Month: February 2021

Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced a “roadmap out of lockdown” in Parliament today, with a phased reopening of society starting from 8 March. 

The roadmap documents did not include any specific mention of betting shops, casinos, bingo halls or adult gaming centres.

However, a Downing Street spokesperson confirmed to iGB that betting shops will open in the second stage – starting on 12 April.

Other gaming venues will all open in stage three – expected to start on 17 May.

Johnson said that all stages of reopening would depend on data about the spread of the virus and that there would be at least five weeks between each steps. This means an earlier step being pushed back would see subsequent steps pushed back by the same time.

All gambling venues in England have been closed since at least 5 January, when a third lockdown began. However, many facilities had been closed much longer due to regional restrictions imposed under the preceding tiered system.

Last week, gambling industry body the Betting and Gaming Council (BGC) urged the government to allow betting shops and casinos to reopen at the same time as other similar businesses, after many faced extended closures in earlier lockdowns.

“Betting shops must be allowed to reopen alongside other non-essential retail,” he said. “Last summer, when most betting shops were able to open, they showed that they have best-in-class anti-Covid measures compared to any other part of the high street to protect customers and staff.

“Likewise, casinos are eager to help Britain get back on its feet. The night-time economy has taken a hammering during the pandemic and draconian restrictions, including the 10pm curfew, have made a difficult situation more desperate for many businesses.”

Johnson said that this reopening schedule would be a “one-way” road, with the aim of no reintroduction of restrictions once they are lifted.

While the rules will only apply to England, the Prime Minister said his government was working closely with the devolved governments of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland on the lifting of measures.

The announcement comes three months after Lottery.com owner AutoLotto and New York-listed Trident signed a binding letter of intent to acquire the broker in November 2020, with the combined group estimated to have a post-business combination enterprise value of approximately $526m.

The two parties said the deal will ensure Lottery.com – which provides official lottery games such as Powerball and Mega Millions and enhanced regulatory capabilities by developing innovative blockchain technology – is well-positioned to accelerate its revenue growth through further expansion in its existing markets and into new high-growth markets both domestically and internationally.

The parties said that Lottery.com will be boosted by a $45m growth fund as soon as the transaction is completed, expected by the end of Q1 2021.

Read the full story on iGB North America

Penn Interactive, which is already live in Pennsylvania and Michigan, will gain ‘second skin’ access to the New York market, subject to legislation being enacted and regulatory approvals, through Capital Region Gaming’s licence.

In announcing the 20-year deal with Rivers Casino, Jon Kaplowitz, Penn National’s senior vice president of interactive gaming, reiterated the group’s backing of a multi-operator market in one of the US’s most populous and potentially profitable states.

“Gaining potential access to what could become one of the nation’s most lucrative sports betting markets has been a major priority for our company,” said Jon Kaplowitz, Penn National’s senior vice president of interactive gaming.

“We are hopeful that the New York State Assembly will follow those leading revenue producing states that allow for multiple skins for mobile sports betting. A state the size of New York certainly warrants open competition and a free market approach.”

Penn Interactive said it anticipates operating its Barstool Sports mobile sportsbook app in at least 10 states by the end of 2021. Kaplowitz said Penn Interactive has been encouraged by its performance so far in Michigan, where as well as sports it has also launched its Barstool-branded online casino.

Read the full story on iGB North America

The Magic Jackpot brand currently offers gaming machines at 940 of SuperBet’s retail outlets in Romania and Poland. The brand then also expanded into igaming when SuperBet acquired online operator Lucky 7 last year, with SuperBet opting to use the Magic Jackpot brand name for its online operations in Romania.

“I am excited that we have gone to live in Romania with Magic Jackpot, a well-recognised local brand, with a retail footprint across the country,” GiG chief commercial officer Ben Clemes said. “GiG’s technical igaming platform combined with the local experience of Superbet and operational expertise at Magic Jackpot will provide a market-leading experience to their players.

“It’s a proud moment for GiG to power the launch of a new brand while entering another regulated jurisdiction, which we have seen accelerate over the past few years and we look forward to developing our presence further throughout 2021.”

Lucky 7 co-founder Magnus Petersson said it took a combined effort from Lucky 7, Superbet and GiG to produce the Magic Jackpot online product in Romania.

“The Romanian project started back in June and was a completely new market for us, but with the help from Superbet and GiG we managed to pull it off in eight months,” Petersson said. “Considering it is a highly regulated market, eight months is a great achievement we all can be proud of. 

“We’re fortunate to partner up with the largest sports betting and casino operator in Romania and among the top 30 in the world.”

The case against the New York-listed business has been filed at the Southern District of New York on behalf of investors who purchased or otherwise acquired common stock of Fubo from 23 March 2020 to 4 January 2021.

The class action period includes the date when Fubo acquired daily fantasy sports supplier Balto Sports in December 2020. At the time, Fubo co-founder and CEO David Gandler said the operator sees the “online wagering space as complementary to our sports-first live TV streaming platform”.

Wolf Haldenstein Adler Freeman & Herz LLP, leading the action, cited Lightshed Partners analyst Richard Greenfield’s claims in December that Fubo’s chances of achieving success in sports betting were “pure fantasy”. Lightshed further observed that the company “[may be] the most compelling short we have ever identified in our career as analysts”.

Wolf Haldenstein said that during the class period Fubo made materially false or misleading statements pertaining to the sustainability of its growth in subscribers and profitability, and likelihood of cost escalation.

Read the full story on iGB North America

Ucar will be responsible for Luckbox’s global content strategy and will play a major role in its marketing plans. 

“Content marketing is a key pillar of our player acquisition and brand strategy as we target growth for Luckbox and Nevzat will play an integral role in that,” Luckbox chief executive Quentin Martin said.

He joins from Red Bull, where he served in the same role since 2019, having also previously worked as head of video and broadcast at Riot Games and art director at Fox International Channels.

“I am a lifelong gamer, and Luckbox’s business targeting the most potentially lucrative esports sector is a compelling opportunity for me,” Ucar said. “This is a global opportunity to shape our esports community, content and strategy and have fun while doing all of it.”

Martin added that Ucar’s interest in gaming helped make him an ideal choice for the role.

“Having someone of Nevzat’s pedigree on board strengthens our marketing team and, importantly, his passion for gaming and esports fits in perfectly with our company ethos.”

Ucar’s appointment follows Luckbox’s selection of Thomas Rosander as chief customer officer earlier this month. Rosander had previously held high-level roles at Dunder, Mr Green and Electronic Arts.

At the start of February, Luckbox announced that it was adding live traditional sports to its offering through a deal with supplier EveryMatrix.

The operator said it chose to make this decision because its focus on its flagship product made it unable to provide the same level of attention to Full Tilt.

“Our commitment to improving PokerStars software and the PokerStars customer experience in recent years has limited the amount of focus and resources we could apply to the evolution of Full Tilt,” Pokerstars said in an FAQ. “We feel it is time to consolidate brands so that everyone has access to the newest features and most innovative games which are available exclusively on PokerStars.”

As all players with any PokerStars brand have a combined universal Stars Account, balances, bonuses, tickets, tournaments and preferences will be intact.

Full Tilt was acquired by PokerStars in July 2012 as part of a settlement with the US government after authorities had unsealed an indictment against both operators in 2011, causing both to shut US real-money operations.

Full Tilt relaunched under PokerStars ownership in November 2012 and migrated onto PokerStars’ platform in 2016.

The combined business was later acquired by Amaya, which became the Stars Group, which was itself bought by Flutter in 2019.

Crocker joins the Sydney-based developer after periods in senior operational roles at NextGen Gaming, SG Digital and Animal Logic. He replaces David Johnson, who last week was promoted to become the new chief executive of the business behind Infinity Reels slots.

Crocker said: “I’m delighted to have joined ReelPlay as COO. I look forward to working across the business to help achieve our aims of building on ReelPlay’s solid existing partnerships whilst delivering on our expansion plans into new markets and verticals.

“With great credit to the team, we enter an exciting period for the business.”

Crocker was a former colleague of Johnson at NextGen Gaming, with the latter switching to ReelPlay in 2018 as it rebranded from Chance Interactive.

Reelplay chief executive Johnson said: “We’re very excited to welcome Mark to the team. As a former valued colleague to many of us, he was on our radar for some time and I’m in no doubt Mark will lead the way in positioning us to deliver on our operational goals.

“With ReelPlay games now extending their global reach whilst we continue to offer game build, math, marketing, integration and commercial expertise to partner studios, it was important to bring in someone of Mark’s calibre to best manage our efforts across the group.”

ReelPlay games are now available to customers in New Jersey and Michigan via the company’s partnership with SG Digital.

In Europe, the supplier continues in core markets with distribution partners SG Digital, Relax Gaming Yggdrasil and Playzido, while a new licensing arm drives value from distributing ReelPlay content to partners.

In 2019, ReelPlay launched the first in the series of Infinity Reels games, a concept where each spin provides the chance to add an additional reel and respin with a progressive multiplier.

The operators have agreed to jointly launch Scout Gaming’s DFS product on ATG.se with a soft launch aimed at the second quarter of 2021, followed by a wider marketing push in the third quarter, in time for the start of the 2021-22 seasons in Europe’s major football leagues.

The addition of fantasy sports is the latest expansion of ATG’s range since Sweden’s 2019 re-regulation, and also marks the first time a major operator has launched Stockholm-listed Scout’s DFS product on the Swedish market.

“I’m very excited to have the privilege of launching our fantasy sports product on ATG.se, thus reaching a wider potential player base than ever before,” said Joakim Renman, Scout Gaming’s chief commercial officer.

“ATG has in a short time proven to be very agile in its expansion into new products. Therefore, it’s not a surprise that they now are first to seize the opportunity of being early mover in a fast-expanding trend within fantasy sports.”

Scout Gaming said the agreement is expected to have a moderate to high impact on its revenues from the second half of 2021 onwards. It cited figures suggesting ATG has the largest market share of Sweden’s total gaming market in 2019, engaging more than 1.3 million customers.

“We try to constantly offer our customers exciting new experiences and are keen to add fantasy sports as, what we hope will be, a key vertical offering for ATG moving forward,” Christian Erlandsson, ATG’s head of sports betting, said.

“We have watched this game format grow in popularity around the world and believe that Swedish customers will also appreciate this exciting product. With our almost 50-year legacy of offering pool games and recent expansion into sports betting we believe that we have primed for a successful rollout of daily fantasy sports to the Swedish sports audience.”

Scout Gaming is headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden with development and operations in Bergen, Norway, and Lviv, Ukraine and Malta. Its existing clients include Betsson Group, Bethard Group and Norsk Tipping.

Cascading symbols and multipliers reveal the magic of a submerged world with a new and unique reel structure.

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Game Type:	Video Slot
Go Live Date (expected):	23 February 2021
Game special features:	– Introducing Big Reels! Symbols follow paths and pay when appearing adjacent. – Up to 40 symbols can appear on a single path and pay up to 9300x the player bet! – Winning symbols are removed and replaced with new symbols until no pays are awarded. – Wins are multiplied up to 15x for cascading games. – Win up to 1,000 Free Games for 9 or more Scatter symbols – The feature can be retriggered! – Buy 3 – 8, 4 or 5 Scatters to trigger the Free Game feature.
Number of paylines:	Big Reels
Number of reels:	No reel strips
RTP% (recorded/theoretical):	Available RTPs – 92.06%, 93.95%, 96.60%, 97.93%
Variance/volatility:	Medium
Number of symbols to trigger feature/bonus?:	3 – 8 Scatters to trigger the Free Game feature.
Can feature be retriggered?:	Yes
Number of free spins awarded?:	From 10 up to 1,000 Free Games
Stacked or expanding wilds in normal play?:	Yes
Stacked or expanding wilds in feature play?:	Yes
Number of jackpot tiers?:	Yes (optional)
Auto-play function?:	Yes (optional)