Betting on Sports America Digital

SBC is swinging its attention back to sports in America with another high-level digital conference. This conference will have senior operators, regulators and sports organizers breaking down the status of sports betting in America as we approach 2021.

Along with great talks and SBC’s state of the art platform, attendees will also have the chance to network with each other and visit the expo hall. With 2,500 delegates, 130 speakers and 40 exhibitors, this is an important event as sports betting in America continues to expand.

What: Betting on Sports America Digital

COVID-19 has the gaming industry in a virtual headlock and doesn’t appear to be ready to release its grip anytime soon. This year is essentially a write-off for many companies operating in the space, and Australia’s Ainsworth Game Technology is one of them. The gaming equipment supplier has tried different maneuvers to free itself, but COVID-19 is proving to be exaggeratingly stubborn. With talk of a possible vaccine right around the corner, there’s hope that the coronavirus might be defeated in the near future, and Ainsworth’s latest struggles show that this defeat can’t come soon enough. 

For the last year of Ainsworth’s fiscal year, which closed at the end of June 2020, the company reported a $31.5-million loss in revenue for the year. Only a year earlier, it had enjoyed a $7.96-million profit, but COVID-19 has proven to be a cunning enemy to the gaming industry. The latest report coming out of the company, which covers the last half of 2020 and the first half of Ainsworth’s fiscal year, shows that more bad news is on the way, with as much as $11 million in pre-tax losses expected.

According to CEO Lawrence Levy, addressing shareholders today, “We cautiously expect the challenging market conditions experienced” in the previous fiscal year “to continue in the first half, fiscal year 2021. As a result, for [the first half of] fiscal-year 2021, we expect to report a loss before tax for the group, excluding the impacts of foreign exchange and one-off items, of approximately AUD15 million [$11 million], which is in line with the company’s expectations given the effect of the September quarter.”

Ainsworth has already implemented measures to try to limit the losses, including job cuts and some financial juggling. At least 107 jobs have had to be eliminated and a money line it has with a creditor, Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd., was tapped to shore up the company. It was also restructured to facilitate “minimum liquidity levels and quarterly sales targets,” according to Levy. He told shareholders that the company is making preparations in case the ongoing pandemic gets worse, but adds that it remains “focused on ensuring that our liquidity and balance sheet strengthen during this challenging time.”

COVID-19 has the gaming industry in a virtual headlock and doesn’t appear to be ready to release its grip anytime soon. This year is essentially a write-off for many companies operating in the space, and Australia’s Ainsworth Game Technology is one of them. The gaming equipment supplier has tried different maneuvers to free itself, but COVID-19 is proving to be exaggeratingly stubborn. With talk of a possible vaccine right around the corner, there’s hope that the coronavirus might be defeated in the near future, and Ainsworth’s latest struggles show that this defeat can’t come soon enough. 

For the last year of Ainsworth’s fiscal year, which closed at the end of June 2020, the company reported a $31.5-million loss in revenue for the year. Only a year earlier, it had enjoyed a $7.96-million profit, but COVID-19 has proven to be a cunning enemy to the gaming industry. The latest report coming out of the company, which covers the last half of 2020 and the first half of Ainsworth’s fiscal year, shows that more bad news is on the way, with as much as $11 million in pre-tax losses expected.

According to CEO Lawrence Levy, addressing shareholders today, “We cautiously expect the challenging market conditions experienced” in the previous fiscal year “to continue in the first half, fiscal year 2021. As a result, for [the first half of] fiscal-year 2021, we expect to report a loss before tax for the group, excluding the impacts of foreign exchange and one-off items, of approximately AUD15 million [$11 million], which is in line with the company’s expectations given the effect of the September quarter.”

Ainsworth has already implemented measures to try to limit the losses, including job cuts and some financial juggling. At least 107 jobs have had to be eliminated and a money line it has with a creditor, Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd., was tapped to shore up the company. It was also restructured to facilitate “minimum liquidity levels and quarterly sales targets,” according to Levy. He told shareholders that the company is making preparations in case the ongoing pandemic gets worse, but adds that it remains “focused on ensuring that our liquidity and balance sheet strengthen during this challenging time.”

If things had gone according to plan, Japan’s integrated resort (IR) market would have been in its advanced stage of development already. However, launching a new industry in the country is proving to be a Herculean task that has seen several unexpected obstacles thrown at it. Politicians allegedly accepting bribes and a pesky little virus that won’t go away have forced the country to repeatedly push back its timeline, but Japan’s leadership is determined to see three IRs come to life within the next several years. The Nagasaki prefecture hopes to be one of the locations chosen in the first round, and is making progress with its local framework. It has now announced its schedule for the required request-for-proposal (RFP) process that will get the ball rolling. 

The Nagasaki prefecture is going to invite private-sector casino operators to submit RFPs to assist with the casino project beginning in January, according to an update provided by the local government yesterday. As soon as all the proposals are in and are sufficiently, and meticulously, reviewed, Nagasaki then hopes to be able to choose its partner sometime during the fall. If it finds a suitable partner and they can develop a workable solution, Nagasaki then plans on being able to present its IR proposal to the national government during the spring of 2022.

Previously, the hope was to have at least one of the first IRs, if not all three, in place by 2024 or 2025, coinciding with the World Expo in Osaka in 2025. That is already off the table, but Nagasaki believes that, should it be chosen to host a casino resort, it will be able to have a property in place before 2030. Like the country’s government, Nagasaki prefecture has been forced to delay its RFP process a number of times because of COVID-19 and the continued pandemic is causing pandemonium with the development of the IR framework at the national and the regional levels. This past September, the country announced that the development of its guidance, the IR Basic Policy, could be delayed anywhere from six to 12 months.

Nagasaki is ready to establish its schedule after putting some final touches on the RFP guidelines. According to Inside Asian Gaming, quoting someone from the prefecture’s IR Promotion Department, those touches included in the revised draft are “the schedule, content that ensures security, health and safety of the IR area and the facility, and enhancing measures against problem gambling.” 

If things had gone according to plan, Japan’s integrated resort (IR) market would have been in its advanced stage of development already. However, launching a new industry in the country is proving to be a Herculean task that has seen several unexpected obstacles thrown at it. Politicians allegedly accepting bribes and a pesky little virus that won’t go away have forced the country to repeatedly push back its timeline, but Japan’s leadership is determined to see three IRs come to life within the next several years. The Nagasaki prefecture hopes to be one of the locations chosen in the first round, and is making progress with its local framework. It has now announced its schedule for the required request-for-proposal (RFP) process that will get the ball rolling. 

The Nagasaki prefecture is going to invite private-sector casino operators to submit RFPs to assist with the casino project beginning in January, according to an update provided by the local government yesterday. As soon as all the proposals are in and are sufficiently, and meticulously, reviewed, Nagasaki then hopes to be able to choose its partner sometime during the fall. If it finds a suitable partner and they can develop a workable solution, Nagasaki then plans on being able to present its IR proposal to the national government during the spring of 2022.

Previously, the hope was to have at least one of the first IRs, if not all three, in place by 2024 or 2025, coinciding with the World Expo in Osaka in 2025. That is already off the table, but Nagasaki believes that, should it be chosen to host a casino resort, it will be able to have a property in place before 2030. Like the country’s government, Nagasaki prefecture has been forced to delay its RFP process a number of times because of COVID-19 and the continued pandemic is causing pandemonium with the development of the IR framework at the national and the regional levels. This past September, the country announced that the development of its guidance, the IR Basic Policy, could be delayed anywhere from six to 12 months.

Nagasaki is ready to establish its schedule after putting some final touches on the RFP guidelines. According to Inside Asian Gaming, quoting someone from the prefecture’s IR Promotion Department, those touches included in the revised draft are “the schedule, content that ensures security, health and safety of the IR area and the facility, and enhancing measures against problem gambling.” 

Coming up on December 8-9 is our beloved WGES, a C-level event that usually takes place at the W Barcelona in early July, this year was postponed to December due to COVID and ultimately forced to make the leap from in-person to digital.

Sam Milliken is the Project Manager for WGES, a brave young man who has taken on the challenge of organizing the whole event and learning how to execute in a digital format along the way.

“Us coming from a physical event to a virtual event has been challenging all around and I can sympathize with all the other events companies because its been a crazy one, but we’re moving in the right direction and I think this year is definitely one that we can all learn from”, he said.

In addition to managing the enormous work load that comes along with organizing a digital event, Milliken pointed out a challenge that everyone is facing around the globe- how to replicate online what we know and love in-person.

Online gambling operator Rush Street Interactive (RSI) reported revenue nearly quintupling in the third quarter although customer acquisition costs caused net losses to soar.

This week, RSI announced that its revenue in the three months ending September 30 totaled $78.2m, a 370% rise over the $16.7m the online casino and sports betting group reported in the same period last year. The Q3 sum was also significantly greater than the $64m that RSI earned in the entirety of its 2019 fiscal year.

Q3’s adjusted earnings totaled $9.9m, better than the $1.3m earnings loss in Q3 2019. But advertising and promotion expenses nearly doubled to $17.5m and RSI’s total loss for the quarter was a hefty $28.1m compared to a loss of just $1.6m in the same period last year.

Undaunted, RSI – which operates online via its BetRivers and PlaySugarHouse brands – announced that it was boosting its FY20 revenue guidance from $225m to a range of $265m-$275m, with the caveat that these revised estimates only apply if COVID-19’s second wave doesn’t result in the mass cancellation of college and pro sports activities.

Live poker returned to mid-stakes America some months ago, thanks in no small part to the MSPT (Mid-Stakes Poker Tour) and earlier this week, Korey Payne won $327,773 by winning the MSPT stop at The Venetian.

With a swelled field of 1,239 entries and a buy-in of just $1,600, the value was there for all to see – all Payne had to do was what over a thousand players tried and failed to do – survive every other player amid some real quality at the felt.

The final table began with a bust-out, as the three-day event with a prize pool of $1,771,770 was brought closer to a close by 8th place finisher Dale Eberle, who cashed for $28,343. Eberle lost his last chips with king-queen when he moved all-in on a queen-high board and was called by Day 1a chip leader in the event, Salim Admon, who held pocket aces.

Those aces reduced the field to seven and before long, there was one less player in the final table action. Jorden Helstern was short-stacked and lost a coinflip to cash for $37,207 but miss out on the really late stages.

Casino titan Sheldon Adelson’s lobbying budget is sparking hopes that Texas may finally relent and allow swanky gaming parlors in some of its major cities.

On Tuesday, Austin’s NBC affiliate KXAN reported that Las Vegas Sands chairman Adelson had hired eight high-profile lobbyists ahead of the new legislative session that gets underway in January. The report also noted that Adelson had poured $4.5m into state House races in 2020.

As for what issues may lie closest to Adelson’s heart, authorizing casinos would seem to be the most obvious answer. And with the state staring into a $4.6b pandemic-aided budget hole, discussion of alternative revenue sources will loom large on the legislative agenda.

Texas has no commercial casinos, just a couple of small tribal operations and some dodgy casino ‘cruises to nowhere’ that leave from ports like Galveston. Legislators routinely introduce casinos bills that don’t go anywhere and even state racetracks’ attempts to add ‘historical racing’ pseudo-slots have been smacked down hard.

Canada’s long and winding road to single-event sports betting appears to be clearing as the ruling Liberal party prepares to adopt another party’s wagering bill as its own.

On Wednesday, Minister of Justice David Lametti indicated that the Liberals plan to introduce a bill amending Canada’s Criminal Code to remove language limiting provincial gambling bodies to parlay wagers involving a minimum of three events.

Lametti reportedly plans to hold a press conference Thursday announcing that the governing Liberals will effectively be taking over the C-218 private members’ bill introduced this spring by Kevin Waugh, Conservative MP for Saskatoon-Grasswood, on behalf of New Democratic Party MP Brian Masse, who represents the riding of Windsor-West, home to the Caesars Windsor casino.

Private members’ bills are considered legislative Hail Mary’s, in that the ruling party generally has its own priorities and, even if it supported the intentions behind another party’s efforts, would have to share bragging rights should the bill buck the odds and be passed into law.

Sports betting operator SportPesa has officially resumed its Kenyan-facing operations – for real, this time – although how long it remains available remains to be seen.

On Tuesday, the ke.SportPesa.com domain and its associated iOS and Android apps finally began accepting wagers from Kenyan bettors, nearly one month after the first attempt to revive the SportPesa brand ran headlong into regulatory roadblocks.

SportPesa Kenya’s official Twitter feed has been busy advising new customers on how to open accounts, make deposits and place wagers, while instructing bettors who were SportPesa customers prior to the company’s 2019 market exit on how to reactivate their existing accounts.

SportPesa exited Kenya following a prolonged tax dispute with the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) that resulted in the suspension of its license by the Betting Control & Licensing Board (BCLB). SportPesa’s return came via a new BCLB licensee, Milestone Games Ltd, which is majority controlled by SportPesa CEO Ronald Karauri.

Switzerland’s gambling regulator has approved its ninth online casino license, while Swiss online poker players finally have a locally licensed option at their disposal.

On Wednesday, Switzerland’s federal gaming board (ESBK) announced that the Federal Council had extended the license of Casino Neuchâtel to allow it to offer online casino games alongside its land-based offering. The as yet unnamed site will be allowed to launch once the ESBK approves its technical platform.

Casino Neuchâtel is the ninth of Switzerland’s 21 casinos to have made some progress toward launching online operations, although only seven of these online casinos are actually functional. Casinos Austria International’s Casino Lugano, which was cleared to launch in April, has yet to debut its online offering.

Meanwhile, Swisscasinos.ch, the online offering of the Swiss Casinos Group’s Casino Pfäffikon-Zürichsee, recently unveiled its new online poker product, the first of its kind in the Swiss market. Some Swiss-licensed online casinos offer live dealer poker products from the likes of Evolution, but these involve players competing against the dealer, not each other.  

France’s online gambling market shook off its pandemic baggage in the third quarter thanks to record sports and race betting handle.  

Figures released Wednesday by France’s Autorité Nationale des Jeux (ANJ) gambling regulator show locally licensed online gambling operators generated combined revenue of €405m in the three months ending September 30, up 17% from the same period last year and more than one-quarter better than Q2 2020’s result.

Sports betting revenue rose 6% year-on-year to €228m as betting turnover soared 49% to €1.615b, a new record for France’s decade-old regulated online market. The surge came courtesy of a 37% rise in weekly active bettors to nearly 2.2m as major sports resumed activity following this spring’s halt due to COVID-19, although average stakes per player slipped by 22% to €104.

Football drove the results, accounting for 64% of Q3 betting stakes, while the Champions League final between Paris Saint-Germain and Bayern Munich drew over €31m in bets, second only to the final match of the 2018 FIFA World Cup.

When Eldorado Resorts and Caesars Entertainment melded into one, extremely large casino company this past summer, they did so only after having jumped through a number of hoops. One of those hoops was held by the Indiana Gaming Commission (IGC), which was concerned about the newly-formed Caesars holding too much control in the state. As a result, the gaming regulator agreed to sign off on the deal, only if a couple of gaming properties were put up for sale. Horseshoe Hammond was ultimately designated as one of those properties, and the clock started ticking for a new owner to be found. However, Caesars just forced the sale into overtime after the IGC agreed to give it an extension for finding a buyer.

The IGC greenlighted the Caesars/Eldorado merger with the caveat that three properties be sold, or the state would rescind its approval. Caesars had initially wanted to unload just two, but regulators held fast to their position that the company would still have too large a piece of the pie, and a three-casino deal was reluctantly approved. Caesars already turned over Tropicana Evansville to Twin River Worldwide Holdings, which is now known as Bally’s, and is preparing to complete a deal to sell Caesars Southern Indiana to the Eastern Bank of Cherokee Indians. The Horseshoe Hammond is the last remaining piece to go in order to make regulators happy, but the current COVID-19 environment is making things more difficult.

Now, instead of having to find a buyer by the end of this year, Caesars will have until the end of 2021 to see the property change hands. Caesars requested the extension in light of the current economic situation, and the IGC unanimously accepted its justifications. Selling the first two properties, which even included a no-cash-down arrangement with Bally’s, wasn’t as difficult because of the sizes and values of those properties. However, Horseshoe Hammond is the largest casino in Indiana and has 2,235 gaming machines and gaming tables that can seat 1,105 gamblers. During the most recent fiscal year, it saw $309.3 million in revenue, which is substantially more than the roughly $225 million drawn to the state’s second-largest casino, the Indiana Grand.

In addition to placing the need for an extension on COVID-19, Caesars also pointed out that a sudden expansion of gaming in Chicago, which is about two and a half hours to the north in Illinois, is weakening Horseshoe Hammond’s attractiveness. The casino operator believes it might need at least another 18 months to find someone willing to buy the property and, by then, perhaps the IGC will have forgotten its pact.

Online casino sights need to stay on top of the hottest slot offerings to keep up with the competition. We’ve got the newest slots released in the past week, so you can check them out and decide if you want them on your site.

Kalamba Games unveils result of industry-first streamer collaboration Sadie Swift: Guns ‘n Glyphs

Kalamba Games has launched Sadie Swift: Guns ‘n Glyphs, co-developed with Twitch streamer CasinoTest24.

The thrilling title is the result of the industry’s first Twitch streaming competition that Kalamba and Wildz Casino held earlier this year, with the winner invited to collaborate with the game studio to create a slot title. CasinoTest24 was the lucky streamer claiming first place and has played a major part in developing the game.