THE AMERICAS
Canada’s single-game sports betting bill went down to defeat while British Columbia’s gambling monopoly warned international online operators off its turf; Caesars Entertainment made a last ditch effort to satisfy its creditors; FanDuel raised the rake on most of its guaranteed player pools to 15%; the NBA said gaming operators were part of its data deal with Sportradar; north Jersey casino backers suspended their marketing campaign; Nevada’s entity betting market got off to a very slow start; IGT protested the way Scientific Games won Maryland’s $263m lottery contract; Antigua’s PM asked fellow members of the Non-Aligned Movement for help in its WTO fight with the US; China’s Fosun Group was rumored to have bought the Baha Mar project; Gamblit Gaming announced a gamblified version of virtual reality game Brookhaven Experiment; Monarch Media’s Cliff Fontenot offered an overview of VR’s connections to gambling and Plumbee’s Raf Keustermans explained why social casinos would be VR laggards; Eldorado Resorts paid $1.7b to acquire Isle of Capri Casinos but Rafi Farber found slim pickings among US regional casino operators stocks.
EUROPE
Bet365’s annual results showed earnings rising 10% to £448m; GVC Holdings turned Bwin.party’s underperforming brands into winners; Ladbrokes and Gala Coral Group said their merger will result in 700 redundancies; French online gambling operators lost €5m in 2015; the EU’s shifting definition of illegal sports betting spelled trouble for Malta’s gaming industry; Bloomberry Resorts gave up its quest for a Cyprus casino but NagaCorp is still in the hunt; German millennials preferred slots over casino table games; PokerStars’ Jason Prasad discussed the challenges of diversifying beyond its poker-only roots; Madabout Media’s Andy Edwards warned affiliates not to rush into launching their own bingo site while OST’s Luke Brynley-Jones urged bingo operators to embrace social media; Draglet’s Benjamin Bommhardt explained what Bitcoin industry innovations can teach the gaming industry; Becky Liggero recapped the Big Sports Dinner 2016 and Ed Pownall turned his Industry Eye on FOBTs and The Football Pools.