The Americas
Flutter entertainment has been left reeling after a Kentucky court reinstated an $870m judgement. The court ruled the company owed the state $1.2B in damages stemming for its PokerStars brand’s legacy operations.; New Jersey sports betting set a new record for November as operators continue to ride the turnaround. Figures released by state regulators show that sports betting handle raked in $931.6m for November; Hard Rock International has launched a new iGaming and sports betting joint venture and nabbed a trio of TSG execs to lead the new venture. TSG’s ex-CEO Ragi Ashkenazi has been tapped to head up the operation; Sports data company Genius Sports announced their intention to purchase Sportzcast. The deal will see them take over the widely-used Scorebot scoring system; Ahead of Maryland’s expected legalisation of sports betting, Penn National Gaming (PNG)have entered the market. PNG recently acquired the operation rights to the Hollywood Casino Perryville; Compare.bet has taken the leap into the Brazilian market as part of its global expansion strategy. Over the last 12 months, the company has made solid ground in Australia, Ireland and New Zealand.; Youtube star Jake Paul is desperate to land a mega-fight against Conor McGregor. Paul has made a number of attempts to goad the UFC star into a $50m mega-fight; FanDuel Group has inked a deal with Cage sports for the Caribbean and LATAM region. The deal will see FanDuel gain access to the sports betting market in a joint venture operation in the Caribbean.
Europe
Electronic Arts has succumbed to pressure from regulators and is set to ban FIFA loot boxes in selected territories. The move comes as Dutch authorities labelled the loot boxes as a form of gambling in the popular franchise; Italian gaming company SISAL SPA is set to partner with Scientific Games in Morocco. The deal will allow SISAL to introduce a range of lottery games to local retailers; Tougher government regulations have forced Russian bookmakers to close their doors. Russian-licensed betting site VulkanBet.ru announced it would cease operations at the end of 2020; PSG superstar Neymar is returning to the poker world. The Brazilian was announced as the brand ambassador for Pokerstars;