As to the social point, the latest move by the Russian Foreign Ministry to open up travel from 16 countries including Primorye’s next door neighbor Japan, probably has something to do with Summit’s 100% plus rally since the beginning of October. Make your own judgments as to the wisdom of this of course, but the fact that Russia is specifically opening up in the midst of a second wave and a new high in daily coronavirus deaths, I believe is proving to investors that the lockdown days in Russia are in fact over, come what may. Since Russia is pretty much in the grip of Putin, what he says goes, and he says lockdowns are over. For better or worse, it’s not like other parliamentary democracies where policy decisions have to be made through long drawn out bureaucratic process with a million different pressure points and no one person making any decision. Things go faster, and there is less uncertainty. That has its dangers, obviously, but also its advantages.

Travel has not opened up with China yet, but it will eventually, and when it does, I believe Summit Ascent will take off. In the meantime, the company is digging in its heels, and is in a good position to hibernate for a long time without any strategic or existential danger to it. This it says straight out in its latest interim report page 7 (which could use some copy editing, but I’m pasting it here as is):