The agreement will provide a framework for cooperation and coordination between the two parties, focused around ensuring sporting integrity in the Spanish market.
This will include projects aimed at promoting regulated betting markets with high consumer channelling and related consumer, sports and operator integrity protection measures.
“Spain is an important market for IBIA members, many of which are also part of Jdigital,” IBIA chief executive Khalid Ali said. “A closer alliance between our associations therefore makes perfect sense, especially with the expected offshore channelisation challenges to the Spanish market from the recent advertising and sponsorship restrictions.”
“IBIA will be working closely with our colleagues at Jdigital to utilise our unique international data to inform and enhance the integrity of that market and its sporting events.”
Jdigital director general Andrea Vota added: “This partnership is a clear sign of Jdigital’s commitment with safe and responsible gambling. Betting is the main activity of online gambling in Spain and it is the industry’s will to keep this segment a safe, trustworthy one.
“We are excited to start collaborating with IBIA, who we consider the best partner in this crusade.”
The new MoU comes after the IBIA last week revealed that it reported 64 suspicious betting events to authorities during the first quarter of 2021, with tennis and esports the main sports of concern.
Two reports in Q1 related to activity of Spain, with both of these in reference to betting on tennis.
Revenue after customer winnings was up by 13.1% from $12.2m in February, the first full month of legal sports betting Virginia after it opened its regulated market on January 21.
The state also saw its handle increase 14.4% month-on-month, which the Virginia Lottery said was helped by the ‘March Madness’ US college basketball tournament. Wagering on college basketball games involving teams outside the state amounted to $83.6m in March, representing 27.5% of total bets for the month.
Players won a total of $277.5m from sports betting during March, while the state collected $1.2m in tax. Sports wagering is taxed at a rate of 15% on each operator’s adjusted gross revenue – total wagers minus total winnings and other authorised deductions.
Tax revenue was split between the state’s General Fund ($1.2m), and the Problem Gambling Treatment and Support Fund ($29,588).
The proposed deal will cost Intema $14.75m; $8m in cash, $4m issued by a secure vendor, and $2.75m in a share issue floated on the TSX Venture Exchange.
A further $3m will be paid if Livestream hits certain revenue targets after the closing date, consisting of $7.5m worth of revenue in the first 12 months and $11.25m after 24 months.
Cheating with respect to match-fixing and betting fraud in esports is relatively high and there are a number of reasons for that. The first is that markets are often offered on matches that have very low prize money, and the markets tend to be bigger than the prize money on offer. That’s very, very tempting, particularly in tier-two and tier-three esports because the guys at that level are struggling financially. They’re aspiring to a level where they see examples of guys who are earning hundreds of thousands and even millions of dollars. In a situation where you can win, say, $2,000 as a team for winning a competition, but you could win three or four times that amount by betting against yourself and losing the match, you create a serious problem there. Relying on people’s simple values and morality to not do that is a massive overstretch, so we need measures to address that challenge.
The prevalence is high and it is regional as well. In particular, we’re dealing with primarily the three major betting products, which are Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Dota 2, and then to a much lesser extent, League of Legends. All other games make up, broadly speaking, “the rest”. None of them are more than 1 or 2% of the market. Counter-Strike is anywhere from 42% to 44% of the global turnover on esports betting, so it’s a very significant game in the betting world, but it’s also a highly unregulated game. The publisher, Valve, doesn’t interfere in the organisation of any leagues or tournaments except with respect to the Majors.
IAN SMITH, INTEGRITY COMMISSIONER, ESIC
What that means is that, by and large, tournament operators ranging from the smallest to the biggest can put on more or less whatever event they choose. That means that the competitive scene is saturated with low-level tournaments and, when you add the fact that many of these tournament operators are severely under-resourced, they don’t have the time, inclination or knowledge many times, to put good measures in place to ensure that match-fixing is, if not eliminated, then, at least, minimised. At the moment, the best way of addressing that is to join ESIC and let us handle the problem. But if you don’t want to do that, then you have to make sure you have decent regulations in place, that you’ve educated your players and, at the very least, have an official data deal with a company that can alert you to the fact that a match is attracting suspicious or unusual betting. Then you stand a chance of doing something about it.
So it’s important to understand the tiers in esports and why they are relevant to esports betting?
Exactly. In the games we’re talking about, we often refer to levels of competition as tier-one, tier-two and tier-three. It is exactly as it sounds on the box. What’s most visible is high-tier competition, often referred to as the Majors, or The International or the League of Legends Championships series, the LCS, the LEC, League of Legends Asian Championship. What that attracts is highly organised teams, often multi-game organisations. If you think of an organisation like FaZe Clan or Team Liquid or Cloud9, these are large organisations with a lot of resources at their disposal. They also offer rosters playing in multiple different games, so a lot of those orgs have teams within them playing Dota 2, Counter-Strike and League of Legends. They might have an Overwatch franchise, they might have a Call of Duty roster. They might have a PUBG roster. They might also have streamers and social media people. In other words, they have a backup system. They have resources; the players earn a lot of money and they play in highly organised series like the ESL Pro League or BLAST Premier. There’s very high visibility to those events, and we refer to those events as tier-one. Those guys are doing really well, and they’re really, really good at what they do.
But of course, like all sports, there’s an aspirational level below that. If you look in the American context, you’d be looking at the difference between different collegiate levels of competition where you have the Big 10 at the top. Different conferences have different tiers of competition, and then they draft to the NFL. Tier-one is the NFL. Everything below that is college, and then you might even say there’s a tier-three and four, which is high school level. The same applies in most esports. The problem is that, at a college level in America at tier-two or three, you have a lot of guys with potential, and they have this aspiration to reach the NFL, but there’s very little space up there. So you know that, of all the players in college football, a tiny percentage, certainly less than three or four percent, will end up being professionals in the NFL. Esports and most sports operate the same way.
It’s very, very competitive at that level because prize money is low and you’ve got a lot of expenses and a lot of competition. When it comes to betting, there’s a great deal of temptation to take the easy win of a little bit of cash in a competition that doesn’t matter too much. Again, there’s no structure. Often, in that level of competition, it becomes about survival, about getting through the next month without having to go get a job. That creates tremendous difficulties because you can often earn more by match-fixing than you can by winning the competition. When there’s no structure, no league, when there’s no ladder that you’re climbing, you can often take a “what’s the harm?” view of certain matches and competitions. There’s no consequence, except, of course, if you get caught.
The figures were compiled using data from operators representing around 80% of the online gambling market. While the Commission has now reported 13 months of data since lockdowns began, it said it was “not advisable” to compare year-on-year figures, due to “different operating circumstances”.
In the final full month of lockdown in England, online slots revenue hit a new monthly high of £202.9m, up 15.2% from February and up 1.5% from the previous high in December 2020. This came as the number of slots players also hit a record high at 3.3 million, up 10.0% from last month and 10.1% from December 2020’s record, while the number of spins exceeded 6 billion for the first time.
The average slot session length declined to 21 minutes, equalling the lowest recorded, but the number of sessions lasting an hour or more grew by 8% month-on-month to 2.7m.
Online sports betting revenue, meanwhile, was down 5.1% to £250.5m, despite the Cheltenham Festival occurring in March. The number of sports bettors surpassed six million for the first time, while the number of bets placed hit a record high of 375.2 million.
Non-slot igaming brought in £71.2m, up 10.8% from February, as the number of online casino players grew 13.0% month-on-month. Poker revenue ticked down to £9.2m.
Virtual betting increased by 17.7% from February, while esports betting grew 16.9%.
Other revenue came to £2.1m, down slightly from February.
The Commission also released a survey in order to examine the extent to which gambling habits have changed since the start of lockdown. The survey follows a previous similar survey conducted in the fourth quarter of 2020.
This survey found that more gamblers reported their gambling had decreased since the start of the first lockdown in March 2020 than increased, by 23% to 18%. However, this gap was much smaller than the 27% to 13% difference in Q4 of 2020.
3% of overall respondents said their gambling increased “a lot” under lockdown, while 12% said their play decreased “a lot”.
In addition, the survey found that those who had gambled three or more times in the month before being surveyed were more likely to report an increase in activity, with 40% reporting an increase compared to 16% who said their play decreased. This included 9% who said their gambling increased a lot.
Men, and particularly young men, were more likely to say their gambling increased.
The main reason given for increased gambling was boredom, with 47% of those who gambled more citing this. This was followed by having more spare time, mentioned by 35%. 20% said they gambled more because they had more money, 33% said they “just wanted to” and 13% said it was to substitute lost income.
The Commission again warned operators to show “extra vigilance” as lockdown eases, as some people may continue to feel isolated and vulnerable.
The Commission also addressed reports that its review into remote customer interaction – notable for its proposal of mandatory affordability checks after player reach a £100 threshold – will be brought under the wider Gambling Act review conducted by the Department for Digital Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS). However, while it said its work on the consultation continues, it did not confirm or deny whether the eventual result would be folded into the Gambling Act review.
“Our work on remote customer interaction continues,” a spokesperson said. “We continue to review the large amount of evidence we received in the 13,000 responses we received to our consultation and call for evidence.
“We will in due course be publishing an update and setting out what our next steps will be, which will focus upon addressing the risks that we currently see in our casework. In the meantime, the Commission continues to take action in relation to any breaches to the current customer interaction requirements that are identified as a result of compliance and enforcement activity.
“This is a vital area to continue to address because whilst some operators have continued to improve their customer interaction processes, our evidence shows that many online operators are not setting thresholds for action at appropriate levels. They are not taking the appropriate action or acting quickly enough when they do identify risks of potential harm.”
The proposed extension was announced last month due to the rate of Covid-19 in Sweden.
BOS chair Gustaf Hoffstedt cited difficulties in consumer protection between the regulated and unregulated sectors and the potential rise in users playing unlicensed games as the body’s reasons for rejection.
Gustaf Hoffstedt
“The restrictions raise the thresholds for licensed gaming, and in other words, lower the threshold for Swedish consumers choosing [unlicensed games].” Hoffstedt (pictured) said.
“It is only the black market that has reason to rejoice at the government’s proposal for continued restrictions for Swedish-licensed gambling companies.”
The restriction, which applies only to online casino games, came into effect in July 2020. It was later extended until June 2021.
Hoffstedt had concerns about the unlicensed gaming market since the weekly deposit cap was introduced last year, telling iGB: “I am very concerned over the fact that this will accelerate the leakage from the Swedish licensing system to unlicensed sites.”
“We already have a problematic level of approximately 25% leakage when it comes to online casino, and with these governmental measures it will only get worse.”
The consultation period closed on May 3.
In 2019 BOS condemned the Swedish Gaming Authority (Spelinspektionen) for what it saw as a failure to stamp out illegal gambling activity. At that time, the Spelinspektionen estimated that licensed gambling in Sweden fell between 85% and 87%, with the remaining percent taken up by unlicensed gaming.
Last month regulator Spelinspektionen called for clarification on the deposit cap in its own consultation response, after the Administrative Court in Linköping overturned sanctions against Kindred regarding a loophole with the cap.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but it was confirmed that Genius will also purchase FanHub’s suite of free-to-play games including fantasy sports, trivia, bracket challenges, pick ’em, and polling games.
Founded in 2012, FanHub provides technology solutions built around its three core service offerings of games, betting and social activation, operating across Australia, the UK, US and Ukraine.
FanHub has partnerships in place with a number of leading sports properties such as US major sports leagues the National Football League, Major League Baseball and Major League Soccer, as well as gambling operators including Betway and PointsBet.
Genius will integrate FanHub’s solutions across its media services, content solutions that it said will help drive customer activity, fan engagement, sponsor activation and lower cost per acquisition.
In addition Genius said the new free-to-play games portfolio will help it to deliver tailored marketing campaigns alongside live odds, rich data and statistics, video highlights and messaging.
Subject to customary closing conditions, the deal is expected to close before the end of the current quarter.
“The acquisition of FanHub will provide our sports, betting and media partners with exciting new content platforms that entirely complement our established data, video and marketing solutions,” Genius Sports chief executive Mark Locke said.
“This transaction is expected to expand Genius Sports’ global audience and reach while accelerating the convergence of sports, betting and media to engage the modern fan.”
FanHub founder, chairman and chief executive Tim Lamb added: “We are delighted to join the Genius Sports family and excited about the potential opportunities for our clients and staff.
“We couldn’t imagine a more complementary partner and together we will offer an even richer fan experience, generate more engagement and offer value to our partners – and fans.”
The agreement comes after Genius last month announced the completion of its anticipated business combination with special acquisition company dMY Technology Group Inc. II.
The deal saw Genius begin trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol GENI and its warrants as GENI WS. The business went public with a valuation of $1.50bn.
Under the agreement, which Better Collective said is the largest acquisition in its history, the affiliate will take ownership of Action on a cash and debt-free basis. Better Collective will fund the majority of the transaction in cash and $12.0m via the issue of new shares.
Subject to customary regulatory approvals, the deal is expected to complete before the end of the second quarter of this year.
Launched in 2018, Action’s media platforms provide original sports news content, insights, lists of odds and proprietary betting tools and data. Action’s revenue model includes an affiliate marketing business focused on customer acquisition for betting operators in the US, as well as subscription products such as Action Pro, Action Labs and Fantasy Labs.
Action, which has commercial partnerships with US-based sportsbooks such as BetMGM, DraftKings, FanDuel and PointsBet, expects to report approximately $40.0m in revenue in 2021.
The purchase price is payable in cash in three instalments over a two-year period, including an up-front payment of $25.0m on closing, $9.6m one year after the deal goes through and $5.0m two years after the acquisition completes.
An additional contingent cash payment of $500,000 will also be due if certain requirements are fulfilled within three years of the transaction date, including if New York legalises sports betting during that period.
Lineups.com specialises in analytics, betting predictions and tools, providing confirmed and projected starting line-ups and rosters for major US sports leagues such as the National Football League, National Basketball Association, Major League Baseball and the National Hockey League.
For the 12 months to April 30, 2021, Lineups.com reported $7.5m in sales, with its sales in the first quarter of 2021 equating to approximately 10% of Catena’s total revenue.
