Month: June 2021

The results of a survey commissioned by ANJ and conducted by Harris Interactive showed that 48% of France’s population said it intended to follow Euro 2020, which ANJ said was a proportion similar to those that said they would watch the 2018 Fifa World Cup.

Most of these fans are men and people aged under 50, the regulator said, which is similar to the profile of football fans in France generally.

The survey found that while 49% of those who plan to follow the Euros expect to have a friendly bet with friends or family members, around 31% are also expected to stake money on the games with sports betting operators.

Of those, 63% expect to place bets online and 56% at land-based retail locations.

ANJ offered a reminder to sports betting operators prior to the tournament, that their marketing communications should stress the importance of maintaining a moderate and controlled level of gambling, and that bonus or welcome offers should be explained clearly to potential customers.

In addition, the survey found that 80% of respondents were aware of the harm that can be cuased by gambling.

It said it will closely monitor the bonuses offered to bettors during the tournament, and will also be vigilant on monitoring the player return rate, which must not exceed 85% in sports betting.

For bettors, the regulator offered additional advice, including being careful not to overestimate their expertise or underestimate the likelihood of losing.

It offered a warning for bettors to be vigilant with the advice of tipsters, and any promises of guaranteed earnings, and reminded players not to chase their losses.

Finally, ANJ reminded both bettors and operators of its commitment to fighting corruption and match manipulation in football. It said it is supporting the Anti-Match-Fixing Assessment Group, set up by the Copenhagen Group and the Council of Europe, with Interpol and Europol.

The country recorded a total 2.5 million active sports betting accounts in Q1 2021, with bettors averaging a monthly spend of €45 (£38.66/$54.56). Most bets were placed on football, with tennis and basketball coming is as the next most popular sports for betting.

ANJ said that the first quarter of 2021 saw record sports betting stakes in the jurisdiction, up 79% year-on-year, while the number of sports bettors also increased by 29%.

Club Athletico Paranaense has become the latest football club in Brazil to team up with Betmotion as its new sponsor, after signing a year-long deal. 

The Brazillian football team is the 15th Serie A team to partner up with the bookmaker. Other partners of Betmotion include Novo Basketball Brazil (NBB), Fluminense FC and Brazillian football player Cristiane Rozeira.

The new partnership will see Betmotion’s brand being printed on the club’s football shirts as part of the year-long contract. 

The club’s streaming platform Furacão Live will offer additional exposure to the bookmaker,including exclusive offers and bonuses to Furacão Live members as the club’s games are streamed live.

“Athletico welcomes Betmotion, one of the biggest sports betting entertainment sites,” commercial and institutional relations director at Athletico Paranaese, Mauro Holzmann, said.

“We are proud of this partnership, which we hope will be very long-lasting.”

The club debuted the Betmotion branding in its match with Grêmio in the Campeonato Brasileiro on 13 June.

The partnership was made by LiveMode, which oversees the team’s revenue opportunities.

Georgiev is free to resume his coaching duties with immediate effect, and all costs of the appeal will be absorbed by ESIC.

Georgiev was initially banned for ten months along with 33 other coaches for abuse of a bug in CS:GO’s spectator mode – referred to as the “spectator bug”. Through this bug, coaches could move freely around in-game maps during matches, meaning they could access information on the opposing team’s whereabouts, feeding information back to their teams in order to give them an unfair advantage.

nvestigation into the incident began on 4 September 2020.

Georgiev appealed the decision on the grounds that the sanction was “unduly excessive as to be unreasonable”, claiming that he had no knowledge of the spectator bug’s existence at the time the offence occurred.

He was also able to provide evidence which showed that the offence occurred without his knowledge, thus proving that he didn’t knowingly help his team gain an advantage.

Fellow CS:GO coach Sergey ‘LMBT’ Bezhanov has also had his sanctions subsequently lifted since the initial decision.

Under the deal, the competition will be known as the UESF Parimatch Championship of Ukraine and feature a total prize pool worth UAH1.5m (£39,249/€45,716/$55,398).

Some UAH1.0m of this fund will be awarded to winners, while a further UAH250,000 will be used to purchased game devices as tournament prizes and the remaining UAH250,000 to fund prizes for spectators and fans on social media.

The online part of the competition will run from 17 July to 3 October 3, with the Grand Final of the Championship of Ukraine will take place at the WePlay Esports Arena in the Ukranian capital of Kyiv in mid-October 2021.

Hatemania, EC Dnipro, Purple Pills, and BlackSea have been invited to take part in the semi-final stage of the CS: GO Championship of Ukraine. Burning Fire, BackStreetBoys, Cascade Esports and PayForWin will all take part in the semi-finals of the Dota 2 tournament.

The agreement comes after Parimatch in March became the first operator to secure a sports betting licence in Ukraine.

If passed, the bill – SB 176 – was set to come into force on 1 October, which would kick off the process to allow operators to apply for licences. However, Kirk Schuring, chair of the Senate Select Committee on Gaming, said that a delay would allow all operators to begin on equal footing when the market opens.

“Everybody we’ve talked to says they want an equal start time, so applications for these licences will open up on January 1, 2022”

Licences will then be approved from April 1, 2022.

Read the full story on iGB North America.

EGBA has called on the Italian gaming authority, Agenzia Delle Dogane e Dei Monopoli (ADM), to notify the European Commission of a new draft law which it contends could be in contravention of European Union consumer protection rules.

It said a new tender for nine-year online gambling concessions to be introduced from 2023 would limit the number of online gambling licensees in the country to 40 from the present figure of 120. It would also increase online licensing fees to at least €2.5m, representing a ten-fold rise. Licensing fees would also be determined through an auction process rather than through a fixed cost as is deployed in other European jurisdictions.

“While EGBA appreciates the discretion, within certain boundaries, of Member States to set the cost for gambling licences in their jurisdiction, this is an extremely high concession fee and, coupled with the drastic reduction of the number of online gambling licensees, would be a major barrier to a well-functioning market,” EGBA said in a statement.

“This could potentially also, EGBA believes, weaken the viability of the country’s regulated and licensed online gambling market, in favour of unlicensed operators who can easily be found online by players in Italy.”

EGBA said Italy’s gaming authority has a duty to forward the draft law to the European Commission under the requirements of the so-called notification directive, a process which is intended to ensure that proposed national laws are in full compliance with EU law. It contends that a rise in gambling via unlicensed operators means players would no longer be safeguarded by Italian consumer protection and gambling legislation, which would be contrary to the stated objective of the regulated online gambling market in Italy.

“We have asked the Italian authorities to duly notify the draft legislation to the European Commission,” said Maarten Haijer, EGBA’s secretary general.

“Notification is required by European law, and failure to do so will render the law inapplicable to Italian-licensed companies and its citizens. The Commission’s careful scrutiny of this proposal is needed, also to make sure that the draft legislation will not be contrary to the consumer protection objectives of the Italian online gambling legislation.”

Italy’s online gambling market is in a strong position despite the ban on nearly all gambling-related marketing under the 2019 Dignity Decree. Italy’s igaming market experienced its second-best month ever in February 2021, thanks to record online sports betting revenue at a time when retail betting shops were closed. According to figures supplied by Ficom Leisure to iGB, revenue across all online verticals ticked up 4.6% from January to €351.2m, just behind the record set in December 2020.

Plans to reduce the number of online gambling licensees were first mooted by the Five Star Movement-Democratic Party coalition government in 2019. At that time it was looking at cutting the figure to 50 with fees costing €2m.

ADM began issuing gaming licences in February 2019 after the application window opened in January 2018. Licences are valid until December 2022.

Online casino accounted for $94.9m of all revenue for the month, level with April’s total, but online sports betting revenue declined 4.4% month-on-month to $19.5m.

Spending at online casinos also remained level at $94.9m in May, though while Michigan’s sports betting handle was far greater at $237.6m, this was 4.9% down from the $249.9m wagered in April and the lowest full monthly total since the market launched in January.

The state generated $18.1m from taxes on online casino during May, as well as a further $615,153 in online sports betting taxes.

Tax is based on adjusted gross receipts – revenue minus bonuses – which edged up 0.6% to $99.6m in April. Adjusted gross receipts from online casino was 0.3% higher at $89.1m, but sports betting slipped 8.3% to $9.9m.

Read the full story on iGB North America.

The blacklists, which were first published in September 2019, are updated regularly in order to highlight the websites that Gespa – previously known as Comlot – or the ESBK deemed to be operating illegally in Switzerland.

Only licensed operators based in Switzerland are permitted to offer online gambling in the country.

The latest version of the Gespa blacklist featured 18 new domains, including Sportsbet.io, Betnow.eu, Kto.com, Mybookie.ag, Tigergaming.com and Topbet.eu.

The Gespa blacklist also named two websites running with the Starpricebet brand and a further two domains operating under the Bahigo brand.

The updated ESBK blacklist features an additional 61 domains, including four websites using the 7reels brand and four sites running with the Sol brand.

Getslots.com, Loki.com, Nightrush.com, Slotty-Vegas.com, Stake.com, Tempobet.com and Zodicabet.com are also among the domains listed by ESBK as operating illegally in Switzerland. 

More than 250 websites have now been blacklisted between the two regulators since the system was introduced at the start of 2019.

Under the multi-year agreement, Sportradar will continue to use its Fraud Detection System to monitor all contests organised or sanctioned by ITTF, including the World Table Tennis Championships and World Table Tennis (WTT) events.

A team of qualified integrity experts will analyse irregular betting patterns and suspicious matches, with any incidences to be reported back to the ITTF.

The ITTF will also be able to use Sportradar Intelligence and Investigation Services  to help identify and investigate integrity threats and issues, while Sportradar will provide a risk assessment of the global betting and integrity landscape within table tennis.

Sportradar has been providing integrity services to the ITTF since December 2017.

“Protecting the integrity of our events is of the utmost importance, and our partnership with Sportradar Integrity Services helps to strengthen our integrity programme,” ITTF secretary general Raul Calin said.

“By utilising their extensive experience in the field of sports integrity, we believe that we are in a very good position to identify integrity issues in our competitions and address any emerging risk factors threatening our sport.”

Sportradar Integrity Services managing director Andreas Krannich added: “In our position as a leader in sporting integrity, it is our top priority to provide our partners with an effective framework to combat match-fixing and other integrity issues, especially when considering the increased risk to global sport as a result of the challenges brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic. 

“We look forward to continuing to support the ITTF’s integrity programme, and helping to uphold the integrity of global table tennis competitions.”

The deal now moves to the Virginia Lottery Board for pre-certification, and if successful then a referendum will be held on 2 November, after approval from the Circuit Court.

If voters approve the casino, then it may be built.

Read the full story on iGB North America.