Almost two years ago, Carousel Group, then an iGaming startup, announced the entry of two new sites to help it gain a foothold in the market. Sportsbetting.com and racebook.com were introduced to the gambling industry and were to be backed by a license by the Malta Gaming Authority (MGA) to serve customers in Europe and Latin America. The company announced via a blog post on its website a few days ago that it has secured a B2C license from the MGA, which is expected to allow for greater growth, especially in the US sports gambling market.

The sportsbetting.com website made its way into Colorado this past September, perfectly timed to take advantage of the state’s new gambling rules just approved earlier this month. That entry was made possible by a license by the Colorado Division of Gaming, and its presence in the state, as well as the new MGA license, are expected to give Carousel better chances for continued expansion in the US and Canada. The company already has its eyes on four other states in the US and, with more than half of the states expected to have legalized sports gambling within three years, that number could potentially climb.

Daniel Graetzer, Carousel’s CEO, says, “We’re thrilled about our U.S. expansion and we look forward to bringing SportsBetting.com to more markets. As our brands become household names in the gaming space, we will make a positive and everlasting impression on the global gaming community.”

Canada has the potential to give the company a serious boost, provided certain laws are changed. In Ontario, the online gaming space is now controlled by the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation; however, the provincial government doesn’t want to keep that monopoly in place. It is planning on opening the online gambling market to private entities, as long as the measure is approved, and allow the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario to start doling out licenses to operators.

The NCAA did not come easily to sports betting. Now that they have, they continue to be worried that their young players could get wrapped up in trouble thanks to player props.

Naima Stevenson-Starks, the NCAA’s vice president for law, policy and governance, expressed her concern about college player props at the Sports Betting USA 2020 online seminar. She’s worried the integrity of games could become a problem if they get pressured into helping sway a bet.

“Unlike the professional leagues, we are now talking about student-athletes attending class with people who may be betting on their efforts on the field or the court,” Stevenson-Starks said. “That’s a concern. If you can think about missing a field goal or a free throw that might make the difference in a result, that’s not the most settling thought.”

The NFL previously faced the same problem, but the volume of action on pro games is much greater, Stevenson-Starks said. A DraftKings representative noted that college props are usually limited to team props. But other sites may offer a player prop from time to time, and internationally licensed books tend to offer more.

The Americas

Guests were evacuated at the Circus City Hotel and Casino as three people were sent to hospital as a result of a shooting at the property; The latest figures from the Association of Gaming Equipment Manufacturers (AGEM) have revealed a surprising downturn in October, despite the industry showing signs of recovery; Figures released by the Maryland Lottery & Gaming body show the industry is on the rebound, as October figures show Ohio casinos recorded record revenue; Tribal casinos continue experience further construction delays due to the pandemic. The San Manuel Casino expansion in Highland is now not expected to open until 2022; With the 2020 US Presidential election now behind us, attention has already turned to 2024. Vice-President elect Kamala Harris is the early market favourite for the 2024 race that also includes Mike Pence and sitting President Donald Trump.

Europe

London’s Park Lane Casino is being sued by a VIP customer, who is claiming that Park Lane Casino reneged on a promise to pay him a ‘commission’ during a multi-day gambling session; The Swedish Sports Federation have extended their partnership with Svenska Spel until the end of 2022, the new deal is set to automatically be renewed, continuing a decade long partnership; English Football League (EFL) side Brentford FC sign a partnership with South African betting operator Hollywoodbets to become the team’s official betting partner; Swedish online casino operators are set to face further restrictions, as the government mulls extending limits on casino deposits; Czech lottery giant Sazka Group is poised for a major expansion after receiving €500m from a US equity firm.

Half of Virginia’s sports betting applicants are going to go home disappointed while Massachusetts casinos want to ensure online-only operators find no favor in their state.

On Thursday, the Virginia Lottery announced that it was reviewing 25 applications for the minimum four/maximum 12 mobile sports betting permits available under the state’s wagering legislation. The identities of these applicants weren’t disclosed, but the lucky recipients will be selected by January 31, 2021.   

That dirty dozen licensees doesn’t include applications “tied to certain major league sports franchises” that call Virginia home. (Since the state has no such entities at present, do its two NASCAR racetracks count?) It does include applications by the four casinos authorized this spring by voters in the cities of Bristol, Danville, Norfolk and Portsmouth.

As the Lottery previously explained, preference will be given to operators with US market experience (and success), along with applicants’ capacity to generate revenue and new jobs, and which at least attempt to attract investors “that are minority individuals.”

Some poker books are built for the age in which they were published. Others, such as Phil Gordon’s Little Green Book, are more universal, evergreen reads. There’s a place for both kinds of book in your poker library.

It goes without saying that if you know poker, then you’ll have heard of Phil Gordon. Having sat across the felt from some of the best in the business, Gordon is an authority on playing poker against big name players.

Not restricted to just tournaments or cash games, the Little Green Book has advice on both and while in other books this makes the content a little wooly, the fact that it’s a little green book and not a massive green book (rejected titles are easy to look back on and laugh about) keeps the tips and tricks concise enough to hit home. 

There’s a strong sense of the editing involved, because the writing is really tight and that’s a great thing. There’s not a wasted page in the book, and it is very rare to be able to say that about any book around poker, purely because there are usually a couple of pages that miss any reader of the game.

The latest EPT Online High Roller title has been won by Mikita Badziakowski, but he was joined on almost exactly the same amount of money by Matthias Eibinger in a two-way deal heads-up that gave both men bragging rights. 

The 2020 PokerStars European Poker Tour Online has only been running for four days, but the big names are already hoovering up the biggest prizes.

Two of those players were Mikita Badziakowski the Belarussian and Austrian high roller powerhouse and Pokercode co-creator Matthias Eibinger, who surfaced in the $10,300-entry event to win just over $220,000 each.

The final nine assembled on Wednesday night and it was a British player who was busted first, with Conor Beresford biting the dust to earn a payday of $33,035. He was followed out of the door by Canadian poker boss Timothy Adams, who banked $39,498 for his efforts.

The English Premier League season lasts 38 games, and by now, with eight games already completed by all 20 teams, one of the 20 managers who take charge of clubs such as Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, Chelsea and Arsenal would have lost their job.

The Premier League Managerial Sack Race future odds are always hotly disputed at the start of the season, and rightly so – it’s an extremely lucrative market if you have any kind of insider knowledge.

There’s precious little of that about, when it comes to this oddest of EPL seasons, with clubs such as Leicester City and Tottenham Hotspur in the top two places and other, more hotly tipped sides such as the Manchester clubs and Arsenal languishing around the halfway part of the table.

No dice on Brendan Rodgers (66/1) or Jose Mourinho (55/1) getting the sack then. But who are the favourites?

Spanish gambling operator Codere continues to bleed red ink in Latin America and its European retail operations are being hobbled just as they started showing signs of life.

Figures released Thursday show Codere generated revenue of €143m in the three months ending September 30, a 58.4% decline from the same period last year. The company reported negative earnings of €70.1m and a net loss of €62.1m, more than twice the €30.7m loss in Q3 2019.

As with Q2 2020, all of Codere’s regional land-based operations reported negative revenue growth in Q3, while the online unit was up nearly one-fifth year-on-year to €18.7m (two-thirds of which came via Spain). The Q3 online total was nearly €5m better than Q2, which suffered from the pandemic halt of major sports activity, although Q3’s online earnings were down 22.3% to €2.7m.

Total LatAm revenue was down 89.5% to €20.9m, as Argentina and Panama contributed precisely nothing during Q3, while Colombia slumped 94% to just €300k. Mexico, traditionally Codere’s second-biggest market after Argentina, fell 89% to €8.4m while Uruguay outshined the lot by slipping only one-third to €12.1m.

More European teenagers may be gambling even as fewer are drinking, smoking and doing drugs, and there appears to be a growing problem of 11-year-olds running wild in UK casinos. 

The latest European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs (ESPAD) queried nearly 100k students aged 15-16 years old in 35 countries — but not the UK — regarding their indulgence last year in a variety of vices, such as alcohol, drugs and other potentially addictive behaviors, including gambling. 

Overall, the report found slow but steady declines in smoking, drinking (particularly binge drinking) and illicit drug use, but around 22% of students gambled in some form in 2019, up from 14% in 2015. That said, the authors note that changes in the phrasing of gambling-related questions make for difficult comparisons with the previous survey. 

Lotteries remain the dominant form of teen gambling at 49% participation, followed by sports or race betting (45%), cards or dice (44%) and slot machines (21%). A much smaller number (7.9%) reported having gambled online last year.

UK online gamblers gave up playing poker in September while sports betting surged with the resumption of Premier League football.

Figures released Thursday by the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) show ‘real event’ betting was the only major gaming vertical to report a revenue increase from August to September, with the return of top flight football pushing betting revenue up 15% to £189.6m. The number of active bettors rose 14% month-to-month while the total number of bets rose only 5%.

Online slots, the Loki of online gambling’s Marvel universe, saw more players make fewer bets, as active player ranks rose 6% from August to September while total slots bets and operator revenue both fell 4%. In fact, September’s slots revenue of £157m was the lowest monthly total since the UKGC began its pandemic market watch in April.

Non-slots casino revenue fell 5% despite the total number of bets rising 2%. The ranks of active casino gamblers fell 4%, meaning the absence of casino dilettantes left the more committed players to shoulder the load. Market-wide, the return of sports resulted in the share of gamblers who wagered on more than one activity falling to 32% in September from 41% in April.

UK gambling giant GVC Holdings is undergoing a metamorphosis of both style and substance as it looks to shut the door on its youthful black market escapades.

On Thursday, GVC announced a plan to rebrand as Entain plc “to reflect the Group’s ambition to be the world-leader in sports betting and gaming entertainment.” Frankly, it’s now unclear what the company’s ambition was prior to Thursday, nor why this goal was unachievable under its former corporate identity but, hey, consultants gotta eat too.

While shareholders will be given the chance to weigh in on this rebranding exercise, GVC/Entain also plans to divorce itself from its former grey/black-market reliance. GVC claimed that 96% of its revenue comes from markets that are “nationally regulated or regulating” but the company has set a goal of pushing this to 99% by the end of this year and to derive 100% of revenue from regulated markets “by the end of 2023.”

The ‘or regulating’ qualifier is a big enough ‘but’ that GVC might well have chosen to rebrand as Kardashian Gaming, in that it’s GVC/Entain that gets to define whether a market intends to legalize or simply tolerate certain gambling activities. Regardless, the company maintains that it will exit markets “in which there are currently no viable paths to regulation.”

This is a guest contribution by John O’Neill. If you would like to submit a contribution please contact Bill Beatty for submission details. Thank you.

If you work in financial services then you’re already aware that knowing your customer (KYC) is not just an essential process, it is also a legal requirement. It’s part of the essential tasks banks perform to tackle anti-money laundering (AML) and other financial crimes.

Back in June 2017, the European Commission’s Fourth AML Directive set out new rules to help combat money laundering. This was supplemented in January 2020 with the Fifth AML Directive, which aimed to increase transparency about who really owns companies and other financial entities.

Similarly, in May 2018, the US Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) required banks to verify the identity of customers who own, control and profit from companies when they open accounts.

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.

JCM Global Again Expands Long-term Partnership with Churchill Downs, Inc. at Newport Racing & Gaming Property

Once again, JCM Global has expanded its long-term partnership with Churchill Downs Incorporated (“CDI”) this time at CDI’s newest parimutuel gaming entertainment venue, Newport Racing & Gaming in Newport, Ky.

Ethereum gained early attention from gambling developpers thanks to it’s small scale ability to create gambling dapps. But fees have continued to hold the blockchain back, and a recent scary example of a $9,300 fee for a single transaction is bound to scare more businesses away.

Reddit user “ProudBitcoiner” was the unfortunate victim of the fee. He explained what happened in a Reddit post.

“If you are curious what actually happened… Metamask didn’t populate the “Gas Limit” field with the correct amount in my previous transaction and that transaction failed, so I decided to change it manually in the next transaction (this one), but instead of typing 200000 in “Gas Limit” input field, I wrote it on the “Gas Price” input field, so I payed 200000 GWEI for this transaction and destroyed my life :/”

The failure has an obvious mix of user error and sloppy code, as the original failure of Metamask to populate a field was then compounded by the user’s error to input an amount in the wrong field. But a professionally built application would have avoided this mess. Those more professional applications haven’t come yet, as large enterprises don’t see the scaling capability they need to build a profitable operation on Ethereum.

The recent announcement by PayPal that it was ready to fully embrace the digital currency ecosystem has already created waves in the overall financial industry, with several experts seeing the move as a definitive precursor to potentially massive adoption. Surprisingly, global awareness of digital currency and its traits and benefits remains relatively low, but this is rapidly changing as a result of major entities like PayPal getting involved. More analysts are now speaking up about what the payments platform’s decision means to digital currency, and everything points to greater adoption happening at a much quicker rate. 

The founder and CEO of InsideChains, Cristina Dolan, sees the PayPal announcement as a huge indication of digital currency’s arrival. Dolan also serves as the chair of the MIT Enterprise Forum, and explained to Cointelegraph, “This is a very exciting announcement that will help increase crypto adoption for traditional value transfer or payments by offering an easy and integrated solution for the 346 million active PayPal users… This may even increase the velocity of crypto and Bitcoin spending across the network while increasing its perceived usability and value as a currency, not just a store of value. PayPal dominates payments processing, yet integrating crypto may also attract new customers.”

Quantum Economics founder Mati Greenspan concurs, asserting, “Yes. This move is likely a huge boon for the adoption of cryptocurrencies in real-world payments. Millions of people who prefer to pay with crypto are always looking for new vendors that accept them. PayPal is now effectively adding 22 million merchants to that list as well as opening the door for its over 300 million active customers.”

Others view the news as potentially good for digital currency, but not necessarily life-altering. One of these is Jimmy Song, a BTC developer and now instructor at Programming Blockchain, who showed that his knowledge of how finances work was kind of hollow, stated, “The only thing that ‘forces’ Bitcoin adoption is the collapse of fiat money, which isn’t happening yet. PayPal’s announcement gives people an additional path to buying Bitcoin to store value or buying altcoins to gamble — that’s it.”

At the end of October, Las Vegas Sands (LVS) acknowledged rumors that it was considering offloading its properties on the Las Vegas Strip. The news came as a surprise to many, considering the multibillion-dollar pockets of its founder and chairman, Sheldon Adelson, and the fact that it had previously been seen as a relatively robust company during the COVID-19 debacle. However, LVS isn’t as strong as some had thought and reported losses of around $1.73 billion across the second and third quarters of the year. Now that the fire sale has been confirmed, industry analysts have begun weighing in on which entities might be at the top of the list to purchase the properties.

Chad Beynon of Macquarie Group Limited believes that Churchill Downs Inc., Galaxy Entertainment and Tilman Fertitta are top contenders for the Venetian, Palazzo and Sands Expo and Convention Center. Galaxy just reported strong earnings for the third quarter of the year, which could give it some breathing room, and Fertitta, owner of the Golden Nugget and the NBA’s Houston Rockets, always has his eye on new assets he can add to his portfolio. Churchill Downs may be a surprise entry on the list, but it also just reported outstanding profit, and being able to capture new casino properties at a bargain would be appealing to any company with the ability to complete the transaction.

Beynon also believes that Crown Resorts could try to throw its name in the hat. However, this is not very likely in the current environment. The Australian casino operator is under extreme pressure back home, and that could cause issues should it decide to try to make a case for its capabilities in Las Vegas, at least until it emerges from the ongoing drama. It’s hard to imagine gaming regulators in Nevada agreeing to approve a company that has been allegedly tied to money laundering and war criminals.

Even without Crown, there is enough interest, and enough money, to make LVS able to reach a deal soon. It is hoping to pick up around $6 billion by selling the properties, and Beynon adds, “Buying Venetian and Palazzo, that’s not just buying a property on the Strip, that’s buying a convention business. The buyers that were looking at Caesars, they’re probably the same ones that would at least look at this. Tilman Fertitta was interested in Caesars, so I certainly think he’d be interested. On paper, it seems like that could work.”

Superbet has a strong presence in Europe and is currently the leading sports gambling operator in Romania. That status is going to come in handy for SportCaller, a free-to-play sports game provider, which is teaming up with the company to get into the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) in Eastern Europe. The two entities have signed a deal that will allow SportCaller to gain a foothold in Central and Eastern Europe, leading to possibly even greater expansion in the region. 

Superbet is often described as the “most influential multichannel sportsbook” in the region, making this a highly lucrative partnership for SportCaller. It will be just as beneficial to Superbet, though, as the company will be able to add a huge portfolio of games that SportCaller currently offers. It has more than 100 games that are now provided in 37 countries and in 20 languages (with the help of advanced translation software), serving Africa, Asia, Australasia, Europe, Latin America and North America. 

Superbet Managing Director (Online) Adam Shaw states, “We’re delighted to have secured SportCaller’s services in this new deal. And the early weeks of this relationship have only bolstered our confidence that the free-to-play vertical will elevate the fun for both new and regular customers, as sports betting continues to rebound from the sidelines.”

Getting involved in the gambling scene in Europe is tricky, as countries have varying regulations and laws that operators need to follow to get started and keep from getting hit with fines. While discussions are in the works to consolidate the individual efforts into one larger framework, this isn’t an easy process and certainly won’t happen overnight. Because Superbet is already embedded in the region, SportCaller will have an easier time of getting into the local jurisdictions and ensuring that it can comply with all the rulesets it will have to watch.