THE AMERICAS
California’s online poker bills died but the state got a new bill to regulate daily fantasy sports operators; New York’s online poker hearing was remarkably politician-free; EPSN began announcing betting line ‘cover alerts’ on its college football broadcasts; Sportech teamed with Viggle to acquire DFS operator DraftDay; Imperus Technologies acquired social Gamers Akamon; GameAccount Network rebranded as GAN; Caesars Entertainment settled its anti-money laundering problems and Caesars Interactive acquired social gamers Big Blue Parrot; PokerStars struck a deposit deal with Mexico’s largest convenience store chain; Baha Mar Ltd was given a two-month window to find the cash it needs to finish its stalled $3.5b project; Ron Paul warned Republicans that support for an online gambling ban would turn off younger voters; Detroit’s Greektown Casino was fined $500k for stuff its previous owner did; TOPGAME’s Andrei Fantana explained how online poker can take advantage of Oculus virtual reality technology; the 2015 nominees for the Poker Hall of Fame were announced and 2014 WSOP champ Martin Jacobson joined Tatjana Pasalic for the latest installment of Chats with Tats.
EUROPE
Betfair and Paddy Power agreed to merger terms; Betclic Everest Group kissed and made up with Belgian gaming regulators; Sky Betting and Gaming axed its social casino division; eSports betting was tipped to grow to a $1.8b industry by 2020; Russia said it would require bookies to pay a betting right to sporting event organizers; Bwin.party’s two top execs collected £1.65m in bonuses for a job, er, done while Rafi Farber said the decision to sell Bwin.party to GVC wouldn’t end well; the UK Gambling Commission fined Rank Group £950k for anti-money laundering lapses; the MPN poker network decided to allow screen name changes; Joel Comm explained why online gambling companies need to embrace the words like, know and trust while Rebecca Liggero examined how iOS 9’s ad-blocking capabilities will impact the gaming business and recapped all the action at the Betting on Football Conference 2015.