Monthly Archives: September 2020

Betpoint Group expands its brand portfolio with UltraCasino.com

Wednesday 30th September 2020

Betpoint Group Ltd, the operator behind online casino brands including 21.com and NitroCasino, is expanding its portfolio further with the launch of its most recent site UltraCasino.com.

After successfully launching its first casino, 21.com, in the summer of 2018, the company has since launched another four brands at a rapid pace.

Within the last twelve months, Betpoint Group has experienced a significant growth spurt leading to the release of JustSpin.com in October 2019, NitroCasino.com in early 2020, followed by NeonVegas.com in June, and just after two months, the brand new release of UltraCasino.com.

Caesars and William Hill agree to £2.9 billion deal

In a late night announcement, Caesars Entertainment has confirmed they’ve reached a deal to buy William Hill. The £2.9 billion ($3.7 billion) takeover was announced in a Tuesday night press release, with the deal set to conclude in the second half of 2021.

The companies have agreed to a buyout at £2.72 per share, That’s exactly the price they had confirmed when they earlier admitted to the attempted takeover, and just under Hills’ current trading price of £2.74.

The deal must now be agreed to by 75% of William Hill shareholders. Two rival bids by Apollo Global Management were turned down before Caesars made their winning bid.

Caesars Entertainment CEO Tom Reeg stated:

Japan could delay national IR process for another 6-12 months

Bad news is brewing for Japan’s casino hopefuls. Nagasaki authorities believe Japan’s national government is considering a delay to the integrated resort (IR) proposal process of anywhere from 6 to 12 months, GGRAsia reports.

This information comes from a Nagasaki prefectural assembly meeting on September 28, where unidentified sources were cited believing a delay was being considered.

That works for Nagasaki. Authorities at the meeting noted that a recent survey of casino operators indicated a delay to the request-for-proposal process had majority support from potential IR partners.

If the delay happens, it doesn’t change very much for Nagasaki. In early September, we learned that Nagasaki had placed its RFP process entirely on hold. At the time, this decision was made after Former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had made his intention to resign known, and Governor Hodo Nakamura and Mayor Norio Tomonaga announced they had to reassess the process.

California-to-Las Vegas Bullet train project gets moving

For those who live in Los Angeles, CA, looking to head out to Las Vegas for a weekend of gambling fun, the trip takes about 3 hours and 45 minutes – if you leave at 2 in the morning. Trying to get away during daylight hours is substantially more difficult due to the bumper-to-bumper traffic. A plan is in the works that might make it easier to get back and forth between the two places, however, as long as it can get all the funding it needs. A bullet train connecting Southern California, with Sin City has been discussed for 15 years without making a lot of progress because of its price tag. However, the project has now been given some serious funding that could see it get underway soon. 

Brightline West, as the system would be called, is being put together by Brightline, a high-speed rail operator. The cost for the project has been estimated at around $8 billion, which doesn’t include all the cost overruns and components “accidentally” left out of the equation. To help get Brightline West on track, the operator is going to offer to investors $3.2 billion in bonds that will help fund the construction. 

Brightline West was first branded DesertXpress before being renamed to XpressWest and, later, to Virgin Trains USA. It would include 170 miles of high-speed train service that would initially link Victor Valley, CA, to Las Vegas before adding an additional leg that would tie in Los Angeles. Victor Valley is about 80 miles east of Los Angeles and around 35 miles west of Barstow. 

Brightline already offers rail service in Florida, having established a line from Orlando to Miami. While the CA-to-Vegas bullet train would reduce the travel time by almost 50%, the company needs to do more to attract investors. It hasn’t provided all the details of what the return on investment would be for the bond purchasers, or what the maturity date would be. 

Delaware’s online gambling market continues to raise the stakes

Competition is always a good thing. When companies have to compete for customers, they are more inclined to provide better customer service and deals. When states have to compete for revenue streams, they’re more prone to push legislation, instead of taking five-hour lunch breaks. With what Delaware’s online gambling market is producing, consumers and legislations everywhere are going to find greater deals. The state has released its gambling figures for August, and the numbers are going to make other states jealous. 

Delaware’s population is under one million, but its gambling activity seems to reflect a much larger customer base. According to the state’s report, August saw net revenue from online gambling of $808,623 – 263.4% more than the $222,504 it reported a year earlier. This was also an uptick from the $702,533 the state saw in July, with a total July-to-August increase of 15.1%. 

Gamblers in the state were also big winners. The gross take for table games was $8.41 million and, for video lottery options, it was $11.41 million, for a combined total of around $19.83 million. Out of this, the amount won was $19.08 million. This came as Delaware saw only 571 new online users sign up in the month, the lowest figure since February. The busiest month of this year was April, when 1,410 new registrants were recorded. 

Dover Down took the lead in the state, reporting $331,457 in revenue off of $7.8 million in gross take. Delaware Park moved from first to second after it took $7.4 million in gross revenue and kept $259,988 of that. Last was Harrington Raceway, which saw $217,179 in net revenue off $4.7 million spent by gamblers. These are the only three venues, so far, to have been approved by Delaware’s gambling regulator, the Delaware Lottery, to offer an online option. 

Watch CoinGeek Live for Free

CoinGeek Live has begun! If you haven’t signed up already, you can register for free to watch the whole conference at CoinGeekConference.com.

The agenda begins at 9:00 am EDT (2:00 pm BST) on September 30, but you can login now to check out exhibitor booths and begin networking with others in the Bitcoin world. You can login here.

If you are still on the fence, there’s really no reason not to attend. This is the best place to learn about the superpowers of Bitcoin SV, with its ability to massively scale, provide frictionless payments, and act as a data ledger for the world. You can check out the conference agenda to see what CoinGeek Live has in store, and some of our most anticipated panels

And of course, it’s free! You need to see what CoinGeek Live has in store, so register now.

TG Lab granted MGA licence

Wednesday 30th September, 2020 – TG Lab, the leading omni-channel platform provider, has been granted its Critical Gaming Supply Licence by the Malta Gaming Authority (MGA). 

This B2B licence provides the business with the opportunity to strengthen its position as a technology supplier within Europe’s iGaming industry.

William Jur, TG Lab VP of Business Development said: “Securing our MGA B2B licence is a major milestone for our business as we continue our expansion. Our omni-channel iGaming software service is now more readily available and enables us to strike more mutually beneficial partnerships.”

TG Lab provides modern and robust sportsbook and iGaming platforms for leading regulated operators across Europe. TG Lab’s turnkey technology is already certified and has a proven track record in Sweden, Denmark, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. There are plans in place to expand into Spain, United Kingdom and Australia. 

Spectacle Entertainment VP John Keeler indicted for campaign fraud

Spectacle Entertainment doesn’t seem very entertaining right now. Former Indiana State Representative John Keeler, now the casino operator’s VP and general counsel, has been indicted by a federal grand jury, along with another former lawmaker, of violating campaign finance laws in the state of Indiana. An investigation launched earlier this year led to the grand jury indictment, which could, if regulators choose to go that route, cost Spectacle its gaming license. 

Keeler and former Indiana Senator Brent Waltz were hit with the charges after an investigation into Walt’s attempt at getting a seat in Congress in 2016. That didn’t go well; however, things got worse when Waltz became the subject of an FBI investigation into campaign fraud. That investigation ultimately uncovered the scheme that Keeler had put together, and resulted in Waltz being charged with conspiracy, falsification of documents, providing false statements, obstruction of justice and receipt of illegal campaign funds. For his role, Keeler is looking at four charges tied to the facilitation of illegal campaign funds. 

Everything goes back to 2015. At the time, Keeler was VP and general counsel of New Centaur LLC, which has had ties to Spectacle over the years. Keeler hatched a scheme to try to bypass the controls placed on the caps for political campaign contributions, working out a deal with political consultants to fudge invoices that were designed to look like legitimate service receipts. However, the payments received for those services were actually campaign contributions. 

According to the indictment, which was unsealed yesterday, “[The political consultants] never performed any of the services reflected in the two fake agreements, and neither Keeler nor any other New Centaur, LLC employee ever followed up to request the performance of these services. Each Straw Donor contributed by check a donation of $2,700 to Brent Waltz for Congress, and [the political consultants] reimbursed each Straw Donor using the money from New Centaur, LLC. [The consultants] also contributed $2,700 each to Brent Waltz for Congress, and reimbursed themselves with the money from New Centaur, LLC.”

Head of Paraguayan soccer club permanently booted from the sport

About the only thing left for Marco Antonio Trovato Villalba to do is dream about soccer. The president of Olimpia, a soccer club out of Paraguay, has been given a lifetime ban by FIFA from anything and everything related to the sport after he was found to have tried to rig games in an embarrassing match-fixing scandal. The embattled executive could choose to appeal the decision, but that isn’t likely to find much sympathy. 

FIFA’s Disciplinary Committee met about a week ago and cut in time to discuss Villalba and his antics. According to the committee’s notice, he was ultimately found guilty of “match manipulation and of failing to comply with his duty to collaborate during disciplinary proceedings in violation of the FIFA Disciplinary Code.” While it doesn’t explain how the match-fixing had taken place or which specific games were involved, the committee explains that the games had taken place in 2018 and 2019.

Villalba was determined to have violated two specific articles of FIFA’s Disciplinary Code, Article 18, which addresses manipulation of games, and Article 20, covering individuals’ obligations to respond to requests by FIFA regarding investigations into possible wrongdoing. Apparently, Olimpia’s leader decided he didn’t have to help the organization determine what had happened, which only incriminated him more. According to that same code, and its Article 56, Trovato Villalba has ten days to appeal, and that appeal will go before the same FIFA Appeal Committee that delivered his sentence. 

In addition to having been given the boot from soccer, Villalba will also have to break out the wallet. FIFA has slapped him with a fine of 100,000 Swiss Francs, or $108,520. It wasn’t clear if he will be forced to relinquish his seat as the president of Olimpia, which he had won during an election by the team’s shareholders in 2014. He took over for Oscar Carisimo Netto at the time, getting 1297 votes of the roughly 1516 that were cast. 

The NFL just got intercepted by COVID-19

Everything had been running smoothly in the 2020 NFL season. Through the first three weeks, other than a spate of injuries, there had been no problems with COVID-19; only one case had been reported. That all changed yesterday, however, when the coronavirus stepped up its game and took out nine people on a single team. The ramifications are troublesome and now have the league and all franchises scrambling to figure out how best to contain the situation. 

The Tennessee Titans reported yesterday that three of the team’s players and five members of its staff had tested positive for COVID-19. To avoid the possibility that the results were a false alarm, everyone had to go through additional testing, which confirmed that they are definitely infected. DaQuan Jones, Beau Brinkley and Tommy Hudson were placed on the Titans’ Reserve-COVID-19 list as a result. The staff members weren’t named. 

The announcement forced the Minnesota Vikings to jump into action, as well. They had hosted the Titans this past Sunday and, in addition to losing by one point, could have seen COVID-19 jump the lines and infect someone on the squad. However, according to initial tests, no Vikings player has returned a positive result. 

Still, both teams have decided to temporarily close their facilities and halt practices – the Titans don’t anticipate getting back to work until this Saturday. That’s not necessarily a good game plan, though, as going into a Sunday game after four days of no practice is not a smart move. The Titans, which are supposed to take on the Pittsburgh Steelers this coming weekend, would simply be asking to have more players end up on the injured reserve list. 

Steven Salz talks about the mentality of an esports bettor

Now that we know there’s a potentially strong market for esports betting, the industry is doing its best to understand how it can cash in long term. Steven Salz, CEO and Co-Founder of Rivalry, has catered his offering to the market and knows it very well, and he joined our Becky Liggero Fontana to discuss the mind of the esports bettor.

Rvialry operates in many markets across the world, allowing Salz some insights into which have shown the most interest in esports. “Our biggest markets at Rivalry are predominantly the Latin American region, a few of the European countries and then you know we lightly touch CIS, so call it Russia, Ukraine,” he said. “But you know at least 50% plus of our business on any of the month is out of South America.”

But what doesn’t necessarily work, Salz noted, is just throwing up an esports offering and expecting it to do the same in every country. You have to know what’s popular for a given demographic. “As a perfect kind of dichotomy, you have like Mexico and Brazil,” he started with as an example. “So of the three biggest or most viewed esports being League of Legends, Counter-Strike and DOTA, which also is the three most bet on esports, in Mexico there’s really no Counter-Strike or CS:GO player base that’s really too significant, nor is there really a huge audience. It’s the same thing actually for DOTA, but League of Legends is quite big there. So League of Legends betting and League of Legends viewership is much bigger in Mexico than any of the other titles, whereas in brazil, Counter-Strike, which has been around for 20 years, is practically religion there.”

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BjtIVbXEcY]

Scientific games to host Mediafest 2020, a live virtual event to share future of sports betting, iGaming & iLottery

Mediafest 2020 to feature thought leadership on latest in sports betting research, Q&A opportunities and discussion on recent partnerships

Company Today Announced Five-Year Contract Renewal with Long-Term Customer Flutter Entertainment to Continue Providing its OpenSports Technology to Operators’ Portfolio of Global Brands

New York, NY — Scientific Games, providers of the technology behind Draft Kings, Fanduel, BETMGM and more, will host an exclusive live event for industry leading media experts on the future of the mobile sports betting and the i-gaming world. This invite only event will detail the latest in sports betting research by partner Eilers & Krejcik, the exponential growth and performance in the field in sports betting, iGaming and iLottery, and thought leadership and Q&A opportunities from Barry Cottle, President and CEO, Scientific Games and Jordan Levin, Group CEO, Scientific Games Digital amongst other industry leaders. Mediafest 2020 will also feature discussion on recent partnerships. This event is an opportunity to get invaluable market context while hearing about Scientific Games’ plans for the future.

RSVP to event here: [email protected]

Albania opens tender for casinos in capital Tirana

Albania’s gambling regulator has launched a tender for casino operators looking to open in the country’s capital Tirana.

Last week, the Albanian Gambling Supervision Authority published a notice inviting casino operators to submit proposals for swanky gaming venues in a designated area in the center of the capital. The submissions must be received by the regulator by October 22, with the review of these documents commencing the following day.

Under the legislation Albania approved earlier this month, companies wishing to conduct casino operations in Tirana must have experience in this field and capital reserves of ALL1.2b (US$11.4m), strongly suggesting that nobody’s expecting a Macau-style $4b integrated resort here.

Over the past decade, Albania’s collection of several dozen small casinos was systematically purged out of existence, along with most other forms of gambling, including online gambling. By 2019, the market was down to a single casino in Tirana’s Regency Hotel, and that venue’s license recently expired.

Mississippi Lottery could begin funding education by 2021

The Mississippi Lottery’s first year in operation has been an eventful one, from selling its first-ever lottery ticket in November 2019 to battling sales dips caused by COVID-19 just four months later. Yet, it’s currently traveling down the road to success, having transferred $70.7 million to the state treasury in less than one year in operation.Financials, Education, Mississippi, Sales

Crown Resorts inquiry provides yet more fodder for casino critics

Australian casino operator Crown Resorts continues to provide fodder for its critics through the endless string of embarrassing revelations emerging from a New South Wales inquiry.

The NSW Independent Liquor & Gaming Authority (ILGA) inquiry into Crown’s suitability to hold a state gaming license resumed this week, and quickly learned that Crown was effectively prevented from doing proper due diligence before its largest shareholder James Packer sealed a deal to sell 20% of Crown to his former joint venture business partner Lawrence Ho.

Ho, who controls Melco Resorts & Entertainment (MRE), is the son of Stanley Ho, the Macau casino icon who died this spring. A condition of Crown’s NSW gaming license was steering clear of Stanley, due to his alleged ties to Hong Kong triads. Australian media eventually uncovered evidence that Stanley held a stake in MRE’s parent company via a trust.  

On Monday, Crown director Michael Johnston told the inquiry that he had “no understanding” that Stanley was connected to MRE and had “no reason” to think otherwise. When ILGA commissioner Patricia Bergin pressed Johnston on whether he’d actually checked if that was true, Johnston conceded that “perhaps we should have looked more deeply.”  

Artur Martirosian wins WPT World Online Championships leaderboard for $50,000

The World Poker Tour’s World Online Championships featured a dozen superb events, which came to a conclusion when Michael Addamo won the $100,000-entry Super High Roller for $1.2 million.

The #WPTWOC Leaderboard was running throughout the series too, with the top players trying to accumulate points to top the chart and win a massive $50,000.

After weeks of competition, the winner of the 2020 WPT World Online Championships was Russian player Artur Martirosian, who won the $50,000 courtesy of amassing 430.87 points, some way clear of British player Scott Margereson, whose 377.94 earned him a $10,000 windfall to add to his $2 million in live winnings in what is a poker career to already be very proud of.

Martirosian is one of the biggest names to emerge on the high roller circuit in recent years. With almost $750,000 in live winnings, his online winnings have gone up and up, with eight cashes in the recent WSOP 2020 Online Series alone.

Lottoland says Australia out to “destroy our business model”

Online lottery betting operator Lottoland is once again fighting for its right to operate in Australia, this time against its own gambling licensing body.  

On Tuesday, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) reported that Lottoland was seeking an injunction against the government of Australia’s Northern Territory and its Minister for Racing over as-yet undisclosed changes to the NT’s Racing and Betting Act 1983.

Like most Australian online betting operators, Lottoland holds a license issued by the Northern Territory Racing Commission (NTRC). The NTRC reportedly informed Lottoland last December of proposed changes to Section 92 of the Act, which, among other things, allows the NTRC to “vary the licence of a sports bookmaker or the conditions to which it is subject or impose additional conditions on the licence.’

Neither Lottoland nor the NT government have publicly revealed precisely what changes the NTRC has proposed. ABC reported that government lawyers told the Supreme Court NT that the changes were in the public interest, but the government declined to clarify what that meant.

Poker on Screen: The Cincinnati Kid (1965)

Some poker comes and goes, especially if it’s conducted by professionals. Oddly, the best in the business often look outdated just three or four years on. Poker moves in cycles and those who always play the same game and don’t evolve get overtaken by new methods of winning. It’s the same reason the flat 4-4-2 is no longer preferred in football. Virtually every top team plays a 4-2-3-1 or 4-3-3, with inside forwards instead of wingers.

In professional poker, you can get left behind very easily if you don’t adapt. This is paradoxically the opposite of poker in the Hollywood movie you’re about to become acquainted with, a scene of poker so timeless, it should be hung in art galleries to be admired and never touched.

When Steve McQueen played the Cincinnatti Kid of the title in the 1965 movie of the same name, he created an enduring character who would live forever in celluloid history.

McQueen’s performance is amazing, casting a dusty sheen over all the action. In this particular scene, McQueen, as Eric Stoner, a.k.a. ‘The Kid’, is taking on a character called Buster in a single hand of poker. Buster, wearing a dark hat and casting a shadow over the table purely through the shade of his scowl, is definable as the baddie before the first bet is made, and quickly bullies everyone else out of the hand.

Poker returns to the Wynn, but will masks and dividers keep players away?

After a staggered process of re-opening, the last poker room to remain closed on the Las Vegas Strip will re-open tomorrow, as The Wynn Poker Room throws open its doors.

Could there be issues with players choosing not return due to the enforced wearing of masks in the card room, or the plexiglass separators between seats at the eight-handed tables?

We’re about to find out.

It’s official @wynnpoker is back Sept. 30th at 12:00pm! Will you be joining us? pic.twitter.com/ClH4MF4mHa