Month: February 2021

The ‘Notice on the surrender of cross-border gambling-related criminal suspects’ was jointly issued by the Ministry, the Supreme People’s Court, and the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, and forms the latest step in China’s ongoing crackdown on gambling.

It targets individuals that would face charges of organising or facilitating illegal gambling, as set out in Article 303 of China’s criminal laws, as well as the customers of these operations. 

Any of those people, provided they come forward by 30 April this year, will be handed a lighter punishment, and in some cases no punishment at all, in return for confessing their crimes. 

They will be permitted to surrender either directly in person, or through a third party communication such as a letter, email or phone call. 

How much they are able to mitigate their crimes – by providing information on the criminal activity of others evidence that helps shut down illegal gambling operations – will influence how lenient a punishment they receive.

The individuals that cooperate as fully as possible with operators may then be exempt from any punishment for their “significant meritorious service”. 

However those that fail to surrender by 30 April will instead face “severe” punishment from the Chinese authorities, the notice warns. 

Finally, the notice looks to encourage individuals to report crimes involving gambling by offering police protection from threats and retaliation. Any threats issued in the wake of the individuals cooperating with the authorities will also be investigated in full, the Ministry added. 

Liao Jinrong, director general of the Ministry of Public Security’s international cooperation department, said the notice demonstrated the Chinese government’s ongoing commitment to cracking down on cross-border gambling crimes. 
The new notice looked to offer those directly involved in illegal gambling a clear and unambiguous way to “step away from the precipice” of criminal activity, he explained.

Furthermore, this would help deter those gambling via illegal sites or overseas providers, Liao said.

For the players that regularly travel overseas to gamble large sums, a pilot programme is being run in three provinces, including Zhejiang, to restrict their travel and financial transactions. To date, more than 35,000 individuals have been identified and punished through this initiative. 

This will be followed by ramping up efforts to identify and punish online gamblers. The Ministry will look to use technology to identify and track players, punishing those spending large sums, and running education programmes for low-level customers. 

For the upcoming Chinese New Year public holiday, a particularly busy time for overseas gambling, Liao said the Ministry would from strike teams, to crack down on illegal junkets.

This continues a series of government efforts to restrict gambling in China, which have been stepped up in recent years. 

This has included the authorities putting pressure on their counterparts in other countries such as Cambodia and the Philippines, as it pursues those operating the illegal businesses. 

State Councillor and Minister of Public Security Zhao Kezhi was appointed early in 2020 to lead a drive to step up enforcement activity, and promote the Sports and Welfare Lotteries as the only forms of legal gambling in the country. As part of this Zhao aims to set up a blacklist of banned sites.

The Ministry of Public Security then warned in April last year that it would look to block transactions to offshore sites, and freeze bank accounts. This followed a rise in illegal gambling as the country went into lockdown as a result of the novel coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic.

In the three months to 31 December, 2020, the Unibet and 32Red operator said 4.3% of gross winnings revenue came from at-risk gamblers. The group added that it had achieved an improvement effect after interventions figure of 75.7% in the same period.

Nasdaq Stockholm-listed Kindred said it has decided to publish the figures as part of its commitment to achieving zero revenue from harmful gambling by 2023 and increase knowledge and transparency about the company’s sustainability work and contribute to a fact-based dialogue about harmful gambling with decision-makers and other stakeholders.

“Our ambition is that zero per cent of our share of revenue should come from harmful gambling, which we have worked towards for several years,” said Henrik Tjärnström, Kindred’s chief executive.

“We constantly strive to become even better at identifying players that exhibit risky gambling behaviour and guide them back to healthier gambling habits. We want gambling to be simple and enjoyable for everyone.”

The figures concerning improvement effect after interventions are particularly interesting as Kindred outlined its system of identifying changes in a player’s behaviour and then informing them about tools that can be activated to limit his or her gambling.

In 2020, Kindred conducted approximately 55,000 care calls to inform players about how they can gamble safely and responsibly, and how they can introduce restrictions to their own gambling, such as deposit limits. 75.7% of Kindred’s detected players displayed a healthier gambling behaviour after being in contact with Kindred’s Responsible Gambling team.

Tjärnström added: “Reducing harmful gambling in society is a long-term process which requires a fact-based, open, and constructive dialogue, not least with decision-makers. We want to contribute to that.

“The most important thing decision-makers can do right now is to reduce the flight to unlicensed gambling operators, who fail to provide players with any safety measures whatsoever. The so-called channelisation must increase.”

The latter point comes just days after a study published by professional services giant PWC found that gambling via unlicensed websites has grown significantly in Britain since 2018. The amount of individuals that used an unlicensed site more than doubled from 2.2% to 4.5%.

In response to the PWC findings, BGC chief executive Michael Dugher said: “This new report by PWC is an impressive and comprehensive piece of work which demonstrates how the unsafe, unregulated black market is a growing threat to British punters. “These illicit sites have none of the regulated sector’s consumer protections in place, such as strict ID and age verification checks, safer gambling messages and the ability to set deposit limits.”

In a separate study published last week, the University of Oxford’s Department of Social Policy and Intervention found that the top 1% of gamblers’ deposits averaged 58% of their income.

In 2020, German operator Tipico published the percent of its turnover that comes from problem gamblers, arriving at a figure of 2%, which is lower than the German government’s estimate of the overall rate of problem gambling in the country.

The developer had previously announced plans to list on the exchange, offering 33.3m shares. Of these 33.3m shares, 15m will be newly issued, while 18.3m are existing shares, mostly held by major investors such as Big Bets OÜ, which is owned by company founder Anton Gauffin and holds 42% of Huuuge shares.

Institutional investors will be offered 31.6m of the shares, with the remaining 1.7m offered to retail investors.

“We are a global company on a mission to empower billions of people to play together,” Gauffin said. “Today we are taking a major step forward by welcoming all our new shareholders, who will join us as we bring social gaming to an ever greater number of players around the world. 

“We are delighted with such a positive response from investors across the globe, which we believe reflects the confidence in our growth plan and strength of Huuuge’s social and global business model.”

Following the completion of the IPO, Gauffin’s Big Bets OÜ will hold 30.7% of Huuuge shares, having held 42% before it began.

Based on the PLN50 offer price, Huuuge’s market capitalisation would total 4.20bn

Last month, Huuuge revealed that it intends to use more than 90% of the PLN565m it raised through the sale of new shares to pursue acquisitions of other social gaming studios.

It said it was hoping to target established studios with both “compelling return on advertising spend” and potential for further growth and valued between $20m and $300m, and had already identified around 60 possible acquisition targets.

Huuuge shares will start trading on the exchange from 19 February.

“Becoming a public global company starts a new chapter for Huuuge,” Gauffin said. “It means we are ready to accelerate our build & buy growth strategy, building our smart network and portfolio of games, continually advancing the social gameplay experience with new innovations and ideas, and realising new opportunities to bring people together.”

Featuring gaming content from software providers such as TrueLab, GameArt and BGaming, users will be able to play wide range of slot games.

GamblersArea.com has its own unique currency known as ‘Diamonds’, which users can earn by playing games and swap for more gaming coins.

Members will also have the opportunity to bet along famous streamers such as DeuceAce and PressPlayTTV.

In addition, for players that want to gamble with real-money, GamblersArea.com features links to other casino sites, where members will have access to welcome offers and bonuses.

“Our vision is to create an innovative social casino platform for the live streaming community and players,” GamblersArea.com chief operating officer Martin Edwards said.

Operators offering virtual games would have to pay 10% tax on gross gaming revenue from these games, should the Board’s recommendations be adopted.

The Board is responsible for the regulation of gambling in Tanzania, while the organisation also advises the national government on taxes, levies and fees for gambling.

The government approved the legalisation of virtual gambling games as part of a number of amendments to the country’s Gaming Act announced in October 2019. However, a tax rate for these activities is yet to be confirmed.

Stakeholders wanting to comment on the proposed tax rate must do so by 7 February.

Aside from virtual games, the 2019 amendments also set out a number of other changes, including new licence categories for profit lotteries, service providers, entities supplying goods or services to operators, and gaming consultants.

The Board was also given new powers to approve operators to advertise their products, ending a partial bans on advertising in the country.

Total revenue across all verticals and channels declined 8.1% year-on-year to €103.5m (£90.7m/$124.4m), with the online advances accompanied by a 39.1% drop in land-based revenue to €43.9m.

With customers confined to their homes between March and May as a result of the novel coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic, igaming participating grew sharply. 

Total customer spend surpassed $1bn, a 64.3% year-on-year increase, while total revenue grew to €59.6m. 

Category A slots – with uncapped payouts and stakes – were the primary source of online revenue, after the product’s total almost doubled year-on-year to €29.4m. 

Despite major sporting events being suspended between March and mid-May as a result of Covid-19, sports betting contributed the second largest share of any vertical. 

Betting revenue was up 10.5% to €26.5m, on stakes of €444.1m, a 5.2% improvement on 2019. 

Online table game revenue soared, albeit from a low base, to €1.9m, while revenue from Category B slots was up 47.4% to €1.2m. 

After Covid-19 pandemic forced in-person facilities to shut their doors from 16 March to 17 May, Lithuania’s land-based market struggled, however.

Customer stakes across all products fell 39.5% below the prior year’s total, to €288.6m.  

Category B slots – which limit stakes to €0.50 per spin and have win amounts capped at 200 times the original stake – made up the majority of revenue for the year, at €20.3m, down 37.9%

Table games followed, though again revenue fell, to €10.2m. Category A slot revenue – with uncapped stakes and winnings – dropped 36.1% to €7.8m. 

Retail sports betting’s contribution, meanwhile was almost halved, to €5.7m. Not only did the sector face the Covid-19 shutdown, but also saw most major sporting events suspended as a result of the pandemic. 

The country’s national lottery Olifėja also reported a year-on-year decline in revenue for 2020. Ticket sales fell 6.7% to €106.3m, and after payouts to players, this left revenue of €46.9m, down 5.9%. 

The country’s regulatory body, the Gambling Supervision Service within the Ministry of Finance, is preparing to tighten controls for the industry in the wake of allegations of gambling being used to launder money.

This will see licensees required to implement new KYC processes, while land-based venues must only allow registered customers to gamble.

Last month, the regulator also reported a year-on-year rise in people signing up for its self-exclusion register. By the end of 2020, 17,348 individuals had voluntarily blocked access to gambling.

The original deal, signed in September 2019, was limited to the US, but the new arrangement will see the sponsorship deal extended to Canadian fans.

DraftKings has served as the exclusive sponsor in the NFL’s DFS category since entering into the partnership in 2019. This has also allowed DraftKings to access NFL branding and collaborations on product and content offerings across the DraftKings app and NFL Media properties.

“The popularity of Daily Fantasy in Canada continues to rise, providing a great point of connectivity for our fans to engage with the NFL,” NFL Canada director of corporate partnerships Gavin Kemp said.

“As the official daily fantasy partner of the NFL in Canada, this partnership with DraftKings will enhance the Canadian fan’s experience with unique and innovative gaming experiences.”

Read the full story on iGB North America.

Hernando will join Greece-based Kaizen from William Hill, where he had most recently been serving as chief marketing officer and managing director of the operator’s international business.

In the role, which also covered the Mr Green segment, Hernando was responsible for the 12 markets outside the US and the UK where William Hill operates.

Kaizen said the appointment forms part of its strategic plan to add international experience to its management, to support expansion plans for its Betano brand.

Betano operates in Brazil, Portugal, Germany, Romania, Greece and Cyprus.

“I’m looking forward to contributing to our ongoing success in positioning Kaizen as a leading player in our operating markets, and in leveraging the international opportunities and challenges that will no doubt arise, in our pursuit to continue growing aggressively our foothold in the international GameTech arena,” Hernando said.

Kaizen chief executive George Daskalakis added: “I am confident Julio’s experience, talent and drive along with his positive character and team spirit will contribute to our ongoing effort to establish ourselves as one of the leading companies in the industry on an international level.”

The appointment comes after Kaizen last month also named Claus Jansson as its new head of affiliate marketing and media buying.

Sazka-owned OPAP has a 36.75% stake in Kaizen’s business, and in November acquired a further 15.48% stake in Stoiximan Group’s Greek and Cypriot operations from Kaizen, bringing its stake in this part of the business to 84.48%.

Spasov had been the supplier’s interim managing director since December 2019, and will now take on the role on a permanent basis. He has previously held several executive positions, including chief executive, at other companies with links to the igaming business

“I am very excited about the multitude of opportunities that lie ahead for BtoBet,” he said.

“In the past year alone, the company has proven its resilience despite external pressures, and I have no doubt BtoBet will continue to establish itself as a major player in the industry.’’

Dima Reiderman, meanwhile, joins BtoBet as chief operating officer from the supplier’s parent company, Aspire Global. Reiderman served as Aspire’s chief operating officer for more than two years.

The supplier said Reiderman has played an integral role in the growth and success of Aspire Global during his seven-year tenure with the company.

Reiderman said: ‘’My main aim is to not only ensure that BtoBet excels with its sportsbook product in new markets but to maintain leading positions in emerging markets such as Africa and Latin America.”

BtoBet was acquired by industry supplier Aspire Global in September 2020, in a deal worth €20m (£17.5m/$24.0m).

Aspire’s chief executive Tsachi Maimon said the acquisition meant the business would be involved in all major areas of online gambling, thanks to access to BtoBet’s Neuron 3 sports betting platform.

Commenting on BtoBet’s new appointments, Maimon said: “Zoran and Dima’s addition to BtoBet’s top management is intended to maintain the company’s current growth momentum and aggressively expand its technologies into new markets, with Europe and the US being high on the agenda.”

“I am more than confident that Zoran and Dima will be an invaluable asset for BtoBet in executing the company’s vision.”

The supplier signed a number of high-profile supply deals in 2020, including with operators William Hill and Betfair, both of which entered into the Colombian igaming market in early 2021.

Under the deal, GiG will provide its igaming platform technologies to PlayStar, which plans to go live in New Jersey during the fourth quarter of this year.

Earlier this week, PlayStar announced it had partnered Atlantic City’s Ocean Casino Resort to secure market access in the state. It then aims to expand into other markets from 2022.

“PlayStar Casino is setting out to offer an online casino experience with a difference that will stand out from the current offerings in the market,” PlayStar co-founder and executive vice president Adam Noble said.

“GiG has earned a reputation for being a very formidable and trusted technology partner in Europe, so when we were assessing platforms for our market entry into New Jersey, we’re very confident in selecting GiG as our platform partner.”

Read the full story on iGB North America.