Sports betting solutions provider SBTech has partnered with four-time World Heavyweight Champion Evander Holyfield to launch a new online gaming brand based on the former World Heavyweight Champion’s nickname “The Real Deal.”

RealDealBet.com, mainly a sports betting site, will be hosted on SBTech’s platforms and will use the supplier’s managed services marketing solutions, covering more than 60,000 events each month across more than 30 sports, including 150 football leagues.

Customers will have access to casino games, with a range of jackpot, video and 3D slots available, alongside live dealer blackjack and roulette products and classic table games, with content supplied by BetSoftGaming, Net Entertainment and Microgaming.

“He’s an inspirational individual, not to mention a champion many times over, and we’re confident as experienced industry frontrunners that we can achieve the same levels of success for this new endeavour,” SBTech CEO Itai Zak said of Holyfield. “This will be a site developed by champions for champions.”

Meanwhile, gaming solutions provider Scientific Games has announced that its online casino games will be rolled out in New Jersey, through its partnership with bwin.party digital entertainment.

Customers of websites such as BorgataCasino.com and NJ.partypoker.com will now have access to a range of online slots games developed by the Scientific Games Williams studio, including online versions of land-based titles on casino floors throughout Atlantic City such as Gold Fish, Zeus III, and Spartacus Gladiator of Rome.

Partypoker’s group director of poker Jeffrey Haas said that providing players with great games and entertainment was its number one priority.

Gambling sales in the state of New York in 2014 experienced its first decline in years, prompting concern that the state’s decision to award three casino licenses could end up becoming a bad investment.

According to data provided by the State Lottery, gambling sales in the Empire State totalled $9 billion in 2014, a 2% decline from the $9.03 billion the state received in 2013.

The decline in sales affected a handful of industries, including the lottery and the state’s race track casinos. Traditional lottery games, which accounts for a majority of gambling sales in the state, dipped 2.2% to $7.2 billion in 2014. Betting sales from multi-state big jackpot games Powerball and Mega Millions, plummeted 43.5% and 11.8%, respectively.

Sales from lotteries, which has lost a lot of steam since its robust years of generating close to $500 million in sales per year, sunk to under $86 million in 2014, a 16.8% drop from the $103.4 million in sales it earned in 2013.

New York’s gambling sales in 2014 dropped for the first time in years, potentially signaling a saturated market just as three new upstate casinos are in development.

The only redeeming form of lottery for the state has been scratch-off instant games, but even its $3.7 billion in sales in 2014 only represented an increase of less than 1% from its 2013 numbers.

As far as the state’s nine racetrack casinos are concerned, the unsettling thought of less and less people coming and betting in these places became a reality when only two of the nine casinos posted improved revenues in 2014 compared to 2013.

Caesars Entertainment Corporation Chairman Gary Loveman will step down from the company’s chief executive role on June 30 and will be replaced by the former chairman and CEO of Hertz Global Holdings.

“After 12 years as CEO, Caesars has accomplished more than what we could have imagined when I arrived in 1998. Now, with the company in the midst of a formal restructuring of one of its subsidiaries and a merger between entities, the time is ripe for a transition,” said Loveman.

“It has been an honor to be the Chairman and CEO of Caesars Entertainment. My decision to begin to transition management now comes with the confidence that we have taken the steps necessary to ensure the company’s long-term success. I am confident that the efforts underway to address the capital structure of CEOC and the announced merger of Caesars Acquisition Corporation and Caesars Entertainment will position Caesars for growth and prosperity for many years to come. I look forward to working with Mark, the Board of Directors and the Senior Management Team to effect a seamless transition,” Loveman added.

According to a statement from the company, Mark Frissora, who has seven years of experience with the automobile and equipment rental car company, will be CEO designee—a title which allows him to join the board of directors for Caesars immediately until July 1 when he formally becomes CEO.

Frissora was appointed CEO of Hertz in 2006. He oversaw Hertz’s 2012 acquisition of Dollar Thrifty Automotive Group Inc. Prior to joining Hertz in 2006, Frissora was Chairman and CEO of Tenneco, an auto parts maker.

The announcement comes less than a month after Caesars placed its largest operating unit into a pre-packaged bankruptcy to eliminate almost $10 billion in debt and was shot down as US Bankruptcy Judge Kevin Gross ruled that Chicago was the appropriate venue to handle the proceedings.

Loveman, who has been with Caesars since 1988, is one of the gaming industry’s longest-tenured CEOs, making him one of the highest-paid casino executives in recent years. According to the company’s recent statement, Loveman earned more than $7.6 million in salary and other compensation in 2013. In 2010, Loveman earned more than $18.2 million in total compensation.

Sports data provider Sportradar has notched a new partnership in its growing list of clients and extended an existing one with a budding football league.

First comes the extension. After first signing a deal with Sportradar to become its official data partner, Major League Soccer has re-upped its existing contract for another two seasons, beginning in 2015. The extension allows the MLS to continue benefiting from Sportradar’s acclaimed Fraud Detection System and its capacity to monitor global betting markets on all of

its football matches this year and in 2016.

“At MLS, we are dedicated to delivering the best sports entertainment to millions of fans worldwide that follow our league,” MLS Vice President, Operations and Security Ray Whitworth said. “In line with that, we cannot compromise when it comes to preserving the integrity of soccer in the US.

The growing popularity of football in the US, or soccer as they call it, has likewise made MLS a popular bet for a lot of football bettors. That’s a big reason why the league decided to extend its monitoring partnership with Sportradar.

“MLS has never been more popular. It is unsurprising that more and more fans are being drawn to US soccer,“ Sportradar Managing Director, Strategy and Integrity Andreas Krannich added. “There is always a danger of match fixing when liquidity increases on the global betting market and there is only one way to effectively deal with that danger – that is to get ahead of it. And that is exactly what MLS has done.”

While the MLS has already reaped the benefits from its partnership with Sportradar, the German Handball League is looking to experience the same level of security for the first time after announcing that Sportradar has become the league’s official data partner from the 2015/16 season until the end of the 2022/23 season.

As part of this deal, Sportradar will be granted the right to exclusively collect, archive and distribute “Official HBL Data” to both the media and betting industry as well as to the HBL itself and its teams.

Residents of New Zealand, also known as Kiwis, spent almost $2.1 billion on the four main forms of gambling—racing, lotteries, casinos, and gambling machines outside casinos—in the 2012/2013 financial year.

The numbers were compiled and released by the country’s Department of Internal Affairs, breaking down the amount of money gamblers bet on the aforementioned forms of gambling.

According to the DIA’s figures, a majority of the $2.1 billion spent by gamblers fell under gambling machines outside casinos at $808 million. That amount accounted for a little close to half of the total expenses, even though the number fell by $18 million compared to the previous year’s tally and was also the lowest amount spent in the past five years.

Coming up second on the list is are casinos, which accounted for $509 a quarter of the total amount spent by Kiwis in the last financial year. Like the numbers posted by gaming machines, the casino’s total fell 2.1% from the previous year when it posted expenses amounting to $520 million.

The drop in gaming machines and casino expenses were offset by the increased betting in TAB racing and sports betting. Thanks to the 2014 World Cup that attracted over 10,000 new customers, the numbers attached to these two bet types increased by 5.6 per cent from $294 million in the previous year to $311 million in the latest.

Likewise, spending on the lottery also increased from $432 million to $463 million, a 7.3% increase that has been closely associated with a steady increase in lottery sales since 2003.

All in all, the $2.1 billion Kiwis spent on gambling in the 2012/13 financial year represented a 0.9% increase from the previous year, showing that gambling in the country is as robust as it’s ever been, even though it still fell 20% short of the country’s record in 2004 when gamblers spent $2.61 billion when adjusted for inflation.

Silver Heritage Limited (SHL) has begun operation of the Millionaire’s Club & Casino at Shangri-La Hotel in Kathmandu, Nepal.

While the casino itself isn’t a huge property,  it’s been described as a boutique casino —having only 22 live gaming tables and 40 electronic gaming machines, the opportunity to invest in the country was too good of an opportunity to pass up for SHL.

“The Company has been looking to invest in the Nepali tourism and recreation industry since 2011,” SHL CEO Mike Bolsover said in a statement. “We are confident the Kathmandu development represents a huge opportunity given its proximity to India and China’s massive and growing middle class and Nepal’s cultural affinity with its Southern neighbor.”

According to SHL, the casino was opened with the idea of offering expanded gaming opportunities for Indian, Chinese, and Bangladeshi gamblers within the vicinity of the casino. Likewise, foreign nationals living in Nepal are also expected to be lured by the company, which is already planning to operate the property in a 24/7 capacity.

That’s the first step of SHL’s plan to become a bigger player in Nepal’s gambling market. The company has indicated that it also has plans to run a hotel/resort in Bhairahawa to complement its core investment business that provides leasing and revenue sharing solutions for a number of casinos located in Asia.

SHL’s presence in the region goes beyond the capacity of its new casino joint in Nepal. In addition to that,  the company is also heavily entrenched in the Asia-Pacific region as an operator of slot machines and electronic casino table games in places like Macau, the Philippines, Vietnam, Northern Marianas, Cambodia, Laos, and cruise ships touring international waters.

Over in South Korea, local casino operator Grand Korea Leisure Co. announced its plan to operate casinos on cruise ships. According to its own announcement, the company has already engaged a consulting agency to determine the feasibility of the project.

So LAC & ICE are over- now what?

Its amazing how you’re able to get by on adrenaline and caffeine for one week straight, yet the minute you get on the plane, you suddenly feel like death.  Some people even feel depressed on the way home because the excitement is over and its going to be another five months until we all reunite again.  The good news is there will be a next time and (hopefully) you’ve got something to show your boss after a week full of sessions, booths, networking and fun.

One of the best parts about the iGaming industry is its conferences and a part of the package includes how you manage your time straight after an event finishes.  After spending ten years attending these events, I’ve got a routine perfected, so here’s my advice on how to manage your first week back in the office after LAC & ICE come to an end.

1) Detox!

Its likely conferences for you mean changing time zones, big nights out, lots of alcohol, not enough sleep, unhealthy meals and generally overextending yourself for five or six days straight.  Before you do anything after returning from the conferences, be sure to take care of yourself.

Take a day or two off after the conference ends and make sure you catch up on your rest.  Take some time away from drinking if you’re a drinker, focus on hydration and eat an obscene amount of fruit and vegetables to boost your immune system.

2) Follow up with new contacts

The second day of ICE Totally Gaming was packed like yesterday, with thousands of people roaming the expo floor and attending sessions from 10am until 6pm solid.  On the expo floor delegates were treated to everything from Playson’s “live” Dracula, his coffin and lovely assistants, Credorax’s foozeball competition against Paul Merson and awesome Football Freestyler Dan Magness, live music, models, models and more models and free drinks flowing at every corner.

This year ICE featured a number of start-up related activities in an effort to showcase innovation in the gambling industry.  Pitch ICE is a new feature this year at ICE, organized by the crowd sourcing and crowd funding GamCrowd and in partnership with Clarion.  At Pitch ICE, throughout the course of the day, start-up companies were given 15 minutes to pitch their products to ICE delegates.  Chris North of GamCrowd confirmed each pitch would be filmed and distributed on the GamCrowd site after ICE for the industry to vote on and ultimately determine the winner.  North told CalvinAyre.com he is pleased with the turnout this year and although some times are busier than others, he’s had constant traffic overall in the Pitch ICE corner.

Genfour was one of today’s Pitch contestants, a company providing “Robotic Process Automation” or RPA.  Ian Dunning, Co-Founder of Genfour, confirmed his company’s participation in Pitch ICE was a great vehicle for educating the industry on RPA and Genfour in general.  Dunning truly believes in his product and wants to communicate to operators how implementing RPA into their systems will reduce manual labor for valuable employees and open up more time for strategy and innovation.

Along the same theme of start-ups and innovation, Igor Samardziski of Nexus described the “Start-up Incubator” he is running this year at ICE with Clarion.  Three one hour sessions were held at the Nexus booth today, all pre-registered by companies who are wishing to enter the online gambling market and would like guidance on how to do so.  Common issues that come up surround regulation, total cost and a number of other questions surrounding entry into a new marketplace.  Samardziski has years of experience in iGaming and is there to answer such questions and provide further support down the line.

The ICE Conferences are held alongside ICE Totally Gaming and feature a series of “mini-conferences” touching on hot topics in the gambling industry.  The IMGL Masterclass was one of the conferences taking place today and featured a session on opportunities in emerging markets.  The session covered the current and future opportunities in Spain, Latin America, India, North America and Australia.

Panelist Sue Schneider of iGaming Brokerage discussed North America and said in Canada there are now attempts in legislature to get single game sportsbetting regulated.  Over in California, Schneider explained the tribes are split on the “bad actor” clause which basically means is PokerStars going to be able to participate or not- “lets cut to the chase”, she said.  Of course this split causes a problem for the iGaming regulation we are all hoping for in California.   “Until the industry comes together with a single message we are not going to get the politicians on board”, she said.

Devilfish Poker is set for a return, according to investment opportunity website Funding Tree, and White Hat Gaming become the first online gambling company to join the NYX Poker network.

I guess it’s wrong to say that Dave ‘Devilfish’ Ulliot is back. He hasn’t really gone anywhere. But that’s how it feels after reading on the investment opportunities website Funding Tree that Devilfish Poker is set for a return in the spring of 2015.

Devilfish Poker was incorporated in 2006, and at its peak (June 2010) its then owners filed revenues of £783,355 – £525,115 of which was gross profit. The company eventually hit hard times, and shut down, but it still retains a 10,000 registered player-base, and, of course, the advertising power of one the games most loveable rogues.

The job of breathing new life into Devilfish Poker has fallen into the hands of the experienced seed capital investor, Jeff Williams, and he is searching for £100,000 of start-up capital. At the time of writing he has raised £10,700.

According to the pitch on the Funding Tree website, Devilfish Poker has signed a deal that will see them appearing on the Ongame network. Since that network no longer exists (NYX Gaming bought it from Amaya and renamed it NYX Poker), then we can assume that’s where Devilfish and the team will lay their hat.

The strategy is to reach out to customers in the UK and abroad, and they have struck up a partnership with Dave Hulme’s Grassroots Poker. A provider of pub leagues throughout the UK. Sign up to Grassroots Poker and you sign up to Devilfish Poker.

And of course there is the Devilfish.

Lee Davy explains how his revised morning schedule has paid dividends in both his personal and working life.

I say daily gratitude.

It’s a new thing for me; one of the many new things my wife has brought into my life. It works. It directs my thoughts to others. That makes me happy. I like being happy. That’s another thing that my wife has brought into my life. Increased awareness of the importance of happiness.

One of my most common gratitude statements:

“I am grateful that I have the freedom to wake up when I want. That I get to choose the structure of my day, and not have it determined by someone else.”

I left school when I was 16-years old and within six months I was working for British Rail. I left 19-years later. In that period of time I never had the freedom to wake when I wanted – weekend excepted. This was true even when I had reached a senior position.

It’s incredibly liberating it is to be in control of your own working hours. It’s become so important to me, I doubt I will ever work for anyone, other than myself, ever again.

National UK newspaper The Guardian has ended its sports betting partnership with FSB Technology. The newspaper announced that it would no longer run its GoWager betting services in its website.

The Guardian‘s partnership with FSB Technology launched GoWager in February 2014, offering customers a full sportsbook with live betting on a range of sports including football, horseracing, tennis, and cricket on selected betting markets.

The newspaper faced criticism and opposition from its readers for promoting gambling products and the publication was forced to review its sports betting partnership. FSB-powered GoWager was switched to a standalone site unaffiliated to The Guardian.

The UK newspaper had taken a strong stance against UK gambling, in particular the issue of fixed-odds betting terminals (FOBT’s) but its commercial department had defended its online sports betting product as an individual’s right to choose and that it was only marketed on the sports pages of the newspaper and website.

“Guardian News & Media is always seeking new ways to innovate commercially, but we are also mindful of the views of our readers, some of which were outlined in a readers’ editor’s column about GoWager last year,” a spokesperson told eGaming Review. “This decision was unrelated to the services provided by FSB Technology and the GoWager website will continue without Guardian involvement,” the spokesperson added.

Dave McDowell, CEO and co-founder of FSB Technology, added, “We really enjoyed working with the Guardian and remain on very good terms. The relationship gave us a fantastic platform to showcase our position as a leading technology supplier.

“We broke new ground in the distribution of a sports betting service by delivering contextual betting opportunities embedded within a media partner’s website. At FSB we want to continue being innovative when it comes to the marketing of those services and maintain our position as the most flexible sports betting solution in the market today.”

Fresh off the successful grand opening of City of Dreams Manila, Melco Crown Entertainment has come out doused any thoughts of building a casino in South Korea.

Speaking to reporters during the grand opening, Melco Crown co-chairman Lawrence Ho said South Korea’s policy of limiting casino access to foreigners-only is too risky a proposition for the company.

“In our opinion, foreigners-only gaming market is difficult. Korea and its policy of not letting locals in, to us, are difficult,” Ho said.

Neither Ho nor Melco co-chairman James Packer believe that the foreigners-only format could guarantee 30,000 visitors a day, a requirement to make a project with that kind of scale to work.

Ho’s stance could also be traced to his company already having a presence in Macau that attracts its fair share of VIPs and Chinese high-rollers, the same market casinos in South Korea are targeting. If locals aren’t allowed to play in casinos, a Melco Crown casino in Korea would essentially be going after the same people that already visit its casinos in Macau.

But the company isn’t completely closing its doors on the country. “If the government changes its policy about locals, we would jump in head first,” Ho said.

For now, though, Melco Crown is focusing its full attention in promoting and building up City of Dreams Manila. The resort’s grand opening was a resounding success and the company is looking to carry that momentum forward.

A family of four, from Birmingham in the UK, have ditched their jobs to focus on becoming full time professional poker players.

Ask poker players if they would recommend the life of a professional poker player, to their children, and a high percentage of them would say no. The reasons vary from the difficulty of eking out a profit; stress, and the fact that you are taking from the world and not giving back.

None of that bothers the Sheils family from Birmingham.

Parents Michelle and Matthew Sheils, and their sons 23-year old Richard, and 19-year old Brandon, have bucked the trend, ditched their jobs and decided to become professional poker players.

The UK tabloids have branded them as masterminds who have uncovered a mathematical formula that allows them to gain an edge. To be fair to the Sheils family that’s probably more to do with the uneducated writer, than any actual mathematical formula – unless they are all Ex-Machina sliding down the fallopian tubes of Cepheus?

“I did my dissertation on poker, the science and math behind the game.” Richard told the Birmingham Mail. “You can see where the gambling is, and where it is not. It would be extremely silly to go down the gambling route. If you meet gamblers, you are going to make money from them.”

Don’t tell that to Ivey.

Johnny Landreth has won the World Series of Poker Circuit Main Event at the Horseshoe Tunica, after beating Tom Thomas, in heads-up action, to capture the first prize of $147,388.

Johnny Landreth will be living on pure adrenaline after an eight-hour marathon against Tom Thomas ended with a World Series of Poker Circuit (WSOPC) gold ring being slipped on his finger.

Landreth takes his total live tournament earnings to +$585,000 after picking up $147,388 for the win, and a seat in the World Series of Poker (WSOP) National Championships. Scott Stewart will join him after his first, sixth, and 18th place finishes were enough to hand him the Casino Championship award.

Landreth and Thomas entered the final table with three quarters of the chips in play, and it took only two hours to remove Aphideth Nakhoneinh, Norman McKeldin, Jeremy Drewery, Keith Murrell, Tommy Bishop, Russell Head and Jamie Strickland from the equation.

But that scintillating start would soon hit a roadblock. Both players squaring off with deep stacks and plenty of patience. After eight hours of play Thomas had ground Landreth down to 15 big blinds, when he flopped a straight versus top two pair, to double up. A point he would power on from to pick up the win – pocket sixes successfully running the gauntlet against K9o.

“I’ve got a lot of friends that have [a ring],” Landreth told the WSOP. “I played a lot of events and it just hadn’t fallen my way. It did this time.”

The win is the biggest since Landreth started racking up Hendon Mob numbers a decade ago. His first-ever cash was for $185,797 after topping a 677-player field in a $1k event at the Gold Strike Casino Resort in Tunica.

Overview of Using Social

In this article I want you to think about social media as a marketer, social media by competitors and how to disrupt the WSOP marketing effort this summer. Start planning now.

I was reading a Neil Patel article, wherein it states that American’s spend an average of 3.2 hours a day using social networks. Digging further I found a link of a 2013 social media marketing industry report. I really liked this report so I took it a step further and pulled up the 2014 report from the same social media marketing industry.

Their research from 2800 marketing firms finds that by 2014, 92% of marketers agreed that social media is good for their business and 97% at least used it in some form. Obviously.

Pro Tip: Obviously use social media.

I pulled these high level graphs below from the http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/ website to further illustrate. The actual social media marketing industry reports on the links above have dozens more graphs. If you want to learn about social, you should read them.

Nearly 50% of online customers now gamble on mobile devices with sportsbook accounting for 47% of the mobile market

Paddy Power is reaping the benefits of early adoption of mobile app marketing with 18.9% of the overall organic mobile click share

Blanket ban on real-money applications in Google Play brings challenges but commercial potential is huge

Small number of high value keywords, including ‘mobile casino’ are driving the greatest volume of traffic

Early adopters of mobile application marketing, Paddy Power, William Hill and Betfair are leading the growth of mobile app gaming, according to Stickyeyes latest gambling intelligence report on the mobile app market.

These brands are reaping the commercial benefits of investment in highly usable apps to support half of all online gamblers who state mobile apps are their preferred way to bet or play. Sportsbook is leading this growth in mobile gaming (see supporting figure – online market size by segment), accounting for 47% of the mobile market whilst casino follows with just over a quarter (26%) then bingo (16%) and poker (11%).

The growth of mobile comes despite restrictions on Google Play, which prevents the listing of real-money apps, and forces gaming brands to employ dedicated search marketing campaigns to aid app discovery and adoption. As a result, the mobile keyword landscape is becoming increasingly competitive, with an average of 111,607 searches per month for betting, poker, casino and bingo keywords on mobile devices.